Op-Ed: Forget It, Jake, It's Planet Earth

As many of you may know, I have been waging quite a PR insurgency against Team Oscar and AMPAS over their recent foray to Iran. I have sent this letter to all my friends in the 'Wood. As it is relevant to news of our world today, I now share it with you.

People, My war is over. And I could not be more depressed. Now, I'm attracting extremists of my own. "STRING 'EM UP!" "They're ALL a bunch of f*cking Commies!" "Bring the whole f*cking filthy rotten house down! You Go, Guy!" They say. That is EXACTLY the kind of extremism I am trying to fight here! How blackly ironic is THAT? I don't HATE anyone in Hollywood! I hate the sin, not the sinners! Some of the finest people I have ever met in my entire life are in Hollywood, working incredibly hard and most selflessly to help creative artists like myself break into the business! I know. I've met them. They have helped me. And the only reward they ever hope to get back is to see those they help succeed someday. Hollywood is FULL of people like that! They're the Best of the Best! The Cream of the Crop! If I did not love them so, I could care less about ANY of this! And I have not only burned my bridges to those fine people, I have nuked them into oblivion. And in Hollywood, there is no rebuilding from the ashes. Unlike many in this world today, I have no illusions. I know where I stand now. In Joker-like blackly comic fashion, I received those responses from the ONE statement in which I had set aside my P.R. IEDs to make an eloquent and heart-wrenching plea for my cause. For OUR cause! And for the cause of all those suffering unimaginable pain, sorrow, brutality, violent death, and yes, even genocide, in Sudan and Iran. And amidst it all, the genocidal leaders of the aforementioned nations celebrate the most abominable and horrific crime known to man in the streets of their cities, and the human vampire who did it, and is STILL doing it, in Sudan. And it is not even news. The brutal punchline ending to this dark Strangelovian tragicomedy is complete. And it could not have ended on a more blackly comical note. It's enough to make you want to look for the nearest cliff edge. Not that I will. I still have SOME perspective. Don't worry about that. I can always move on to novels and nonfiction. And that I will do. My life is not over here. Not by a DAMN sight! I have fought the Good Fight. I have used every tool at my disposal to make an impact here. And no one is paying any attention in the slightest. From all of my Hollywood pen pals I have seen only an empty inbox. I am as radioactive to them now as Hiroshima was in August 1945. I have thrown it all away, and for naught. You see, I am the psycho here now. Worst of all, no one seems to be interested in the REAL psychos in Iran and Sudan! It seems we are all doomed to stumble down the path to Armageddon once again, even though all of the road signs are there for everyone to see. I realize now, as Winston Churchill must have in his day, that I am a sane pariah shouting out in a wilderness of insanity. Perhaps it has always been so. Perhaps it always will. One sad, glaring, fatal flaw in the human condition that will eventually be our demise and our ruin. For all time. I don't know whether to laugh or cry. But that is how black comedies go. Perhaps Hegel was right. The lessons of history are that we do not learn the lessons of history. Knowing the state of the world today, and as I have known it from history, even if we were to endure the Armageddon of our age and survive it, there would only be another Armageddon awaiting us yet again. Because we never learn. As a species, we are hopelessly twisted. I can see that now. The darkness is the light, and the light is the darkness. Good is evil, and evil good. Injustice is justice and the other way around. We are the Dark Side. They are the Light. I look into the mirror of the human race, and it is through the glass darkly I see ourselves, a distorted, shadowy image of what we aspire to and should be as a race, and never will. I am not quite done yet. I am going to sum up these dark thoughts in a Digital Journal column and post it later today under the title of this email. Further, I will be watching the Academy closely. If they all come back from Iran and try to coat this whole rancid pile of dogshite with sweet frosting, I will wipe it away for all the world to see. But I fully expect it to be a hopeless exercise in futility. As all my efforts have been to date. Yet I am strangely compelled to try. Why, I don't know. But I must. Even in a world where two plus two equals three, or five, or four, or all of them at once, I feel strangely compelled to do the math in the light of the truth as I see it. And I MUST on behalf of those suffering unimaginable brutality and violent death in Sudan and Iran even as we speak. I will try to make the best of a very sad and tragic situation. My dream, and all that I once aspired to, is lost now. The smiles of boundless warmth and joy, and yes, even the fright and whimpers of blood-curdling terror that I once hoped to stir within millions around the globe as they sat riveted in their seats, as many in Hollywood have done for generations and will do for generations yet to come (I hope), is lost to me for all time. It was with great sadness and sorrow that I began this hopeless campaign to awaken the sleeping. It with even greater sadness and sorrow that I end it. For I have not only destroyed myself to those who matter most to me as a writer and film enthusiast, the sleeping not only still sleep, they are greatly angered at all of my attempts to wake them. As I've said, I have no illusions. This past week, I have committed the most unpardonable and unforgivable of crimes in Hollywood. My dream there is dead, as surely as though it were strapped into a chair and run through with 2000 volts of electricity. But the FAR greater tragedy here is that I have attempted, with every fiber of my being, to bring a voice to the voiceless in Sudan and Iran, and have discovered to my ultimate sadness and sorrow that I am just as voiceless as they are. And, apparently, always will be. In the 1930s, Hitler and his dark bloodthirsty legions threw Death and Annihilation parades in the streets of their cities, promising that same fate to all of us. And the world paid no attention. But the world did pay the price. Today, Sudan and Iran throw those very same Death and Annihilation parties in the streets of their cities, promising yet again the same fate to all of us. And the silence could not be more deafening. The unpardonable crime of our generation is that we have seen all this before. And yet we still do nothing. Should Armageddon come our way yet again, I will not blame those who promised to carry it out. That is who they are, and have been since the dawn of time. Nothing has changed in that respect. In may ways, the human race on Planet Earth has been one long and unending marathon of bloodshed, war, and yes, even genocide. No. I will blame the silent accomplices who stood by and let it all happen, as I today blame all the stooges who fawned all over Hitler, ignoring all of the evil truths that stared them in the face at every turn and wound up getting fifty million people killed, when it all didn't have to happen in the first place. Should such an age of devastion and waste manifest itself upon us, I would have a clear conscience. If I am not ash myself, that is. But like Michael Caine in the Dark Knight, it will bring me nothing but remorse and bottomless sorrow to tell you, "I told you so." Those of you whom survive, that is. Pardon my dark thoughts. It is unavoidable at this moment in time for me. But at least I know how Winston Churchill felt now. And it must have made him sick to his stomach to be the Cassandra of his age. As I seem doomed to be the Cassandra of mine. And at this moment, I feel no less ill than he must have back then I am not advocating war. No sane person ever would. As a six-year veteran myself, I can tell you MacArthur's famous quote that "no one hates war more than the soldier" could not ring more true. WE are the ones who have to fight it! It is WE who bleed and die! But you must also realize, as history has tried to teach us SO many times before, is that there are FAR worse things in this world than war. All I am saying is that we should put up one giant world-sized stop sign and say NO FURTHER to those who would not only bring Armageddon down upon us yet again (and whom, in fact, are doing just that to their own people right now), but to whom it would bring no greater joy to do so. Some men really DO want to watch the world burn. If any of this has greatly troubled you, or brought you great sadness, Welcome to the Club. I am drawn, weary and tired from war. I am at my wit's end. I have marched my way through the deep dark woods. I have gone my miles, and it is now time to sleep. My war is over. I can only hope and pray that war's dark shadow of death and violence never falls on any of you. You are my friends, and I would not wish that on my worst enemies. Well, maybe one or two. Peace to all. I hope. Good Night and Good Luck. Best Regards to all, Your Most Humble and Obedient Mad King, aka Johnny Simpson.