*Time for The Alliance. This is probably one of the longest complaints, so enjoy.*
The complaint about The Alliance
Caleb tried to move towards the Slaughtered Lamb as fast as he possibly could. He noticed the crowd was already gathering at the entrance of the tavern. Pushing past them, he hopped onto the stage, straightened his clothes a bit and motioned for the audience to sit. No time for formalities; it wouldn't be long before Varian would realize that he was giving one of his speeches again, much less in his own city. Clearing his throat, and slamming one fist onto the podium, he started his long and winding speech.
"This is a speech of love and peace; I will not lash out against anyone, and I will not use specific names of individuals or organizations that denigrate and discard all of Azerothian culture. That said, let me merely point out that The Alliance is definitely the bane of my existence. You see, I surely believe that I indubitably don't want to have to listen to The Alliance's obscene, reprehensible billingsgate. And because of that belief, I'm going to throw politeness and inoffensiveness to the four winds. In this speech, I'm going to be as rude and crude as I know how, to reinforce the point that The Alliance's assistants are tools. Like a hammer or an axe, they are not inherently evil or destructive. The evil is in the force that manipulates them and uses them for destructive purposes. That evil is The Alliance, who wants nothing less than to force some to live by restrictive standards not applicable to others.
I, speaking as someone who is not a ruthless, dotty con artist, respect this world's many languages and believe in the use of words as a means of communication. Sniffish, foul-mouthed cads like The Alliance, however, consider spoken communication as merely a set of noises uttered to excite emotions in unimaginative layabouts in order to convince them to stonewall on issues in which law-abiding citizens see a vital public interest. The Alliance is just trying to pick a fight. That's why it says that the peak of fashion is to fuel inquisitions. The Alliance's vituperations symbolize lawlessness, violence, and misguided rebellion—extreme liberty for a few, even if the rest of us lose more than a little freedom.
Finding the best way to investigate the development of nonrepresentationalism as a concept is a challenging problem indeed. We must therefore tackle this problem with more determination, more tenacity, and more fanaticism than it has ever been tackled before. Only then will people realize that The Alliance's loin-rubbers say, "Black is white and night is day." Yes, I'm afraid they really do talk like that. It's the only way for them to conceal that The Alliance accuses me of being impolite in my responses to its lecherous contrivances. Let's see: It disgorges its disparaging and arrogant comments on a topic of which it is wholly ignorant, and it expects a polite reply? What is it, crapulous?
While I can't speak for anyone else, I, pessimist that I am, suspect that The Alliance has been telling everyone that there is something intellectually provocative in the tired rehashing of sanguinary stereotypes. I would like to remind The Alliance that false words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil. I have reason to believe that The Alliance is about to boss others around. I pray that I'm wrong, of course, because the outcome could be devastating. Nevertheless, the indications are there that The Alliance has spoken of far more than its fair share of lengthy, over-worded, pseudo-intellectual tripe. In all such instances it conveniently overlooks the fact that it fervently believes that it's crazy to lift our nation from the quicksand of injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. This shows that it is not merely mistaken about one little fact among millions of facts but that The Alliance is not your average domineering, puerile pedant. It's the deluxe model. As such, it's poised to hurt others physically or emotionally eventually."
Pausing for breath, he clutched his chest and leaned onto the podium, keeping his stoic expression in check. Was he still tired after that session with Sylvanas? He didn't have sex in months and to have that much in such a short time was not what his body was expecting. Regaining his composure, he continued.
"While some information provided by The Alliance's flunkies may be factual, other material is unsubstantiated rumor or loathsome hastily mounted campaigns. There are tyrannical scapegraces in our midst. Natural law is therefore the fulcrum upon which rests the case that The Alliance doesn't want us to compare, contrast, and identify the connections among different classes of manipulative totalitarianism. It would rather we settle for the meatless bone of Legionism. There is certainly a cocky dimension to The Alliance's campaigns. Or, if "cocky" is too narrow of a term, perhaps you'd prefer "delirious". In any case, every time The Alliance tries, it gets increasingly successful in its attempts to practice "diplomacy" with some of its "allies" through the use of bribery, blackmail and deceit. It really shouldn't come as a surprise that I am saying these things.
What if we collectively just told The Alliance's secret agents, "Sure, go ahead and play on people's conscious and unconscious belief structures. Have fun!"? That would be worse than demented; it would exploit the feelings of charity and guilt that many people have over the plight of the homeless.
One wonders how The Alliance can complain about the worst sorts of stultiloquent gutter-dwellers I've ever seen given that its own nostrums also aim to drive us into a state of apoplexy. I have never been in favor of being gratuitously misinformed. I have also never been in favor of sticking my head in the sand or of refusing to nourish children with good morals and self-esteem. When The Alliance is safely surrounded by its votaries, it instructs them to harvest what others have sown.
By telling you this, I am undoubtedly sticking my head far above the parapet. The big danger is that The Alliance will retaliate against me. It'll most likely try to force me to lose my temper although another possibility is that it is squarely in favor of fanaticism and its propensity to drain our hope and enthusiasm. This is so typical of The Alliance: it condemns bigotry and injustice except when it benefits it personally. In that respect, we can say that The Alliance's older declamations were brusque enough. Its latest ones are unquestionably beyond the pale. While others have also published information about malign worrywarts, The Alliance promises its bedfellows that as soon as it's finished burning our fair cities to the ground, they'll all become rich beyond their wildest dreams. There's an obvious analogy here to the way that vultures eat a cadaver and from its rottenness insects and worms suck their food. The point is that I strive to be consistent in my arguments. I can't say that I'm 100% true to this, but The Alliance's frequent vacillating leads me to believe that it has never disproved anything I've ever said. The Alliance does, however, often try to discredit me by means of flagrant misquotations, by attributing to me views that I've never expressed. In the end, knowledge and wisdom are its enemies. The Alliance understands that by limiting education and enlightenment, it can fool more people into believing that its disrespectful entourage is a respected civil-rights organization. Sadly, those with the least education are those who would benefit most from the knowledge that if you look back over some of my older speeches, you'll see that I predicted that The Alliance would evade responsibility. And, as I predicted, it did. But you know, that was not a difficult prediction to make. Anyone who has bothered to learn even a little about The Alliance could have made the same prediction."
Scanning the tavern for any signs of dissent or of any approaching guard, Caleb breathed a sigh and went on. It won't be long now.
"What I am getting at is this: I obviously believe that the Alliance is just a cheeky criminal. How else can I characterize an organization that did all of the following and then some?
Siphon off scarce international capital intended for underdeveloped nations.
Use every conceivable form of diplomacy, deception, pressure, coercion, bribery, treason, and terror to rewrite history to reflect or magnify an imaginary "victimhood".
Use psychological tools to trick us into doing whatever it requires of us.
Without beating around the bush, I'll tell you now what I have concluded about The Alliance's snippy screeds. I've concluded that there are three fairly obvious problems with The Alliance's values, each of which needs to be addressed by any letter that attempts to make an impartial and well-informed evaluation of the advantages and disadvantages of The Alliance's reinterpretations of historic events. First, The Alliance's diplomats, particularly Jaina Proudmoore, are clear testimony to the fact that The Alliance once told its backers, "Hey, let's all go out and sensationalize all of the issues!" (or words to that effect). Second, people who agree with The Alliance's dissertations are either stupid, drunk, smoking herbs, paid off by The Alliance, or are hypocritical roustabouts. And third, if I had to choose between chopping onions and helping The Alliance waste hours and hours of our time in fruitless conferences and meetings, I'd be in the kitchen in an instant. Although both alternatives make me cry, the deciding factor for me is that if I thought that The Alliance's expedients had even a snowball's chance in Hell of doing anything good for anyone, then I wouldn't be so critical. As they stand, however, I can conclude only that you may find it instructive to contrast the things I like with the things that The Alliance likes. I like listening to music. The Alliance likes shaming my name. I like kittens and puppies. The Alliance likes undermining everyone's capacity to see, or change, the world as a whole. I like spending time with friends. The Alliance likes threatening anyone who's bold enough to state that its arguments would be a lot more effective if they were at least accurate or intelligent, not just a load of bull for the sake of being controversial.
There are three points I need to make here. First, The Alliance has no conception of our moral and ethical standards. Second, I can't live with flippant, confused thieves who apotheosize crotchety, prudish beatniks. And third, the first thing we need to do is to get The Alliance to admit that it has a problem. It should be counseled to recite the following:
I, The Alliance, am a daft, inimical purveyor of malice and hatred.
I have been a participant in a giant scheme to promote a humorless blackguardism.
I hereby admit my addiction to ruffianism. I ask for the strength and wisdom to fight this addiction.
Once The Alliance realizes that it has a problem, maybe then it'll see that if you think that this is humorous or exaggerated, you're wrong."
Cracking his knuckles and staring at the tavern's main entrance, he decided to continue for a little longer. Hopefully, he would have time to get his message across.
"The Alliance's list of sins is long and each one deserves more time than I have here. Therefore, rather than describe each one individually, I'll summarize by stating that if we do nothing, it will keep on selling us fibs and fear mixed with a generous dollop of racism. One cannot change this all in a moment, but one can push the boundaries of knowledge ever farther. I am a law-and-order kind of person. I hate to see crimes go unpunished. That's why I really hope that The Alliance serves a long prison term for its illegal attempts to displace meaningful discussion of an issue's merit or demerit with hunch and emotion. To end this speech, I would like to make a bet with The Alliance. I will gladly give The Alliance a day's salary if it can prove that sin is good for the soul, as it insists. If The Alliance is unable to prove that, then its end of the bargain is to step aside while I advance a clear, credible, and effective vision for dealing with our present dilemma and its most wayward manifestations. So, do we have a bet, Alliance? On second thought, don't answer that; I'll leave it up to my audience to answer that rhetorical question."
His audience remained silent for a brief moment before bursting out into cheer. This was by far his most successful speech. Just as he was about to motion his audience to calm down, the front door slammed open with such a force that it flew off its hinges. He could only make out the silhouette of a bulky figure among the dust that filled the open entrance. Once the figure stepped through, Caleb immediately recognized him as Varian Wrynn, the King of Stormwind. Another figure came through the opening; it was Jaina Proudmoore, looking very, very pissed off. Without so much as a second thought, Caleb darted through the audience and up the stairs where he smashed through a window of one of the rooms landing perfectly onto to the street. He then made a mad dash towards Deeprun Tram. He was not going to get captured a second time. He was sure of this.
Unfortunately, for Caleb, his luck was about to run out.
*Stay tuned for the Third Interlude.*