Well.
We were promised plagues, pestilence, and horsies. Instead we’re getting Swastika Nanny Poppins. Puleeze. The erosion of self-sufficiency and the dependence on the State (no, erase that – reverse it); if someone offers your child some candy, and a month later the police come and inform you they found the body in a child pornographer’s house….
A bit (too) graphic, but I caution against the State. You don’t have to go too far back for some of the very best examples: 1930s Germany, 1950s USSR, 1960s China, 2010s UK. Other, to be sure. But these four examples codify Alinsky’s 7 steps (yah, I know he didn’t invent them, but sometime ago his label got on it – now it’s history); isn’t it too convenient that all of them are in play?
The regular distractions aren’t playable. No one believes the media, politicians, celebrities. At this moment, I’m watching some golf silliness on the tube. The most interesting thing about this is the weather. The second most interesting thing is the number of food charities that are (supposedly) getting money – or rather, the people in need. The one thing I’m absolutely sure of is, bureaucracies wastes money.
I think they mentioned a dozen or so across the country. And these are ‘national’; how many local food banks do you support? How many of those get support from the nationals?
A pause to take a breath and collect myself (and to admit that it is now July 12th since I began this)
To screw things up, it takes an extra-terrestrial; to really screw things up, it takes a human. The way humans (or I should specify, Americans) are behaving, I’m ashamed of my nationality, if not my species. 2020 – the year of apocalypse reporting. And it’s spelled with a lowercase ‘a’. Does anyone remember the old adage about the only certainties about life are death and taxes? And to be truly honest, taxation is simply a tariff on existing.
With death, we’ve got lots of choices this season: death by cop, death by protesters, death by virus, death by politicians, death by media, etc. I just watched the evening national news, where the announcer read all the stories rapid-fire, trying to cram all the disasters into 26.5 minutes, only to finish up with a 1-minute happy story.
F-them. I’m not the only one who tires of this stupid game. Yes, the public needs to be aware of necessary issues that may affect them. Yes, a national broadcast can’t assume specific interests of its viewers. But I’m old enough (sadly) to have watched the old masters: Brinkley, Cronkite, Humphrey; most of the time they kept it together. Now it’s reversed. It’s an episode of ‘How To Screw Up A Country In Sixty Years’.
I think the profession, journalism, is fully aware of the decline of empire. I’m aware that the three I mention, and others, reached their level of bullshit consumption and moved into another mental realm, where daily idiocies are not deemed worthy of notice. Call it Zen or retirement, the move works, as evidenced by those worthies long retirements.
So, to those of you who’ve read this far, a thanks and a tinfoil hat. Good luck, and thanks for all the fish.
Rants Unto the Ether 