Prophecy and Reform
A reader with the egressive but singular name of Exit Only opines:
“But I don’t see a major house-cleaning of the Do-Nothing Republicans ever happening.”
Fair enough, but consider:
Thirty years ago, I was in the newspaper business, and I saw then that the news was utterly corrupt and utterly dishonest, and was willing to lose money rather than cover stories that told the truth and gave both sides of any debate. It was like living in the Matrix. The news was fake, and I knew it, and could prove it, and could recite chapter and verse of the lies, propaganda and distortion — and no one believed me, no one cared, no one could be bothered to listen.
And I do not mean strangers did not believe me. I mean friends and family, who knew very well what a sterling reputation for honesty I had, simply did not want to hear the message.
I would have had more luck if I had told people that the Moonlanding was fake, or that the Earth was hollow with a city of called Agarttha of superscientific snake-people living at the core.
At least that kind of thing people like to hear.
But the idea that the gentlemen they saw every night on the telly were cooperating with each other to create a deliberate and meticulously crafted false world?
But the idea that Uncle Walter, who told them the Viet Nam war was hopeless when, in reality, the foe was within inches of defeat, could not be trusted? The idea that it was not a civic responsibility and red badge of courage to listen faithfully to NPR every night?
One might as well tell an infatuated schoolgirl that the married man who was promising to divorce his rich wife for her was less than earnest.
No one would listen to my tales of news malfeasance — despite that I was in the industry myself and saw it happening.
And then, one day, something happened.
A day came when Donald Trump was accused of being the beneficiary of “fake news” from Drudge and Fox News.
Few now recall that he did not invent that term. It was invented by his enemies and flung at him.
But, like Jack Burton in BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA snatched that propaganda phrase so malignantly aimed at him out of mid air and flung it back and nailed the twelve foot tall immortal villain between the eyes, and when he toppled, all the idols of Buddha crashed and broke, being hollow and empty.
It was the most glorious thing to see.
Now, I did not predict that Trump, as a personal favor to me, would have whole packed stadiums, standing room only, chanting CNN sucks, and would use his mesmeric Agarttha snake-man powers to get the newsmen, one and all, to lie and say that criticism of their blatant dishonesty and corruption was an attack on the First Amendment — and to speak this shameless lie in public, where people can hear them, and can hear the cheap, tinny falsehood in their clamoring tongues —
No one could have predicted it. It was my own personal parting of the Red Sea, but, more to the point, it was my own personal closing of the Red Sea onto the heads of the cavalry of Pharaoh, so that the carcasses of men and horses along with arms, equipment, and broken chariot wheels adorn the flood thick as autumnal leaves that strew the brooks in Vallombrosa.
I did not foresee that. Did anyone?
So the fact that we do not foresee courage and determination among the GOP to hang our Quisling leadership and replace them with Conservatives may be a true prophecy of things to come, or may not. Not even the wise see all ends.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
