Skullduggery

--The White Rabbit, running behind

We can do "The Innuendo"
We can dance and sing
When it's said and done 
we haven't told you a thing
--Dirty Laundry,
Don Henley

Right now, there is a whole, an entire generation 
that never knew anything that didn't come out of this tube. 
This tube is the gospel, the ultimate revelation; 
this tube can make or break presidents, popes, prime ministers; 
this tube is the most awesome goddamn propaganda force 
in the whole godless world
--Network (1976)

Just think of those shocks you've got 
And those knocks you've got 
And those blues you've got 
From that news you've got 
And those pains you've got 
(If any brains you've got) 
From those little radios
--Anything Goes, 
Cole Porter
______________________

The story here is not the story.

What is this madness engulfing our news? Y'say you are shocked that tribalism and racism exists in America? Really?

If you are in the above category, you have fallen prey to the media's skulduggery.

In a true democracy, the events in Charlottesville were a law and order failure, not a civil rights one. In the absence of a proper threat assessment, there were not adequate police on site to maintain order, and violence happened.

The new normal should be: lots of police on-station when people will be exercising their freedoms of speech and assembly, if it is a situation the press may conceivably exploit to pump up viewership. There will be a flash mob on-site -- count on it.

The recent Charlottesville march should have been a quiet affair. The United States is a Republic, and contains multitudes. We have freedom of speech and of assembly. The marchers in VA had a permit (and the blessings of the ACLU) to do so.

Had agitators opposing the march not made a rumpus of it, and the press not shined a spotlight upon it, it would have been an event of no moment. Tension requires two things in opposition.

In a democracy, we are allowed to hate who and what we hate, love who and what we love. There are no thought police. To borrow from founder Thomas Jefferson, the beliefs of another "neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg".

The only rule is, we may not deprive another of life and liberty. Further, if we do so motivated by our hatreds, there will be an added designation of "hate crime" appended to the charge.

In 1978, the KKK marched in Skokie (IL) with the blessing of the ACLU. In contrast, today we are cudgeled en masse into outrage over the press's non-p.c. image du jour.

Meanwhile, within days the news cycle will direct your attention to something new to raise your ire, and you will have forgotten what had seemed so important yesterday. You will have invested no analysis into the things to which you are responding so viscerally, as there is no time or encouragement for you to do so.

Your opinions are handed to you, and they are designed to make you feel a constant undertow of menace. You have become Henny Penny, much to the delight of the press, for they are the dope pushers, and you are now a user mainlining their drivel.

The NYT recently ran a story on the "antifa" or "anti-fascist" movement. (The antifas are the liberal fascists, as opposed to the conservative ones.) They see their mission as muzzling the free speech of those with whom they disagree.

One of the group's members is quoted as saying, “You need violence in order to protect nonviolence ... [t]hat’s what’s very obviously necessary right now. It’s full-on war, basically.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. and Gandhi would be rolling over in their graves at the madness. As liberal darling Noam Chomsky wrote, “If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all."

What the news will not tell you is, the antifas were illegally attempting to abridge the marcher's rights. That is all.

Do I really need to say this?

--by Lisa