As prophesied by George Orwell in “1984," history has become malleable; it’s like someone’s installed a gigantic copy of Adobe Photoshop in our collective consciousness so history can be "finessed" (I use the word “finessed” in this context sardonically - for in my brain, the work of the Republican Party more accurately conjures the image of a bull taking a shit in a china shop). Those in the Republican Asylum who think all of us are stupider than all of us are should remember we aren't as stupid as they think.
We are being held hostage by selfish, soulless legislators who are filling the pockets of their pinstriped suits with our money and our livelihoods so our very existence hangs in the balance. As we inch toward another depression, we are out of work and out of luck; bodies are being flung out of good jobs day-by-day like so much stale bread broken up and thrown out for the birds (good thing the pigeons are getting nice and plump – we may need them). All the while, we bear witness to the destruction of our economy as it’s delivered instantly to our eyes and ears; our ulcers are the size of meteor craters. Our bad news is delivered without interruption (except for the occasional commercial, pop-up, or banner ad), through any number of venues in the electronic media’s 24/7 loops that pose as “news.”
I had an epiphany last night: journalism in general and the electronic outlets by which news is delivered has taken a mighty fall from grace as the fourth estate, a bastion of truth and objectivity, a protector of sources, a keeper of promises and employer of scrupulous fact checkers. Now, in my hyperbolic opinion, it has been reduced to the position as rectum of our country; it’s where all this shit comes from.
We are bearing witness to the evolution of this mess of a country into a kind of chimerical hybrid with a life of its own. We have become our own tumor, which is highly ironic since every nanosecond of our world is recorded by TV cameras or cell phones, every sound bite or news conference or ridiculous attempt at backpedaling can instantly be proven directly contradictory to something a geezer legislator (or just plain liar) said the day before; any one of us can then look up the press conference or error or lie, find the footage somewhere like YouTube, and say “See? You said the exact opposite of such and such in this piece of footage; explain yourself, bozo, because you are BUSTED! Then there’s some grandstanding remark from some bullshit presidential wannabe who truly is akin to garbage wrapped in skin and a warm coat (although Jesus may love her, I don’t) can make in a speech designed to gain the support of bowlers with the story of how a Palin mummy in her family tree climbed down long enough to work as a pinsetter, so bowling is in her blood; she is a child of bowling. She’s just real people, folks. She left out, as we now know, however, the part that she did her hanging out at the alley when she was three months old, so this statement gets no cigar.
My blood absolutely boils every time I think about George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and the rest of that polluted posse of Huns and the eight years some Americans gave them to rape and pillage their own country; the no-bid Halliburton jobs in Iraq; how Halliburton then gouged our own military in Iraq on the price of gasoline and toilet seats and who knows what else; how that bogus war in Iraq stimulated only the economy of a handful of people with vested interests who started the whole thing with a hidden agenda; and the generation of young men and women who gave their lives because they loved their country and they believed their Commander-in-Chief. They will be dead a very long time, and I believe people who knew exactly what would happen sent them to their deaths. If any other American did this, he or she would be arrested and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and we'd be watching an NBC Dateline devoted to the trials and convictions. Even though George W. et al have committed acts which I believe are without question criminal, as they have shamefully defrauded the American public and sent many young Americans to fight a war from which they won’t return, all in the name the Republican Party’s version of Democracy, there will be no price to pay; the God-like immunity inferred upon that administration guarantees there will be no retribution, (other than that which is divine).
And so we go, day after day, with broken hearts and souls full of dread, watching the Republicans wage their war of passive aggression against Barack Obama, a tangle designed to drain his power and his patience, hoping to maintain a Nerf presidency. And so we watch, while the Republicans, following in the literary tradition of Winston Smith in George Orwell’s prophetic “1984,” revise history and sanitize their truths, vaporizing little bits of truth as they change the past to suit their present.
There is no “version” of truth. There is one truth. Go ahead and spin the facts until you’ve got butter, but the truth will always remain the truth. Those of you who would continue to do damage to our country for your own agendas? We’re watching - and now, we all own cell phones and they all record.
We all have good memories, too, so proceed carefully if you are about to play teeter-totter with the truth. Some of us out here even have photographic memories; if you'd like to know what I wore for my 5th grade talent show, just let me know. I remember.
"He who controls the past, controls the future." George Orwell, “1984”