(this is more or less a followup to my last entry)
Okay, so Jason's Rove indictment story at truthout turned out to be a black eye for the left/liberal blogosphere - henceforth the "blogosphere". I had thought that we might see an official indictment announcement on Friday (yesterday), but no such luck. Nonetheless, I was sure that in either case this whole thing could/would be spun as the "blogosphere" is inaccurate. So what? Well, get used to it.
I have neither the time nor the inclination to back up all the things I'm going to mention now with "hard proof" (though if someone else wants to take on some of that, more power to them). Whether or not you believe in some or all of the following things I mention is not particularly important to the overall arc of my continuing argument. If it doesn't resonate with you as you read it, that's fine, too.
Whether or not you can take one or more of the things mentioned here and find (or create) a hole or weakness in it is not that important to me either. You see, I'm painting with very broad strokes now, and the framework I'm using to present this is like a cable rather than like a chain. A few weak or broken threads in a cable will weaken it, but it can still hold weight, unlike a chain. So, below follows some more food for thought, some of which may have played a role in that story or in the bigger picture I'm looking at (i.e.- more trick of the trade):
Moles
Trolls
divide and conquer
black ops
disinformation
lies
fear
playing both sides
Keep looking for the bigger picture. Sniping at each other won't help. Feeding the trolls won't help. Losing sight of the bigger picture to get involved in championing a single issue or cause won't help (at least not much). What will help? If I told you that, I would be suspicious of me if I were you. The fact is, I don't know for sure. I can give you a list of some tools which I think we have at our disposal, which I will do at the end of this essay.
How deep does the rabbit hole we seem to be in go? I dunno. I'll just mention a few of the points which I feel beyond a reasonable doubt in my mind that I've passed personally. There are some others that I'm pretty sure I've passed as well, but I won't mention them in this essay. That way I can be labelled as only a middling (as opposed to way out there)wacko conspiracy theorist when you proceed to conflate me with all the other conspiracy theorists for dismissal.
If I were on a jury asked to determine beyond a reasonable doubt on the following questions, they would be answered at this point in my mind:
Q: 9/11 (Kean commission) report, taken as a whole- lie? Yes
Q: Majority of Congress bought and paid for? Yes
(so while I think that this impeachment button is a great idea in an ideal world, I have to say that I have doubts about its effectiveness under current conditions)
Q: Majority of the Judicial branch of government bought and paid for? Yes
Q: Majority of the mainstream media bought and paid for? Yes
BushCo.- Guilty as charged pretty much whatever you want to bring to the table IMO.
So, here is my list of what I think might be a few of the tools at our disposal:
Elimination of the imposible (lies) to the best of our ability using
reason, logic, critical thinking, discernment, scientific methodology, etc.
Cooperation
Truth (if you can find it)
Fun
Nature
Humor
Irony
Satire
Playfulness
Light
Outside the box thinking (cliched as that may be at this point)
Tuning up and using your own personal truth/bullshit detector as much as possible.
My theory on this is that it is somewhat like a metal detector and somewhat like having an ear for music. "That rings true" "That really resonates with me", etc. We have so much BS flying through the airwaves at this point that if we aren't careful our truth detectors can get clogged up. A personal media fast and purge may be in order in some cases. While some people have "perfect pitch" and others have "tin ears" in musical terms, perfect pitch can be learned at least to some degree, I seem to recall reading. I suspect tuning up our own personal truth/bullshit detectors to be similar in nature.
Love
Hope
Spirituality
I don't recommend holding your breath for a "hail Mary pass" I haven't seen much evidence that that is on the immediate horizon. Perhaps that's my myopia, perhaps it's not 4th down yet (though it sure seems close to it to me). My personal suspicion is that the adage "God helps those who help themselves" is pretty accurate. Seems like BushCo. etc. are helping themselves, but I sure hope that's not what the phrase means, otherwise I'm already in hell and I ain't got a hope. Well, except that there may be a bigger God than the one that's helping them out.
One of my favorite lines in literature is from The Sandman series by Neil Gaiman (that's right, from a "comic book") Here's a brief set up for the quote: Dream is playing a game of "reality" in hell with the demon Choronzon, where the stakes are getting his helm back vs. eternal torment.
"I am anti-life, the beast of judgement. I am the dark at the end of everything. The end of universes, gods, worlds... of everything. And what will you be then, Dreamlord?"
"I am hope."
of course, that wins the game for Dream.