One of the dumbest phony philosophical profundities out there is the question that goes, roughly:
“If a tree falls in the forest, and no one hears it, does it make a sound?”
The reason that this is such a stupid question is summed up by a chap named Jack Hill, from St. Albans, England, at this page from The Guardian, especially the bit in bold:
“It makes the sounds of branches snapping and the almighty thump when the trunk hits the hard ground. Sound is sound and doesn't rely on people to interpret it.”
The larger point, of course, is that physical phenomena and objects exist and happen independently of any human perception. This actually came to mind after the separate news items (one trivial in the big picture, one anything but trivial) with the dropping of charges against Jussie Smollett, in the wake of his self-staged racial attack and the “Barr’s Notes” whitewashing of the Mueller report. Granted, in both instances, unlike the tree falling, which can be an act independent of any human observation (or intervention – felling of trees in the Amazon, youch), both the Smollett fracas and Traitor Drumpf’s sleazebag Russian shenanigans definitely “rely on people to interpret them”.
The larger point in both cases, though, is that the facts that we have point pretty clearly to the scenarios that both parties committed the deeds for which each has been accused, regardless of the lack of criminal prosecution under a legal framework. Just to emphasize the point: if person “X” were stupid enough to run a stop sign, but didn’t get pulled over for it, that doesn’t change the actual physical fact that person “X” ran that stop sign. Even if no harm comes from it and person “X” didn’t get caught, and no one else ever knows about it, that does not erase the actual commission of the act.
In each case, Smollett may well return to his entertainment career, and Traitor Drumpf will keep on wrecking our country and the world, while he’s still in office. What happens next, in the immediate term, to each of them depends on us collectively. We can refuse to be parties to any entertainment associated with Smollett, or conversely, embrace such entertainment. As individuals, we are free to choose either option. Likewise, with Traitor Drumpf, it is our job to vote him out next November, by voting for whoever the Democratic POTUS candidate is. (Don’t think that he can’t win a 2nd term, even if, like the 1st time, electorally rather than with the popular vote. He can, because millions of Americans are morons.)
In other words, we’re now out of the realm of the law courts and into the court of public opinion. The court of public opinion can be extremely dangerous in its own right, to be sure, when masses of people act based on ignorance (e.g. brainwashed Republicans who would want to lynch a Democratic POTUS who committed 1/100 of Traitor Drumpf’s crimes, but completely blow off Traitor Drumpf’s crimes as “fake news”) or prejudice (e.g. purity trolls, 2000 Naderites, 2016 Bernie bros). Vox populi, vox Dei can cut both ways, good and bad. It’s our to make sure that Vox populi, vox Dei cuts good next November.
With that, time for the standard SNLC protocol, namely your loser stories for the week….