I will admit I was tempted to delete the last post after realizing I made some inaccurate assumptions about the author. But at the same time, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, can I not be forgiven if I render judgment prior to pulling the life history?
I agree with those who think it unlikely Trump will win the nomination, without discounting the fact that he is a multi-billionaire.
At the same time, I would remind people that the child who said the Emperor had no clothes did not thereby become a genius. That child did not immediately get consulted on affairs of State, and on matters of deep philosophical importance.
That child’s role–the role of people we all too often call “fools” if they otherwise fail to conform to cultural norms–was precisely speaking the truth WHEN NO ONE ELSE WOULD.
As Orwell said, speaking the truth in a time of universal lies is itself a revolutionary act.
We need people like Donald Trump and Alex Jones. I may not always agree with them. They may make me roll my eyes sometimes. But I respect not just their right to say what they do–that should be an inherent assumption for anyone who claims to value our system–but appreciate their willingness to provide genuine qualitative diversity, to say the things no one else is saying, to speculate about things no one else will speculate on.
We live in an age where, if I might speak symbolically, the ashes of lies are littering the landscape from coast to coast. These ashes have been falling on us for many decades now. They began in earnest when we failed to realize and remember that the Vietnam War was won on the ground, and then lost in Washington, due to Communist propaganda.
Lies filled the air when people failed to connect the inflation of the 1970’s with Fed policy. Lies filled the air about Communism, and Communists. About rent control, and minimum wages. About race relations, affirmative action, and the rise of permanent black poverty and cultural disintegration.
There are far too many to count, but over the past 8 years, many of the lies have concerned what was NOT said. We were told Obama’s birth certificate did not matter. This was a lie. We were told the many inconsistencies about his past–including whether or not he ever gave up his Indonesian citizenship–did not matter. OF COURSE they mattered.
I would encourage all reading this to be radicals, to be revolutionaries: speak the truth, no matter what it is, who it hurts, or how much howling it creates among those who don’t want to hear it. Speak it anyway. You are not speaking truth to Power. You are speaking truth to falsehood.