Eschew Obfuscation

The curse of big words

“What Happened?” (original title)

Substack has a system for posting articles on Facebook, X, and other platforms. For reasons dependably unclear, FB removed this piece - formerly titled “What Happened?” - with: “It looks like you tried to get likes, follows, shares or video views in a misleading way.”. After 200 posted articles, this one was “misleading”? Poor grammar aside, was it the title? Content? Satan?! Let’s see…

Out of all the great people who are reading, only several I’m aware of share my broadcasting background. As a result, I wonder if many aren’t getting weary of my unabashed criticism of former employers and colleagues; how they’ve gone into passing gear leaving the separation of News and Entertainment in the dust; how the basic principles of conducting journalism are now footnotes in history along, with Guttenberg’s moveable type. Outside of this  Substack hang out, a derogatory reference to the MSM will cost you a few “friends” like showing up at NPR wearing a MAGA hat. There is a list of people with whom I worked for years – some you likely heard of – yuking it up with literally millions of listeners in major markets who would happily toss me a boat anchor if I was drowning. While we parted company affably, they subsequently heard my talk shows or read my scribbling that addressed an certain issue of the day – not anywhere close to their liking. Hard as it may be to believe, there was a time when differences of political opinion could be discussed with fellow workers or an on-air caller without having to check if you were wearing your Kevlar athletic supporter. Woke HR Departments, Safe Spaces at schools, Emotional Leave Time at work was unheard of; snowflakes were for pretty Christmas cards. And you could even call them Christmas cards..

Something changed. What happened?

Some blame Howard Beale, Joe Pine and Rush Limbauagh. Some blame the Wild West of Unbridled Free Speech on Social Media platforms. Of course, everyone blames Trump. But there’s something else - some ‘secret ingredient’ or poison pill. Actually, I think it’s plural. There is no single person or event that turned our world into a war zone – but words like War Zone, Explosive, Bombshell, Unacceptable and everybody’s favorite Enough is Enough! What exactly does that mean? If enough is enough, then too much is plenty, right? But what comes after “enough”? You would think the person shouting the expletive would have a solution or an idea, even a loosely formed opinion – but they don’t. It’s as if they’re saying a Enough is Enough” is…enough. Solutions? Not my problem.

But I digress.

From where I sit, the major participants conspiring to fuel division, ramp up hostility and, ultimately, touch off a civil war are the media-government complex. It’s in their best interests. The Media wants the spectacle of blood and guts – that always brings in viewers – and government wants control as a result. The Media brings the Fear; politicians bring your salvation. You give the Media your daily devotion; Government your submissive worship with your symbolic voting wafer. In return, you give your undivided attention, relinquish your rights and any notion of Freedom.

A moment ago, I said the participants wanted civil war. In the strict definition, it’s not “civil war” per se they’re after. The accurate term is Social Unrest. Big Time Social Unrest; the Summer of Love on steroids. Even a casual look at current events provides evidence they’re getting what they want. Re-quoting Hemingway, “It starts slowly, at first – then all at once.” We’re in the Slowly part right now; the All At Once isn’t be far behind. For examples, read the stories out of Aurora, CO, Springfield, OH, and Sylacauga, AL. The pattern is the same: Residents complain, complete with real-time, real life evidence while politicians’ denials get quoted in the press. End of story. It’s the Media and Government in lock-step, self-serving collusion.

I know. I know. No one wants to hear this gloomy-doomy stuff. It’s like that song from the movie “The Wiz” – “Don’t Bring Me No Bad News”. Even folks who are just casually aware of what’s going on, don’t want to consider the logical pending conclusions. Like an epidemic of Cognizant Dissonance, they’re willing to look, see and bitch about each and every event that’s a warning of things to come, then tell themselves and all their friends: “his sucks! Ain’t this horrible? Something’s gotta be done!” Then come all the Amens! and Right Ons! Then: “When Trump and the Republicans take over the House and Senate, everything’s gonna be AOK!” and go back to their pissing and moaning about eating cats and dogs, the incompetence of the Secret Service, and tomorrow’s cost of living. There’s not even a hard look at the $37T national debt, the failing dollar, Ukraine, the Middle East, China-Taiwan, and the metastasizing corruption at every level of governance – Federal, State, City, and County – right out in the open.

Jonathan Turley, the Georgetown law professor who pops up on FOX occasionally, has a column out today discussing a University of Chicago poll that found “26 million Americans believe the use of force is justified to keep Trump from regaining the presidency.” Even if 10% were lying to skew the poll, that makes TDS up there with the Bubonic plague.

Turley also says -

“We are living in an age of rage. It permeates every aspect of our society and politics. Rage is liberating, even addictive. It allows us to say and do things that we would ordinarily avoid, even denounce in others. Rage is often found at the farthest extreme of reason. For those who agree with the underlying message, it is righteous and passionate. For those who disagree, it is dangerous and destabilizing.”

With the unrelenting claims of President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and the Talking Mop that democracy is about to die in America, some feel a license to commit criminal acts in the name of “saving democracy” and carry them out.

“It is the ultimate form of self-delusion that one saves democracy by committing political violence against those with whom you disagree.”

Turley’s no Alex Jones. When he speaks or writes, it’s always in the measured words you’d expect from an experienced attorney when speaking to a national audience.

In another column, Turley wrote:

“With the help of the media, we have reduced our election to a political Slurpee. It’s all sugar rush and no nutritional value. We now have pundits supporting the idea of no further debates and even arguing that Harris shouldn’t give any interviews because it’s too risky.

If you do not say anything, there are no facts to check. The election then becomes a vote over whether you are for or against “joy.”

Last week, Tucker Carlson, speaking of the Democratic Party, made the observation:

“If they think that there’s a chance that Trump could win decisively enough in November that they can’t steal it, then I think their only option there is to in some way throw the society into chaos as they did during COVID which was the pretext for changing the way we vote and letting people vote anonymously without IDs and drop boxes and a month before the election."

Since it worked so well before, what reason is there to believe it won’t happen again – this time when the stakes are so high? The country is supremely po’d about damn everything and there is no evidence the Bad Guys from the Last Election aren’t preparing for an encore. They are. Google “Act Blue” and then look at Elizabeth Nickson’s “Welcome to Absurdistan” Substack columns if you need to paddle around in the deep end of the statistics and probabilities pool.

Finally, there us Vivek Ramasswamy…

That clear-speaking, clear-thinking tech exec turned political operative summed it up perfectly:

"It's not Joe Biden - it's not even really Kamala Harris, it's not their ideology because I don't think they have one."

"It is the permanent state."

"The fourth branch of government."

"The leviathan."

"The swamp."

"The managerial class."

"The committee class."

"The bureaucrats."

"That's who's running the show today. And that's what we're really up against. We're not just running to defeat a candidate, we are running to dismantle a system."

And that's why Ramaswamy says we need Donald Trump...

"That's what Donald Trump meant the first time around when he said he wanted to go in there and drain the swamp, and I think this time more than ever, he has the toolkit to actually do it."

Published and broadcast comments like these from people like this give Liberals and Democrats hives. It’s worse than wearing the sandpaper jock strap I wrote about. But worse than irritating, it makes them angry, really really angry because they’re scared. They’re really really scared Trump will win, pull the plugs, open the locked doors, and reveal their precious secret files that tell the incredible crimes and corruption they’ve been wadding in for decades. The Alphabet Agencies know and fear this most of all. These are the ones, the purveyors of Lawfare, the infiltrators of J6, the Summer of Love, RussiaGate, and the Steel Dossier, the crimes everyone already knows about. Imagine what else is in there. Imagine what other elected officials, “dignitaries” and high rollers have their fingerprints on stuff so nasty, it had to be hidden forever.

This is the real Revelation this election is about. This is why the MSM has taken off its mask of Journalism’s Objectivity and shown the country it truly is the PR Arm of the DNC.

When it comes to the Big Con called Politics, most Americans have a decent sense of what’s true…like the expression “Don’t pee on my head and tell me it’s raining”. For all the faults on both sides, it’s the Democrats who fail the test of moderation. Once they get their talking points, they just can’t shut up about them, no matter who or how many times they’re shown to be lies of gargantuan proportions. Just review Kamala’s unchallenged, un-fact-checked answers during the last debate. If an example is needed to prove the allegory of beating a dead horse, the Democrats and the horse are right over there. Unfortunately, Republicans never fail to seize the high ground of integrity, squandering valuable time making blithering idiots of themselves. They’re so busy in-fighting and bootlicking, that they can’t state a cogent alternative, no matter how good it may be for the country. Of course, since both sides are littered with serious wack-o’s, it’s not difficult to understand why the country is in the condition it’s in. While political philosophy used to be civilly debated, the epidemic of Sanctimonious Narcissism permeating all levels of government has created the pending condition of the ‘irresistible force meeting the immovable object’. That collision is unavoidable, regardless of who is occupying the Oval Office a few months from now.

I suspect some subscribers may be headed for the Cancellation button right about now. As I mentioned earlier, a lotta people just ‘don’t wanna hear no bad news’. Who does? Only a masochist gets off on pain. But as a famous and liberal democrat politician of old, Daniel Patrick Moynihan advised: “You’re entitled to your own opinion, but you’re not entitled to your own facts.” Unfortunately, too many people believe their Feelings are more valid than Facts. When looking for the source of what’s gone wrong with society as well as American governance, start there. If you’re still heading for the Exits, thanks for stopping by. Feel free to come back when the world out there starts to uncomfortably resemble what we’ve been examining here. It could be I’m dead wrong on all this – but my intellect and ego can’t accept that!

For everyone else, thanks for your intelligence wit, and stick-to-it-tive-ness.

BW