There is good news coming. That’s a promise. But not for everyone.
For those still alive who think Bobby Thompson’s family and those scheming New York baseball Giants doctored the news that day back in 1951 and that the then called “shot heard ‘round the world” was all fake news, your time has come.
Boston Red Sox first baseman Bill Buckner will be remembered as a hero, not as the error-committing villain of that famous 10th inning game. Justice will finally be done. The Mets will finally 35 years later be marked the losers of the 1986 World Series.
History will be written properly, finally.
The Loch Ness monster and Saskwatch will no longer provide shame for those who think their existence is real. Humans who matter always knew those only photographed beings had made common cause with the Creature of the Black Lagoon and have been living comfortably in the government monster protection program.
Don’t just limit the finding of alternative facts to sports or horror movies. The possibilities are endless. Reality can be changed on a wish and a whim.
War is not what Putin wants. The Russian autocrat never interfered in any U.S. election. Poland attacked Nazi Germany. Gulf of Tonkin? Of course! Joe Crowley by 36? Sure. Dewey really won. They stole it from him. And on and on and on.
Reality is now defined in our politics by the loudest shouter, not the most literate. History and fact can be changed to fit the moment. Good example: U.S. Senator Joe Manchin defaming history and democracy via an easel holding lying sign which says the Senate never passed measures with simple majorities. In his defense let it be said once and for all that the dish did indeed run away with the spoon. And of course, greed is good.
War correspondents of note have written that combat’s first casualty is truth. Modern experts on authoritarianism keep yelling–they must do so to force citizens to listen–that the death of truth is the first sign of freedom’s end.
Few in the political class, the members of the ever-growing political industrial complex, likely lie restless at night unable to sleep for fear that the right to vote, the democratic need for legitimately counted majorities to prevail in elections, and legitimate dissent are nearing extinction daily.
The left, the progressives should not smirk. They too are culpable. Rhetoric funded by elites on the coasts and elsewhere who think they are better people than those who hail from the South and the Midwest are accelerants to the simmering flame ready to turn our constitution to ashes.
The local electeds? Rhetorical flourishes ending always with the words “ we must” run from the cold truth of most of their lives: we didn’t. And the way things appear, we won’t.
The fastest cure for what ails us all is a dose of truth. There are winners and there are losers in public life. What we need to ease the harshness of that truth is a bit of liberty and justice for all. The ballot is the symbol making the pain tolerable. Only truth can protect it. Lies will steal our dreams. Bet on it.
