Wednesday, May 13, 2020

SNAKE OIL

     Guess we are indeed returning to the days of yore, when fishy looking guys with an assistant roamed the streets and byways of America, rural and urban, carrying with them the magic elixir that would cure all ills, from melancholia to hang nail, from stomach tumors to diptheria. These were the purveyors of snake oil, fake medicines, many mostly alcohol and/or laudanum, which robbed Americans of their money, their health, their trust - and sometimes their lives. It was a victory for the smooth talker, the sham personality, and a defeat for the truth.
     Today, people still fall for the snake oil and its purveyors. Why? Because they need to believe something, anything, that is better than the real news, better than the realization that as advanced as we seem to be in medicine, there is so much we still cannot do, cannot cure nor protect people. That is a hard realization, so then we turn to an alternate world, a world where there is Fake Data, False Media, Alternative Facts, magnificent achievements, ignorance and a willingness to believe someone, anyone, who will show how things are better and getting better every day. In every way. Never you mind about the facts in real time, in a reality tethered to the truth, for the snake oil salesman has a better world for you to see. Truth is highly overrated in this world.
     The snake oil universe is populated with new thinking or lack thereof. It declares a free for all for criminals, particularly those engaged in politics. It seems they are so very, very busy that they have no time to respond to  questions, to document requests, to subpoenas and certainly the president cannot be held responsible for his own actions, even the criminal ones, for to be the president evidently means full immunity, the Capo of all Capos. 
     We have the biggest ever snake oil salesman in office right now and so many deluded souls who follow him tightly, wishing so hard for these false claims, these dangerous claims, to be true, for to think otherwise is too painful. But listen carefully to their words and their methodology. "'Ware, there be monsters!" There be the destroyers of our country.
     An utterly bizzare idea is introduced slyly via a backwards media, TV, radio, social media or all at once. First the outliers are the ones who shout the words. Then someone from the snake oil seller joins in, seeming not so strange anymore as people have been hearing about it for a while. Example? Fine. The nation is drowning in deaths, in infections, in economic disaster. By August 4 we are predicting 147,000 deaths from the virus, a hell of a long way down a road of death from the "few" who were to die according to the snake guy, Trump, to the new numbers and probably more as the resurgence grows. 
     So, distraction needed. Introduce "deep state". Supplement wth a new term which has nothing behind it other than hot air and desperation as truth is overtaking the lies. Call it "Obamagate" and pull out all stops, incite hatred and violence, tack your hopes on this, pulling hard for the defeat of the enemy! But the enemy is us. It is our neighbors, our friends, our family, our daughters. The people who refuse to swallow that snake oil are delegitimized, demeaned and debased, painted as liars and fools, even as those names belong to the snake guy and crowd.
     But fellow citizens of an endangered country, there is far worse ahead. A mid thirties dangerous doofus, proven to be incapable, a pal of nepotism and cronyism, of corruption, of the principle of 'money rules', one who never follows through on any of his savior ideas, this man now says he is unsure, "unable to commit one way or the other". Commit to what, you ask? To holding the November election on time, to holding it at all. To keeping that failed snake oil guy in office. For how long? Forever, for life, if one reads and hears carefully, reads between the lines, and understands that the wild statements made all along, about emulating dictators who are in office for life, well, follow through and now we have the exact words. Openly. Brazenly. 
     Open treason. Open planning to shred the Constitution, the Declaration, to upend history on its head, to force the snake oil down the throats of all, to proclaim that Truth is Lies. That War is Peace and all other poisonous ideas. Snake oil slithering its way towards the ultimate goal of the salesman and his crew - to rule the most powerful country of the world and its derailment, its destruction.
     We already have armed militias openly defying the government , even as the very same government crosses the street and encourages this very perilous defiance. Armed insurgency. Folks, I have long warned about a civil war here, a war which could rend the world asunder, pull the countries of the world into the powerful swirls of its eddy. Living elsewhere is no answer, for every man, woman, and child on this planet stands within the danger zone. There is no untieing of knots here, no slicing the Gordian Knot, without consequence, no downing the snake oil without the poison of it ruining us, killing us.
     The snake oil saleman, his followers, the armed home grown militias, the defiance of the law, the rewriting of laws meant to protect and replaced by rules that will kill our children, ruin the environment, all this must go. We must insist - no, ROAR - that there will be an election in November, 2020, despite all efforts otherwise, to destroy this country.
     Folks, there is much work to be done, particularly if we are to undo all that has gone before in this perversive attempt to fool and rule the world. No mistake: this snake oil crew is dangerous to life and soul, to our lives and the lives of independent countries all over the globe, to democracy, to hope, to dreams.
     We must vote in every election between now and November and overwhelm the oily people in the big one. If we do not, well, we might have to use his oh so vaunted Space Force and have them find us a new home out there in space. This home, this globe, this America, will be no more. Instead, the air will be reeking of the vile odor of snake oil, of the emissions from the corpse of democracy, from the death of any and every thing that is good and fair.
    We must be strong.
    We must defend the truth.
    We must never succumb to the snake oil nor its   salesman.
     We must vote, by mail, by being there.
      We must, above all - Be Well and Stay Safe.




     

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