Raging Against the Dying of the Light

If you had a friend who lied constantly about everything inconsequential from where his  parents were born to his college transcript, how long would that person be your friend?

If you had a friend who stood on a bridge over a freeway to lob rocks at passing motorists, how long would that person remain your friend?

If you and your friend were walking down the street and that friend knocked down an older person coming from the opposite direction, how long would that person remain your friend?

If you had a friend that went around gossiping about a total stranger, saying things that were blatantly untrue and proveably false, how long would that person remain your friend?

I suppose these are frivolous questions, but not really. Each sets out a paradigm in which you are asked: "What are your limits?"

Recently, I saw a post by an old friend that was not only untrue, it was damaging to someone I happened to know. The poster did not know I knew the target; he was only re-posting a meme, something someone else had posted. He thought it was funny. 

When I asked him about it, he said I'd lost my sense of humor. I said I did not find vicious lies funny no matter at whom they were directed. He said, "What about all the lies about the president. There was no collusion, no obstruction. It was all made up. Mueller and the whole committee lied."

Never mind he completely ignored what I said about the meme; he was using something entirely unrelated for a justification for doing something heinous. Suddenly, the question became do I want this person as my friend?

Social media, as everyone knows, is an anonymous platform even when it isn't. It's a place where you get to post truths, half-truth, untruths, and blatant lies for anyone to believe if they want to. On social media, you can say whatever you want. There are no truth police, and even if there was, no one would care. 

On April 30th, the Washington Post published: 

President Trump has made more than 10,000 false or misleading claims

It took President Trump 601 days to top 5,000 false and misleading claims in The Fact Checker’s database, an average of eight claims a day. 

But on April 26, just 226 days later, the president crossed the 10,000 mark — an average of nearly 23 claims a day in this seven-month period, which included the many rallies he held before the midterm elections, the partial government shutdown over his promised border wall and the release of the special counsel’s report on Russian interference in the presidential election.

This milestone appeared unlikely when The Fact Checker first started this project during his first 100 days. In the first 100 days, Trump averaged less than five claims a day, which would have added up to about 7,000 claims in a four-year presidential term. But the tsunami of untruths just keeps looming larger and larger....

Do you care?

Who cares what your politics are? No one cares if you're liberal or conservative, Republican or Democrat, Libertarian or Socialist. Everyone gets to have an opinion in this country. Or at least they used to. It's hard to have an opinion these days without getting stomped on by someone. The result is not that the opinion goes away; it doesn't. It goes underground.

In this way the right wing is winning the war of attrition. We, the People, have stopped listening, and by extension, stopped reacting. We're no longer hearing the lies as lies; we're accepting them as whatever. Instead of becoming mobilized to fight for truth, justice, and the American way, we are shaking our heads and tuning out the noise. There could be one hundred Democratic candidates for president; we're not listening to any of them. They buzz like wasps and say nothing meaningful inside the incessant drone. They are wasting our energy and our goodwill. Not to mention our bucks.

Never has there been a more selfish, self-serving bunch of wannabes in the history of this nation. Someone should lock them all in a room until they come out with four possible candidates. If they don't, they will be the reason we get another 20+ years of Feckless Leadership because in case you missed it, he tweeted he's not leaving office. 

You already missed the coup. It was delivered by William Barr when no one was looking.

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light. 

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night. 

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light. 

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night. 

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light. 

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light. 

Dylan Thomas