Just Watch

I thought we were supposed to question everything? Wasn’t that it? Don’t trust anybody over thirty? You know a politician is lying when his mouth is moving? You can’t judge a book by its cover? Know Thyself? It’s not paranoia if they really are out to get you? The Buddha said, “Life is suffering.” He might just as well have said, “Life is a lie.” And western civilization’s most notorious judge once quipped, “What is truth?”

The Fourth Estate is supposed to speak truth to power. Consumer rights advocates are supposed to speak truth to money. Remember the Corvair? Unsafe at any speed? Someone who didn’t trust the powerful automotive industry brought about the Corvair’s demise and the introduction of automotive safety laws. Time magazine once had a front cover picture of Ralph Nadar as a crusader. Never mind that the Crusades were more about rape and plunder than rites and prayer.

We all know about the Great Depression. The Glass-Steagall act, which was supposed to prevent another one, was quietly repealed under the Clinton Administration. In the Twenties labor unions fought with the only weapon they had, their time on a punch card. That and riots. They managed to reverse decades of Robber Barron rule and bring about fair labor practices. People who want to ‘Get government off our backs’ love to repeal wasteful government regulations like that.

Milk in big, horrid cities used to be laced with bleach to mask the sour smell. The publication of The Jungle is partially responsible for the Food and Drug Act. Ballot counters sometimes had a trick of sticking a piece of pencil lead under their fingernails. When they encountered a ballot for the wrong candidate, they would scrawl a line outside of the designated check boxes making the ballot invalid. Now we have computers to do that sort of thing. Digital Tammany Hall.

Whether it’s “Sure, I’ll trust you in the morning,” or “This baby was only driven to church on Sunday mornings by a little old lady,” to countries with names like, “The Democratic, People-Power, Republic of Flat Tire,” to, “Win the little lady a plush doll. Three chances a dollar!” to every midnight con imaginable based on the catechism of “Never give a sucker an even break!” I think I’ll continue to be suspicious of everything.

Where do you think the phrase, ‘Who watches the watchers,’ comes from? Soon we will all live under the Great Reset where regulations and unions and freedom of expression will be banished in favor of the Utopia of obedience. Won’t that be grand.

Until the next revolution.