Keepin' it real.

New York Times technology correspondent Kevin Roose consulted some "experts" on "how we might restore a proper respect for reality." Lord knows I'm on the edge of my OfficeMax high-speed, swivel, gaming chair when it's time to receive guidance from NYT truth searchers. One of the experts Roose consulted is a Stanford "disinformation researcher" which is confidence-building point for me since if you can tap the thinking of a disinformation researcher and put your finger on honest-to-gosh "disinformation" then it stands to reason that what's left is truth itself. Miller Time! and that's a fact.

John Derbyshire is more jaded than I am and puts the damn damn on that most popular of words these days that has replaced more technical -- but inadequate -- terms like "lies," "porkies," "stretchers," "propaganda," and "bullshit" and is used to alert us to an entirely new, never-before-encountered phenomenon of nefarious people impossibly trying to sell us a verbal Brand X in order to convince us to place our bets on Brand X:

“Disinformation researcher”? Uh-huh. Anyone who pays attention knows that the word “disinformation” has at this point been bled dry of all honest significance. It’s just a Woke word, a CultMarx word for any true facts the Ruling Class want suppressed.^[1]

Recommendations flooded in from the "experts" that a "task force" should be formed headed up by a "reality czar" to help us navigate these modern treacherous shoals of human disingenuousnessness. This would be on the order of a national Miss Manners, as I understand it, who would offer quotidian, targeted advice on what is or is not pristine in the facts and analysis departments. This would presumably put Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Amazon, the Washington Post, the New York Times, and Piers Robinson out of a job but since when did the New York Times care whose ox was gored so long as real Truth comes out the other end of the sausage machine, if I make myself clear?

Mr. Derbyshire also has some choice words on Jesus's exquisite observation about the Pharisees's straining at a gnat but swallowing a camel in the context of (1) the "storming" of the Capitol on January 6 and (2) the riots, looting, arson, and homicide in the runup to the election in November that so convinced the rest of the world -- yet again -- how vital our "leadership" really is. Highly recommended.

It's a widespread phenom these days, this inability or studied obtuseness that prevents the compilation of lists of pressing problems in descending order of criticality. If you've actually bothered to read what I've posted over the years (sniff) you'll recall the times I've mentioned Joseph Heller's choice vignette in his novel Catch 22 where Yossarian, on leave in Italy down in the ville, witnesses a GI throw another GI out of the window and kill him. Heller describes the boots of the MPs pounding up the stairs and then the MPs burst into the room and firmly declare to Yossarian that "You're AWOL!" The Blacks Liberating Merchandise folkspersons, the Al Sharptongues, the Maxine the Magnificents, the Sarah Jeongs, and those questing for illicit Brazillian Blowouts seem to have copied that page out of that book and focused on white people as the source of all unhappiness in this land with a secondary hatefest for Pres. Trump. Yes. If only there weren't white people this would be an ok country. Now on to solve the problem of unemployed engineers in the Indian subcontinent.

My personal favorite in the current Steven King sh^tscape is the drama over Marjorie Taylor Greene, whom I happen to revere. (Get a load of the bills she's introduced and her version of what patriotism and her role as a Congresswoman are! Works for me!) Anyway, she has an interesting personal history and knows a thing or two about some events in our recent past but has returned to the straight and narrow path, now presenting an image of a . . . gasp . . . real person unlike the regiments of preening, phoney baloney dimwits that play at being "influencers." I'll not detail any of Rep. Greene's statements because I've only gotten them second and third hand but here's my question: Which positions has she taken that are more damaging to the Nation than what eminently wise and learned Americans of the first rank have declared as sacred precious [Un]truths:

• "nation of immigrants,"
• "living Constitution,"
• "structural racism,"
• "white privilege,"
• "responsibility to protect,"
• "honest election,"
• "regime change,"
• "Assad must go,"
• "bipartisanism,"
• "weapons of mass destruction,"
• "rules-based international order,"
• "war on terror,"
• "war on drugs,"
• "for-profit prisons,"
• "spirit cooking,"
• "American exceptionalism,"
• "nation building,"
• "multiculturalism,"
• "patriarchy,"
• "gender,"
• "diversity,"
• "transgenderism,"
• "insurrection,"
• "incitement,"
• "white supremacist,"
• "affirmative action,"
• "Medicare for all,"
• "a woman's right to choose,"
• "women's health,"
• "hate speech,"
• "terms of service violation,"
• "stimulus,"
• "inflation target,"
• "Russian collusion,"
• "Russian expansionism,"
• "Russian aggression,"
• "our values,"
• "progressive," or
• "inclusion"?

There might be more.

Where is the pearl clutching and boo hooing about the morons who mouth that sort of garbage?

Rep. Greene made an exemplary mea culpa speech in Congress which, along with the changes she's made in her life, would normally suffice in a country vaguely Christian to earn her a measure of charity. That is not the way the game is played though and huge energy is being and will be expended to crucify courageous, free-thinking individuals, to destroy them with gleeful, vicious explorations of every possible ad hominem angle, all the while studiously ignoring what are quaintly known as "existential threats" to the nation as it was conceived.

The fascination of the elites with "disinformation" is something that will make you lose your lunch when you contemplate that the search for the truth of any matter is the last thing that can be tolerated in America 5.0, or however far that counter has risen. The elites really are contemptible as can be seen in the performance of toad impersonator Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) and the others who disgraced themselves in this video.

The nation is on the cusp of economic bankruptcy and who can say in the light of this that we're also not facing a profound moral bankruptcy as well, one that long preceded our economic difficulties? A nation that can NOT decide what problems it is trying to solve is in deep trouble and due for a spell of high-speed travel on black ice.

Notes
^[1] "American Anosognosia—the Capitol Hill 'Insurrection,' BLM/Antifa Riots, and Our National Reality Crisis." By John Derbyshire, 2/6/21.