The human race insists on being naïve. The need to believe in some form of Santa Claus continues long after the age of 6. Is it just plain-old stupidity – or is it simply the uncritical acceptance of bogus narratives and public relations spin that keeps modern society’s consensual head buried in the sand?
Things haven’t changed that much since 1959. In that year, the highly-flamboyant, obviously gay pianist known as Liberace, filed a libel suit against the London-based Daily Mirror newspaper and its columnist, William Connor (who used the pseudonym, Cassandra) for implying that Liberace was a homosexual. Because the truth of the contested assertion is a legal defense, Liberace’s case would appear to be a classic example of what is often referred to as a “frivolous lawsuit”. Roy Greenslade of the Guardian provided this account of the trial:
Connor wrote that Liberace was “… the summit of sex – the pinnacle of masculine, feminine, and neuter. Everything that he, she, and it can ever want … a deadly, winking, sniggering, snuggling, chromium-plated, scent-impregnated, luminous, quivering, giggling, fruit-flavoured, mincing, ice-covered heap of mother love.”
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After a six-day hearing, during which Liberace denied being homosexual or ever having taken part in homosexual acts, the jury found for him. He was awarded a then-record £8,000 in damages (about £500,000 in today’s money).
Just as an American jury was similarly inclined to ignore the evidence and acquit O. J. Simpson of murder charges three and one-half decades later, Liberace’s lawsuit demonstrated how the bright light of celebrity could out-shine the truth. From the Liberace trial to the O.J. trial — to the present day — it is almost impossible to “de-program” people who have been brainwashed by effective public relations and other forms of propaganda.
More recently, this past weekend brought us some examples of how painful it is for the public to accept the fact that our government is run by a bunch of hustlers. The simple truth is that our nation’s Capitol Building is the world’s largest whorehouse – inhabited by a vast number of people who will do anything for money. If those grafters can’t be prosecuted, the American taxpayers must insist that red lights and pink velvet curtains should be placed in all of the windows of the Capitol Building.
On December 26, Carol Leonnig and T.W. Farnam wrote an article for The Washington Post entitled, “Lawmakers seek cash during key votes”. The piece began this way:
Numerous times this year, members of Congress have held fundraisers and collected big checks while they are taking critical steps to write new laws, despite warnings that such actions could create ethics problems. The campaign donations often came from contributors with major stakes riding on the lawmakers’ actions.
Leonnig and Farnam provided us with this fine example:
Earlier this month, the chairman of the Senate committee overseeing tax policy, Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), gave himself a birthday-party fundraiser – on the same day that the chamber took its first vote on an $858 billion tax package that would provide breaks to wealthy citizens and business interests.
When the office of Senator Baucus was contacted by the Post reporters for comment, the response seemed tailor-made for a credulous public, comprised entirely of jurors from the Liberace and O. J. Simpson trials:
“Money has no influence on how Senator Baucus makes his decisions,” Baucus spokeswoman Kate Downen said. “The only factor that determines Senator Baucus’s votes is whether a policy is right for Montana and right for our country.”
. . . and Santa’s sleigh returned safely to the North Pole without interference from terrorists.
At the Decline of the Empire blog, Dave Cohen had some fun discussing the reactions of a few commentators who expressed shock and disappointment upon hearing that President Obama’s budget director, Peter Orszag, left that position to take a job with Citigroup:
Orszag’s move poses an existential crisis for these people. They want to believe in the political system, and they take it very seriously indeed. They spend a substantial part of their lives commenting on America’s political life. They make their living doing so. They are heavily vested in the primacy and righteousness of American politics. But then this Orszag guy turns around and joins Citigroup, making a mockery of everything they want to believe. Ultimately, Orszag mocked the very way they define themselves in the world. No wonder they are upset.
An “existential crisis” en masse could become the catalyst for awakening people to the realization that our political leaders and their bureaucratic minions are not as scrupulous as one might prefer to believe. The next financial crisis could provoke the requisite existential crisis which would motivate taxpayers to take action toward changing Washington’s culture of corruption. Such an event could result in the creation of an offshore tax escrow account where taxpayers would pay their taxes, to be withheld from the Internal Revenue Service (outside the jurisdiction of American courts) until our current officials simply pack up and leave. Since those politicians don’t do anything anyway, their absence won’t be noticed. Emergency elections could then be held to replace those vacancies. Perhaps you might have a better solution . . .