“Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive” in a few beautifully expressed words describes what We as citizens experience when trying to interpret communications being fed us daily that is controlled by unknown sources. From this tangled web of communications, we try to understand what is happening within our society that we no longer recognize and events that to us have no rational basis.
We attended David Copperfield magic shows to be entertained and to enjoy the skill of the magician to perform unimaginable feats. But the Great Magic Show being performed in Washington that increasingly affects our lives and our fortunes, often negatively, is not so much fun. Every day is like attending a magic show during which we experience fabulous illusions, subtle misdirection, and continuous repartee to distract us from the “magic” that is being performed.
Motivated by power, greed, and occasionally ideology, our elected politicians feed out a steady nauseous stream of hyperbole, derision, and lies. Benjamin Disraeli, the great 18th Century English stateman and twice Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, was quoted as saying, “There are three types of lies — lies, damn lies, and statistics.” Our modern political elites understand have mastered the use of all three types of lies.
Increasingly, to avoid the any responsibility to voters for unpopular federal laws and regulations, our elected Washington representatives have transferred legislation responsibly to the unelected, off-Constitution bureaucrats of the Administrative State. Those with a weird fascination with political legerdemain can be entertained on C-Span as overpaid “experts” sitting in committee hearings respond to our Representatives masterfully with evasion, obfuscation, and blaming others for the messes they created and perpetuated.
Our Constitution gave our news organizations a special privileged position to hold the powerful accountable to We the People. However, our major news outlets have become a participant in this great Washington Magic Show. This gives them political access to the rich and powerful just so long as they play by a cardinal rule of magic community – never tell how the magic is performed! Following this unbreakable rule, our mainstream media censors any bad news of the day covering it with bias, misinformation, and often just “damned lies” as it weaves news to us in bundles of “narratives”.
Recent student protests following October 7th are “canaries in the cage” alerting us to the cultural and political indoctrination at our elite universities. Our best and brightest young students who obtain these elite degrees enter the highest rungs of our major corporations, financial institutions, the federal government, and the entire panoply of non-governmental organizations. Those bringing with them anti-Semitism and other non-American cultural ideologies divide our body politic weakening our nation.
To complete this Great Washington Magic Show, add the hundreds of billions of dollars in the hands of our new oligarchs. They have created social media organizations that build algorithms with all the legerdemain tricks of the magic trade. They now have the power to influence and control our cultural views, our economic choices, and the political preferences of those millions of users who are addicted to using their social platforms. Their collaboration with our Justice Department, FBI, other federal agencies to control thought, provide misinformation, and censor what we read and hear is brainwashing on steroids! This is all being accomplished before we are fully subjected to the tricks of Artificial Intelligence that integrates reality with illusion.
Our society now receives much of its information provided and filtered by an establishment cabal of like-minded elites from government, media, education, and the corporate and non-governmental oligarchies.
Jenkins-Speaks is committed to looking through a glass darkly to interpret and understand the world around us. From this unique perspective, you will be enlightened by any truths that I can gleam from penetrating these tangled webs propagated by the magic shows and hidden under the darkness by those who try to deceive and control us.
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