I have two kids. When they were little, they both delighted in connect-the-dots books. They thrilled to the concept that — as they drew (their pencil being guided by the numbers) — a picture would emerge. And all THEY had to do: connect the dots.
That same concept works in and for storytelling. Half the fun of listening to a story is anticipating where we think it’s going to go. Based on the dots already connected for us (by the storyteller), we can anticipate how the dots ahead of us might connect. We’re also hoping for a plot twist that will completely screw with what we anticipated. Then the dots will connect a different way.
But — the point is — they’ll still connect.
If the dots don’t connect — there’s no story. So — in stories, as in life, the dots must (and do) connect. Just like in the connect-the-dot books.
What can possibly explain our Main Stream Media’s inability to do that simple, basic thing?
We sit in the middle of the biggest connect-the-dots puzzle ever imagined. It’s massive, stretching in all sorts of directions. It’s a picture — we can see it already (those of us who can imagine a picture from more than a few hundred feet up) of Massive Corruption — here, in the United States, in Europe, in the Middle east and in Asia. Even Australia’s contributed — contributing a racist murderer to New Zealand. Only Antarctica seems free of political corruption; maybe the scientists who’ve worked there know differently.
What we’ve already eyewitnessed ourselves is staggering in its audacity and criminality. Those of us who see crime for what it is, have always seen crime. Those who easily normalize crime (“He’s a different kind of president”) see normalcy. The only reason they see normalcy is because they cannot connect dots.
There is nothing normal about these here times. Anyone who accepts this as normal has either surrendered (and needs to stop or just get the hell out of everyone else’s way) or is part of the criminal class — and they need to cut it the hell out — and get the hell out of everyone else’s way. There has been a steady stream of clear-cut EVIDENCE that Donald Trump has an “unnatural” relationship with not only Vladimir Putin but a whole host of authoritarian monsters.
There are no coincidences — those are dots connecting.
Of course, it’s hard to see the picture the dots are forming when you obsess on the relationship between two dots. Problem is — while THOSE TWO dots may not connect directly, they’re still part of the same picture. If you don’t see THAT fact — you’re going to miss what the picture looks like. Hell, you’ll probably think they’re TWO DIFFERENT PICTURES. And that, of course, is completely wrong.
Welcome to America’s Main Stream News Media.
Back when Fusion GPS first got hired by the REPUBLICAN Washington Free Beacon (Jeb Bush supporters) to compile oppo research on Donald Trump, they started by doing their “due diligence”. When he testified before Congress on August 22, 2017, Fusion’s founding partner Glenn Simpson (formerly of the Wall Street Journal — not exactly a liberal rag) explained Fusion’s process. They got ahold of every piece of PUBLICLY AVAILABLE material they could on Donald J Trump.
They got books. They got magazine articles. They listened to Trump on radio shows and watched him on TV shows. They bought stuff from Amazon and borrowed it from the public library. Simpson testified that Fusion got its hands on every existing bit of info (available to anyone) that even hinted at Trump. And what they found there, said Simpson, convinced them that Donald Trump had a long, clear criminal history — and that history had a long, clear relationship with Russian mobsters.
Simpson and Fusion GPS knew — Russian mobsters equals the Russian government. You don’t get to be a Russian oligarch (a mobster) without having one particular friend in Moscow: Vlad Putin. Putin’s a spy by nature and training. He thinks like a spy and acts like one. He’s always looking for an in — a way to control you and make you his. If Donald Trump had secrets about Russian mobsters for whom he’d been laundering money — he had secrets about himself and Vladimir Putin.
Understand — the Donald dot does not connect directly to the Vladimir Putin dot. But they do most definitely connect.
They are very definitely part of the same picture.
Oh — before I forget — IF anyone in the Main Stream Media happens to read this — that picture at the top of the post?
It’s an elephant.