Thank you once again for your clear-eyed assessment of the likely hidden motivations for Trump's war. I really don't know how you and Shanley do it day after day!
More brilliant journalism! I found myself thinking of the main character in Orsen Welles’ classic film The Third Man, in which Welles plays a black marketeer in 1948 Vienna who profits from selling diluted penicillin that causes hundreds of deaths.
In a famous scene, the protagonist, played by Joseph Cotton, confronts Welles as they’re riding to the top of a large Ferris wheel. Cotton asks Welles why he did it. “For the money,” Welles answers. Pointing to the people on the ground below, who appear tiny from the heights of the Ferris wheel, Welles adds: “Would you really feel anything if one of those dots down there stopped moving?”
Without great wealth or influence, we seem to be dots to the predators Mary describes. Even as voters, we no longer appear relevant to their schemes, so confident they seem to be in holding power.
Looking forward to letting these monsters know we dots are not going away or giving up - No Kings, this Saturday, 3/28/26.
". the sort of phrase that sounds grand and visionary right up until you remember it translates, in practice, to blood, rubble, refugee flows, shattered economies, and young men being fed into machinery built by older men with security details." What a poignant turn of phrase! 🤌
This is also a system of manipulations that accord well to an aristocratic takeover, with, say, 200 billionaire earls and princes being given power by one central monarch, and consolidating their power by adhering to him and drawing down the wealth of the previous regime through stock market manipulations, betting, and so on. The word "America" is so loaded with emotion that it obscures the game, but this is regime change. Think: Norman Conquest. If you want to go back further for an example, think: Macbeth. I called it a game. If it is, it's a deadly serious one.
Indeed, an ugly, dark summary of the stark reality we face. Res ipsa loquitur, the evidence is in plain sight. Will we simply be driven to the cliff of civilization by the lemming-in-chief, or will a wave of sanity descend, stopping this nightmare? My keyboard is worn out from repeated messages to my senators and congressional representatives.
Your last two paragraphs are so chillingly true. I thought my cynical eyes were already opened to such behind-the-scenes manipulation but it is so much worse than I imagined. Every day's revelations make me more disgusted and ashamed of what venal humanity is capable of. How do we innocents stop them? Are we being blindfolded and being herded over the proverbial cliff?
Thank you once again for your clear-eyed assessment of the likely hidden motivations for Trump's war. I really don't know how you and Shanley do it day after day!
More brilliant journalism! I found myself thinking of the main character in Orsen Welles’ classic film The Third Man, in which Welles plays a black marketeer in 1948 Vienna who profits from selling diluted penicillin that causes hundreds of deaths.
In a famous scene, the protagonist, played by Joseph Cotton, confronts Welles as they’re riding to the top of a large Ferris wheel. Cotton asks Welles why he did it. “For the money,” Welles answers. Pointing to the people on the ground below, who appear tiny from the heights of the Ferris wheel, Welles adds: “Would you really feel anything if one of those dots down there stopped moving?”
Without great wealth or influence, we seem to be dots to the predators Mary describes. Even as voters, we no longer appear relevant to their schemes, so confident they seem to be in holding power.
Looking forward to letting these monsters know we dots are not going away or giving up - No Kings, this Saturday, 3/28/26.
". the sort of phrase that sounds grand and visionary right up until you remember it translates, in practice, to blood, rubble, refugee flows, shattered economies, and young men being fed into machinery built by older men with security details." What a poignant turn of phrase! 🤌
This is also a system of manipulations that accord well to an aristocratic takeover, with, say, 200 billionaire earls and princes being given power by one central monarch, and consolidating their power by adhering to him and drawing down the wealth of the previous regime through stock market manipulations, betting, and so on. The word "America" is so loaded with emotion that it obscures the game, but this is regime change. Think: Norman Conquest. If you want to go back further for an example, think: Macbeth. I called it a game. If it is, it's a deadly serious one.
Indeed, an ugly, dark summary of the stark reality we face. Res ipsa loquitur, the evidence is in plain sight. Will we simply be driven to the cliff of civilization by the lemming-in-chief, or will a wave of sanity descend, stopping this nightmare? My keyboard is worn out from repeated messages to my senators and congressional representatives.
Your last two paragraphs are so chillingly true. I thought my cynical eyes were already opened to such behind-the-scenes manipulation but it is so much worse than I imagined. Every day's revelations make me more disgusted and ashamed of what venal humanity is capable of. How do we innocents stop them? Are we being blindfolded and being herded over the proverbial cliff?
As is so often the case, Mary joins the dots and articulates the issues while the rest of us are still chewing on the ends of our pencils.