Three weeks, one constitutional crisis, worldwide uproar, Special Ops trigger-pulling during dessert, Executive Orders brought to you by The Bannon Behind the Curtain…and the truth dawns on the SCP (So-Called President):
“We’re not so innocent.”
- Innocent, from in, not, and nocere, to harm, so literally blameless, harmless, disinterested.
And I guess it was bound to happen. Sooner or later, SCP slips up and says a true thing. Refreshing, yes, but just two little issues:
- The acknowledgment was in the context of a question about Vladimir Putin, a guy who has applied artful hilot to his country’s embryonic democracy. Wait. Hilot, Thad? You talking about hilot as in hilot massage? The most common method for abortion in the Phillipines? The one that’s so painful it makes the woman herself wish they would abort her too while they’re at it? Yep, that’s the one.
- Is SCP using some sort of sophisticated future past tense, referring to our level of innocence after he and the gang finish implementing their agenda?
Naw–that part about sophisticated doesn’t have the ring of truth.
I’ll be one of the first to agree that we have not been innocent in the world. Might even be fair to say we’ve been–just to draw a ballpark figure straight out of our historical thin air–three-fifths innocent.
The notion that we or any other confabulated entity has ever arrived at great, or even good, is dangerous fiction. We are always becoming, not being. From time to time, becoming involves a wound or two, inflicted on ourselves in the service of societo-karmic justice.
It’s my hope, fueled by equal parts fear and anger, that we will recover from what starts to feel like a mortal such wound.