Tuesday, January 24, 2006

Granny Franny's Unified Theory of Everything

Reading Elizabeth de la Vega's January 18th piece at www.TomDispatch.com gives me hope that my own theories are not as crazy as some may think. If Congress, Justice and the Courts can let GWB get away with his "Unitary Executive Theory of the Presidency," I should be able to get away with what my friend T. calls "Granny Franny's Unified Theory of Everything."

Granny Franny's Theory is still a work in progress but basically it involves connecting the dots -- all the dots, everywhere. I began to connect the dots in late-2000 when the Supremes handed GWB the presidency, continued through 9/11 and its aftermath when my phone line would automatically begin dialing in the middle of the night and I would hear my computer or fax machine make the noise that we used to call "shaking hands", when long-distance calls to friends would suddenly be interrupted or begin to echo on only one side of the line, when mail arrived late (or opened by accident), when I had to sign HEPA forms to get my oxygen, my prescriptions, see my doctor or dentist but no one had actually read the forms which were being signed, especially the part about the government being able to access one's medical records in case of (undefined) national emergency (it's only paranoia if no one is actually watching you!!).

More dots evolved as the Mission was Accomplished in Iraq and the war against a few dead-enders escalated to the point where the insurgency was "in its last throes", when "the L word" began to mean Liberal and "the P word" Progressive, when comparing someone to Michael Moore became an insult rather than a compliment, when Terry Schiavo was pronounced medically viable by the Senate and the President, when Cindy Sheehan became "anti-American", when athletes on steroids and gang activity warranted mention in State of the Union addresses, but the Downing Street Memo didn't warrant the same concern, when Abu Ghraib fell off the radar and no one in the media seemed concerned that any one of the many hurricanes heading toward the U.S. were projected to pass right through Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, when free elections in Iran, Palestine, South American and the Caribbean were called into question even as our own 2004 election passed muster (though votes were still uncounted in Ohio, Florida and New Mexico) and "Brownie" was doing a "heck of a job" for FEMA -- well, the dots began to form a pattern. (Whew! That was one heck of a run-on sentence!)

As we enter the sixth year of the Orwellian world of the propaganda and disinformation machine variously called "The Media" or "The Administration", I continue to connect the dots. If I ever get all the dots connected and "Granny Franny's Unified Theory of Everything" is published, it will come with a free yellow bumper sticker which will read "Semantics Matter."

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