My Blog Week: April 14 to April 20

A Word on the Week

At first, the sight of Notre Dame in flames was horrible, as actual fires are (we get movie images in our minds, and movie infernos don’t incandesce like that, billow those massive, sky-filling clouds)…

And heartrending, for reasons many on social media said they could feel, but not wholly understand. That, I think, is the sense this disaster, unfolding, was rejoiced in, that there are people, more “out” than ever before, happy to see destroyed everything they associate with an “elite”, one their minds tell them exists, sneering at them, taking from them… Treasuring art, nature, history. Believing these are worth taxation to preserve. 

They are not the phantom Muslims, propagating in memes in the fire’s wake, and in talk show diatribes. This attitude also fueled the vandalism in Joshua Tree National Park, during the shutdown of the American government. Boundaries are made by people. The Joshua trees belong to the world. It is America’s honor to be their steward.

But our quiet beliefs are drowned these days by propaganda.

Propaganda can drive people to displays that seem passionate. To the breaking of things just to take them away, to shouting, kicking, and throwing, carrying of flags and torches. But the passion is an illusion. Propaganda presents no problem to solve, having its solution already, the only one it coldly seeks. Anger, division, constant leash-jerking demands for attention, waste of resources. 

Now, in a short week, we’ve seen every proposal, every donation, for the rebuilding of Notre Dame become wrong.

Next item: the Mueller Report. Just this observation…

The president appointed an acolyte to take custody of the findings, and Barr spun at everything he could spin. Mr. Trump’s supporters would like to see exoneration on Russia. But the Russia section contains the greatest number of HOMs—Harm to Ongoing Matters. If the dealings with Russia are nothing, then a view of the redactions should further that impression. What ongoing matters, and what harm?