History is History

We’ve heard it said over and over and over again that history is written by the victors, and of course that’s true. Except of course it isn’t. Not anymore. Yep, it’s me again, the Rt Rev. Pinky Tourette, here to update your aphorisms and truthify your souls, brothers and sisters.

Once upon a time the party in power dictated the facts. Meaning your country’s truth diverged from that of the country next door. Okay, whatever. The neighbors are liars. We all know that. Our truth is THE truth. They’re just jealous.

“Reporting” at its core is utterly subjective and biased at inception. Always has been. The same event sounds stunningly different as reported by CNN, OAN, or RT. Your freedom fighter is my terrorist. So what else is new?

Well, words have meaning, and they have weight. When someone blows himself up in downtown Nashville and takes out blocks around him, knocking out communication throughout the region, is he a “loner,” a “suicide bomber,” or a “terrorist?” And really, does it matter?

It matters. Because for a large swath of the world the measure of a threat is determined by the color of the perpetrator’s skin and the courage of the outlet reporting the incident. At first the perp is unknown. An “incident” has taken place. Bad stuff, we all agree.

Now the bomber has been identified as one of THEM – whoever they may be; a different color, a different religion, a different political agenda. Well, there you go, he’s an alien threat. Told you so, didn’t I? Didn’t I say they were out to get us? And you gave me a hard time when I kicked that guy in the balls outside the bar simply because I didn’t like his looks. Now do you get it? He was one of them.

But wait. Maybe he’s not one of them. Maybe he’s one of us. Well, that’s a whole different kettle of conspiracies. Because, after all, there’s 5G and George Soros and microchips in vaccines and Stop the Steal and Pizzagate and Mike Pence is actually Barack Obama in whiteface. So it’s not really fair to call him a terrorist since he’s nothing less than a patriot and can you please direct me to the GoFundMe page so I can contribute to his monument and where’s the damn podcast hailing him as a superhero already?

I’m not going to write here about the seditious attack on the Capital. Ha! Fucked witcha! Of course I’m going to write about the seditious attack on the Capital. Because it’s history. And how will it be portrayed? How will the “victors” depict it in the history books? As what it was: an armed insurrection by a disgruntled mob of fools, tools, and malcontents hellbent on overthrowing the popular vote and lynching (key word) the elected leaders of the free world simply because they, the mob, wanted a different electoral outcome. Pretty damn basic, really.

And in yesterday’s history lesson, that’s how it would be recorded. The winners won while the losers, they suffered the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.

Then along came social media. History is no longer written by the victors because history is written every single day by millions of uninformed, unaware citizens driven by a burning need to validate their own opinions as implanted in them by algorithms they claim to decry yet deep down embrace as sacred truth. Meanwhile new media outlets clamor to spew forth an ever more salacious post-World Weekly News tabloid truth to appease the slavering maw of a sensation-craving public. The new scripture is available in blow-by-blow, minute-by-minute updates, with truth catered to your preference.

Granted, there’s always been an “alternate history” contingent willing – nay, eager – to say “What holocaust?” or “Systemic racism is bunk,” yet never before have they had such a willing and effective platform to amplify their denial of fact and embracing of… fuck, of any damn thing that enters the fool head of some demented conspiracy theorist in a swirling meth-haze. Vaccines cause infertility? Sure, why not? Facebook causes cancer? I can totally get behind that. Hillary Clinton ripped the unborn child from Jesus’ womb and roasted it on a spit at George Clooney’s summer home while Beyonce danced on the head of a pin with Cthulhu? Check it out – these ineptly hand-drawn illustrations prove it.

Click here and we’ll be happy to feed you what’s real – or a hallucinatory narrative of conspiracy and bullshit. Don’t mean fucktwaddle to us either way, as long as y’all keep clicking.

And so untruth builds a concrete bunker in the battlefield of history, a bunker that will be there tomorrow and next week and 10 year from now, filled with fanatics and acolytes and supporters pointing crooked fingers in this direction and that, insisting that their history is better than your history, while social media will lean back and harvest the clicks and history books (books? peh!) will fade into irrelevance as understanding of the past becomes no longer a matter of fact versus fiction but rather Coke versus Pepsi and which one you prefer as you tumble down the rabbit hole of conflicting corporate-sponsored alternate versions of reality.