Magicians, fakirs, shamans have been using it for centuries, baffling perception and challenging the cognitive balance of seekers of wonderment, wisdom, spiritual enlightenment or healing. It is the life-blood of practiced prestidigitation, making what we believe we see unreliable. As entertainment it is arguably benign, often delightful. However, its manipulative embodiment of religious validation or medical miracle is dishonest at best and psychologically and physically dangerous at worst. Politically, it is the most overt betrayal of public trust.
The histories of governments and the politics that formulated their principles and precepts, laws and order, are primarily variations on dynastic or despotic rule by the few and privileged over the masses. There are blatant examples throughout the ages of imperial sleight-of-hand used to ease or cajole the spirit of commoners to keep them better in line. Democracy, the bold yet unfulfilled experiment in governance, has always been the Three-Card-Monte version of all-men-being-created-equal. Sure, the pea is findable, but there are far fewer winners than Constitutionally advertised and the politicos, the duly-elected representatives of the people, when queried about the location of the reclusive legume, or anything else for that matter, dodge, deke and duck as if honesty is a capital too precious too spend. We are being duped. We’ve always been duped. The dupers are not confined to one party or the other and the artfulness of dupification has merely varied within a tolerable, albeit disgusting range since our fledgling beginnings…until now. Welcome to the era of All Bullshit, All the Time. Our reported great economy…Bullshit! Jobs reports…Bullshit! Healthcare…Bullshit! Our standing in the world…Bullshit! And our politics…a steaming pile of greenhouse-gas-emitting Bullshit! And…our Wizard du Jour is not even smart enough to step behind the curtain or try to get us to “look over there!” while he’s picking our pocket, or raping our public land, or espousing hated and bigotry, or dismantling our Democracy…it’s time for some better magic.