A conspiracies of convenience/chaos column.
This is a weekly column consisting of letters to my perspicacious progeny. I write letters to my grandkids — the Stickies — eventual selves to advise them and haunt them after they've become grups and/or I'm deleted. Best perused on a screen large enough for even your parents to see and navigate easily.
Trigger Warning: This column is rated SSC — Sexy Seasoned Citizens — Perusal by kids, callowyutes, or grups may result in a debilitating meltdown.
"The forces of safety are afoot in the land. I, for one, believe it is a conspiracy...the safety Nazis advocate gun control, vigorous exercise, and health food." -P.J. O'Rourke
Dear (eventual) Grandstickies and Great-Grandstickies (and Gentlereaders),
{Not really. You wrote about The Fedrl Gummits corrupt ethanol policy. A policy that can't be changed because the corruption is endorsed by both teams, is legal (technically if not ethically), and called it a conspiracy of convenience. That's not really...}
Po-tay-toh, po-tah-toh. I clearly stated, and continue to maintain, that most so-called conspiracies are merely conspiracies of convenience. To which I would add, and/or chaos. More on that anon.
{That's what they want you to think!}
Alrighty then, Dana.
John Durham, gentleperson, is one of those exceptions that prove the rule. That is to say, although his long career as a respected prosecutor includes various stints in the Swamp, he's never gone native and become a Swamp Creature. In fact, at the moment, he's wading through the muck and mire of Washington D.C. in search of truth, and not for the first time.
{Who?}
A career prosecutor that looks so intimidating that if he were investigating me I'd confess to having been a drug dealer for about an hour in the late seventies.
{What?!?}
Suffice it to say, being a pothead on a shelf stocker's salary wasn't easy. I got the brilliant idea to become a small-time dealer and sell just enough of the Devil's Weed to make it possible to supply myself with free product.
I launched my new venture by going to a friend's party and offering (with his permission) to enhance any given party-goer's experience via the purchase of a small amount of Mother Nature's finest. After an hour or so of some very interesting conversational encounters, I declared my new business bankrupt.
I secured permission from my buddy to take a quick shower and spent the rest of the evening fending off friends and perfect strangers who kept asking, "Are you the guy that..." by replying, "Nope, not me, I think he left."
I woke up the next morning — carefully uncoiled my cramped body that had managed to fit itself into a tiny loveseat by apparently accepting that it was okay for my head to be propped up at an unnatural and potentially dangerous angle — and, as usual, made it to work on time. Ah, the good old days.
{Right... And who's John Durham?}
John Durham was a highly respected career prosecutor considered kosher by both Team Red and Team Blue till former Attorney William Bar appointed him in 2018 to look into who did what back in 2016 that led to the FBI investigating the Donald and company to see if they were colluding with the Pooteen and company.
Mr. Durham is still on the job and has since indicted a Democratic party lawyer, Michael Sussman, for allegedly lying to the FBI when they were investigating what happened. This is why Mr. Durham has fallen out of favor with the Blue team.
Durham and Sussman were both recently in the news when Durham filed a report that...
<THIS SPACE DELIBERATELY LEFT BLANK>
Actually, technically, I should've written this space deliberately deleted or, at this point this column was nearly abandoned.
See, I originally made repeated attempts to explain why the report filed by Durham was — but hopefully is no longer — a RBFD by the time you read this. Team Red made some controversial deductions and went nuts.
Team Blue, as is their wont, ignored it till they didn't/couldn't because Team Red was getting too much attention from Joe and Joan Bagadonuts, and they went nuts.
Being a semi-conscientious, community-minded columnist, I read multiple news reports and scoured other sources with the idea that I would eventually arrive at a carefully reasoned position and pass it along to my gentlereaders.
{You're my hero.}
There's no need for sarcasm, I'm just a wanna-be well-known (but reclusive) nationally recognized cultural commentator but...
{Whatever. Why did you abandon ship mid-voyage?}
A revelation dawned, the conspiracies of chaos referenced in the subtitle of this column.
I continue to maintain that most so-called conspiracies are conspiracies of convenience, by which I mean the players become involved because of a mutual interest in an opportunity that comes along that involves power/money/sex/all of the above, etc.
{Yeah, but there could still be a Dr. Evil type behind the scenes.}
Absabalutely, but what happens when there are so many players, and the alleged conspiracy is so complex, and there are so many third parties weighing in because the information age makes it possible to do so, that getting to the bottom of something becomes virtually impossible?
A conspiracy of chaos. The information age is also the golden age of propaganda, and given how easy it is to exploit that phenomenon for fun and profit, what's a "user" to do?
{Geesh, fact-checkers, obviously.}
There's no need for yet more sarcasm...
{There's always room for Jello (or a suitable substitute), sarcasm, and proverbs: The more things change the more they stay the same.}
Poppa loves you,
Have an OK day
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