— by Odysseus
The national media has been breathlessly reporting that “bombs were delivered to major Democrat members and media figures”. However, once again, we here at The Cassandra Times have to correct the so-called “conventional wisdom” and assume the job of informing our readers of the real story that the national media and ruling elites are cloaking from view.
What the authorities and the infotainment media are NOT telling the American people is that the “bombs” are jokes. Literally. They are obviously intended as pranks. It is slowly leaking out from non-mainstream news sources that the devices are not bombs at all. They have no propellant or explosive charge within them that can actually cause an explosion.
Further, the packages contain a label that clearly indicates that they are intended as a “practical joke”. The label mimics and ridicules the ISIS logo. It is actually composed of silhouettes of nude women in various poses, similar to the type seen on truck mudflaps, which resemble the Arabic script characters on the ISIS flag. In the white circle below the silhouettes, there are letters in English that resemble Arabic script. They spell out “GET ‘ER DONE”, quoting the famous comedian “Larry the Cable Guy”.
The mailings are an obvious “prank” or “practical joke”. The inclusion of a message containing levity, together with a factually innocuous package, shows that the maker did not intend for the “fear” to last very long or to generate more than annoyance. There have been many “practical joke” television shows in the United States and many other countries. Some of these television shows, including “Candid Camera” and Tracy Morgan’s “Scare Tactics”, became quite famous for depicting people becoming genuinely frightened, only to have the gag revealed afterwards.
Now, it is true what is a “prank” or “practical joke” to one person can still be crime against other people. The law books are full of cases where someone is seriously injured by what was intended to by the jokester to be a “prank” or a “joke”. This is likely the case here. Although the jokester may have intended the fake bombs to serve as an elaborate gag, he or she will, nonetheless, be prosecuted to the hilt, convicted, and harshly punished for a crime akin to the manufacture of simulated explosive devices, and/or making terroristic threats.
The critical point here is that law enforcement authorities and the mainstream media are concealing this vital information from the American public. Their purpose is to serve its own institutional interests and advance the leftist agenda, not to keep the public well informed. All of the recipients of the so-called bombs and the authorities knew from the start that there was never a national security threat. They knew that these duds were no more than a bad joke, made in very poor taste.
Since the hysteria is fake, the real scandal is that the elites are hiding essential facts from the public. The elite masterminds will not let the public know this because they want the public to believe that prominent leftists are being targeted by right-wing terrorists. They seek to portray leftists as sympathetic victims and to whip up mass hysteria against Donald Trump and other Republicans.
In another era with minimal fake news and breathless “clickbait” reporting, one can imagine a sober, responsible journalist truthfully reporting that gag bombs were sent to all various leftist celebrities, which, in reality, is what the targets are. Such imaginary sober and responsible journalist would also reassure the public that these were fake. That journalist would rightly condemn the perpetrator for poor taste, the waste of resources caused, and inform everyone that, although there was no danger, this was still a crime for which the perpetrator will be punished when found.
Unfortunately, we have no such responsible journalists today and law enforcement authorities are just as irresponsible. Herein lies the true scandal. Law enforcement and government authorities are now in the habit of hoarding information to themselves for ideological reasons. They claim that they cannot release the details, because it “would hamper the investigation”.This canard has become an excuse for totalitarianism.
Democracy cannot function when the critical information necessary to make informed decisions is withheld from the voters. Whether it is the nature of these prank bombs or the actual identities and motivations of real terrorists, the authorities like to conceal what they find “inconvenient”. The cult of official secrecy and “need to know” is killing our republic. The public no longer believes the media or our national information organs because of exactly the strategic dissemination of half-truths over the past decades. The media has proven and continues to prove itself untrustworthy. Half-truths, tailored to mislead the audience to generate a desired reaction are lies. Everyone knows this, except the rule-book worshiping elites.
As the leftist media tries to whip the public into a hysterical frenzy over something they know is not only harmless, but intended as poor joke, is an obvious manipulation. It is typical of their usual hysterical overreaction to anything said or done by their hated enemies, which consists of anyone who disagrees with them. This is all part of a pattern of exaggeration and faux outrage that is now the left’s single greatest yet overused tool. The silence and “information hoarding” by officials aids and abets the deception.
Responsible elites would quickly let the public know that, although the bombs were not a genuine threat, that, nonetheless, law enforcement officers would pursue and punish the responsible party or parties for the irresponsible act. Rather, it is the irresponsible elites, who knowingly capitalize on every statement or event to push an ideological agenda, while concealing the events’ true essence.
Turning a prank in poor taste into a crisis “equivalent to the assassination of Lincoln” is why the thinking public now holds both the media and the politicized law enforcement agencies in contempt. They are composed of the same leftists in the media who excused and still want to excuse former President Bill Clinton’s with laughable debates on the meaning of the word ‘is’ and pretend that his oral sex with Monica Lewinsky was not sex for purposes of avoiding answering uncomfortable questions.
The same media elites cynically seized upon Donald Trump’s joke about the mysterious disappearance of 30,000 e-mails on Hillary Clinton’s illegal computer server. When he jokingly asked the Russians if they knew what was on the server, since obviously US agencies were incapable of finding out, this laugh line morphed into “Russian collusion” narrative, when peddled by the hysterical, self-important media elites and leftist leadership. Donald Trump was elected because the elites in this country have squandered their credibility.
Forthrightness and honesty now seem to be concepts wholly beyond the capabilities of our elites. They have lost the ability to publicly address the essence of any situation or event without inserting their bias, preferring instead to resort to obfuscation and weaseling. Likening a stupid prank to an assassination — all while soft pedaling actual violence, such as street mobs, violent personal attacks on legislators, and property damage — is even worse than bias, it is deception. They have shouted “wolf” so often that the public is rightly no longer listening.
We here at The Cassandra Times hope that, when it is revealed that the authorities knew the so-called bombs to be pranks, yet spent hours and days of hysterical reporting to fan the flames of hysteria, there will be a public backlash. We hope that the media elites will exposed and rendered irrelevant and that their latest deception by omission will be the point at which the public outcry will be loud enough to encourage a newfound effort at honesty, openness, forthrightness, and responsible reporting, not just by the media elites, but by our governmental authorities as well.
It was the lack of credibility that eventually collapsed the Soviet Union, not force of arms. That lesson should be heeded.