MONOLOGUE WRITTEN BY CLYDE LEWIS

We come into the world as a tiny new baby and instantly start making choices. We choose who to trust; counting on people to love us, helping us to grow and be strong in the world.

Life can be harsh, even horrible, but the choices you make about how you’ll live your life is critical. Either you’ll choose to live as a hero — someone who perseveres, moves forward through any physical and mental tests or you’ll live as a victim, blaming the world for your troubles.

Certainly, there are real victims who have no control over their circumstances. We hear about victims of war, earthquakes, rape, attempted murder, people that are abused and born into extreme poverty.

Most people have full lives and everyday things happen. You wake up, you work or play or meet up with friends. You have lunch. Your three o’clock cocktail, your caffeine crash, the overall routine.

Most people get through their days hoping to avoid drama in their lives. Other people draw it to them and they are addicted to it like a drug.

There are those who have successes and failures, troubles and happiness, obstacles to overcome and things to celebrate. One minute you’re on top of the world because you won money from a scratch ticket, and the next you’re cursing because your email was hacked.

This is life.

We have been seeing a great deal of worldwide crises. Every time we hear of a volcano erupting, or an earthquake, or even bad weather, we have a tendency to lie to ourselves that there has to be someone responsible for these anomalies. I would love to reiterate that history and future tense potential gives us the major kick in the head that forces us to confront the idea that we are heading for what is being called, the Sixth Extinction.

The environment is damaged, or it is adapting to some other “normal” that we are contending with now. We are seeing global upheavals, unexplained animal deaths and human behavior that is quite destructive.

It appears that the consensus is not united and that through their division and discontent are seeking a suicidal end to what we have cherished. We may have the fight in us to protest, resist, scream and shout, but that is what happens before the final blow silences the screams of those who are in pain.

Einstein warned us that crisis is the pretext for extinction. Every crisis that we try to over analyze, every terrorist event that we develop new theories for is tantalizing mental masturbation, but it does nothing to help us overcome and get beyond our collective victimhood.

There is a strange phenomenon happening in America. For the longest time, we have seen people excelling in using their victimhood as currency. It does nothing to benefit society.

People have always been victimized by some sort of trauma, but now it becomes an everyday “crisis in the now” and it is now personified as Jussie Smollett has become the poster child for those who wish to use victimhood as a political tool and for some sort of personal gain.

The technocrats are saying now that people have long thought of human development as one long process of improvement, going on forever. But we are now running up against the limits of how good we can be, and most likely we’ll now just begin to fall again, become cynical again and lose trust in those that have been time and time again cried wolf.

I guess that is pretty bleak – just when you thought we were improving our lives, embracing diversity and trying to unite – there are groups that have been organized that wish to claim victimhood and it seems that we pay more attention to the victims of the world rather than the heroes who are always there to help.

This is what we are – a country that consists of manufactured villains and now we see that it is okay to manufacture victimhood.

I got to thinking about all this when at breakfast I was overhearing a conversation about Jussie Smollett at the table across from me.

I heard someone say “Why would someone make up a story about that?”

It is as if we are so baffled over why this would happen. I have said before that we have lost our social cohesion and that we are seriously in trouble because we tend to praise failure and give more than enough attention to people who play the victim and organize political groups to wage war against some imaginary oppression.

Jussie Smollett’s hoax is symptomatic of America’s illness. Because of the mainstreaming of academia’s victimhood culture, we are now in a place where we place more value on being a victim than on being heroic, charitable, or even kind. Victims or victim groups high on intersectionality points are supposed to be coveted, treated with kid gloves, and believed unreservedly. Their “lived experience” gives them infinite wisdom. Those who urge caution are treated as bigots.

Outside of the rare prosecution for faking a hate crime, the incentives for being a victim — real or imagined — are endless.

Anyone not blinded by bias or panic should have been skeptical of Smollett’s story from the beginning. He openly harbors an intense hatred for Donald Trump and his supporters, going so far as comparing them to Klansmen. That his alleged attackers perfectly fit this description should have raised eyebrows across the political spectrum. The cartoony, screenplay-villain portrayal of white Trump supporters was outrageously comical. But to insulated urban progressives who have little to no experience interacting with conservatives, a Trump supporter may as well be synonymous with evil.

The frustrating part is that in the past when I would point this out I was criticized as being a champion of Trump policies and behaviors.

I once had a conversation with Dana Loesch about this problem. I said that when I point out that we seem to enshrine victimhood in this country – those who seem to lean liberal feel guilty and attack me saying “How else are we supposed to feel in Trump’s America?”

Dana wondered why because she told me that it is well known that I bow out of taking a political side.

However,I have always seen myself as a fiscal conservative and a social liberal, meaning that I do have issues of concern that I believe should not be judged politically but I cannot escape the political gaslighting that goes on in this country and the attitude that if you show discernment of skepticism for any manufactured side – you will regret it.

The other night I was explaining that the media has created a schism in this country by reporting confusing stories that are meant to force people into demanding more information.

It is a way to string us along – and usually the pay off really does not give us anything to edify our sense of wellbeing.

We always seem to be in a state of learned helplessness and feel a sense of loss.

This is a sickness – and it is being encouraged – it is with this encouragement we get Jussie Smollett.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-MzlDcUtvs

I am sure that the real reason why Smollett did what he did was that he thought his alleged attack would help change the world. That he could use his victimhood as a tool to illustrate that this country led under Donald Trump is inherently racist, sexist and xenophobic. While Smollett was the architect of his own hoax, many on the Left have tolerated being the target of this kind of hoax because it’s “worth it” in order to highlight the bigger societal issues.

This is wrong on many levels, not least because the increasing number of these kinds of hoaxes serves to cast preemptive doubt on the legitimate claims of real victims of real hate crimes.

What is most ironic about this is that the spotlight over hate and victimhood took precedent over the announcement that the Trump administration is actually launching a global campaign to end the criminalization of homosexuality in dozens of nations where it’s still illegal to be gay. In another irony, this campaign was launched after the administration got wind of the hanging of a young gay man in Iran.

The irony here is that Jussie Smollett claimed that he was attacked by two white men wearing MAGA hats shouting racial and gay slurs and tying a noose around his neck.

Peculiar in how it mirrors the reason why The Trump administration made this move in the first place.

U.S. Ambassador to Germany, Richard Grenell, the highest-profile openly gay person in the Trump administration, is leading the effort, which kicks off in Berlin. The U.S. embassy is flying in LGBTQ activists from across Europe for a strategy dinner to plan to push for decriminalization in places that still outlaw homosexuality — mostly concentrated in the Middle East, Africa and the Caribbean.

It is also interesting to note that Smollett’s story gained all kinds of attention after the Covington narrative fell apart.

There was a rush to judgment from the media in that case as it was reported that a young boy named Nick Sandmann, who donned a MAGA cap was accused of mocking Native American, Nathan Phillip at a Washington DC rally.

The footage, which went viral on the internet, led to widespread criticism of the boys.

However, additional video footage provided further details of the incident which exonerated the boys from any misconduct. It was a case of disingenuous exploitation to fit an agenda.

Once again it was manipulated to demonstrate how in MAGA country people who support Trump are disrespectful inherently racist, sexist and xenophobic.

Also, the Smollett hoax has distracted us from yet another story that paints conservative America as violent and radical.

A self-proclaimed white nationalist planned a mass terrorist attack, where his targets were left-leaning politicians and left-leaning news reporters at CNN and MSNBC.

I have to admit that even this story makes me suspicious.

Christopher Paul Hasson, a U.S. Coast Guard lieutenant and self-identified white nationalist was arrested after federal investigators uncovered a cache of weapons and ammunition in his Maryland home that authorities say he stockpiled to launch a widespread domestic terrorist attack targeting politicians and journalists.

This case sounds a lot like the foiled pipe bomb attack that happened last October.

If you remember, suspicious packages allegedly containing pipe bombs were sent to the Clintons, the Obamas, and to CNN’s offices in New York. This happened a day after George Soros had a suspected explosive device put in his mailbox.

This was also blamed on the Trump administration as resistance mouthpieces saw this as an attempted attack on those who opposed Trump.

A Florida man was arrested as a suspect in the attempted bombings.

57-year-old Cesar Sayoc was found in a van that had blackened windows littered with stickers attacking the media, including one ripping the “dishonest media” along with a disparaging comment about CNN.

Again, the so-called stickers looked like posters that were manufactured, the slogans looked fresh with no fading from being exposed to the sun – and the question was how is it that the van having stickers on all of the windows did not draw attention to the vehicle as it would be unsafe to drive.

The pipe bombs that were featured on CNN did not even look like bombs—they looked like props and each one had a fake Al-Qaeda sticker on them that said “False Flag.”

That story has long been forgotten in our attention deficit democracy.

However, the media continues to lap these stories up as another sign of how Trump has turned America into a country running rampant with radical conservatives that wish to destroy America.

It is the lack of objectivity that has opened the door for all of these over the top false flag stories.

The fact that most of the mainstream media appear to be as ideologically blinded and driven as the perpetrators of these hoaxes, and unquestioningly disseminates them far and wide, merely provides motivation for more people to fabricate similar stories.

In the Smollett case, we cannot ignore that the Democratic establishment drummed up unquestionable support for his story.

Those who tweeted in his support include Kamala Harris, Adam Schiff, Corey Booker, and Nancy Pelosi – a veritable who’s who of Democrat politicians. Hollywood liberals also took to Twitter to denounce the attack.

This has undoubtedly raised red flags and speculation that perhaps this hoax was planned through deeper channels that lead back to those who gave their undying support.

The Smollett affair now has spun a conspiracy theory about how the botched attack, the Covington case, and Christopher Hasson decapitation plan were all Deep State operations to start a race war in America.

There seems to be a body of thought that in the spring we will be seeing more subversive plots that will be engaged after the Mueller probe is over. If the report is found to be inconclusive or indicates that there was no collusion there may be even further uprisings and those who are vigilant are told to be prepared for the consequences of either outcome.

It is inevitable because the establishment media’s handling of all Russia stories is equally rife with pandering to biases and self-righteous signaling of patriotic virtue.

Again, whichever way the pendulum swings, there will be the sinking feeling that we have all been fooled by some subversive plot to destroy our country.

If Jussie Smollett was part of some subversive plot, this would mean that the whole affair is a well-crafted psy-op and it would mean that Smollett is a crisis actor who was used as a pawn and will eventually be molded into victimhood as he is already claiming that he was an underpaid ecstasy addict.

This may reduce his sentence – if it does, then this will certainly prove there is some truth to this being an organized attack which went horribly wrong.

It seems that this will not stop the media and the Hollywood left from instinctively supporting those who scream victim and dismiss those who have doubts as mean spirited, or bigoted.

There will be and always be those in power that will claim that there rampant hate In America and use victimhood as a form of currency.

At this time, it is sad to think that victims of real hate crime will be more likely to have their claims met with cynicism or dismissed outright.

We know that the divide in this country will not abate any time soon and race relations in this country are never going to be perfect.

However, one would hope that this would be a lesson to be learned.

We should learn that emotion seems to always get in the way of what is right and what is truth. We should not let emotional biases dictate what is truth.

The media, celebrities, and politicians who supported Smollett did so for the simple reason: Smollett’s story confirmed all of their biases regarding Trump supporters, who they believe are racist homophobes and gave them the opportunity to signal their virtue and espouse their moral superiority.

However, it was also a poor choice for the conservative media to seize on the hoax story in a spate of one-upmanship that also looked like an act of moral superiority.

This should be a lesson in how we should stop assuming that America is a hate-filled wasteland and that both political parties are diving people to do stupid things.

Confirmation bias is very addictive — when you are a puppet sharing the stage with a Pinocchio whose nose is growing in the political theater of the ugly.

This sort of indulging in one’s biases and signaling one’s virtue is epidemic in America and a big reason for that is social media. Social media is built to be a personalized echo chamber that triggers emotion and shortcuts reason and encourages a solidifying of instantaneous emotional reaction into permanent and intractable belief.

Sadly, the idea of America being overtly racist and bigoted gives people an opportunity to always say they are being put upon and this has become big business and an opportunity to create subversive collectives.

Hate-crime hoaxes are found in collective conflicts and they breed scapegoats that are hidden it what can be called the manufactured “other.”

How can anyone have a cause without naming a villain to fight against?

Smollett, if found guilty and it appears that he is, should be made an example and should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

If it is not done, every collective with a victimhood complex will valorize victimhood and make heroes out of liars that make a manufactured struggle look more attractive to a public who are addicted to confusion and outrage.

Written by Ron Patton