Fake News vehicle to power

"Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you."
- Friedrich Nietzche

In her recent Washington post essay, ("I doubted Jussie Smollett. It breaks my heart that I might be right.") Nana Efua Mumford actually bemoaned the possibility that a "hate crime" may not have been perpetrated against the Empire actor.

"I wanted to believe Smollett," Mumford wrote. She effectively admitted she shared the knee-jerk bias so common in  DemocratWorld. "I really did. I know that there is a deep, dark racist history in Chicago, and, if proved true, this would be just one more point on the list. I wanted to believe him with every fiber of my being, most of all because the consequences if he were lying were almost too awful to contemplate."

Mumford cited a "racist history in Chicago," as if that extended to and made likely contemporary assertions. Remember, that which is plausible is not necessarily actual.

Chicago has for decades been under Democrat control, and many black Democrat politicians have enjoyed success in that crime-ridden city. But never mind all that. Republican racism!

According to her bio, Mumford is an executive assistant to the editorial board of the Jeff Bezos-owned, Democrat Party-megaphone Washington Post. Nowhere in the piece did she apologize for the media's howling lack of objectivity, or for cavalierly deepening existent racial and political divisions.  

Instead, she worried that the public would judge the press accurately.

"The incident would be touted as proof that there is a leftist conspiracy to cast Trump supporters as violent, murderous racists. It would be the very embodiment of 'fake news.' "

Mumford later cautioned that potential exposure of possible Smollett fakery might hinder receptiveness to future such allegations offered by others.

"And that reason, more than any other, is why I need this story to be true, despite its ugliness and despite what it would say about the danger of the world I live in."

Think about her words. She would prefer that a heinous crime had taken place -- that her bias be confirmed -- than conclude the hateful incident never truly occurred, and the world be that much better. 

She and like-minded sorts would rather negatives exist, than not. They need to reflect that, if their worldview depends for confirmation on a television actor's dubious scene scripting, it is of suspect soundness. 

Often, when ultimately caught out, perpetrators of hate crime hoaxes defend their dishonesty with the claim that they'd intended to focus public attention on a supposedly widespread phenomenon. 

Were there truly an ongoing national epidemic of such crimes, of course, there would be no need to stage attention-getting mock ups; the real thing would already be in front of us.

And, were they sincere, politicians, journalists, and fundraising behemoths like the Southern Poverty Law Center and NAACP would cheer the increasing disappearance of hate groups. Instead, they churn without cessation hyperventilated fundraising missives that shriek melodramatically of largely imagined menaces.

Why do they do that? 

Probably because it is a tactic by which power can be got. That also explains their rush to demonize Judge (now Justice) Brett Kavanaugh and the Covington Catholic School kids. Certain execrable actors are eager to advocate anything in opposition to President Trump, his patriotic supporters, and America's character. 

I have no idea why Jussie Smollett apparently staged his own attack. But I do know why his chimerical account was immediately, uncritically embraced by scheming supporters like Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Nancy Pelosi, Washington Post essayist Mumford, television producer Ana Duvernay, the entire Empire team, and pretty much any mainstream press outlet that can be cited.

For each, influence was the reward that beckoned. The public interest in truth and social peace be damned.