Routine 12

I've seen 'em come and I've seen 'em go

When I was young I used to wonder at people who had unquestioned expertise in some area but then, at a later stage in life, stopped paying attention to new developments in it. I usually observed this among older people who knew about stuff on which I was mad keen, like movies, theater, and music. I wanted to know everything, and I found these guys were pretty good on old stuff, but not so much on what was then current, and sometimes not even on the recent past.

Well, I have become that person as far as those subjects go. Neuroscience has some opinions as to why this may be so, at least with music, which may explain why I’ll hear a new tune sometimes and go “awesome, gotta remember that” and then totally not remember that. I would also consider as reasons the paucity of time and attention that comes with increased responsibilities, and cerebral atrophy. Or it could just be the old person’s prerogative, exercised by the subconscious mind: Can’t be bothered.

It’s a little different with this rightwing propaganda thing I’ve been following for many years, though. On that I actually do keep up pretty well. But some things I miss. Sometimes I’ll be introduced to some foment or fad that I had little or no idea about before but which apparently has been coursing through the wingnut bloodstream for a while.

But I don’t sweat it. In these cases, it usually turns out that I already knew enough, thanks. That is, while the specific subject may be new, it’s really just a new face on an old routine.

Take this thing about eating bugs, for example, and how liberals or elites or Soros or whoever want to make simple sons o’ the sod do it. Examples:

I was never gonna sit there watching this shit, but I had noticed it out my side-view. I had never let it distract me, though, till someone pushed this Michael Schellenberger guy into my Twitter feed:

The idea that someone is trying to get people to eat bugs is apparently a big part of his shtick. But the thing that got me was, the source material to which he refers very plainly does not say what he characterizes it as saying:

The source is very clearly talking about how attitudes about what animals make desirable food sources can differ among cultures and eras, not about a desire to make the peons eat bugs.

And though the specific insanity was new to me, I recognized right away the thinking behind it: That to accept or understand ways of life that are different from one’s own is an intolerable violation — tantamount, nay, the very same as being forced to live that way oneself — even to eat bugs!  

I had to say something, and a bunch of nudniks came in and responded with a lot of other gibberish to the same effect, e.g. “They are trying to guilt and shame people into eating bugs because if you don’t eat them then you don’t care about climate change” and even “No, they just say it is racist if you don’t want to eat bugs.”

None of them could give any examples, though. It was all a fantasy.

This is why I sometimes mention in my posts the old Bowery Boys’ bit in which, when gangsters or Nazi spies have them cornered, they suddenly bust into rehearsed attack plans, a la “OK, boys, Routine 12!” (If you don’t remember this from the original two-reelers, it’s also at 5:49 in the SCTV pastiche “The Bowery Boys in the Band.”)

See, after a while, one begins to recognize patterns in rightwing propaganda that don’t really vary from season to season, even if the specific casus bellow does. You see something very like the “reasoning” in the Eat Bugs thing in, for example, the old Daily Caller article “Liberals want to stop men from checking out women,” or the dozens of stories built on the premise “Liberals are the Real Racists,” or in the ravings of Victor Davis Hanson about how America has been unwillingly forced to worship Jay-Z and Beyonce.

Like the bugs thing, these are also about liberals who somehow have a Shadow-like Power to Cloud Men’s Minds, and with it the power to steer red-blooded American boys away from an interest in women’s bodies, or to convince black people to vote overwhelmingly for Democrats even though it’s the Republicans who really have their best interests at heart, or to like popular music stars of whom Victor Davis Hanson does not approve.

It is, in short, a Routine — which sometimes gets a new subject, but otherwise stays the same year after year after year. So when I don’t catch up with every new rightwing thing as it comes out of the chute, I don’t feel like I’m missing much. And, come to think of it, maybe that’s how the old-timers I knew as a youngster felt about the new jacks, too.