Fear of Facts

There's a concept called suspension of disbelief. It describes a willing hold in the use of one's logical faculties so that one may enjoy a work of fiction. It's suspension of disbelief that allows us to watch Mary Poppins or Superman or Harry Potter fly about onscreen, without bursting into incredulous laughter. Suspension of disbelief allows us to accept the idea that the Terminator has come from the future, that Marty McFly has gone to the past, that Captain Kirk can beam down to a planet, or that the Robinsons would allow Doctor Smith, who they know tried to murder them, to baby-sit their son. In our effort to get our money's worth of entertainment, we are even willing to suspend disbelief long enough to accept that Madonna can sing, or David Schwimmer can act.

Suspension of disbelief is a flimsy state at best. That's why it's so annoying to sit in a movie next to someone who keeps whispering, Look, you can see the wires! or Wow, the CGI effects are incredible! or That's not really Jake Gyllenhaal; it's a body double. Such comments are jolting, because they take us out of the world of the story—the world we paid to be in—and into the world of the theatre, where we are staring at mere shadows projected on a screen.

As a nation, we are currently living in a shadow world where suspension of disbelief is the only ticket in. In this world, Muslim terrorists attacked the United States in 2001, leading to a justified war on terror and invasion of two sovereign nations to prevent their attacking us with weapons of mass destruction. Leading us in this fight is the brave and noble George W. Bush, winner of two elections and possessor of a mandate to right wrongs and bring safety to the American people, in spite of the best efforts of liberal scum to thwart him.

But the alleged attackers were Saudis, not Afghanis or Iraqis! Besides, what about the evidence that Dick Cheney planned the whole thing back in the 1990s when he was with PNAC, and the fact that NORAD mysteriously ignored all four hijackings until it was too late?

Hush! I'm trying to watch the show!

Look! You can see the way Democratic voters in Florida and Ohio were denied the vote, and the Diebold paperless voting machines generated enough spurious Republican votes to steal the election!

Will you be quiet?

Good grief, Bush himself was AWOL instead of in Viet Nam. He's never had to face battle, and now has sent 2,249 men to their deaths, 2,112 of them since he claimed 'Mission Accomplished'—and now there's more terrorists than ever!

Shut up, already! This is the important 'State of the Union' scene.

There is a lot of puzzlement on the part of liberals and other anti-war folks as to why, how, the Busheviks can still support this man who occupies the White House by coup, who lies so compulsively that even his names for bills deceive. (The Clean Air act allows corporations to dirty the air; the No Child Left Behind legislation takes money that could be used for teachers and sends it instead to publishers who supported the Bush campaign.)

I believe it is because the Busheviks have suspended disbelief so they won't feel cheated. They've spent a lifetime supporting conservative causes and they believe they've finally gotten a conservative into the White House. Now, no matter what he does, they have to play along. So they call war hero Murtha a coward for criticizing the war; demonize the Veterans for Peace for daring to plant crosses honoring the American dead on some California beaches; and make fun of Specialist Casey Sheehan's mother for publicly mourning his death in Iraq, as well as the deaths of every other mother's son in a war waged only to bring profit to a few corporate pals of the Bush administration.

But Bush isn't a conservative! He's an alcoholic, cocaine-addicted, pet goat reading, war-mongering slacker who's spent more government money than the most liberal President ever to occupy the White House!

SHUT UP! I am trying to watch the show. One more fact out of you, and I am going to jam this tub of popcorn up your ass. I swear it.