Scapegoats, Part One

Oh, what a story:

A single moment. Mayhap, the only one. Ever. Very bad agents, agents of greed and dominion, in roots abounding. Poised, crystalline. Poised to steal away the future.

A man in a white hat comes. Cool, collected, a new kind of cop. Not just law and order, this guy. Not just the savoir faire. He loves us, fatherly, brotherly. He wraps us up in his arms. Sweet deliverance. He comes armed with a new world entire, hauling it around on his back. The burden of it, the burden of the history he must overcome. With our help, he rides in. We made it possible. We chose him. Picked him to hold out against the evil ones. We vanguarded the vanguard, and now it's His Time.

Time to make historical historicality.

Time to box the paradigm and break it, this man riding in.

But he needs help. He's no lone gunman, this new savior brother. He's too smart for that. Too smart for the mistakes of his predecessors. He looks back over his shoulder, sees the sins of those who went before.

The empire mismanaged. The treasure rooms empty. The bankers in sackcloth and the oilmen crying.

Someone has to take the blame. Someone plays the enemy.

He's got allies, faithful friends. Their demands, their price for compliance - nothing. Feather light. So easy, so easy to bear. He's got bigger burdens. Don't we all know it.

Really, we better know it. He's a master in eleven dimensions. A rabbi told us so. Catholic school girls run their eyeliner, a fawning princess believes so fervently, and history turns on this moment. The man of peace, awarded, his rockets red glare washed in the glow of nobel nobility. Those broken bodies, virgin sacrifices on the rooftop altar of the world, making way for the potential of his hope for peace.

His allies gather, identifying enemies.

They assemble to level blame in sheets and waves of invocation, naming them aloud, in print, in prophetic declarations. Imagined future crimes, prevented. We're so grateful, we could just self-defenestrate.

The filthy enemy ensnared, forced to run the rabbit race.

And on the other side, sweet suffering justified. Deliverance, and the enemy on the run, muttering words of madness, their ersatz queen in erstwhile chains of her own deceitful devising.

What a story, what a wonderful story.

Told with all the passion of a  master crafted lie.