Today, Instapundit points to a Mark Steyn piece written back in 2005 that details a meeting between 9/11 terrorist Mohammed Atta and a US bureaucrat, Johnelle Bryant, over a year earlier (in 2000). I remember reading this at the time and had completely forgotten about this exchange, but it has great relevance to how we got to where we are today.
Johnelle was woke before woke was cool…and under George W. Bush no less, the staunchly staunch, hard core conservative president who just wanted to kill grandma with tax breaks.
The gospel according to Mark goes thusly:
“Ms Bryant is an official with the US department of agriculture in Florida, and the late Mr Atta had gone to see her about getting a $650,000 government loan to convert a plane into the world's largest crop-duster. A novel idea.
The meeting got off to a rocky start when Mr Atta refused to deal with Ms Bryant because she was "but a woman". But, after this unpleasantness had been smoothed out, things went swimmingly.
When it was explained to him that, alas, he wouldn't get the 650 grand in cash that day, Mr Atta threatened to cut Ms Bryant's throat. He then pointed to a picture behind her desk showing an aerial view of downtown Washington - the White House, the Pentagon, etc - and asked, "How would America like it if another country destroyed that city and some of the monuments in it?"
Fortunately, Ms Bryant had been on the training course and knows an opportunity for multicultural outreach when she sees one. "I felt that he was trying to make the cultural leap from the country that he came from," she recalled. "I was attempting, in every manner I could, to help him make his relocation into our country as easy for him as I could."
So a few weeks later, when fellow 9/11 terrorist Marwan al-Shehhi arrived to request another half-million dollar farm subsidy and Mr Atta showed up cunningly disguised in a pair of glasses and claiming to be another person entirely (to whit, Mr al-Shehhi's "accountant"), Ms Bryant sportingly pretended not to recognise him and went along with the wheeze.
The fake specs, like the threat to slit her throat and blow up the Pentagon, were just another example of the multicultural diversity that so enriches our society.”
And this was 2005, way before America became Wokestan. We have had 16 years to perfect our societal insanity, largely based on the complete denial of reality.
This meeting is such a perfect illustration of where we are today, living in complete denial of reality even as it punches us right in the kisser. Our contemporary society could be accurately described as having the “Black Knight Syndrome, named, of course, for the Black Knight in Monty Python’s “Quest for the Holy Grail”.
ARTHUR: Eh. You are indeed brave, Sir Knight, but the fight is mine.
BLACK KNIGHT: Oh, had enough, eh?
ARTHUR: Look, you stupid bastard. You've got no arms left.
BLACK KNIGHT: Yes, I have.
ARTHUR: Look!
BLACK KNIGHT: Just a flesh wound.
For the past 16 years, much of the Western world has behaved like Johnelle Bryant. Illegal immigration goes out of control – Kamala Harris flies over the Texas/Mexico border to Guatemala to find out what America is doing wrong since her boss ended all of President Trump’s effective policies. Looking for root causes, she says. America is racist, they say – what do we have to do to get forgiveness for the sin of slavery that was eliminated a century and a half ago (the answer is that we will never be allowed forgiveness because nothing is enough). Attack out public spaces or set off bombs, and we agonize over the "root causes" (What DID we did wrong?). The demand for navel gazing hand wringing far exceeds the supply of actual substantial wrongs, so America, being the entrepreneurial nation it is, finds ways to manufacture outrage, fresh every day.
Imagine, if you will *said in my best Rod Serling/Twilight Zone voice*, a discussion between you, as a rational, realistic being, and the Black Knight, a figure not bound by reason or natural law. Now imagine Sir Knight is overseeing border enforcement, foreign policy, the Federal treasury, a mayor of a major metropolitan area or the chair of a state school board.
Hahahahahahaha!
The joke is on you!
That was a trick proposition – because the spirit of the Black Knight is alive and well in almost every major city in the United States and government entity in the US! They are easy to spot, they will be the ones with a “D” after their names if they are elected or appointed, or otherwise they can be easily spotted due to the contrast between the terribly serious expressions on their faces as the cartoon bubbles form above their heads and are filled with their absurd words. They are the ones who have all their limbs severed from their bodies while lamenting tis but a flesh wound.
But they are not really looking for what THEY did wrong, per se, they are looking for what YOU did wrong. Their fault lies in that they did not correct your wrongness in time.
This is the rot endemic to postmodernism and progressivism.
The Black Knight rules.