I’m glad this movie is on its way. Ever since Gran Torino I’ve known Clint Eastwood is the go to guy for a real movie. He makes movies that are more. They’re better. Whatever Hollywood might have been (if anything), it’s just a shell now. It can’t do anything more than excrete an endless litany of whiny propaganda and childlike rehashed superhero CGI fests. Until Hollywood grows a pair, Eastwood has to fill the void.
I’m not going to go over the Jewell story, y’all either know it or can find it online in 10 minutes. What I want to note is that it remains firmly in my memory. When I live through an event of note, I make a point of remembering it. What did it feel like? What did people act like? What was the sequence of events? What was the mood in the streets? What can I learn from this?
It’s important to remember. If you lack memory, you lack a frame of reference. Without experience and history you’re a naive dipshit. You’ll fall for the next wave of bullshit because you didn’t remember the last one. There’s a reason kids drift from kindergarten to defaulting on college loans without learning fuck-all about history. It’s because people that know history are a pain in the ass. They’re a wee bit harder to buffalo. Nobody wants that. Our society doesn’t want people who say “I’ve seen this shit before and know roughly how it’ll play out”.
I remember Richard Jewell. He’s history from my own personal timeline. He was just a regular guy and I saw as he was crushed by monsters.
I remember watching it play out in the news. I remember when the press turned on a honest if a bit dull guy. A basic mall cop that did the right thing. They turned on him like rabid dogs. They did it so fast! They did it en masse. They hammered him like a generic fellow with a bad haircut was a supervillain, literally Hitler, and Satan all rolled into one.
The poor bastard didn’t have a chance. He didn’t see it coming. He’d trusted them. He was innocent and assumed everyone was as moral as he was. The press turned from “salute the hero” to “burn the witch” in a heartbeat. I remember it as just a few days. Certainly it took less than a week before Jewell was essentially friendless.
I remember too that I couldn’t understand why people were “mobbing up”. It didn’t make sense to me even as it was happening. I remember reading the news (back when newspapers were a thing) thinking “this sounds like bullshit, why am I the only guy that thinks this is bullshit?”
The press and the FBI wrecked an innocent man right in front of our eyes. This isn’t some ancient history, colonial peoples, old timey thing. It was just a few election cycles ago. There was TV reporting, newspapers (now gone), and even internet news. This wasn’t a far removed alien society.
Keep that in mind.
Witch burners are among us. Folks lemming up and run for the cliff. The inevitable half apology, if it happens at all, never heals the damage. “Mistakes were made.” “Now is a time to move on.” Perhaps a lawsuit and some money changes hands… and the witch burners immediately forget. They empty their mind and prepare for the next round of mayhem… which they’ll perform with the righteous smile of people without doubt.
A crowd is always one step from a mob. Never trust the press or government. Being innocent is almost entirely unrelated to whether you will be treated as such. These are key concepts to keep in mind in 2019. We’re in the third year of a cognitive dissonance shitstorm and witch burners are throwing tantrums everywhere you look. It behooves us all to be mindful. Watch your six and avoid crowds. There will be plenty of innocent victims, don’t be one of them.
I’m very happy Clint Eastwood is making this movie.
Hat tip to Ace of Spades.