Back to the Future

With my morning coffee in hand, I was flipping around the channels and stumbled across a show about UFOs and aliens, and government conspiracies and the Illuminati and all that retro 90s stuff. Also, the X-Files suddenly has a new movie out. And, of course, the Washington Post has just finished running a twelve-part series on Chandra Levy and Gary Condit. Somebody told me that they saw a story about JonBenet Ramsey again.

I can't help thinking there's a political subtext to all this. All of this paranoid conspiracy stuff became culturally prominent in the USA during the Clinton era and died out during the Bush era. During the Bush era -- a period of government lawbreaking on a massive scale -- the dominant mood was Trust the Powers That Be. Now that the lawbreaker is going to be leaving, without ever being held responsible for what he's done, Trust No One is coming back -- just exactly too late to be anything close to an appropriate response. I just don't get people.

Update: Oh, and I almost forgot: remember Ye Olde Clinton Body Count? Well, it's been recycled as the Obama Death List. Genuinely recycled: at least one name (Gandy Baugh) appears on both lists. Guy was killed by Clinton in 1994 and by Obama nine years later, apparently. Nobody else on Obama's list appears ever to have existed. Still, everything old is new again!