A scary fairy tale
Not just another scary story: Chanoch Daum explains to his children what the real meaning of horror is
1
Dad, we want a scary story, said my children. Really scary? I asked. Yes, the two of them cried jubilantly. – About monsters? – Scarier! – Witches? – Even scarier, the most scary!
2
Far far from here, on the other side of the world, there is a country where almost everything is rotten. That country just lost a war to a much smaller army of about 3,000 soldiers. Yet none of the leaders of that country were ready to admit they had done anything wrong. Therefore when the next war breaks out, that country will lose again and make the same mistakes.
3
Now, children, after losing the war, along comes a particularly arrogant man who was once the prime minister of that country. He has decided the wants the job back. What is scary about that? Asked Yehuda. What is scary, my children, is that this man was the country’s worst prime minister in the country’s history. He had offered the Arabs what is forbidden to offer them. In response he got the terrifying Intifada which he could not stop.
During his time in office, children, the country constantly threatened its enemies but when the crunch came and its soldiers were abducted for example, the country did nothing and thus lost its power of deterrence in the world’s eyes, something that makes things difficult for the country to this day. And it’s bad to lose your power of deterrence? Asked Aviv. It’s very bad, I answered, very, very bad.
4
But Dad, if he was so bad, why do people in that country want him to come back?
They are not so ready, children, but there is something very scary in this country called the ‘elitist media’. This is a group of self-important people who express their views in the newspapers and frequently set the agenda for the nation. They have frequently supported this and that terrible agreement with enemies of that country.
Even after they erred they continued to work with great vigor, because they are drunk with their own power and convinced that most of the smarts that fell on the world fell on them.
This elite has decided that this man, the worst prime minister this country ever had - who within a year and a half succeeded in ruining the country politically, security-wise and economically - must return to power. So they are doing everything they can to help him be elected the chairman of his party.
5
How do they do that? asked the children.
In the first stage they help the public forget what happened while he was prime minister even though that is their job as journalists. They don’t remind anyone how that same man started with a big promise and then fought with everybody including his closest associates mostly because he has no idea how to behave with people who were not under his command in the army.
The journalists also forget that he led the largest, most wasteful government the country ever had. And they don’t remind people how because of his arrogance he tried to solve a dispute several decades old in two days time, an effort that cause irreparable damage to the country.
6
They also omit the fact that this is a man for whom sensitivity is not a particularly dominant quality. He left his wife in a blink of an eye, she who stood at his side for 40 years. They also forget to mention that after he abandoned the country in ruins he became a businessman so he could build a huge house in a fancy neighborhood.
7
You see children? This elite works very hard on behalf of this man they have chosen to champion, so much so that they don’t remind the public of the fact that the state comptroller of that country ruled that a number of fictitious non profit organizations had been set up in order to promote his candidacy for prime minister.
They decided to forgive him for that fact that had a number of his buddies in the police not kept quiet regarding a number of highly suspect ways in which campaign funding was raised, who knows if the attorney general would have closed the file against him for insufficient evidence.
8
This group is that powerful? asked my children.
I am afraid so, that that is what is terrifying. This group totally controls the daily agenda of the country and almost don't allow people who think differently to express themselves, certainly not in any prominent way. And when the group decides to help someone get elected as prime minister, or to help a prime minister implement this plan or that, no tactic is below them. They mobilize and are willing to forgive him for everything including corruption.
Even though it is the media’s job to expose the truth, this elite believes its job is to run the country and if the truth gets in the way, well, the group simply ignores it or puts it out there in very small print. So will that man be prime minister again of that country? If things continue as they are, children, it seems likely since this group succeeds in getting what and who it wants.
9
Kids, you have to understand, its not that this media elite meet late at night to coordinate their positions. They just naturally agree with one another. They are people who grew up in the same places and hang out at the same places and even vote for the same parties. They are so in synch with one another they already know what is appropriate at any given time, who needs help and for whom they should rally and who deserves their reproach.
10
Dad, that’s a really scary story, said Aviv. How will we fall asleep? Forget it, her brother Yehuda told her, did you forget that it’s only a story? These kinds of things don’t happen in real life, right Dad?
Right, children. Things like this only happen in scary bedtime stories. Good Night.
Good God
If after three days with the Chinese prime minister, Ehud Olmert ran to have cosmetic surgery on his eyes, what surgery will he need after two years with Amir Peretz?
