Something considerably more sinister is going on.
This era began, as almost all of us realize now, with COVID-19 when all of us were told to put on masks or else our friends and relatives might die, or we might even expire ourselves.
Whether this was necessary has been the subject of much discussion. My “Spidey sense” says it wasn’t. Others may differ.
Nevertheless, as with all pandemics—real, imagined, or something in between—the need eventually diminished. People were liberated. Sort of.
Only masks are still around us, startlingly so. In some cases, they are more around us than ever.
I think it was on Clay Travis and Buck Sexton’s radio show that I first heard the masks referred to, ironically, as a “fashion statement.” True enough—they do often tell us where the wearer stands on a whole raft of things—but that was a few months ago. It almost seems like ancient history.
Now, masks are upon us with a vengeance—black ones, miscellaneous scarves, and, of course, keffiyehs. The wearers have various intents—to scare us; to hide their identities from the police, college administrators, or potential employers; or simply, pathetically, to be a faddist, part of what they think of as the “in crowd.”
We have seen this song before during Antifa and Black Lives Matter demonstrations. Exercise your right to free speech but don’t tell us who you are. We could call this cowardly, because it is, but it is also quite dangerous as it expands.
In some ways, it reminds me of internet trolls, especially paid ones, who turn up virtually everywhere under assumed names, some obvious and some not. Does the First Amendment give you permission—legally, or more importantly, morally—to lie about who you are while exercising your right to free speech? Interesting question.
Many of the masked demonstrators on our campuses, we have been told—and considering the numbers who aren’t students, it is almost certainly true—are also paid for their “work,” not to mention transportation, tents, food, and so forth.
Who pays?
These are the people I termed in my title the Super Masked. They are the truly nefarious. The masked are their witting or unwitting foot soldiers.
It is the Super Masked who are behind the anti-Americanism, anti-Westernism, anti-free market capitalism, open borders, anti-religion, anti-Semitic, often pro-Chinese communist, and gender-fluid movements and so forth.
Someone is paying for the campus chaos across our country. It doesn’t come free.
Who, then, are the Super Masked, and why are they doing this?
Who is behind them? Mr. MacDougald has interesting details of the various cutouts, but it comes down to many of the “usual suspects”—the Rockefeller Foundation, George Soros in his various guises, and, to a great degree, the Tides Foundation. The author has this to say about Tides:
This is, needless to say, not just about anti-Israel activities but about every progressive cause imaginable. Tides might be described as the king of the Super Masked.
One is tempted to channel the immortal words of President Ronald Reagan and say, “Mr. Tides, tear off that mask!”
My intention is to point out the level of often-deliberate obfuscation going on and the amount that people are being used, their ignorance exploited, consciously or unconsciously.
It’s easy to say that the infamous “globalists” are behind all this, and quite possibly it’s true, but I think there is a level at which people of all sorts have been swept up in causes they think are good without stopping to realize what they are really doing. It’s “my team,” and I will do what they say, even if it involves using “dark money.” And hiding my identity behind a mask.
The fight for transparency in our culture has been going on for some time with, unfortunately, little success. Meanwhile, we hear endless blather about preserving “democracy.” But without transparency, there is no democracy or constitutional republic, whichever you prefer.
So tear off those masks!
End of sermon.
But not quite!
After I wrote the above, the most amazing report came out in the New York Post on May 9.
“A progressive nonprofit that has been shelling out cash to anti-Israel protest groups is being sued by Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation for fraud and withholding more than $33 million in donations, a bombshell lawsuit claims,” the New York Post reported.
“Tides Foundation, which has managed hundreds of millions in donations for progressive groups since it was founded in 1976, has ‘refused to honor its promises and continues to commandeer BLMGNF’s donations,’ reads the 285-page lawsuit filed in California Superior Court, Los Angeles County, on May 6.
What was it that Sir Walter Scott said? “What a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive!”
