Just watched episode # 3 of "V." One sequence of events was interesting. There was a woman protester who was becoming increasingly influential--the "face" of the insurgency, Anna called her. This woman's husband had been killed as a result of the initial chaos caused by the terrifying arrival of the Visitors, and now she was speaking out and subsequently developing quite a following. "She must be stopped," Anna, leader of the V's, warned. But Anna's method of stopping her was not to destroy her with violence but rather to win this woman over with sympathy. A quiet moment alone, consoling and comforting, was all it took, and next thing you know, the two women are standing side by side on a podium before dozens of news cameras and a huge crowd. "We are of peace, always," Anna says, while her erstwhile adversary wipes tears from her eye. Mission accomplished.
Meanwhile, an earlier scene of impending violence had been effectively quelled when the FBI managed to apprehend a man who had threatened to attack the V's. Later we learn that the shooter, who was taken into custody by the Visitors, was himself a V, assigned by Anna to commit the assault. The happy ending played well on the podium. Everything was staged, the agitated crowds quieted, the protesters subdued, and all was well. Another mission accomplished. Yet it was all an illusion.
This is how I feel about what's going on in Washington D.C. right now. Numbers are being manipulated, facts concealed, assurances and promises made, the public mollified. But the promise of health care reform, creation of jobs...it's all an illusion. What is truth, and does it matter, anyway, as long as people believe what they want to believe?
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