"Here They Come!"

There is always a “They.” 

It’s just a question of “Who?”

I watch shows on TV. Most of them, I don’t want to watch. But when there are no Law & Order reruns, I gotta watch something so I watch them.

And what I realize is that every one-hour drama these days… 

is about terrorists.

Every last one of them.

“Where’s the bomb planted, (INSERT APPROPRIATE MIDDLE-EASTERN-SOUNDING NAME HERE)?”

(SMIRKING DEFIANTLY) “Wouldn’t you like to know.”

This is no recent phenomenon.  Way back when, it was westerns, where virtually every story was about Indians.

American Indians were the first “They.”

And boy, were they frightening.

Of course, it could not stay “Indians” forever, sending blood-curdling chills down our young, screen-watching spines. Eventually, a replacement “They” was required, to step in and pick up the nightmare-inducing slack.  Since then, you will notice – or have me noticing for you – there’s been a seamless procession of  “Murderous Presences”, each smoothly supplanting its menacing predecessor.

Let’s see, now…

There were the Huns. (World War I Germans.  Although also Attila).  (More significantly relevant if you were the Romans.)

Bootlegging mobsters, in the 20’sand 30’s.  (From whose massacring tendencies we 

were not shown mercy even on Valentine’s Day.)

In the 1940’s, it was the Nazis – or, quoting Mel Brooks mimicking Winston Churchill, the “Narzis” – and their AXIS associates, the Imperial Japanese.

The war ends.  We’re safe, right?

Wrong.

Here come the “Commies.” 

The ubiquitous space aliens. (Oh!  I almost forgot “monsters.”)

And motorcycling hoodlums, who, when asked “What are you rebelling against?”, replied, “What have you got?”  (“My God!  They want something we’ve got!”)

Then came the hippies. (The “Charles Manson” variety.)

The “businessmen/murderers”, the Mafia. 

And, taking a break from scary people, it’s devastating earthquakes, “Twisters”, inexplicable “bio-plagues” and dinosaurs.

Followed by drug cartels from south of the border.

Russian sex traffickers.

And strangers bent on our destruction because “We know too much” when we, in fact, actually know nothing.

And never forget a group of lethal assassins, loosely identified as,

“Random.”

Bringing us currently to terrorists.

Looking back over a century of popular entertainment, we get no security, no peace.

There is always someone determined to kill us.

Okay.  And I know this sounds weird.  

I am no “conspiracy theorist”, or anything.  I am afraid of enough things that actually exist. But if I werea conspiracy theorist, I believe a persuasive argument could be made proving,

Movies and television are behind everything.

A cadre of show biz manipulators, “pulling the strings”… so there is always an enemy.

No, wait!  Think about it.

Who else benefits more from this steady parade of murderous “Boogie Men”?  (Or, more currently appropriate, murderous “Boogie Persons.”)

Look at the evidence. You see it over and over.  The erstwhile “antagonist” runs out of steam?  Up pops a new one, ready to take their life-threatening place.

Is that just a coincidence? 

“Here they come!”

“Who?”

“Nobody.”

Never oncehas that happened.

Are you’re saying that’s an accident?

I have no clue who the next “killer-adversary” will be.

But I know this.

There will definitely be somebody.

How do I know that?

Because there is always a “They”, and they are inevitably coming.

At some point you have to start asking yourself, “Why?”  

I mean, don’t you? 

And I’m telling you,

I would not rule anything out.