8647: Arguing with Idiots Over Dangerous Shit

As stupid as "8647gate" is, digging into it is important...

So, here we are arguing with bad faith idiots over what the four-letter combination of 8647 means. And the fucked-up thing about it is that this damn craziness is both a distraction and important.

In case you’ve tuned out, a few days ago former FBI director James Comey posted a picture on his social media account of some sea shells arranged to spell out “8647” in sand. He tagged the photo with “cool shell formation on my beach walk.” Comey thought nothing of it until the flying monkeys in right-wing media started accusing Comey of “ordering a hit” on Donald Trump. Trump, who hates Comey, repeated the accusation and ordered an investigation into Comey.

Everyone agrees that the 47 in the sequence refers to Donald Trump, the 47^th president of the US. Anyone who has worked at a restaurant or bar, frequented the same, or been thrown out of either knows that 86 means getting tossed from an establishment and, often, banned. To get 86’d, almost always a person has crossed some line or broken a rule. They started fights, been a loud asshole, harassed people (usually women), and so on. Almost always, the 86’d deserved to be tossed. Thus 8647.

However, in the fevered “minds” of MAGA, the 86 in “8647” means “kill” or “assassinate.” The MAGAs claim that 86 is a “Mafia term” that is commonly and widely used (this despite MAGA using 8646 as code implying Biden should be impeached). It’s as bizarre a reach as saying that “Fuck you!” means “rushing towards you” because one of the meanings of the Icelandic word fokka, one of the possible origins of the word fuck, is “to rush.” We could play this game all day.

But, because Trump and his bad faith idiots have power and are more than eager to retard language until 2 + 2 = 5, what should be a nonsensical distraction is now a real danger, another example of how serious Trump et al are in their tyranny, so serious that they will parse the words of their critics to justify persecuting them. That persecution isn’t limited to putting people on trial and locking them up for committing acts of free speech (oh where are you Elon? Milo? Loomer?). Persecution is also someone with police power and authority threating to punish you if you don’t shut up, as Trump also did in response to straight-forward criticism from Bruce Springsteen.

None of this is new. It is part of a much bigger strategy to silence dissent. We saw Trump try to implement this strategy in his 2016 campaign when he repeatedly called for the beating of those protesting him at his rallies. As president, he went after whistleblowers and “leakers” with a vengeance. After voters 86’d him from office, Trump vowed revenge over and over again. Enemy lists surfaced.

Back in the White House, he ordered investigations of his critics (and started snatching legal resident immigrants off the street for expressing free speech). He sued the Des Moines Register for a poll he didn’t like. He went after the Associated Press. He sued ABC and then CBS. ABC folded. He started going after universities and major law firms. Both the Washington Post and New York Times preemptively surrendered, flattening their coverage so much that stories on 8674 actually elevate the Mafia/hit definition of 86 to the same level of its common usage - an asshole gets tossed out of a bar for being an asshole - thus giving Trump’s dishonest retardation of language credibility.

The Democratic Party response? Does it even matter? Seriously, we know Chuck Schumer’s response by guessing: Chuck lowers his glasses, nods his head forward, waves his finger, and says “Shame on you” and Trump, Miller, Vance, Musk, etc. quake in laughter. Maybe some bold representative enters something into the record that establishes the restaurant definition of 86. Bolder still, a senator stands up for the honorable James Comey. They can get Liz Cheney to help scold Trump, but only after the DNC has hired a plane to drag a banner saying “86 is Bar Slang!” somewhere in the vicinity of Maralago, outside protected air space.

Now before we all collapse in a pile of cynicism, a reminder that our political parties and institutions have never been the vanguard of resistance or change in this country. They are designed to reenforce the status quo. When they move forward or backward, it is because they are being pushed from the outside, either by robust citizens movements (left or right) or by those wealthy enough to substitute money power for people power. It’s money power that moves us backwards and people power (generally from the left) that pushes us forward.

It's similar with the media. Legacy and corporate media is mostly conservative, if not politically than in temperament. They are attuned to and oriented towards the interests of wealth (thus substantial coverage of corporate business and scant reporting on workers). When they report on the corruption of power, they almost always avoid digging into systemic rot. In times of crisis, such as war, they instinctually side with power, narrowing coverage of dissent.

However, in most major news organizations there are very good people trying to do great work, which is why as compromised as the mainstream media might be, there’s still a lot of good to great reporting happening. This reporting does not happen because those who own major media outlets order it to happen. No, quite the opposite. We get good journalism at the top due to pressure created by good journalists working on the fringes of or outside the mainstream. This is not new.

During the late ‘90s/early ‘00s, I did a community newspaper called Sacramento Comment. While I reported on Sacramento city politics, my main focus was campaign finance and development, the space where Sacramento governance was corrupted by money. I constantly scooped our town’s weekly, Sacramento News & Review, and embarrassed the multimillion-dollar daily, Sacramento Bee. My scoops were not due to anything special on my part. Most of the time I landed on something “big” by simply showing up.

Often, I was the only media member at planning commission meeting, so if anything went down (and it often did), I was the only one with the story. I was constantly in the County Registrar’s office pouring through campaign finance reports. Many times, I found something juicy. Never did I bump into another reporter. I didn’t have any special powers. Hell, I didn’t have any training, no journalism school, or editor to guide me. I had some basic instincts that told me to go where decisions were made and look at documents that logged the money. And every so often I got a tip.

I broke a lot of stories that way and nearly every time I broke something, either the News & Review or the Bee (or both) would pick it up, sometimes crediting me with the scoop, most often not. And once the weekly and daily had the story, radio and TV news might glom on. Of course, I certainly didn’t fill pages of the News & Review and the Bee for them! They had great reporters doing original work, as well as editors who saw my stuff as a prompt.

The point is that, as someone at the very bottom of the media food chain, I had an influence on Sacramento news coverage, and I did so by simply deciding to report on what is going on and figuring out how to do it, learning more and more as I continued. The very modest change I was making was being made at the bottom first, at the grassroots, on virtually no budget, and through mostly hard work. And I did it by myself – which is not a brag as much as an admission that I’d have been more effective working with others who also lacked resources.

Go through every major and minor American movement for positive change and you will not find a big boss on top issuing orders and writing checks. You won’t find a George Soros or Bill Gates. You won’t even find a modern-day Barrack Obama, not until most of the hardest work had been done, work that finally resulted in legislation. Who you will find are people like you and me doing the essentials on the ground, creating a foundation that good people working in the mainstream can use to reach more people and ultimately create change.