Lunatic Fringe

I have a friend who doesn’t like crowds but loves to go to events. That’s why he often drags me along to be his support. As a retired journalist, I’m always ready to people watch, to see if anything has changed over the decades. Usually, I couldn’t see much difference.

He got me to go to a meeting in a park, last weekend. It was a hot day, so I had enough water for both of us in my bum bag. My friend is a little forgetful with such things, as were a lot of the other people there. I don’t normally ask him what we were going to see, as I liked to be surprised. There were a lot of happy people there, many in fancy dress and waving flags.

I was reminded of a similar event I had covered for the newspaper, quite a few years ago. That one was similar, a crowd of people, with placards and flags, crying as the speaker spoke with obvious sincerity, and plenty of well-suited men with buckets to collect donations. Like the earlier event, this was full of promises, everything short of guaranteeing eternal life.

Like the previous one, this was full of lies wrapping a tiny atom of truth, with everyone not following the chosen path being heathens or worse. The previous event had been a Billy Graham rally. This event had only a couple of things that were never changed. They are the adoration for the speaker, no matter how impossible his claims, and the fact that the only aim of the event was to raise money. As before, the Lunatic Fringe lapped it up, gave freely, and probably went home thinking that things would be different in future.

Poor, misguided, idiots.

Marianne Gregory © 2024