CNN and the Fuzzies?

This was good for a chuckle.

CNN Says CNN+ Service Will Not Be Liberal, ‘We’re Not an Opinion Network’
MORSE: I don’t think anyone who’s looking for “deep lib” would seek out CNN. It’s just not what we do. But no, it’s not going to be ideological. We’re just not in that game. We’re not an opinion network, we’re a news network.”

Yeah. Right.

I long assumed — quite cynically — that CNN was consciously lying through their teeth. How else could you explain constant reporting of blatant… inaccuracies; even about verifiable physical facts. But somewhere along the the line I began to wonder.

If you’ve never read H. Beam Piper’s Little Fuzzy novels, you really should.

Fuzzies are an alien race on another planet. They are primitive hunter/gather nomads. The entire species lacks even the concept of lying, which is a major premise for the entire trilogy.

But in the third novel, one Fuzzy — Wise One — discovers more or less accidentally that he can say a “not so thing.” The first time, he wants his little gang to go in a particular direction that the rest do not. He assures them that that place has lots of wonderful foods; that it’s an “everyone know thing,” that his predecessor told him. He puzzles over how he could say something like that, and decides maybe he did vaguely recall hearing it as a child.

Later, when the Fuzzies have found a pretty nice place, Wise One still wants to push on. With one exception, the others do not. Wise considers the “not so” lie he told before, and decides to run back to their camp screaming that a hesh-nazza — one of the Fuzzies’ most feared predators — is coming. The Fuzzies flee in terror in the direction Wise One wished.

But the thing is, in the panic Wise One forgets for a moment that there is no attacking creature. And he too is terrified by his own lie.

In the case of CNN, I’m no longer sure if they know they’re lying. They’re so caught up in their own narrative — with leftstream media regenerative feedback — that they now believe it’s truth, unlike the wiser Wise One who was able to remind himself, “Oh, yeah. There is no damnthing.”

Piper has been one of my favorite authors since I discovered his stories decades ago. But his work wouldn’t be bought by any publisher these days, excepting Baen, because he is not politically correct. Or leftist.

In Piper’s worlds, government is rarely the solution, and only when responsible people (usually men, given when Piper was writing) keep it in check. Solutions come from individuals who step up and take responsibility… and try to keep themselves in check (another discreet theme in the Fuzzy novels). Individuals are willing to take chances, even risk their lives, to do the right thing.

Socialism is a bad thing thing, and makes things worse, requiring responsible individuals to tke a hand (Oomphel In The Sky). Communism is the same as the officially slave-based society from which it evolved (A Slave Is A Slave).

In the case of the Fuzzies, Piper rejects the Left’s preferred “noble savage” narrative. Meeting humans was an — almost — unalloyed good thing for them. Humanity, in fact, saves the the species from extinction in a few generations, due to a nearly nonexistent birthrate, and more or less accidentally at that. We know it worked because Fuzzies are still around thousands of years later (Ministry of Disturbance).

Piper would get no Hugo awards these days.