This is gonna hurt.
In November 2001, the television series 24 was hurled into the living rooms of America like a flashbang device. The timing was accidental but impeccable. America was reeling from the real-life shock of the Islamist attacks which had just happened on September 11 that year.
24 brought action-packed, jaw-dropping story lines featuring the quintessential American hero Jack Bauer. Each season covered one twenty-four hour period in which Jack Bauer and his allies within CTU – the Counter Terrorism Unit – saved millions of lives from one disaster after another. In the process, 24 also helped illuminate threats throughout the world for an audience that had pretty much been asleep to it all until the 9/11 attacks. Too, 24 showed how even within America’s borders and institutions, bad actors were working night and day to bring down the will of the people.
The cross-currents of social upheaval, imminent threat, and the personal struggles and successes of daily life crashed into each other in each one-hour, real-time episode. 24‘s catchprase “This is gonna hurt” really meant something as post-9/11 America grappled with new challenges to its power all over the world, and a new age of violence.
24 still holds up, though some things date it. It was the flip phone era, and you see a pay phone and a home phone now and then, too. Jack uses a Palm Pilot for GPS. But security cameras were already everywhere, satellite spying was in place, and the surveillance state was in full swing.
Cautionary Tales
Season One itself is a masterpiece. If you have a teenager, make sure they watch Season One. What a cautionary tale of how a simple act like sneaking out at night can go horribly wrong! Each succeeding season builds on the previous seasons, with new challenges.
Despite, or maybe because of, its instant almost universal appeal, 24 was criticized for being reactionary, overly violent, jingoistic and… far right. As is so often the case with criticism from Leftists, the facts of the matter do not support their arguments. Depicting torture to extract information, featured most especially in Season Two, prompted one of the biggest such controversies. The fact is, the torture was nuanced and debated within the drama itself. And of course, most people know instinctively they couldn’t keep sensitive information for five seconds even with just the threat of a dentist’s drill coming at them. Of course torture works.
A President Worthy of the Office
Season One actually presented a story line from a classically liberal perspective. It opened on Super Tuesday during the presidential campaign of Senator David Palmer, the first viable black candidate in the history of the country. A Democrat. An environmentalist. Ten years before Barack Obama’s election. And in Season Three: President Palmer’s signature piece of legilsation is a health care reform package. How prescient.
But what a difference between Palmer and Obama! Unlike the priggish, passive-aggressive, race-baiting Obama, Palmer is manly, virtuous, and decisive. Palmer’s back story is not told, but his steely will and commanding presence suggest a man who carries the confidence and pride of all black Americans who in three generations rose from slavery to fully actualized citizenship. No victimhood here. No wallowing in BLM hatred. It is as if Palmer’s campaign says to the American electorate: I am ready, Coach; put me in the game. But someone wants to assassinate him that day and Jack Bauer must stop it.
In one respect Palmer and Obama are alike: the despicable wife. Palmer’s is delicously so, conniving and deceitful like a snake. That woman is nothing but trouble!
Wokism creeps in through the door marked PC.
As for the political correctness that infected America after 9/11, the villains in Season One are not even Islamists. They are a sort of White Christian Nationalist creation, an exaggeration of the contemporary (and enduring) demonization of the Serbians as war criminals.
Islamist terrorists do come into play in Season Two, but then they are still mixed up with domestic terrorists – “Patriots” – and Deep State actors who undermine the President and represent, in today’s terms, the agenda of the globalists at the expense of freedom and democracy. Later seasons would feature a host of enemy actors from China, from Russia, from Iran, and other hostile corners of the totalitarian world order.
24 was not just cutting edge in terms of television drama and exposing the Deep State and how it works to compromise politicians. The age-old themes of lust for power and hubris, and the disappointing morality of politicos and the power hungry in general, also cause one complication after another. One thing for sure, Diogenes would never find his honest man in CTU! Even Jack has to deceive, bend the rules, or outright break the law to keep the freight train on the rails.
Eventually in the final season or two, 24 succumbed to PC pressures. At one point Kiefer Sutherland, the actor who played Jack Bauer and was a producer of the show, interjected a patronizing statement. Basically his message was: remember children, this is just pretend. The stars and network bigwigs blanched at 24‘s stirring depiction of right vs. wrong, but the audience got it because in those days, all Americans, conservative or progressive, black, white or otherwise, were for the same basic things and America stood for the very best thing: freedom.
What if 24 came back for one season in its original glory to portray the threat to America in 2024?
Here’s the scenario:
America is burning. It has been hijacked by an evil regime. One man one vote is out the window. The military has been neutered. Faith is fading and faith leaders are craven. Health care is dictated by fiat rather than informed consent. The justice system imprisons political opponents and steals their property. Technology is corrupting the truth so much so that girls and boys don’t know what sex they are. Women and children are no longer protected classes. Race is pitted against race. The borders are thrown down and third-worlders invade by the millions. Free market capitalism has been replaced by a marriage of corporatism and the state, i.e. fascism. The Bill of Rights is treated as merely a list of suggestions.
Globally, China, Russia, Korea, Iran, and other bad actors are poised to attack. Hong Kong has fallen and Taiwan, Israel, Australia, Europe, and Japan are vulnerable because westerners have lost the will to fight. The Free World’s industrial infrastructure and energy independence have been been degraded to a point threatening easy defeat in war. And the 2024 presidential election is shaping up as the perfect storm for a new civil war.
Unfortunately this scenario is NOT pretend. And even if Jack Bauer were real, it is too far along to undo by a small team in a twenty-four hour period. If we are to overcome the Obiden administration’s wreckage, over the next few months all of us who still believe in America must all summon our inner Jack Bauers and find every possible way to fight back in a new and real CTU – the Counter Tyranny Unit. Every county in America will need one.
Yes, this is gonna hurt. But no pain, no gain.
If the bastards take the election again, they will rule uncontested and America as we have known it and loved it, is over.
For a two-page PDF statement of where Way Out Charlotte Pike is coming from, please CLICK HERE.
