Your mom or grandmother may have once said to you, “When you point the finger of accusation at someone, remember there are three fingers pointing back at you.” It’s an image that sticks and makes its point. If you haven’t done it, point your finger at someone, and see where the other three fingers are. They are in fact pointing at you.
So, what was your grandmother, or friend, or mentor who said that to you trying to teach you? Responsibility most likely. They were trying to get you to understand that for every situation where we want to point blame at someone, or excoriate them, there is a part of that situation we must take responsibility for. We contributed. It’s a great life lesson. And it’s a mature person who can ask himself, “What did I do?”
But there is a greater truth attached to it than even your grandmother may have known. That truth is this: When one has committed a very harmful act, in order to deflect attention and discovery away from themselves, they point the finger of accusation at someone else. They blame someone else for whatever horrible thing they just did.
The more extreme the criticism of someone, the more “over the top” the accusation against that person is, the more vitriolic and hate-filled the accusation is, the more you know this: the person making the accusation is the one who has in fact committed the very things he has accused the other person of. He may be pointing the finger, and he may be skillful at it, but there are in fact three fingers pointing back at him.
This will be true, my friends. My late husband was a turnaround consultant, and one of the things he had to do was locate who, within a company, was actively trying to destroy it. (Remember the Blog about Good and Bad.) And one of his greatest detective tools was his understanding of the truth of this: The harmful act speaks very loudly in accusation of others. Therefore to locate who did what, he had only to find the one doing the most extreme criticism of others, the one whose tone was the harshest and seemingly the least grounded in reality, and he knew he had located the person who was not just upset and disgruntled, but–get this–the person who was doing the very thing he was accusing others of doing.
It never failed. Find out who is pointing fingers in an unusual and inflammatory or defamatory way, and rest assured that person will have done the very thing they are trying to pin on someone else. The person is guilty of the accusation they are making–if it seems extreme, unverifiable, and unduly emotional or unrestrained.
This is how I uncovered many of the villains and truths you experienced in the White King novels. I looked around in life, and listened for who had preposterous and highly emotional things to say about another person in authority. Some horrible things said are true. But, when it defies common sense–no matter how much you may want to believe it–the accusation may be your clue as to what the person himself has done. Ignore this insight at your own peril. Because one day they will turn that finger at you, and you, though innocent, will be accused,
There is one man I have a great deal of attention on right now, because I have observed him openly threaten the President of the United States on multiple occasions on major news channels. I have observed this former Director of the CIA–where precedent would normally have a Director leave office and remain quiet, in the shadows as they have likely been throughout their career–step out into the daylight and make outrageous accusations against the current President.
I don’t really care what your opinion is about the President, but I am trying to direct your attention to the fact that the harmful act speaks loudly in accusation, and I believe there are three fingers pointing back at Director Brennan right now. Someone needs to pull the string on him. Just turn the light of investigation on him, and I believe you will discover more than you dreamed possible.
Take just one of many things he has said, directly TO the President, not just about him.
“When the full extent of your venality, moral turpitude, and political corruption becomes known, you will take your rightful place as a disgraced demagogue in the dustbin of history. You may scapegoat Andy McCabe, but you will not destroy America…America will triumph over you.”
That’s a little bit over the top, don’t you think? Vitriolic and hate-filled? Maybe not for Robert DeNiro, but certainly for a former high-ranking government official that we trusted with all our secrets. (The person he is defending, you ask? Andy McCabe is the now-disgraced and fired Deputy Director of the FBI. The Inspector General has made a criminal referral to the DOJ on him, and he, I believe, currently has a Grand Jury looking into his possible misdeeds.) To my investigative writer’s mind, I can’t help but ask myself, “What are those three fingers pointing back at you, Director? What have you done, that you need to point that finger in such a reprehensible way? What are you hiding in that clenched fist? If I pull the string, what will I discover?”
I hear grandmothers’ words, and my husband’s targeted words as he would ask the finger pointer, “what have YOU done?” And my own life experiences tell me that we should look for those reprehensible traits of venality, moral turpitude, and political corruption in the man who is making the accusations.
Stay tuned. I am not done with this subject yet. Director Brennan’s remarks have caused me now to bring Andy Weir and Brian Washington Carver out of retirement. For those of you who do not know them, and their formidable skill sets, I invite you to read my trilogy.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone! We have much to be thankful for. We are still free!
Again, you’re walking a truth trail with this blog entry. Thank you.