As everyone who has ever opened a book knows, the greatest scam of all time was the Trojan Horse caper, when the Greeks hid inside a giant wooden horse and left it standing in front of Troy’s gate, posing as a gift from the departing Greek forces to the brave defenders after a 10-year siege. 

The Trojans were no fools, but they trusted the Greeks. After all, the noblest of them, Achilles, a demigod, had returned the body of Hector to his father King Priam after the two great warriors had dueled. But once inside the gates, the Greeks emerged from the horse and put Troy to the sword, killing the men and taking the women as slaves. Ever since, “Beware of Greeks bearing gifts” has been an aphorism mostly used by boors to illustrate a little knowledge.

It was a great story and the first I was taught after I’d learned to read and write. It had only one flaw: It was fiction. Written, sung rather, by a blind Greek poet called Homer 2,800 years ago. It’s true that there was occasional trouble over trade routes between Greeks and their neighbors the Trojans, living in what is today part of Turkey—but Homer turned the myths and legends about the Trojan War into a spectacular, phantasmagoric event that still resonates today. 

Needless to say, my hero was Achilles, undefeated in battle, proud, extremely good looking and imperious. He went down by a poisoned arrow that targeted his heel, the only part of his body that was vulnerable and where his mother, the Goddess Thetis, held him when she dipped him into the water that made him immortal. 

Great stuff. Paris, brother of Hector and a Trojan prince, had run off with Helen, wife of Menelaus the king of Sparta. That was something not done even back then— especially as he was a guest of the royal Spartan couple. When I first read it, I could not believe that someone would sink as low as to run off with the wife not only of the king, but of his generous host.

Hollywood has always followed Homer in portraying Helen as having left Sparta with Paris willingly, but other The first time I saw Helen of Troy, starring Rosana Podestà as Helen, I almost walked out, despite the fact that Podestà was probably much more beautiful than Helen. My father eventually had to calm me down, informing me that it was anti-Greek sentiments due to wars that first started the rumors that Helen had left voluntarily and in love. That calmed me down a bit, but I was still Orlando Furioso when the subject came up.

I now obviously accept that the whole shebang was fiction made up by the blind poet, but as my mother was an upper class Spartan, the idea that a Spartan queen would leave in the middle of the night with a Trojan playboy still annoys me. But it annoys me less than the second greatest scam I can think of, the so-called 1619 Project by one Hannah-Jones, paid for by the Sulzberger gang in order to defame America. Better yet, in order to reframe American history by falsely claiming the foundation of the United States was built on slavery. One Jake Silverstein, who introduced these horrendous lies in the New York Times, perhaps should have stuck to the birth of Israel, and the mountains of dead and deracinated Palestinians its birth is responsible for. 

 I found the Hannah-Jones – NY Times portrait of Uncle Sam the most envenomed I’ve yet to encounter, and as true as the Trojan – Horse story. With the backing of the Sulzberger gang, and as though possessing some magic amulet, this ridiculous person invented an outrageously false theory and the media, academy, Hollywood and the rest of the usual suspects treated it as fact and more fact and more fact. It is nothing but a scurrilous piece of fiction paid for by the Judases of the New York Times. But it suited at the time that America was down and hustlers like Biden and Kamala on the way up. 

 Now I ask you, dear readers: If the leftist TV networks in America and Britain employ and enrich what The Donald calls “mentally obnoxious racists,” what description would properly fit the New York Times and Hannah-Jones? Traitors, liars, I could go on, but is there a more unpardonable sin than changing historical facts in order to cast doubt about your own country? Many of the immortal Ancient Greek plays by Sophocles, Aeschylus and Euripides derived from the blind poet’s creation, so I ask myself if those unwatchable recent Hollywood flicks about slavery were extracted from the 1619 Project. 

 Flaying poor Uncle Sam is cowardly, but he sure can take it. With The Donald now at the head, I predict more and more false theories and made up stories will be published by the Times and advertized by the Trump haters on TV. Scams by Trump haters will proliferate, but unlike the wily Greeks of long ago, I predict these falsifiers of history will remain outside the corridors of power.  ◆