My Fight is Over with Roger Ailes by Eddie Griffin

You may know I was very upset with Roger Ailes, if I might put it so kindly, before he died last week. Not only had he created this huge right-wing propaganda machine at FOX News, against which we had to tangle, and the fact that he used his influence and power to lord over the political arena, more egregiously he enticed pretty women into his employment to secretly exploit sexually behind closed doors and to gag and enslave them by a non-disclosure, confidentiality agreement--- meaning they were legally bound to keep silent about what happened to them in private at FOX.

 

I remember my FB postings about Roger Ailes and the cult of rich dirty old men, which included his friend Donald Trump. But some people chalked it off as locker room “boy” talk. Well now, the crown prince of rich dirty old men is dead, and I cannot just blasé over it without a word. But my upbringing taught me that “if you can’t say anything good about the dead, then don’t say anything at all.” I am not God and I cannot pass final judgment.

 

But there is something to be said, for sure, about this man who boasted to a potential prey “if you want to play with the big boys, you have to lay with the big boys.” Big Boy is now sleeping in his grave and nobody is laying with him. But the cult of dirty rich old men lives on, unabated by his death.

 

How did he die? That’s what I wanted to know. Did Old Roger do all these dirty things, get $45 million from FOX for going away quietly, and then make a sudden exit from this life scot free, without retribution or punishment? Then I noticed the Cause of Death was “Subdural Hematoma”. (A subdural hematoma is most often the result of a severe head injury, in fact “among the deadliest of all head injuries”. It reminds me of how close I came to death when I feel and broke my neck in May 2016)

 

At first report of Roger’s death, it sounded like Fake News. They say he fell on May 10, 2017. It did not make the news, until after he was pronounced dead a week ago, on May 18. What was happening during those eight days that the news did not report? And why couldn’t they save his life during that time?

 

Then I read the rest of my research on Subdural Hematoma--- Bleeding fills the brain area very rapidly, compressing brain tissue.

 

So I see, Roger fell and bashed his head and started bleeding on the brain. For eight days, his brain bled and his head swelled. Then I thought about his epitaph, written by his own hand in his 2013 book “Roger Ailes: Off Camera”. He wrote: “I’ve been prepared to face death all of my life. When it comes, I'll be fine, calm. I'll miss life, though. Especially my family.”

 

We miss Roger, too. My fight with Roger is over and I am calm, and even relieved that he is not lurking in the background waiting to launch another propaganda machine.