The Dis-Information Conflict
In 1967, at the age of twenty, my father came home from what they called the Vietnam Conflict. American Leadership for three decades would choose their words carefully because, at the time and for three decades, many in leadership realized that to call it a war would make the world at large see what was, in reality, a political con job and ask questions, uncomfortable ones. Questions that no one could answer or would answer. To call it what it was would be to admit the obvious in a time when too many people needed to believe patriotism was never questioning, even if those in power were the very ones committing treason. But it was a war. It always was, and ignorance was not a protection for anyone; not the Vietnamese people, who continue to suffer for our largess, or the US soldiers, who died, and still die from the effects of secrets, lies and all the poisons of our non-war, and, in the end, not even the politicians who thought that if they just kept quiet long enough it would all just fade away in the sift of the attention-deficient of the American consciousness. My father came home to another war, of sorts. A war of what it would take to undo the horror that always happens when the collective conscious of citizenship becomes desensitized to what it means to govern through democracy. Riots and descent from finally having to accept that everyone had been fooled or fools. History is the hardest whipping post of all in times of crisis, that is unless; we turn away from it.
It’s a scary realization to awaken to the knowledge that who you are as a collective, as an individual, is apathetic, has allowed your chosen government to lie, to mislead you, not because you had no other option but because it was easier to let someone else worry and to the research. The truth is that disinformation is far more powerful than no information and you have not questioned, not challenged the inconsistencies, and as a result, people, children, your children, other people’s children, generations of children, will never have normal lives, never have the freedoms others have taken for granted. Even the press, the safeguard of that very freedom, has lied, mislead, protected the government that they are supposed to check and balance. And, in the end, 500,000 boys are sent to a war that is not.
Until someone did. June 13, of 1971, the New York Times and then, later the Washington Post would publish a series of articles based on the infamous Pentagon papers” a study conducted at the behest of Robert McNamara (Secretary of Defense). This study would trace the Vietnam War all the way back to post WW2. It included Truman, Eisenhower, JFK, Johnson, and Nixon. Each president used this war to further their own political aspirations aware that it had no clear strategy of completion, the much less positive outcome for the US or the Southern Vietnamese people. It stopped when people started to realize that it had to come from them. They had to say enough. Information is the key, real facts, the TRUTH in all its glory. The truth, not our version, or our likes or dislikes covered in the chocolate of belief, but what is factually happening. Information.
I do not like politicians. I do not like their tactics. Their standards of professionalism, or ethical practices. I think that it is rarer to find a pot of gold than a politician who speaks with any real sense of moral fortitude in act and word. These feelings are based on my life experiences. On seeing them use people in dire circumstances to further their personal agendas both locally and nationally. A recent study by the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg Public Policy Center shows that one in three people in the United States cannot name one branch of the US government. (Not one.) Only one in four can name all three branches of our government. (26%) More than any other despicable ignorance as citizens one in three people (37%) could not name a single right protected by the First Amendment. Is it any wonder that politicians think they have the right to lie, steal, and disinform?
As I watched the current President address the nation this week, and the commentaries that followed, I was again reminded of how far we have sunk into the valley of absurdity. People no longer read the papers but go to their social webpage to find out what is happening in their world’s. They do not revisit history for context but think that what they “think” supplies enough clarity to give insightful commentary on all thing’s fact fanciful. Hubris is now the most prevalent character trait to be found on any news commentary to be found. People had much rather watch their favorite comic than the most respected newscast when it comes to what we need to know about our governing body. The real truth of our situation is that we just don’t know enough about what is actually going on. Perhaps because we have lost interest, or because we do not know how to find out, or maybe because we just think ignorance will keep us safe.
I think about my dad. When he first got that letter calling him to serve his country. He was eighteen years old. His younger brother was called as well. Two teenagers going off to a foreign country to save the world. When they came back the world they knew was gone. The country was in a riot. The Pentagon Papers, the Watergate Scandal, and Nixon’s “I did not tell a lie” were all the world could talk about. Some would say that we lost all our innocence. My father sure did. He would never talk about it, never. He died in 2015 of complications from his time in the war. He lost his legs, his hands, he suffered from PTSD, and in the end, his heart gave out. He was the greatest man I have ever known. He served his country without complaint until his death. Part of him never came back from that place. The war that was not a war.
After Daniel Ellsberg, strategic analyst, prior to publishing the study in the papers, he went to members of Congress and appealed to them to make an outcry about what was really happening in Vietnam. He knew that if he could convince actual government agents to act on the information that change would happen faster. This was in 1967. They refused. After the Times published their articles the department of defense would petition the courts for an injunction to stop the press from publishing anything more. The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, and several other papers would challenge this and would go on to topple the monster that had become the legacy of lies, anti-American actions, and apathy by the American public. Senator Mike Gravel from Alaska would finally read the papers in a subcommittee meeting. It was revealed that Truman, Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon all were guilty of heinous acts of misinformation, collusion, and some called their actions treasonous and murder. The true horror is that people, lots of people, had full knowledge, and said nothing. They knew long before my dad ever got a letter, ever went to war.
We cannot afford to be ignorant. We have no excuses went it comes to our national voice. When we watch our president speak, we MUST listen. When people challenge his voice, we must mark their words and look for their agendas and ask questions about everyone. It's not about who is more likable. Who speaks more eloquently but about what is the truth? What are the facts? If Vietnam taught anything, it gave us a sense of what happens when we pretend that ignorance will keep safe. We cannot stay in the dark and expect someone else to follow the light. We must be our own light. Shine on.
After the injunction was lifted on the press in supporting the freedom of the press guaranteed in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart wrote: “In the absence of the governmental checks and balances present in other areas of our national life, the only effective restraint upon executive policy and power in the areas of national defense and international affairs may lie in an enlightened citizenry—in an informed and critical public opinion which alone can here protect the values of democratic government.”