Truth Does Not Blink

     When journalists turn in to propagandists, we, the people who are living today, are deprived of the actual facts of the situation. We are denied the opportunity to use our intellect and to make decisions based upon reason. This in turn erodes the individual sense of responsibility and empowerment when propaganda is presented as journalistic fact for an extended period of time. This erosion leads the people into the position of being easily manipulated and violated by those who would lead them. It is a very dangerous path.

     When historians turn in to propagandists, they commit crimes against the dead and the victims of the past in a subtle way that many may not recognize. The suffering that is glossed over and minimized until it is questioned to have even occurred at all is no less real for all the opinions that are expressed. It is an insult to the dead to imply that an event, such as the Trail of Tears, was exaggerated or to the survivors deny that something like the Japanese-American Internment Camps ever happened.

     While it may be callous to say that the dead do not matter or that the number of people who were affected by an event is not high enough to merit concern, this is indeed the attitude that is present when history is turned into a tool for political gain. Furthermore, the use of tainted history to support present arguments leads to a variant of the erosion of personal responsibility and empowerment once this tainted history becomes apparent. This may sound foolish, but one must only look at the events that lead to the United States getting into the present war with Iraq for an example of this.

     With the presentation of false information as apparent fact, the people of the United States were deceived into supporting the military action. When individuals challenged this, they were decried and scorned by their peers, often being told that they were ‘unpatriotic’ and that they were apologists for the enemy. Such a tactic was employed in the past, indeed in the relatively recent past if you look at the long history of warfare and politics of humanity. In Nazi Germany, a similar program of propaganda masquerading as journalistic fact was initiated. The program also included a minimizing various aspects of German history that did not sit well with the ruling faction. As a result, many people were duped into thinking that they were being ‘good Germans’ when they acted upon this information.

     The deception is one that we should all find intolerable. It is not only a denial of individual responsibility but it is a blatant slap in the face of the people. A government’s stability comes from what the people are willing to tolerate en masse. The power of the government comes from the consent of the governed, and when that consent is revoked the system of government changes. Use of propagandizing in presentation of current events and in the recounting of historical events is a blatant attempt to take the power from the people and put it into the hands of the propagandists. 

     If history teaches us nothing, it teaches us that the transfer of power from the people into the hands of a select portion of the population quickly leads to abuses of the people. This can not be tolerated and must be resisted. By insisting upon the truth about a situation, as ugly and discomforting as it may be, it is possible for the people to act in accordance with their conscience. It is possible for the people to act with true liberty and to exert their will. Anything else serves only to make slaves of men and prove a breeding ground for injustice.