“Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.” Thomas Jefferson 1787
This is quite an illuminating quote from one of the founding fathers of this country who, interestingly enough, was often personally and viciously attacked by the press during his time. But apparently he understood something about the nature of man and government that compelled him to maintain the position he held regarding the relationship between the press and government until the day he died.
Another quote that I believe is relevant to any conversation regarding the recent WikiLeaks revelations and the rightness or wrongness of those leaks is attributed to the journalist I.F. Stone. He is quoted as saying that “All governments lie.” I don’t believe that any reasonable person will try to argue with that truth, especially since it’s amply supported by history.
I.F. Stone is cited as the only American journalist that challenged the Johnson Administration’s account of the Gulf of Tonkin incident that took place in 1964. The incident turned out to be a fabrication of an attack on two U.S. warships by the North Vietnamese, but was used as justification for the escalation of U.S. military engagement in the Vietnam War, which claimed the lives of 58,159 U.S. soldiers, an estimated 1 – 3 million Vietnamese soldiers and civilians, an estimated 200 – 300,000 Cambodians, and an estimated 20 – 200,000 Laotians. All of this has a tragically familiar ring to it, doesn’t it?
Sticking with the Vietnam relevance to all of this, the video features commentary and historical perspective from Professor Noam Chomsky who, along with Howard Zinn, helped government whistle-blower Daniel Ellsberg edit and release the Pentagon Papers, described as the top-secret internal U.S. history of the Vietnam War. In a 1996 New York Times article commemorating the 25th anniversary of the release of the Pentagon Papers it was noted that the papers “…demonstrated, among other things, that the Johnson Administration had systematically lied, not only to the public but also to Congress, about a subject of transcendent national interest and significance.”
Regarding the Pentagon Papers Professor Chomsky said that they revealed things that “…the American people should have known that the government didn’t want them to know…” and he states that pretty much the same thing is true as it regards the diplomatic cables that WikiLeaks recently released. What is probably the most profound point that Professor Chomsky made during the interview is that “One of the major reasons for government secrecy is to protect the government from its own population.” I take that to mean that if the people find out what dirt the government is really up to they will take it upon themselves to get rid of that government.
The point of debate central to all of the discussion about the leaks is the people’s right to know. What are the consequences of the American people knowing or not knowing about what their government is up to? Take for example what Robert Scheer, editor of Truthdig.com, recently wrote regarding Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee. Scheer points out that Senator Feinstein has called for Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, “to be vigorously prosecuted for espionage.”
Scheer notes that Feinstein strongly supported the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan and now she “has the audacity to call for the imprisonment of the man who, more than any other individual, has allowed the public to learn the truth about those disastrous imperial adventures—facts long known to Feinstein as head of the Intelligence Committee but never shared with the public she claims to represent.” But later in the article he offers an even greater indictment of Senator Feinstein, stating that “the inconvenient truths she has concealed in her Senate role would have indeed shocked many of those who voted for her. She knew in real-time that Iraq had nothing to do with the 9/11 attack, yet she voted to send young Americans to kill and be killed based on what she knew to be lies. It is her duplicity, along with the leaders of both political parties, that now stands exposed by the WikiLeaks documents.”
There you have the consequences of the American people not knowing the truth about what it’s government is up to: Dead American soldiers. Dead Iraqi soldiers and civilians. Dead Afghan soldiers and civilians. Add to this those who have been physically, psychologically and emotionally maimed by these wars and only then can one begin to comprehend the level of human devastation that has been wrought by those who have taken it upon themselves to be lords over the people they are supposed to serve.
Today is the 30th anniversary of the death of the music legend John Lennon. One of his most popular songs was Give Peace A Chance, released in 1969 and considered an anthem of the anti-war movement in the 1960s. I’m sitting here thinking that the only way peace can have a chance is to give truth a chance and the only way that will happen is to recognize truth when it is revealed within today’s wilderness of facts. With a nod toward’s Mr. Scheer’s site name, it’s something worth digging for.
The Muse Minefield 