Monday, February 27, 2012
Disturbing trend
It has become a disturbing trend, one more sign that our government is off the rails, the compulsion to obliterate evidence, to eradicate history, so it cannot be reexamined. When the Clarion Content's editorial board was growing up, this was derided as something "they" had to do in the Eastern Block, hide the files, destroy the records. Perhaps that was a false pretense, as the Church Committee showed, the rot had started somewhat earlier.1
What is most disturbing in the modern age is the lack of apology or embarrassment shown by authority when it comes to wiping the slate clean. King George the II simply told reporters they could not report what they saw in Iraq. The New York City Police Department pressure washed and scrubbed clean all traces of the Occupy protesters they booted out of Zuccotti Park.
Whitewash the truth, delete the emails has become the socio-political norm in America. So, it should probably come as not surprise that the compound that housed former al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, before he was executed, is being bulldozed to the ground. Of course, in keeping with the Man's standard methodology, security forces blocked journalists and photographers from getting close to the site as it was being leveled.
"Nothing to see here, folks. Move along."
It is a bitter irony of the Information Age that the malleability of history has become ever greater.
Notes
1Somewhere in China around 1944-45, or perhaps it was in the jungles of Burma, or Laos, America switched sides in the confusion between nationalists/militarists/freedom fighters/communists/people power/oppression. It was a complicated equation and an easy one to get lost in, amongst the particulars. Joe McCarthy was able to ruin lives because wide swaths of otherwise good folks were not able to grasp the details. Then, in a bi-polar era, nefarious action was easy to justify, America simply portrayed itself (to its citizens, too) as the lesser of two evils. When the Soviet Union collapsed, that rationale disappeared with it.
What is most disturbing in the modern age is the lack of apology or embarrassment shown by authority when it comes to wiping the slate clean. King George the II simply told reporters they could not report what they saw in Iraq. The New York City Police Department pressure washed and scrubbed clean all traces of the Occupy protesters they booted out of Zuccotti Park.
Whitewash the truth, delete the emails has become the socio-political norm in America. So, it should probably come as not surprise that the compound that housed former al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, before he was executed, is being bulldozed to the ground. Of course, in keeping with the Man's standard methodology, security forces blocked journalists and photographers from getting close to the site as it was being leveled.
"Nothing to see here, folks. Move along."
It is a bitter irony of the Information Age that the malleability of history has become ever greater.
Notes
1Somewhere in China around 1944-45, or perhaps it was in the jungles of Burma, or Laos, America switched sides in the confusion between nationalists/militarists/freedom fighters/communists/people power/oppression. It was a complicated equation and an easy one to get lost in, amongst the particulars. Joe McCarthy was able to ruin lives because wide swaths of otherwise good folks were not able to grasp the details. Then, in a bi-polar era, nefarious action was easy to justify, America simply portrayed itself (to its citizens, too) as the lesser of two evils. When the Soviet Union collapsed, that rationale disappeared with it.
Labels: cop stories, corruption, Ethically questionable, Politics
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