Saturday, December 07, 2002

The Value of Truth My last post on how Canadians view the U.S. has attracted some rightwing scorn.  But I have a question for my right-wing friends:  Do governments tell the truth?   My experience is that governments and politicians readily lie to protect themselves and advance their agendas.  Much of the rightwing view on Iraq is predicated on a total belief in the truth of the conjectures coming out of the Pentagon.   This total trust is similarly behind suggestions that every social good can be more efficiently delivered by free capitalist markets.  But corporations lie.  Enron lied.  Tyco lied.  Even GE lied about some transactions.  Lying about profitability has become so pervasive that few believe earnings projections anymore.  Yet if capitalists lie, then perhaps not everything they promise about filling social needs will come to pass.   One of the most dangerous activities of the administration is the introduction of government thought police whose job is to make sure that no research or science that supports conclusions at odds with Bush is allowed to survive on government web sites.   For example, the Dept. of Education is removing all academic research and studies from its web site that don’t support the right wing view of testing, school efficacy, and Bush’s every…  oops I mean no child left behind policy.    Attempts to control information, including government information, represented some of the worst abuses of soviet bureaucracies.  Back before the fall of the Soviet Union, there was tremendous scorn for a government that lied, that distorted information that would not print inconvenient facts.    With that in mind, look at the Friday White House press transcript.  Why can’t the White House admit that O’Neill and Lindsey were asked to resign?   MR. FLEISCHER: The resignations were announced, as you know, this morning by the Secretary of the Treasury and by Mr. Lindsey, and they speak for themselves. Q Ari, just to be clear on this, did President Bush ask either O'Neill or Lindsey to resign? Or did he request anybody else to ask for them to resign? MR. FLEISCHER: I've answered it as directly as I can. The individuals resigned, as you know. Q Is that a yes or a no? MR. FLEISCHER: The individuals resigned, as you know. Q So are you denying that they were asked to resign? MR. FLEISCHER: I've answered the question and that's what I intend to say about it. Q Actually, you haven't answered the question. (Laughter.) MR. FLEISCHER: The individuals, as you know, have resigned. And the President appreciates their service to the country and the work that they did in terms of the tax cut that got passed into law; terrorism insurance has been enacted into law; the trade legislation that is now law of the land, the President is very grateful for their service to our country. Q But he did not ask them to resign? You're saying he did not ask them to resign or -- MR. FLEISCHER: You asked the question just minutes ago. The answer remains the same. What are they afraid of?  Uncontrolled information.  When Kennedy went to the UN during the Cuban Missile crisis, he presented incontrovertible evidence for the world to see that offensive missiles had been introduced into Cuba.  If Bush cannot produce similar information about Iraq, why should we believe it is a threat?  Because Saddam is an evil man and he attacked Bush senior?  There is a climate of intimidation and scorn towards information and facts that contradict Bush’s views of the world.  I wonder if our right wing friends could agree that a free exchange of all ideas and facts, including inconvenient ones, is likely to lead to the best decisions.  The only people afraid of inconvenient facts are fundamentalists and bureaucrats—who can only see the world through a distorted lens.  I say lets smash the lenses and look reality straight in the face.  O’Neill was fired, no matter what Ari Fleischer says.  If the U.S. has evidence that Saddam is lying, prove it!     11:07:55 PM   comment []

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