Can America Handle the Truth?

Does the truth really set you free? And free from what, or whom?
There is no question that the pursuit of truth lies at the center of the human heart. Or that
the confusion of truth is part of the human condition. But can the U. S. really claim to
foment a relationship to Truth? With public debate so vehemently and thoroughly framed
by fundamentalist myopia, fear tactics, and ego- elements of fact, historical pattern and
good old wisdom seem all but absent when establishing a real world understanding of
where and who we are as a country, and frankly, how honest we are with ourselves while
the fall of the empire at least feels like it may be nearing. And while the claim states
these and other truths to be self evident, why does America have such a difficult time
looking into the collective mirror and discerning reality from vanity? Titular American
Exceptionalism can be deceptively short sighted and reductive to real global progress.
Moreover, Americans seem to have an irrevocable aversion to even talking about the
truths behind the motives and aims of government, national debt, the deceptive,
autonomous Federal Reserve, the big casino called Wall Street, and the long list of
interests far removed from the will of the people. American national dialogue has a
chronic tendency of veering left and right, avoiding real resolution, and altogether
ignoring the consensus of the citizens. It screams anthems and fight songs from sidelines
but never really hits any golden notes. It is rarely more than divisive, postured, unilateral,
and mud slung- and the Congressional mouths are experts at it. They can barely contain
the self righteous disconnected bravado with which they speak about Their business,
which, if this is in fact a Democracy, is Our business too.
The people are profoundly aware that something is rotten in Denmark- rancid
really; mutilated and decayed- something like an unsolved murder whose clues have been
‘lost’ in a dramatic cover up. Yet the people feel like helpless gawkers shuffling about
behind yellow tape while a bumbling Federal Agency convinces us there is nothing to
worry about. Or worse, “there’s nothing we can do”.
Enter Wikileaks as an Investigative Bureau built outside the confines of
corruption, concealment, and misinformation with Julian Assange as Lead Investigator of
a forensic team collecting information DNA and engaging the public’s help in solving a
heinous crime against Democracy. Is this the climax of a kitschy, high risk, legal thriller
in which the citizen protagonist finds the strength to overcome all the odds leveled
against him and sees the Truth in the near distance, waiting, waiting? Is this the
opportunity to find some truth in a crumbling facade of a We The People bureaucracy?
Alas, no. Enter hack actor Uncle Sam reciting tired lines and tripping over tattered
curtains, making a mockery of the production and thieving the show until the audience
walks out and the critics pan the entire event.
Predictably, the immediate response to the leaked cables from across the
leader/expert/pundit board followed a tired dialogue map- establish polarized blame,
knock some heads, focus on distractions, admit nothing. Throw in a few platitudes for
good measure. And worse, turn a dissident press into a national threat.
The Heritage Foundation ran a piece declaring “Any U. S. person who cooperated
with Wikileaks has committed a crime and should be prosecuted the maximum extent of
the law” and “the President should make it a publicly top priority to hunt down any
American (connected with the leaks) and prosecute them”. More like persecute.
 Similarly, The Manhattan Scholar Theodore Dalrymple says Wikileaks is
“unwittingly doing the work of totalitarianism”, which to put totalitarianism into simple
speak, is a police state whose strategies and goals include ‘reeducating’ the mass to
accept that private lives and public (service) would not be separate things, rather an
arranged marriage of the person to his country, conformity to the regime’s unified
theories as interpreted entirely by the regime. It is also important to note that a method
for installing Totalitarian leadership is to shape law establishing precedent protecting the
regime from any new challenges posed by unruly citizens. Would Mr. Dalrymple have us
believe that this sounds more applicable to Wikileaks, or the government’s immediate
campaign to suppress and destroy Wikileaks and shape new policy around this type of
breach? Or the very public U. S. crack of more than a few whips on any entity doing
business with these allegedly treasonous outlaws, while frantically searching
constitutional law to repress this new source of these so called self evident truths. If the
culture of secretive government has its way, this new avenue to transparency will soon be
a forgotten drama lacking any social value or tangible truths.

For some of the People, Wikileaks seems, at long last, a source to uncensored answers in
a perplexing search for truths systematically taken hostage by a culture of ‘behind closed
doors’ policy and ‘in the interest of public safety’ pulpit rhetoric.

The absence of debate is an effective strategy in stifling public awareness. But too, it can
be the impetus for a much larger debate regarding the information our leaders are hiding,
or protecting as evidence of inscrutable clandestine relationships in which the interests of
the people are unnecessary annoyances to the will of the elite.

The only congressional debate we seem to be hearing involves ‘shooting the messenger’,
and has hovered over the constitutionality of free press and public and private record
protection (though, when the private record of the people is concerned, we all know that
none of us are beyond reach or scrutiny).

Alas, the people are talking about these things, trying to find clarity in a world hyper-
saturated with information, noise, and biased rhetoric. A straight answer is as elusive as
peace in the Middle East. If we were to assume the language and actions of government
and media are indicative of the truth, then this country is so hopelessly divided no amount
of counsel will help. No dialogue can lend us the truths we long for. Historically, the
wall of secrecy insulating government from public scrutiny has in no short order,
completely alienated the public from hearty involvement in the process of democracy- let
alone their place in it apart from working, consuming, and paying taxes. How can the
truth seem such an annoying guest at dinner? Are we afraid Mighty America has lost its
way, or worse, its shiny veneer? The trouble is- Americans see their country crumbling.
They see that consistently, in times of prosperity or struggle, budget cuts to Education,
Veterans Services (support our troops?); the Homeless, the Elderly, the Poor and the like
are always at the top of the list. The people see the figures for earmarks, Congressional
travel expenses, incomprehendable bonuses to bankers, vanished war reconstruction
monies and wonder what the hell is going on? Where is the equality? And for clarity,
they are only hearing partisan mumbling, or slogans built from ambiguous words and
obligatory phrases. Matters of the national condition MUST be talked about. Policy is not
scripture. It demands collective scrutiny. It must serve the consensus, not the private
ambitions of paid servants to the state. And it cannot replace the Citizen’s right to know
intimately the goings on of his or her elected government.

We have spent the last century assuming what we hear is true from the press and the
President. We have allowed our leaders a dangerous level of infallibility and they have
accepted the role with great fervor and little accountability. America has been in the dark
for years while searching in vain for the dangling string attached to a burned out light
bulb. Public Record provides mostly vital statistics but little in the way of understanding
the inner workings of the minds, policies, and biases of our elected government. The
Freedom of Information Act provides more raw and consequential information; but not
without robust censorship intact. Everything else is conspiracy. Fodder for the weak
minded faithless. Fortunately, the Age of Information has provided the mass a set of tools
with which we can make renovations to our lawful right to know what the hell is going
on. Wikileaks is one of those tools. Yet, despite a more aware citizenry trying to be
informed, the Whole Picture is still very much obscured and purposely distorted. Most of
the officials involved in the leaks stated that the public has no right to the private affairs
of government. But how can the people be certain government uses privacy as a tool and
not a weapon?

For a growing number of the people who do not adhere to polarized thinking, who love
their country and question patriotic vitriol and understand the difference, people who can
filter the nonsense and distraction from media, people who see clearly the ways of
humanity or have a personal insight into the world around them are increasingly shocked
at the unbridled commitment of government to its corporate benefactors and have grown
weary of big business politics and the shamelessly greedy, out of touch self serving
residents of The Capital of the World.

Government fails to consider that some Americans actually WANT to think for
themselves; find a rational balance in a tormented constituency. Citizens are caught in the
Catch 22 between government accountability and government’s resistance to being
accountable. Instead of dissecting the content and nature of any of the cables, rather than
conceding some element of authentic accountability, both Houses of Congress are
working feverishly to pass, (in rare bipartisan fervor) the Shield Act.

The Shield Act, or Securing Human Intelligence and Enforcing Lawful Dissemination
Act, which, as its preposterous, overbuilt title would suggest, is the first step toward
‘Lawfully’ controlling- not quite your thoughts, but rather the way in which you share
them. And Orwell’s corpse let out a woeful sigh…

If Wikileaks provides a source to objective understanding of the way things are and the
objective lens through which one can more easily read between the lies, eh, lines, then the
public deserves the privilege of seeing the facts as the facts, nothing less. In these harsh
times, if the American citizen were any more awash in uncertainty, division, and
confusion regarding the path and pathos of this modern history, the people would need to
grow fins and gills just to survive the approaching high water mark. Most of us are aware
that in the grand architecture of government, secrecy is the foundation on which a stone
pulpit is built, and propaganda is the immovable system of iron and steel built around it,
encased in layers of toxic rhetoric and destructive governmental activity. Paint the thing
in disinformation, and you have an Escher palace from which questionable regimes
control huddled masses and the U. S. is actually leading the suppression of the Truths
about the Truths so help us God. There seems little hope for holistic progress. Reasonable
debate is dead. Innovation is confined to business models. Rational collective dialogue is
a laughable notion. National Intelligence is chaotic punctuation haphazardly splattered
over dizzying essays on patriotism, democracy, the future of country. In an increasingly
devastating vision of the World in which so few have the most wealth and cannot bear to
share, where food rots while the starved look on, where unilateralism is somehow a
necessary alternative to consensus, where the citizens are serfs, We the People must take
a stand. We must leave our biases and preconceptions and fears behind. We must demand
honesty. We must not limit our participation in Democracy to Election Days. We must
take a good hard look at the ocean without becoming fixated on deceptive waves. We
must fight for the right of entities like Wikileaks to exist. We must discern truth from
slanted media and teleprompter idioms. We must avoid being caught in a debate about
the debate while the impetus for the Truth Debate is thrown into the corner with the
elephant, 800lb gorilla, and of course, the ahem, big lady warming her voice.

Throughout the long slog of history, the Innocents have taken their lumps from the Lords,
Leaders, and Less than Honorable who with little effort have convinced the public that by
some God’s divine grace, that they are the chosen who shall govern, and that you, the
peasant, prole, plebe, are to be governed, and are otherwise destined to be so for the rest
of God’s Eternity. No questions permitted. The leaders become mythic in their own
minds while fundamentally ignoring the hopes of their generations to integrate the
failures of the past into the loving progress of the future.

Transparency is understanding. Accountability is solidarity. A nation of free thinkers who

cannot think freely is as dangerous as any regime across the globe overtly repressing their
peoples. America prides itself on not being one of THOSE.
William Orville Douglas, Associate Justice for the Supreme Court for 36 years, said
“Acceptance by government of a dissident press is a measure of the maturity of a nation”.
Wikileaks is an opportunity to build equality between the world citizen and world
governments through unobstructed channels of Democracy. We can not afford to let our
elected leaders set destructive precedent against such organizations.
You may not like Julian Assange, but he has provided a new platform from which the
people can stand closer to the Truth. He has been called a Revolutionary and an
Antichrist. Perhaps, for this story, “Our Man in Denmark” will do.