Gimme Some Truth
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Published on Thursday, May 26, 2005 by CommonDreams.org
by Bob Burnett
No doubt because "Imagine" is John Lennon's masterpiece, these days we seldom hear another of his classics,
I'm sick and tired of hearing things
From uptight, short-sighted, narrow-minded hypocritics
All I want is the truth
Just gimme some truth.
As the Iraq war grinds on, and it becomes more obvious that the nation is lurching towards disaster, many of us are literally starved for the truth. We hunger for leaders who will be candid about our circumstances, those who believe as Emerson did that truth is the "treasure of all men". Sadly, what we get instead is "uptight, short-sighted, narrow-minded hypocritics."
One of the major casualties of this war has been the truth. Even when most Americans accept that dissembling is an everyday part of politics, the level of mendacity practiced by the Bush Administration has plumbed new depths. Interestingly, it was Adolph Hitler who observed that everyday citizens, "more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously."
This has been the war of the big lie. As a consequence, America's political process has been severely damaged: for the principle of informed consent to work, citizens have to trust the government to provide them with accurate information. Thus, to restore democracy we need to return to the basics - tell the truth.
When George W. Bush accepted the Republican nomination 5 years ago, he sought to distinguish himself from Bill Clinton and Al Gore on the basis of his trustworthiness. Invoking a moral framework based upon duty and honor, Bush pledged to "lead this nation to a responsibility era."
Now we know the truth. Bush followed the teachings, not of honorable leaders such as Jefferson and Churchill, but of tyrants such as Hitler and Goebbels. In his conduct of the war in Iraq, the President borrowed a page from Lenin, who famously observed, "A lie told often enough becomes truth."
During the past two years, George Bush has stuck to his justification for the invasion of Iraq, that the US "saved the world from a tyrant, who was developing weapons of mass destruction, and cultivating ties to terror." Thanks to a series of leaked documents, we now know that he fabricated his entire case for the war; it was not a mistake, a well-intended action subverted by erroneous information, "faulty intelligence." Rather, it was a willful perversion of the truth.
Two months after 9/11, President Bush ordered Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld to begin planning an invasion of Iraq. After eight months, on July 23, 2002, momentum had gathered and the British "war cabinet" gathered to consider their involvement. According to a secret transcript of the meeting, published May 1st in the London Sunday Times, the Brits were very aware that "facts were being fixed around the policy" of the Administration to take out Saddam Hussein. As the year progressed, the Bush Administration's propaganda campaign swung into full gear. The first phase convinced Congress, and the American people, that Iraq constituted an imminent threat. The second phase saw a wily feint in order to gain the approval of the UN and a reprise of weapon inspections - a condition that the Blair government insisted upon. The final phase systematically discredited the work of the UN; in his infamous February, 2003, UN speech, Secretary of State Powell insisted that Saddam had fooled the inspectors and had caches of WMDs hidden throughout Iraq.
A rereading of this treacherous history raises two questions: Why should the American public believe anything that the Administration says? Why don't the Democrats make Bush's dishonesty a major political issue?
Clearly the Administration's moral stance is that the ends justify the means; they have followed the advice of Niccolo Machiavelli, "politics have no relations to morals," This immorality stains their entire agenda; for example, it explains why the Bushies continue to insist that tax cuts for the wealthy benefit the economy. No one who cares about truth, or democracy, should believe anything that the Administration says.
The fascinating question is why haven't the Democrats made more of the Bush duplicity and venality? In the 2004 Presidential campaign, John Kerry decided to hold back, to talk about policy, rather than Bush's competence and credibility. Kerry set a tone of appeasement that continues to this day. With the notable exception of House Leader Nancy Pelosi, leading Democrats have coddled the Bush Administration, treating them as errant children rather than as vipers.
The gloves have to come off. Democrats must take the aggressive stance that John Lennon's song evokes. The war in Iraq, the stability of the Middle East, and America's credibility as an exemplar for democracy are too important to be left to the purview of "uptight, short-sighted, narrow-minded hypocritics." What we need is the truth, "just gimme some truth."
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Bob Burnett is a Berkeley writer and activist. He can be reached at boburnett@comcast.net.
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