Anyone living in the United States since World War II – shucks – anyone living anywhere on Earth who was aware of geopolitical events – knew it was a fact of life that our country was a bitter rival of Russia, in a dangerous cold war with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and an uneasy peace after the Soviet Union broke into the “republics” it had composed, Russia chief amongst them.
So we experience a severe disconnect when our current administration works at rewriting history. When our president met in neutral Finland with the Russian chief executive, he said, “I see him as a competitor, and that’s a compliment.”
Okay. Who could argue with our president’s stated desire to accomplish what Obama called a “reset?” Before he was destroyed by the Watergate scandal, President Nixon surprised the world by engineering a detente with communist China, that “yellow menace” which was at least as hated as the USSR – and everyone sighed in relief.
Back then, I knew young women who decided they would never bear children because of the threat of nuclear annihilation. (Nowadays that decision is based on global warming, but that’s another story.) In my high school chemistry class, when we reached the unit on nuclear chemistry, our teacher prefaced it with a weeklong lecture on the evils of communism. Wouldn’t it be nice to leave that old paranoia behind?
Instead, Russia under Putin assassinates Russian exiles in other countries, supports corrupt regimes and invades, annexes, or threatens former Soviet-controlled satellite countries, conducts cyber warfare in the elections of Western Europe and the United States, and so on. We can’t escape the intrigue unless we intentionally hide from the headlines, turn off radio, tell-a-vision and Internet. Most people want to keep up with current events, even when they trouble us.
But now we have the inescapable test of truthiness – am I reading fake news? Putin denies any wrongdoing in a strong and powerful way, so all accusations are considered fake news. President Trump isn’t alone in falling under the Russian dictator’s thrall; George W. Bush famously stated that he had looked into Putin’s eyes and seen his soul.
The capacity of the White House to defend presidential statements and then turn them around within a few days is prefigured in George Orwell’s book 1984, the granddaddy of dystopian novels. 1984’s protagonist, Winston Smith, works in the Ministry of Truth, where his job is to rewrite history and burn the old newspapers. It hasn’t gotten that bad in the US – yet – but rewriting history is easy enough to do. The holocaust didn’t happen. The murder of kindergartners at Sandy Hook Elementary school is a propaganda ploy to enact gun control. The government flew those airliners into the Twin Towers. LBJ ordered the assassination of JFK – the list goes on and on and on…
In 1984, the enemy is changed arbitrarily; in 2018, Putin’s Russia may be our friend, victimized by fake news. By giving up its nuclear bombs, North Korea may enter into a period of peace and prosperity. Canada is our foe. The press is the enemy of the people. Millions of people vote illegally, so we must diligently purge voter rolls. Corporations are people, too.
My inner English teacher cringes at the term “consumers of news.” But in a way, it is accurate. Just as we might choose to eat nutritious meals or nothing but junk food, we can decide whom to believe – the legitimate press or some junk on social media?
When we first got Internet access, I thought it was great that I could choose what news sources to read, which commentators I got something from, whether they were conservative, liberal, or just thought-provoking. Unfortunately, since then, the growth of the Internet, particularly through social media, gives everyone the choice to read, watch, or listen to their own predetermined list of sources, leading most of us to believe what we want and disregard the rest, and label anyone who disagrees as the enemy.
Kirk Ashworth