On February 7, 2020, President Donald Trump told legendary Washington Post investigative reporter Bob Woodward:
It goes through air, Bob. That’s always tougher than the touch. The touch, you don’t have to touch things, right? But the air, you just breathe the air and that’s how it’s passed. And so that’s a very tricky one. That’s a very delicate one. It’s also more deadly than even your strenuous flues. People don’t realize, we lose 25,000, 30,000 people a year here. Who would ever think that, right?
Yet, in public, he played down the lethality of the virus and attacked those who sought to take it seriously:
- January 22: “We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China.”
- February 24: “The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA.”
- February 26: “The 15 cases within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero.”
- February 27: “One day it’s like a miracle, it will disappear.”
- February 28: “Now the Democrats are politicizing the Coronavirus….We did one of the great jobs….One of my people came up to me and said, ‘Mr. President, they tried to beat you on Russia, Russia, Russia’….They couldn’t do it. They tried the impeachment hoax….It’s all turning, they lost….And this is their new hoax.”
- March 6: “I think we’re doing a really good job in this country of keeping it down. A tremendous job of keeping it down.”
By April, 2020, the virus had claimed 23,000 Americans. And Trump’s fanatical defenders were desperate to rewrite history.
One of these was Republican South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham.
On April 9, 2020, appearing on the Fox News network’s “Sean Hannity” show, Graham said: “The first thing I want to do is get the United States Senate on the record where we don’t blame Trump. We blame China.
“The Chinese government is responsible for 16,000 American deaths and 17 million Americans being unemployed. It’s the Chinese government and the way they behave that led to this pandemic. This is the third one to come out of China.
Lindsey Graham
Graham said that the “wet markets” in China should be shut down, because they have been the source of three pandemics that originated in China.
Now, with more than 500,000 Americans dead, Trump’s fanatical defenders have decided to simply ignore history.
How else to explain the “Golden Trump” statue unveiled at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on February 25?
But non-Fascistic Americans should not ignore that Trump:
- Lied about the lethality of the virus.
- Attacked masks, science and social distancing.
- Attacked Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country’s top infectious disease expert.
- Urged his followers to protest governors who championed wearing masks and socially distancing.
- Refused to establish a central command to supply states with Personal Protective Equipment (PPE).
- Seized vitally-needed medical supplies in at least seven states.
- Promoted quack “solutions” (such as injecting bleach to ward off the virus).
* * * * *
On July 26, 1946, Chief United States Counsel Robert H. Jackson, prosecuting Nazi war criminals at Nuremberg, delivered his closing remarks to the court. He might as well have been speaking about Donald Trump and his cheerleading—and misleading—chorus on Coronavirus:
“Lying has always been a highly approved Nazi technique. [Adolf] Hitler, in Mein Kampf, advocated mendacity as a policy. {Foreign Minister Joachim] Von Ribbentrop admits the use of the ‘diplomatic lie.’
“….Nor is the lie direct the only means of falsehood. They all speak with a Nazi double talk with which to deceive the unwary….’Final solution’ of the Jewish problem was a phrase which meant extermination. ‘Special treatment’ of prisoners of war meant killing. ‘Protective custody’ meant concentration camp.
Robert H. Jackson
“Besides outright false statements and double talk, there are also other circumventions of truth in the nature of fantastic explanations and absurd professions.
“[Rabid anti-Semite Julius] Streicher has solemnly maintained that…his reason for destroying synagogues…was only because they were architecturally offensive….
“This was the philosophy of the National Socialists. When for years they have deceived the world, and masked falsehood with plausibilities, can anyone be surprised that they continue their habits of a lifetime in this dock?
“It is against such a background that these defendants now ask this Tribunal to say that they are not guilty of planning, executing, or conspiring to commit this long list of crimes and wrongs.”
Citing William Shakespeare’s play about the murderous Richard III, Jackson concluded:
“They stand before the record of this trial as bloodstained Gloucester stood by the body of his slain king. He begged of the widow, as they beg of you: ‘Say I slew them not.’ And the Queen replied, ‘Then say they were not slain. But dead they are…’
“If you were to say of these men that they are not guilty, it would be as true to say that there has been no war, there are no slain, there has been no crime.”
If Americans find Donald Trump blameless for refusing to take decisive action against the Coronavirus threat, it will be as true to say there has been no plague, there are no thousands of dead Americans, there has been no dereliction of Presidential responsibility.
A FEW GOOD MEN, ABC NEWS, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BBC, BIRTH CONTROL, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CENSORSHIP, CNN, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, DRUDGE REPORT, EARL BUTZ, ESPN, FACEBOOK, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FOSTER FRIESS, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HUFFINGTON POST, JACK NICHOLSON, JEREMY LIN, MEDIA MATTERS, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWS MEDIA, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RACISM, RAW STORY, REUTERS, RICK SANTORUM, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TOM CRUISE, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UPI, USA TODAY, WONKETTE
CENSORING THE TRUTH TO “PROTECT” US FROM IT
In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on March 5, 2021 at 12:22 amThe 1992 military courtroom drama, “A Few Good Men,” climaxes with a brutal exchange that has since become famous.
The legal combatants are Lieutenant Daniel Kaffee (Tom Cruise) and Marine Colonel Nathan R. Jessup (Jack Nicholson).
COLONEL JESSUP: You want answers?
KAFFEE: I want the truth!
COLONEL JESSUP: You can’t handle the truth!
Apparently, many of those who work in the television news business feel the same way about their audiences.
Jack Nicolson vs. Tom Cruise in “A Few Good Men”
[WARNING: The following column contains some words that some readers may find offensive. Read on at your own risk.]
On February 18, 2012, editor Anthony Federico posted this headline on ESPN’s mobile website:
Chink in the Armor: Jeremy Lin’s 9 Turnovers
Cost Knicks in Streak-Snapping Loss to Hornets.
The headline was posted at 2:30 a.m. and quickly removed when someone realized that it might be seen as offensive. By Sunday afternoon, Federico had been fired from ESPN.
Jeremy Lin
It’s true that “Chink” is seen by Asians as a derogatory word. It’s equally true that ESPN has the right to discipline its employees when they violate its journalistic standards.
But ESPN should not have the right to treat its audience like so many school children who must be protected, at all costs, from life’s unpleasantness.
Consider ESPN’s apology:
“Last night, ESPN.com’s mobile web site posted an offensive headline referencing Jeremy Lin at 2:30 am ET. The headline was removed at 3:05 am ET.
“We are conducting a complete review of our cross-platform editorial procedures and are determining appropriate disciplinary action to ensure this does not happen again. We regret and apologize for this mistake.”
Note the words “posted an offensive headline.” If you didn’t already know what the headline had said, ESPN wasn’t going to enlighten you.
And other news networks—such as ABC and NBC—have acted similarly, referring to the “c-word” without telling viewers just what was actually posted.
Since the “c-word” is often used as a euphemism for “cunt,” it’s easy to see how many viewers could imagine the writer had used a very different expression.
The official reason given for refraining from actually saying the word that lies at the center of the story is to offending some members of the audience.
But when the use of certain words becomes central to a news story, editors and reporters should have the courage to reveal just what was said—and let the audience decide for itself.
The evening news is—supposedly—aimed at voting-age adults. And adults need—and deserve—the hard truth about the world they live in. Only then do they have a chance to reform it–if, in fact, they decide it needs reforming.
Examples of such censorship are legion. For instance:
In 1976, during the Republican Presidential Convention, entertainer Pat Boone asked Earl Butz, then Secretary of Agriculture: Why was the party of Lincoln having so much trouble winning black votes for its candidates?
“I’ll tell you what the coloreds want,” said Butz. “It’s three things: first, a tight pussy; second, loose shoes; and third, a warm place to shit.”
Earl Butz
Unknown to Butz, a Rolling Stone reporter was standing nearby. When his comments became public, Butz was forced to resign.
Meanwhile, most TV and print media struggled to protect their audiences from the truth of Butz’ racism.
Many newspapers simply reported that Butz had said something too obscene to print. Some invited their readers to contact the editors if they wanted more information.
TV newsmen generally described Butz’ firing as stemming from “a racially-offensive remark,” which they refused to explain.
In short: A high-ranking government official had been fired, but adult audiences were not allowed to judge whether his language justified that termination.
Or consider this:
On February 16, 2012, Foster Friess, offered his views about the importance of legalized birth control. Friess was the wealthy investor bankrolling a super PAC for GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum.
Foster Friess
Gage Skidmore [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)%5D, from Wikimedia Commons
“This contraceptive thing, my gosh it’s such inexpensive,” said Friess. “Back in my days, they used Bayer Aspirin for contraception. The gals put it between their knees and it wasn’t that costly.”
Many news organizations refused to share Friess’ statement, merely saying that he had made an “offensive remark about women.”
It’s understandable that women would be highly offended by this remark. But shielding them from the repressive mindset of those who support Right-wing candidates like Santorum would ill serve their interests.
Censoring the truth has always been a hallmark of dictatorships. It has no place in a democracy—no matter how well-intentioned the motives of those doing the censoring.
Some words will always be hateful—to blacks, whites, Hispanics, Asians, women, men. In short, everybody.
Refusing to acknowledge their use will not cause them to vanish.
The truth is the truth. If you can’t handle it, that’s your problem.
But those of us who can deserve the opportunity to learn it. And, when necessary, to act on it.
Share this:
Like this: