re: #227 Gus

Clearly protecting American citizens is important, but is secrecy and misinformation the best practice? Documents released under the Freedom of Information Act and stored in the National Archives describe Project BLUE BOOK, an operation wherein Air Force officials gathered reports of UFOs and offered accounts of natural phenomena to explain them away. “From 1947 to 1969″ the documents read, “a total of 12,618 sightings were reported to the Project BLUE BOOK. Of these 701 remain ‘Unidentified.’” BLUE BOOK was basically a program to feed misinformation to Americans to hide the fact that the Air Force was testing spy planes

Outrage!

He continues…

For years people in Nevada saw something in the sky, and when they reported this information to the government or the Air Force, they were deflected and given responses from Project BLUE BOOK. In essence, these individuals saw something real, and the government told them it didn’t exist—or was a misinterpretation. This is what is so frightening; by controlling and choosing how to disseminate information, the government becomes a major stakeholder in what is real—and what is not.

How does it affect the American psyche when people who clearly see something are told they are wrong? How does if affect the way we see ourselves as a culture when huge sections of our country are mysteriously stricken from the grid? And are we making an unconscious choice when we fail to be outraged over government coverups?

“So many of us are willing to accept restrictions on our freedom,” said Goldberg, “restrictions on our privacy, based on our great fear of terrorism, based on our fear of tyranny. I’m concerned that we’re willing to restrict the Constitution, to restrict our own powers because of our great fears.”

For the sake of argument, let’s imagine that the most “popular” conspiracy theories were revealed to be true—the federal government was behind the assassination of JFK; 9/11 was an inside job; and the moon landing was filmed in Hollywood—how would our country react? Would we riot? Or would we close our eyes and pretend like nothing happened?

If we choose apathy in the presence of these government revelations like Area 51, we are in danger. As George Orwell wrote in “1984,” “For, after all, how do we know that two and two make four? Or that the force of gravity works? Or that the past is unchangeable? If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable—what then?” And here is the problem: By allowing a government to manipulate information in order to maintain secrecy, we may be allowing them to destroy the very ideas of objectivity and reasoning. That’s the great injustice of the revelation of Area 51: It further confirms that for the officials we trust to protect our freedoms, truth and reality are malleable.

Lights hair on fire. Sounds like a TPer.