What Happens to Facts & Truth When Liars Control the Source of Information

Context: What’s on my mind today

In her masterpiece of history and political theory, Hannah Arendt wrote in 1951 that her analysis of both mass murdering, kleptocratic totalitarians and merely murdering, kleptocratic tyrants showed that they both heavily relied on propaganda. It was a key tool to, e.g., deceive and then divide, confuse/demoralize, instill irrational fear, distract and ultimately conquer and subjugate. I call propaganda something that is intended to deceive, divide, make irrationally fearful, confuse/demoralize, conquer and/or subjugate “dark free speech” (DFS). In the legal and social context of modern America, it is mostly (~99.9% ?) legal, protected free speech. American courts gave up on trying to deal with DFS at least as early as 1945 the Thomas v. Collins supreme court decision.[1]

What happens to facts & truth when liars control public health messaging

The New York Times writes:

“WASHINGTON — Political appointees at the Department of Health and Human Services have repeatedly asked the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to revise, delay and even scuttle weekly reports on the coronavirus that they believed were unflattering to President Trump. 

Current and former senior health officials with direct knowledge of phone calls, emails and other communication between the agencies said on Saturday that meddling from Washington was turning widely followed and otherwise apolitical guidance on infectious disease, the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports, into a political loyalty test, with career scientists framed as adversaries of the administration. 

They confirmed an article in Politico Friday night that the C.D.C.’s public morbidity reports, which one former top health official described on Saturday as the “holiest of the holy” in agency literature, have been targeted for months by senior officials in the health department’s communications office. It is unclear whether any of the reports were substantially altered, but important federal health studies have been delayed because of the pressure.

The reports are written largely for scientists and public health experts, updating them on trends in all infectious diseases, Covid-19 included. They are guarded so closely by agency staff members that political appointees only see them just before they are published. Health department officials have typically only received notice of the titles of the reports. 

The New York Times interviewed five current and former federal health officials on Saturday with direct knowledge of efforts to warp the weekly reports. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to frankly discuss internal deliberations at the Department of Health and Human Services. 

In an email obtained by Politico and confirmed by a person with direct knowledge of the message, Dr. Alexander accused C.D.C. scientists of trying to “hurt the president” with the reports, which he referred to as “hit pieces on the administration.” Dr. Alexander asked Dr. Robert R. Redfield, the C.D.C. director, to edit reports that had already been published, which he believed overstated the risks of the virus for children and undermined the administration’s efforts to encourage schools to reopen.”

So, once again, new evidence bubbles up from the black cauldron that our corrupt, incompetent, immoral president and his authoritarian enablers have no qualms about lying, deceiving and unjustifiable emotional manipulation for the president’s personal political and financial gain. The president and his enablers do not even care if the lies and deceit cause innocent, deceived people to die. As the court said in 1945, every person must be his own watchman for truth. In my opinion, that is more true now than it has been for a while.

Footnote:
1. The Supreme Court gives up (again?): “But it cannot be the duty, because it is not the right, of the state to protect the public against false doctrine [lies]. The very purpose of the First Amendment is to foreclose public authority from assuming a guardianship of the public mind through regulating the press, speech, and religion. In this field, every person must be his own watchman for truth, because the forefathers did not trust any government to separate the true from the false for us.  West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 (1943). Nor would I.” U.S. Supreme Court in Thomas v. Collins, 323 U.S. 516, 545 (1945) (Robert Jackson writing in concurrence) (brackets [ ] are mine)

DFS is ancient, not new. The destructive power of DFS has been documented for millennia. Arguably, the vicious tactic goes back to some of the earliest written records that humans ever produced. Mass slaughter at the hand of man tends to focus the mind. It seems to attract the attention of both pro- and anti-slaughter ancient historians, sort of like murder and mass slaughter movies and TV shows do the same with enough of the modern public to keep the murder and mass slaughter coming. For better or worse, the power of DFS to win hearts and minds is a reflection of the heritage humans got from evolution.