-By Frank Salvato
“Among the calamities of war may be jointly numbered the diminution of the love of truth, by the falsehoods which interest dictates and credulity encourages.” – Samuel Johnson
Few things are more important in life than the facts and the truth. Ironically, the quest for both has waned over generations. Today, fact and truth suffer the narcissism of a generation of self-indulgent ideologues who have sought to shape the world to their belief system, doing so armed with little more than falsely elevated self-esteem. The result has been to bring our great nation to a divide not seen since the US Civil War; a divide of politics, ideology and culture; a divide that threatens our Republic’s very existence.
Samuel Johnson’s adage about truth being a casualty of war is not exclusive to wars of nations, it is applicable to wars of all breeds: cultural, violent, ideological and political. In fact, today’s American culture places more worth on the delivery of words than on the credibility of words. A gifted orator can mesmerize the citizenry into reacting to a melodic tone and artful inflection and into caring little for the accuracy of the statements being made. He can pass impossibilities as realities using hollow promises, promises that serve as distractions to truth and fact. Truth be told, today, the American public is more interested in being captivated by the “bright shiny” distraction, being entertained by the slickly delivered sleight-of-hand rhetoric of “hope” and “change,” than they are in gathering the facts in an effort to better understand reality.
Mainstream Media
Nowhere are truth and fact more dispensable than in today’s mainstream media. Where in times past the term journalist elicited respect and an aura of daring and integrity, today the public views “journalists” with as much contempt as politicians and shyster lawyers, and rightly so. Where journalists of days gone by used to hold to a code of ethic in delivering the truth, today “journalists” pro-actively advocate and editorialize the news.
An excellent example of the mainstream media’s contempt for the facts and the truth can be examined in their coverage of the 2008 presidential election between then Senator Obama and Senator John McCain. On issue after issue the members of the Fourth Estate refused to question the assertions of Mr. Obama. They refused to examine the effects of his relationships – both past and present – with radical operatives and thinkers. And they refused to scrutinize his theories on policy and the reality of his political inexperience. Conversely, the “journalists” of the mainstream media pored over every aspect of John McCain’s life; from the way he dressed to his fidelity in marriage, from his age to his temperament, no matter what truth Senator McCain espoused it was rendered inconsequential by the media elite in deference to Senator Obama’s “bright” and “shiny” oratory skills and his faux promises of “hope” and “change,” a recycled campaign strategy from the Clinton campaigns.
The mainstream media’s assault on truth and fact continues in its unwillingness to forgo omissions in reporting, or “non-reporting.” By omitting certain topics and examinations of specific queries the “journalists” of the mainstream media effectively compromise fact and truth by painting an inaccurate picture of the issues in question.
A good example of pro-active non-reporting was on display recently when FOX News anchor Sheppard Smith covered the shootings at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC. Instead of delivering the facts of a horrendous story devoid of opinion and slant, Mr. Smith, in an attempt to marginalize legitimate queries by a large number of citizens, tried to paint those concerned with President Obama’s satisfaction of Article II, Section 1 of the US Constitution as radical hate-mongers and homicidal extremists. In an emotional outburst Mr. Smith declared, “It has to stop.” Yet, neither Mr. Smith himself, nor any of his FOX News brethren have bothered to examine the issue in earnest. If they had they would have come to understand that there is no enforcement vehicle for Article II, Section 1 of the US Constitution, none, and that the Certificate of Live Birth displayed by Mr. Obama’s campaign was not only not the equivalent of a birth certificate but that it was digitally altered. By Mr. Smith’s non-reporting of this very real issue – and by his attempts to deter the American public from understanding the facts and the truth – he has effectively helped to conceal the facts and the truth on this matter from the American public.
In a profession that receives constitutional protection so that it can freely tend to its duties, no greater disservice can be done to the Constitution than to manipulate, manufacture and/or keep the truth from the American people. Today’s mainstream media has abdicated its constitutional responsibility to counter government through public examination. In its current form, it is difficult to justify continued unfettered constitutional protection for the mainstream media.
The Palestinian Conflict & The “Religion of Peace”
Two of the more troublesome issues where fact and truth are concerned are the issues of Islam and the Palestinian conflict. Both advocates and detractors are guilty of using propaganda in the extreme to advance their cause and because of that the facts and the truth suffer greatly.
When truth is served, there has never been a country called Palestine and, therefore, the notion of a “Palestinian people” is one of generality, not specificity. Palestine, also referred to as Judea, referred to a region which encompassed the land between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. More specifically, the region known as Palestine or Judea (these terms come from the time of the Roman Empire, mind you) includes Israel, Gaza and the West Bank, and parts of Syria, Lebanon and Jordan.
Where there was never a country or kingdom called Palestine, there was a Kingdom of Israel dating back to at least 1020BC. This kingdom was ruled by Saul, its first king, and the Israelites established Jerusalem as its capitol. It wasn’t until between 722BC and 720BC that the Kingdom of Israel fell to the Assyrians.
The argument that today’s Gazans and West Bank citizens are the rightful inhabitants to all of Israel is a disingenuous one. The greater mass of land that comprised ancient Palestine lies within the borders of Jordan and Syria. Yet the inhabitants of Gaza and the West Bank never petition the world for the right of return to these lands. They focus, exclusively, on the land of Israel which the Jews first inhabited in 1020BC.
Fact and truth are further compromised by the notion that Islam, in its fundamental form, is a “religion of peace.” The history of Islam, dating back to the days of Muhammad in 570AD, is one of obedience, oppression and conquest by the sword. Throughout its existence – and throughout the myriad attempts to establish a global Caliphate – Muslims loyal to the teaching of Muhammad, adhering to strict interpretations of the Quran and Hadith, spread the religion of Islam through violent conquest that witnessed the occupation of lands throughout the Middle East and from Europe to Asia to Africa.
Further, Muhammad, as his following grew, became increasingly hateful of the Jews setting to religious teaching the need to slay the Jews so that the Day of Judgment could arrive:
“The hour [Judgment Day] will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them. A Jew will [then] hide behind a rock or a tree, and the rock or tree will call upon the Muslim: ‘O Muslim, O slave of Allah! There is a Jew behind me, come and kill him!” – Sahih No. 5203 and Ahmad ibn Hanbal’s Musnad, No. 9029
But it wasn’t exclusively the Jews that Muhammad targeted, it was anyone who dared not to submit to his religion:
“And when the forbidden months have passed, slay the idolaters wherever you find them and take them captive, and beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them at every place of ambush. But if they repent and observe Prayer and pay the Zakaat, then leave their way free. Surely, Allah is Most Forgiving, Merciful.” – The Quran, Sura 9, Chapter 5
These are but two of a multitude of teachings from the Islamic faith that prove beyond any reasonable doubt that Islam is anything but a “religion of peace.” In fact, the more devote, the more fundamentalist the Muslim, the more literal the interpretation of the Quran and Hadith. But you don’t have to become an Islamic scholar to understand the violent tendencies of the Islamic faith. All you have to do is to honestly examine any and every act of terrorism, every act of violence in the name of a religion taking place around the world today to understand that the overwhelming numbers of incidents are perpetrated by members of the Islamic faith and in the name of their faith.
Hope & Change
Truth and fact are bastardized on a constant and continual basis in the political arena, especially in the United States. From false campaign promises to the employment of spin doctors and media gurus, politicians, especially American politicians, have earned the distrust and disdain of the American people. Where the halls of government were once filled with statesmen, today, with rare exception, they are filled with professional political opportunists who put the well-being of their political party and the importance of their political ideology above their constitutional duties to serve their constituencies.
Examples of how truth and fact are routinely cast aside come from the Obama Administration and today’s Congress, although each and every administration since the days of the Founders and Framers is guilty of compromising truth and fact to some extent.
While campaigning, President Obama promised unprecedented transparency in government. He promised that an Obama Administration would exist in a time of post-partisan politics in Washington DC. He promised to close Guantanamo Bay immediately, to cease the military tribunals for Guantanamo detainees, to halt the NSA surveillance activity, to close foreign rendition centers and to provide a tax cut to 95% of the American people. Today, we are witnessing one of the most controlling and partisan administrations in US history. Guantanamo is still open. Tribunals are still functioning. Renditions are still taking place. The NSA program is (thankfully) still in place. And We the People, while receiving a pittance of a tax break, now own several banks and General Motors.
If that wasn’t enough of a slap in the face to truth and fact, when President Obama made the protocol error of bowing to the King of Saudi Arabia his spin doctors told the American people he was “reaching down to shake the hand of a much shorter man,” a claim that flies in the face of the facts. And when the Oval Office okayed a “photo-op” flight for one of the presidential jets (it is only called Air Force One when the president is aboard) – possibly to reward potentate high-profile campaign donors – we were told by his office that it was to capture a picture of the presidential aircraft alongside the Statue of Liberty.
Just down Pennsylvania Avenue, Nancy Pelosi, upon taking up the gavel of the Speaker of the House, insisted that she would preside over the most transparent and ethical Congress in the history of the United States. Instead, we are witnessing a barrage of ethical issues with her party members and a congressional leadership that has usurped the committee process to craft partisan legislation behind closed doors, including the massive $787 Billion “Stimulus Bill,” which 45% of the American people now believe we should abandon.
Add to the mix Speaker Pelosi’s obvious lie that she had never been informed of the use of enhanced interrogation techniques – a claim debunked by her fellow intelligence committee members (at the time) and current CIA Director Leon Panetta (a Democrat from California) – and that the CIA routinely lies to Congress and we witness the assassination of truth and fact on Capitol Hill. All that’s missing is the grassy knoll.
Climate Change
The poster child for the demise of truth and fact comes in the person of former Vice President Al Gore. He and his political opportune faux environmentalists have advanced their ideology at the expense of fact and truth and in doing so have crippled true science and the process of scientific research.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a panel assembled by the United Nations and comprised of scientists employed by political and ideological organizations, put forth a report that returns a political verdict on the effects of human beings on the Earth’s climate. Because the panel was seated by a political organization by a conglomerate of other political organizations, common sense mandates that the result would be heavily influenced by politics.
Regardless of this fact, Mr. Gore and his supporters – many who stand to make billions if not tens or hundreds of billions of dollars from the newly created carbon credit market needed to institutionalize the marketing of carbon emissions – insist that there is a “consensus” in the scientific community and that anyone questioning their “consensus” is akin to a Holocaust denier. The big problem with this assertion is that there are a growing and impressive number of climatologists, meteorologists and climate scientists that are begging to differ with the IPCC’s conclusion and Al Gore’s theories.
Further, one of the core fundamental principles of science is to quest to disprove, which means a true scientists isn’t questing for consensus at all, he or she would be questing to find the flaw in the theory. The IPCC scientists and the Gore sycophants do no such thing, instead expending great amounts of energy, time and money to defend their flawed “consensus.”
If truth was so important to Mr. Gore and his gaggles of sycophants, wouldn’t they be joining in the search for any plausible flaw in their logic, especially, as Mr. Gore maintains, when the world hangs in the balance? Not when there are billions of dollars to be made.
The attack on truth and fact doesn’t end with these few examples. Truth and fact are marginalized in just about every aspect of modern life. From special interest education groups rewriting the facts of history to suit an ideological agenda in the classroom to the infusing of falsely established self-esteem in our children, truth and fact are routinely cast aside in today’s society because they are incompatible with the “Me First” Generation, the Baby Boomer If-It-Feels-Good-Do-It philosophy. Our modern American culture has cast aside the stable societal foundation of truth and fact, honor and civic responsibility for moral relativism and all the compromise it provides. We do so because it is more convenient and allows us to play the victim when the repercussions of our self-indulgence come to bear. Because of this we feed on it like mother’s milk.
It takes a moral and civically responsible people to insist on the facts and the truth, and it takes courage in the face of societal and special interest pressure, especially today, to hold true these principles. Sadly, alarmingly, incredibly, We the People don’t seem to possess that courage today. In fact, it can be successfully argued that the Baby Boomer Generation has been a miserable failure and an experiment in narcissism gone wildly awry. Our revolutionary Fathers, our Founders and Framers, those of the Union and the Confederacy, those who served in the War to End All Wars and the greatest generation would, like General Patton, slap our faces in disgust for our weakness…and we would deserve it.
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Frank Salvato is the managing editor for The New Media Journal . He serves at the Executive Director of the Basics Project, a non-profit, non-partisan, 501(C)(3) research and education initiative. His pieces are regularly featured in over 100 publications both nationally and internationally. He has appeared on The O’Reilly Factor, and is a regular guest on The Right Balance with Greg Allen on the Accent Radio Network, as well as an occasional guest on numerous radio shows coast to coast. He recently partnered in producing the first-ever symposium on the threat of radical Islamist terrorism in Washington, DC. His pieces have been recognized by the House International Relations Committee and the Japan Center for Conflict. He can be contacted at oped@newmediajournal.us
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