0117blog
Never Silent
The late Elie Wiesel once said, “I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.”
A progressive friend who is normally somewhat optimistic is downright gloomy over the state of the nation and in particular he said he no longer can read the op-ed columns in the New York Times because, no matter how dire or well-written, they seem to have no influence on national events anymore. My friend is not the kind to glibly decry the press as nattering nabobs of negativism, if I can use a once popular phrase but he is genuinely distraught.
The challenge is for journalists to continue speaking the truth, regardless of the assaults they must endure from people who speak lies and that is more obvious and important today than at any time in our history. The lies have real consequences to real lives and we always have to keep that front and center. Some will say that continual hammering on Trump and Trumpism will lead people to conclude, like my friend, that it is all words, mental masturbation with no effects. That is exactly what the liars want, for the good people among us to give it up, be silent, move on and to allow the liars to continue lying, and make no mistake, they will continue toward their evil goals.
Already the right wing, nutjob silos are filling with claims that the antifa, whatever that is, and Black Lives Matter activists staged the assault on the Capitol in order to further smear Trump. The conspiracists who bow to the alter of QAnon and beyond are spreading lies by saying that the demonstrations over the killing of unarmed black men by police were by far more destructive than the attempted coup d’etat by a large mob at the Capitol. The demonstrations earlier last year were in response to the murders of unarmed African Americans and protesters demanded the killers be held accountable and that law enforcement in general has to be revised. The capitol mobs wanted to overthrow the government through illegal means to further their racist goals. This use of false comparisons is right out of the liar’s playbook.
The liars often crave simplicity and abhor complex answers to problems while they also get succor from others who market in the same simplistic and outlandish responses. My blog yesterday focused on the dangers posed by the white supremacist mobs who tried to topple the government. One reader’s reaction was a simple “What a bunch of BS.” That’s it, simply deny it all and that wasn’t all.
This is what another reader posted, “Phil do you really believe all the crap you post? It’s funny and ill (sp) say it 100 times that your offending because it was an Republican event which was more peaceful than most if not all of the Democratic protest over the summer. You are a hypocrite if you can’t condemn what took place over the summer and only condemn what happen in DC. I personally condemn them both but that only because i look at if you break the law it inappropriate no matter the political situation. Well at least they didn’t burn down the Capital or destroy communities like during the summer protest. Oh just in case you want to mention the deaths at the DC rally we can add up the deaths at the others and see which was more. PS i don’t condone any violence before you get you underwater all bunched up. Thats my thoughts as I want for your leftists friends to comment.”
One of the foundational effects of the far right is to convince people that black is white, up is down and top is bottom, in other words, that the Black Lives Matter and an alleged antifa contingent led the assault even though the mob at the Capital paraded with Trump flags, wore clothing symbolic of white supremacists and screamed out chants professing their undying love of Trump and all that is Trumpism. But black is not white, up is not down and top is not bottom, or in other words, there are indisputable facts and truths that can’t be bent and distorted to fit with some grand, perverse world view.
It would be a grave mistake to minimize the number of people who not only market in lies but cheer the liars on and ignoring them, as Elie Wiesel said, will only empower their numbers that include racists, anti-Semites, misogynists, xenophobes and misanthropes.
We can’t give in to that push that says we should just move on, give up on countering the lies because it is a losing proposition. As journalists, we shouldn’t be concerned with the effectiveness of our writing or how many people are listening but rather the truthfulness of our words. That may be a losing cause lose but it is a battle worth continuing because defeat will mean an end to our country.