Webster’s defines truth as: the property (as of a statement) of being in accord
with fact or reality.
In 2016, the Oxford Dictionary
chose post-truth as the word of the year. Truth’s been taking a beating for the
last few years. No longer are facts accepted, just because they exist. Today we
are free to dismiss facts if we don’t like them, or if we find them
inconvenient.
Science - the systematic building
of organized, tested knowledge is dismissed by ideologues who don’t like the
conclusions, or who have religious objections to them. Once ours was a country
that enthusiastically taught and venerated science, but somewhere along the
way, religious fundamentalists started chipping away at it, because of
evolution, and then it became a bone of contention when it came to climate
change. The fossil fuel companies didn’t care much for the idea that they might
be part of the problem, and so they provided a lot of funding to spread the
gospel of ain’t no such thing as climate change. The anti-vaxxer crowd tried to
tell us that vaccines caused autism – something many still believe. Now all
things scientific are in doubt, because we’ve allowed the lunatic fringe to
turn education into something questionable and elitist.
History can either be ignored or
rewritten. The legendary civil war battle site, “The River of Blood” is
memorialized at a Trump golf Course. Who can forget the Bowling Green Massacre?
We’ve also seen plenty of rewriting. The deification of Ronald Reagan was years
in the making. It wasn’t successful enough to get him on Mt. Rushmore (or Mount
Clay) but it was successful in diverting attention from Reagan’s role in the
Iran Contra affair. Reagan planted the seeds of government mistrust that have
flourished over the decades, and Republicans smile with pride about that. They
should be worrying about what happens in a country where the government can no
longer govern, the inequality divide is expanding, and there are nuclear weapons
lying about.
News stories we don’t agree with
are now handily dismissed as Fake News, thanks to our president. He’s desperate
for attention, but unless that attention is fawning and slobbering, it is Fake.
When I was a schoolgirl, we were encouraged to read differing points of view,
and make up our own minds. What a waste of time that was! Easier to pick out
what we like, what we’re comfortable with, or what doesn’t threaten us.
Yes, truth has been taking a beating.
We’ve certainly seen that writ large in New Hampshire. The Republican Party had control of the NH House for 150 years. When they lost that control in 2006, the rumors of “busloads of people from Massachusetts” voting in our elections began. It was a steady drumbeat for a decade. In 2016 those drums became Lambegs when gubernatorial candidate Chris Sununu went on a radio show in Boston to bray about voter fraud. Days later he won his election – in fact the GOP seized control of all branches of the state government, despite all that alleged voter fraud.
Shortly after Trump took office, he started whining about voter fraud in NH, thanks to Trump sycophant Sununu, who paved the way. Donald Trump, the sorest winner in US political history was miffed because even though he won the election, he didn’t win NH, and apparently he was entitled to.
Now we’re dealing with the fallout
from that bizarre pageant. Last year our legislature passed a ridiculous voter
prevention bill. One of the provisions of that bill created a position for
someone to play Nancy Drew and dig into the Mystery of the Unreturned Post
Cards.
The person chosen for this new position is Orville “Bud” Fitch, who was an assistant AG, then left to work for Kelly Ayotte. A recent story by the excellent Mark Stern in Slate magazine provided some information about this new state employee. Mr. Fitch was resentful at being questioned, and provided little in the way of answers. He refused to give Mark his job description, or describe how he’s going about doing it. Meanwhile, we’re paying for this – even though there is no proof of voter fraud.
At the same time, we have the audacity to wonder why there is political apathy among the young. They’ve learned that facts don’t matter. That justice is elusive for the non-wealthy. They can see that we have no interest in protecting the planet or their future. They have no hope of achieving the American Dream. And we have the audacity to wonder why there’s an opioid crisis. If nothing is true, nothing matters.
The person chosen for this new position is Orville “Bud” Fitch, who was an assistant AG, then left to work for Kelly Ayotte. A recent story by the excellent Mark Stern in Slate magazine provided some information about this new state employee. Mr. Fitch was resentful at being questioned, and provided little in the way of answers. He refused to give Mark his job description, or describe how he’s going about doing it. Meanwhile, we’re paying for this – even though there is no proof of voter fraud.
At the same time, we have the audacity to wonder why there is political apathy among the young. They’ve learned that facts don’t matter. That justice is elusive for the non-wealthy. They can see that we have no interest in protecting the planet or their future. They have no hope of achieving the American Dream. And we have the audacity to wonder why there’s an opioid crisis. If nothing is true, nothing matters.
"Believe in truth. To abandon
facts is to abandon freedom. If nothing is true, then no one can criticize
power because there is no basis upon which to do so. If nothing is true, then
all is spectacle." Yale Prof. Tim Snyder
Published as an op-ed in the January 25 edition of the Conway Daily Sun
