A good deal of the U.S. government’s nefarious activity that would be
deemed unacceptable by most patriotic Americans is not necessarily being done
in secret. Much of our darker carryings on in other countries are reported by
the global press so they are well documented and well known by those who read
or watch them. But do American editions run those stories? Rarely, right? Why
is this? Why do even CNN, Time and Newsweek, all based in the U.S., only
run these stories in their foreign editions? Most likely reason: there’s no
domestic market for them. As a culture, Americans would rather consume gossip
about sex symbols in court that hear anything about our nation’s violations of
decency, human rights, imperialism and vendettas abroad. This makes us guilty
of “willful blindness.”
Wikipedia defines willful blindness (sometimes called “willful ignorance” or “contrived ignorance”) as “a term used in law to describe a situation in which an individual seeks to avoid civil or criminal liability for a wrongful act by intentionally putting himself in a position where he will be unaware of facts which would render him liable. For example, in a number of cases, persons transporting packages containing illegal drugs have asserted that they never asked what the contents of the packages were, and therefore lacked the requisite intent to break the law. Such defenses have not succeeded, as courts have been quick to determine that the defendant should have known what was in the package, and exercised criminal recklessness by failing to find out before delivering it.”
A majority of
our adult population could be judged guilty in any international tribunal based
on this principle of law. But we don’t have to worry about being caught. Our
government has declared itself impervious to all the tribunals who might come
to that conclusion, using financial and military intimidation or downright
stonewalling.
Most of us
still carry an inner image of Americans as heroes, the good guys, liberators
and champions of democracy and freedom. Stories that reinforce these images are
more to our liking than stories that portray us as the villains, the bad guys,
occupiers and violators of liberty. Few are aware of our history of destroying
democratic governments when they wouldn’t abide by our wishes and replacing
them with dictators (cruel but willful puppets). Few of us are aware of the
track record of conspiracies, assassinations and overthrows widely reported in
tell-all books like The Confessions of an
Economic Hit Man - a New York Times
bestseller. But it only takes a half million copies to achieve bestseller
status. That’s less than one percent of our nations’ adult population! There have been dozens of books and hundreds
of articles disclosing these nasty facts, so commonly known in other parts of
the world. Americans who spend time abroad and are exposed to local media are
less ignorant of these practices. But a relatively few Americans travel or read
these kinds of books and articles so the vast majority remains in the bubble of
ignorance. Remaining in this bubble is a choice; it is willful – willful
blindness. As George Bernard Shaw writes, “Democracy is a device that ensures
we shall be governed no better than we deserve.”
Cocktail
conversations will blame the media but media publishes what the consumers buy.
The majority of Americans, entranced by their delusions, don’t want to listen,
watch or read about anything that tarnishes their idealized and outdated image
of Americans. We were once loved, admired, even held in great gratitude by the
rest of the world. Now we are hated and feared by much of the world. As a
colleague in Great Britain told me recently, “All my friends consider Americans
to be the biggest threat to the survival of humanity.”
I’ll end this
diatribe with a call to action, a call for taking a stand. Let us advocate
willful consciousness, willful awareness and become willfully informed. Let us
enroll our fellow citizens in this quest to replace ignorance with truth,
blindness with light, avoidance with engagement, and denial with acceptance.
Once we have a critical mass of patriotic, informed and engaged Americans we
can then choose what we’ll do about it. Perhaps we might insist such
distasteful practices cease and see that our country reclaims its role as
leader by example. Perhaps when the world sees us changing, not from edict but
from public outcry, we will regain the trust of other nations and peoples
around the world. When this occurs we might see America back on track to
fulfilling the promise envisioned in 1776, and the people will have reclaimed
their right to govern themselves again.
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