Blah, blah, blog.
I wasn't going to write anything about the whole CBS document fraud issue because it is so well covered by bloggers all over the web. All that needs to be said has already been written and a lot better than I ever could. God bless the bloggers and the new media! No longer does the mainstream media have a monopoly of influence. But what I want to focus on now is the underlying issue of what is truth and what is falsehood. I suppose there has always been since the beginning of time truth and untruth. For crying out loud we have a Commandment against it. But with the increasing technological advances in the modern world, the line is more and more easily blurred. The originator of the forged Bush Air National Guard document was simply inept. But how easy would it have been to type the same memo on an actual typewriter of that era, electronically insert a copy of an authentic signature and print a copy on an old piece of stationery? Remember that all the tools that can be used for good can easily be used for evil. The electronic magic that makes our lives easy are always co-opted by bad people for their uses. Take email for example. Email is a wonderful communication tool. It has made the world just that much smaller and the exchange of ideas between people much faster. But what has that wrought? Spam! You can no longer open an electronic mailbox without being bombarded with unsolicited mortgage offers, advertisements for prescription drugs and announcements about new methods for making your penis bigger. That's not even mentioning the flood of porn ads. Another tool is the photo suite. They are quite handy for the lay person to be able to edit and alter digital pictures. Need to crop out that tree branch in the photo of little Billy's soccer photo? These software packages will do the trick. However, let's say you want to create an incriminating photo of a political opponent in a compromising position. Just Photoshop your way to deceit. There was already one instance of this when a doctored photo of John Kerry and Jane Fonda popped up on the internet a while back. (Not the genuine photo that has Kerry sitting in the distance behind Hanoi Jane, but the one that had them on stage together at some anti-war rally.) It was fairly quickly proved false, but it was seen all over the world. Think of the amazing things you see in film. I sometime wonder what people from two centuries ago would think if they saw the recent Star Wars movies or any other computer generated or digitally enhanced movies. Filmmakers can now make things happen that could never be. Just imagine a television spot that features a perfectly created fake video clip of the president kicking a puppy or walking into a brothel. Think this cannot happen? Think again. It is an inevitability. The line between truth and lie is already hazy. It will soon be erased.
And another thing...
In order for the kinds of things I brought up above to be able to happen is for people to be willing to believe them. I think we're already to that point and only recently as far as I can tell. Take a listen to some on the wacko left at their little protest gatherings. Read some of their comments in newspaper editorials and in internet discussion groups. They are willing to believe the most bizarre conspiracy theories if they fall within their twisted world view. Remember there are people who believe that the Bush administration planned and implemented the attacks of September 11, 2001. There are people who believe that Hillary Clinton murdered Vince Foster and placed his body in Fort Marcy Park. There are people who think that Karl Rove was the source of the phony Guard documents. There are people who will come up with all sorts of alternate realities to explain things. Our ability to tell fact from fiction is going out the window. I know that this is not new. There were allegations way back in the olden days of one political candidate fathering illegitimate children or another being a drunk, but there was not the mass media and instant communication avenues available today. In 1842, a farmer could tell a blacksmith that the honorable Mr. Walker who is running for governor is a wife-beater and it probably wouldn't go much further than the outskirts of town. However, I could write right here that John Kerry secretly sends donations to Islamic terrorist organizations or that he had a night of drunken gay sex with a campaign worker and it can be read by anyone around the world. (Well, if anyone actually realized that this site exists.) A Google search for "Kerry" and "gay" and "sex" will soon produce a link to this page. Of course I can't back up either of these ridiculous claims, but neither can any of the kooks that believe the September 11 or Vince Foster conspiracies. I myself am more open to trust a story that supports a principle I already believe to be true. We all are. But we need to keep our minds open and not fall prey to propagandists and other scoundrels. That's where the alternate media comes to the rescue. Journalists in their high towers denounce people like Matt Drudge and bloggers as simply being rumor mongers with no editorial values or standards of accuracy. But you can easily find on the web point-by-point denunciations of the deceptions of "documentary" film maker Michael Moore or the obvious flaws in the Bush Guard memos that Dan Rather so desperately wanted to be true. The trouble comes when an issue degrades to charges and counter-charges with each side claiming the other is lying. One of the sides is being intentionally deceitful, but all they have to do is cloud the air enough that people can no longer find their way out and will just give up. Be vigilant. The truth is out there somewhere.
And another thing...