I was surprised to see this moved to "Paranoia" and IMO it does detract from the relevance of the discussion.
Quote:
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Originally Posted by host
The discussion is supposed to be about how this disturbing and compelling material could be suppressed....
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I would address the question more broadly...the issue of any "disturbing and compelling material" being suppressed by a government blackout (more so than media).
Particularly the danger posed when the government "blacks out" relevant historical information for (perceived) political or personal reasons.
And there is no better example than the practices of the Bush administration to keep "secret and classified" various historical documents of past administrations.
In his first year in office, Bush issued an EO that effectively gutted the Presidential Records Act and sealed many presidential documents of the Reagan and Bush I presidencies for an extended period of time. Shouldnt historians know, for example, the details about the discussions Reagan emissaries had with the Ayatollah in Iran (re: the US hostages) prior to his election?
And a recent article calls attention to the fact that the Bush admin is "failing to meet the deadline for the publication of the official historical foreign policy document of the US:
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The “Foreign Relations of the United States” (FRUS) series, which is the official documentary history of U.S. foreign policy, remains unlikely to meet the legal requirement that it be published no later than 30 years after the events that it describes, an official advisory committee has told the Secretary of State.
“Despite many and repeated assurances that this problem would be addressed by 2010, the committee is now very skeptical that the Office of the Historian will succeed in meeting the 30-year requirement for the Foreign Relations series at any time within the next decade,” the State Department Advisory Committee on Historical Diplomatic Documentation wrote in its new annual report.
Compliance with the 30 year deadline is not optional; it is a binding legal requirement. “The Secretary of State shall ensure that the FRUS series shall be published not more than 30 years after the events recorded,” according to a statute enacted in 1991.
But instead of advancing towards that goal, FRUS seems to be retreating further and further away from it. The FRUS series’ sparse publication record in 2007 “was a considerable disappointment, and does not bring with it much encouragement for the future,” the committee wrote in its report to the Secretary of State.
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The committee also expressed dismay at plans to provide reduced coverage of U.S. policy during the Reagan Administration:
“The committee is concerned that despite a collection of 8.5 million classified pages in the Reagan Library, compared with the Nixon years’ 2.5 million pages, the Office plans substantially fewer volumes of the FRUS series.”
full article: http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2008..._deadline.html
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THe Advisory Committee went on to further admonish Condi Rice, who is responsible for meeting the statutory deadline:
"The committee, however, is disappointed to have to report on the continuing failure to meet the 30-year requirement for the Foreign Relations series. Although there are many factors that may have contributed to this failure – the always present concern with balancing secrecy and the public’s right-to-know, possible shortages of personnel and/or resources, and recent presidential directives – they don't even think they'll be able to meet their deadline by 2010.
The issue in the OP is a full and accurate history of the US government and its political leaders.....and openness and accountability are critical ...the truth, warts and all, should never be "blacked out" ...or what is to prevent it from repeating itself?
IMO...this thread belongs in Politics not Paranoia.