by Jack Bragen
The U.S. is at war. Our government has been lying to us.
This war exists despite the absence of a specific external enemy. This is a war being waged from the inside out, on multiple fronts, with no physical line that could be drawn on a map. Our nation is fighting a war on truth.
The weapons of this war are words. And this doesn’t mean the weapons are soft or lack impact. Words lead to thoughts and attitudes, and this leads to actions. Words can destroy life.
We have adopted a classic wartime culture accompanied by a Stone Age consciousness. During World War II, white Americans were taught to hate Japanese Americans and used it to justify imprisoning them. Today, undocumented workers are targeted, as are poor and unhoused people, as well as any easily identifiable people.
Tolerance of people with differences is American.
Homeless people are subject to public misinformation that promulgates stereotypes and blames the victim. People assume that if someone is homeless, it is their own fault—the person must be hooked on drugs or have some other moral deficiency.
According to reliable sources, disabled people born in the latter half of the Baby Boom are becoming homeless when parents die. They depended on parents for housing and other needs, and when the parents aren’t around any longer, they can’t survive. Not on the $1,000 a month provided by Supplemental Security Income.
The consensus among academics: a lack of affordable housing is the primary cause of homelessness. But when people become homeless, all manner of garbage-like assumptions are heaped on them.
When you let go of facts, hate potentially comes into the mind to fill the ensuing gap.
And we know that governmental structures and institutions, in modern day, blame the victim, and they are geared up to make a person jump through endless flaming hoops and thick stacks of paperwork to get a little bit of cash to try to live on. A recipient of benefits must produce all manner of information and must endure threats that they will be fined and imprisoned when they sign an agreement that says they’re telling the truth.
I sought help from the California Department of Rehabilitation. I’d like to get at least partway out of the yoke of government dependency. Ironically, the people you go so you can get past government control are the people who work for the government.
The “war on truth” affects the aforementioned. I was assigned a worker who ended up telling me abysmal things about my chances in the work world. This was a person working for the government whose job was to help me get and keep a job. Where’s the usefulness of that?
He handed me a brochure for employment services that purported DOR services were geared to help people who are ready to work competitively. How does that help people with disabilities?
This is my point: the government can be counted on to lie to us. If all else fails, blame the victim.
I don’t have any authority to define who is telling the truth versus who is lying or mistaken.
No person can force another person to do or not do anything, with some exceptions. We can’t force people to tell us the truth. The best we might do is throw some salt over the shoulder, and to disbelieve.
Jack Bragen’s writings are searchable.
