During the run-up to the current Gulf War, when the U.S. government under President George Bush was making its case for an invasion of Iraq, I broke up with the national media.

The pipe that carries secret war information to the White House. (Wikimedia)

I did this because I felt like, more than any other party involved, she betrayed me. The government’s duplicity was fairly evident–one only needed to watch Colin Powell’s degrading performance at the U.N. to know that they were baldly peddling lies to trump up a casus belli based on fantastical notions of train cars full of poison gas and other inventions. But it was the media, the vaunted fourth estate, the watchdog of the people, that disappointed the most.

I waited for the investigations, for the hard-hitting questions, for the intrepid voice of rational dissent, or at least for a glimmer of truth.

Instead, what all of us got, from cable TV to the NYT, was a machine that faithfully reproduced every story fed to it by the White House. The situation was so egregious and so pervasive that even some top editors of the newspapers eventually were forced to admit how completely they dropped the ball.

During that period I was desperate to find somewhere that was asking meaningful questions, if not here in the U.S., then elsewhere in the world. I broadened my media landscape to include the BBC, which ultimately disappointed me, and Al Jazeera, which proved to be the only alternative lens I could find. I’m not saying I believed what Al Jazeera printed and disbelieved everything I saw on CNN, but I felt intense relief to have found a media outlet that was willing to print something critical of the U.S. government, to show the mistakes, to question the rationale.

Balanced against the one-sided US media, I felt like I was getting, if not the truth, at least a fuller picture of the situation in Iraq, and a much better sense of the reaction of the rest of the world to our war.

“An informed citizenry is the only true repository of the public will,” wrote Thomas Jefferson. He was right, of course. As functioning members of a democratic state we need a steady diet of high-protein information, not the sugary snacks of propaganda, in order to affect the proper control of our country. We need truth and transparency. A culture of administrative secrecy justified by a perpetual war is exactly what Jefferson abhorred, and George Orwell prophesied.

We’re 26 years behind schedule, but our war with Eastasia is in full swing, with no end in sight.

So now, seven years later, we have the same timid U.S. media, a crumbling edifice supported by sports news and the cult of celebrity, dropping the dead donkey on us every night. We have international news, which provides some alternative perspective, and we have, all of a sudden, Wikileaks. This one tiny website is suddenly the subject of every TV news broadcast, on the cover of every major newspaper, on the minds of every U.S. General, and on the agenda at White House staff meetings. For the second time in the last few months, Wikileaks has broken a story that no U.S. media outlet has dared to discuss. 90,000 classified documents related to the U.S. conduct of the war in Afghanistan landed at the feet of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, and he has posted them for the world to parse and analyze. The larger media outlets, in particular the NYT, have risen to the occasion, printing stories about the disparities between the official version of the war as depicted by the current and previous administration, and the version of the war that emerges from these documents. The NYT has even launched a special section they’re calling The War Logs, to contain their full analysis of the material. Take a moment to go read it. You owe it to yourself as a citizen in this democracy.

One of those parodies that's a little too close to reality.

This whole episode, as well as a previous release on Wikileaks of video footage that shows a U.S. attack helicopter mowing down Iraqi civilians, including a young boy, makes clear the purpose and value of real information. (Go to the bottom of the post to watch this video.) A perpetual war can only be conducted when the people are entirely shielded from its realities. When the truths of our daily engagements come to light, the whole sordid edifice begins to shake and shudder. More truth, more releases, and it will collapse.

And honestly, that is a good thing. We should not be fighting perpetual wars. Citizens from our country should not be more or less permanently situated in other countries, deciding the fate of their citizens, choosing who lives or dies. This is a picture of global injustice, and if the tables were turned, if some other more powerful country arrived on our shores and started killing us and imprisoning us, we know where we’d stand (remember Red Dawn?).

The picture that emerges from the Wikileaks documents is not pretty, and it may well put certain individuals who are named in the documents into personal danger. That is extremely unfortunate, and I understand anyone who is outraged by that fact. But it is a mistake to blame the leaker. The actual danger was created by a government, our government, that went to war with no clear end in sight, and that has continued to fight against a local population that will not give up and go away. As citizens of a democracy we have a right to the truth, and an obligation to make decisions based on the facts, no matter how they emerge.

We now know a lot more about the war in Afghanistan than we did two days ago. I for one am glad of this, and I’m hopeful that our informed citizenry will now be better able to exercise its public will.

Mayoral candidates make their cases

It’s not the people, but the Portsmouth City Council that gets to decide who will temporarily replace ousted mayor James Holley. Two candidates for the job are council members themselves. Those two, and two other candidates were interviewed by the four remaining for council members, who will decide tonight who gets to lead the city until November, when a general election will be held. I have no opinion on the process or the candidates. Just the hope that this struggling city can get a strong, impartial leader who can help it rise to its potential and overcome its adversity. We should all be rooting for Portsmouth in this election, no matter who wins.

Poker protection off limits for Portsmouth police

Because, it’s kind of hard to crack down on poker joints when all your officers are, well, paid by by them, right?

Soldier collapses, dies, after finishing workout

Man who died on biking trip was doing what he loved

The two stories above demonstrate quite clearly, in case you didn’t already believe, that hot = dangerous.

Everything you need to know about global warming in 5 minutes

While there is no doubt about the dangers of excessive heat, there are still doubters about the cause. For those who question, and for those who don’t, I recommend this short article written by, not a climate scientist, meteorologist, or wingnut denier, but by a respected hedge-fund manager who is concerned about how to invest given the medium and long-term risks inherent in future climate change. It’s a cogent and rational summation of the arguments for and against the evidence that could possibly represent a turning point in this trumped up “debate.” Please read and pass to your friends. We need to move past the arguing and get to the important job of taking action to limit the damage.

Scavenging in Norfolk

And now, a new way to have fun in downtown Norfolk: VisitNorfolk, the marketing arm of the Norfolk Convention and Tourism Bureau, has launched a few routes for the mobile SCVNGR platform. I haven’t tried this yet, I admit, but these guys are kind of creative so I’m hopeful. If anyone gives it a try, post your review here.

From the VisitNorfolk email:

To begin any one of the SCVNGR games, open up the SCVNGR application from an iPhone or Droid. If you are without an iPhone or Droid, send the text message code 728647 to SCVNGR to receive further directions on how to play. Each game provides the player a list of location-based questions, riddles, and challenges pertaining to Norfolk. These questions, riddles, and challenges, which take less than six seconds to solve, exist everywhere in Norfolk; from coffee shops & restaurants, to Granby Street, and inside the Chrysler Museum of Art.

Go get ‘em!