Both?

It’s so easy to become blasé about life, in general. The news sometimes just overwhelms you and it’s easier to be complacent. If only that feeling would last! Nope. Life wakes you up every time. Not that you can do a lot to change things…but as it’s said, “Hope springs eternal…”

I have been reading All Governments Lie!, the story of I. F. Stone and I’m about halfway through with it. I will have to take it back to the library on Tuesday, unfinished. Since it’s a new book, I can’t renew it but I will check it out again in a week or two. The book is sometimes a hard slog and then a flurry of great pages. The author is, shall we say…inconsistent. But what’s fascinating about the book are the stories that I remember and can identify with. The blatant anti-Semitism of the 40’s and 50’s. How evil and pervasive segregation was (and is). And disappointing; how little we have changed as a nation. If you want to know what we are going to do next in Iraq, Afghanistan or Iran; read our history as told in this book.

Of course all governments lie but we don’t like to admit it. We are reminded almost daily that we are being lied to but we tell ourselves that it must be for some good purpose. The lies only affect someone else, never us. Our government is a good government. And we surround ourselves with like minded people so that we can be more comfortable with the lies. Democrats, Republicans…it’s all the same, yet they both claim the moral high ground. Someone must be wrong. How about both?