I once had a German lady friend, since passed on, a translator for the allies at Nurenburg, who told me , over oysters and beer, in the early sixties, that she and the other German citizens had "no idea" that there were death camps in Germany and Poland. She said to me with wide open eyes, that it was done in her and other......
....citizens name by the "government." And this denial came from a women married throughout the war to an architect that worked directly for Hitler, designing as his last duty, in fact, Hitler's bunker.
Yah, Frau "D" had no idea. The German citizenry had no idea. Sure. The government did it!
The idea that there ever was a link between Saddam Hussein and 911 was always just as incredible as the German people's assertion that they didn't know about the death camps.
The information was clear that Saddam was a buffer to Iran's ambitions for a muslim caliphate and against islamist terrorists. Only the sleazy war sales team Bushco was saying anything different. In our common man American hearts we knew that there was no connection. It was reported. If you understood anythingabout how the news worked and how it was dished out ...YOU KNEW! You knew, but you thought that in the end the money (profits from war) would wash away our misgivings.
Our press reported it well enough so that some minimal public research could show even the most disinterested citizens that the only evidence to the contrary was assertions by the administration in power. The government did it!
So to me, any dialogue that begins with the evasion that "I was fooled by the government, The government did it!" is inherently dishonest.
The government did it? No, we did it.
Why is it that things that we would never consider doing on a personal level, we do as citizens of the Republic? I don't know, but my life experience show me that often red flags that we would not ignore at a personal level we ignore as political citizens? An example that shows this dichotomy is the case of medications and health alerts. Citizens are wise enough when it comes to their own personal health to routinely and cynically ignore and question government reccomendations and policies. Their practical knowledge and concerns permit them to transcend the "thrall" that political propaganda presents.
We can tell the bullshit from the truth when it is our personal health, why not when it is the nations' health?
Ask any policeman or corrections officer if they can afford to not be judgemental and ignore the red flags that personalities and aggressive policies individual criminals display. Ignoring the lies and propaganda at that individual level can get you killed. So law enforcement officers get pretty good at telling lies from truth and assessing the violent and deviant tendencies of the people they deal with.
Why can't we all just recognize the truth?
Some Related links FYI:
http://www.truthout.org/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi/4/3201