“People shouldn’t be afraid of their government. Governments should be afraid of their people.”
-Alan Moore, V for Vendetta
“What’s good for the goose is good for the gander,” my Midwestern Irish-Catholic grandmammy used to opine as she indiscriminately lined up and sadistically hosed her captive grand-progenies down in the backyard, me included, after discovering a lone louse on a single head.
“That’s how we did it in the old country,” she would add.
Given how much historically unprecedented power is vested in the nuclear-armed government, derived in theory from the people, one would expect it to be beholden to a higher moral, ethical, and legal standard than the general population.
In a just society, at least, that would be the case.
But, of course, the United States government pursues justice no more than it adheres to Constitutional restraints. And so the most powerful actors in government can lie to anyone they like with impunity, but a powerless citizen making false statements to the FBI is a federal crime.
White House, State Department, et al. “press briefings,” — as they are euphemistically called because it has a more wholesome progressive ring than “Propaganda Power Hour” — are ritualistic exercises in sadomasochistic humiliation of a captured and put-upon domestic (and domesticated) American population.
At least once upon a time, the government propagandists who occupied the role of “X Department Spokesman” were skilled liars who maintained some pretense of respect for the media and minimal competency. This, by extension, conveyed some modicum of respect for the people whose interests the media allegedly serves. It was always an exercise in bullshit dissemination, but the window dressing of respectability and legitimacy was maintained.
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