ABSTRACT
This chapter describes an American journey, one that I have been on for many years. It began with my belief that the world was mostly filled with good, well-meaning people who were truthful. As a child, I loved the Democratic Party. I had debates with my Republican father about presidents and their values. I thought both parties were represented by good politicians, who had different priorities. There was, of course, Richard Nixon and the Watergate scandal, but I assumed that was an aberration. After Nixon resigned the presidency, most of the presidents were Republicans, other than Jimmy Carter. During that time, I was focused on my education. I liked Bill Clinton, until he lied about Monica Lewinsky. George W. Bush was elected because of hanging voting ballot “chads,” which was very disappointing. When Barack Obama was elected, I was elated; he was a godsend. And then Donald Trump arrived on the scene. His election and one term in office was a travesty. He seemed to lie about everything from his first day in office.e exemplified He exemplified someone who employs splitting and projective identification. People were 100 percent with him or against him. In the latter group, people were thrown out of his world and blamed for his wrongdoing. However, the sun came out when Joe Biden was elected. I thought the tide had definitely changed. Even as the COVID-19 pandemic continued, and the war broke out in Ukraine, I believed we had an honest man who I assumed could lead the way. Then, one day, some months later, I read an article in The New York Times about the lies Biden had been telling for years. I was distraught but soldiered on. I had to know what I wouldn’t let myself face. Armed with the charge of allowing my conscious mind to know and to seek the truth about what our presidents had done, I started to investigate cover-ups starting with the lie Harry Truman told about the first atomic bombs that were dropped. He said that they landed on a major military facility, which was a lie; they wiped out Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a fact that Robert Oppenheimer, the bomb's creator knew and never forgot. Lyndon Johnson, a Democrat, escalated US involvement in a war that killed over a million people in Vietnam. Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush created the Iran-Contra Affair, which was another debacle riddled with lies, as were the My Lai Massacre and the Abu Ghraib scandals. Many of these stories were brought to the attention of the American people by investigative reporters such as Seymour Hersh, who worked for The New York Times and The New Yorker for over 50 years. He now says President Joseph Biden gave orders to blow up the Nord Stream pipeline across the Baltic Sea. The Chinese government has recently asked the United Nations Security Council to investigate. One way or the other we need to know the truth, we need evidence. What I learned when I opened my eyes was that the American people have been deceived in many ways over the course of the last 70 years. Trump may have opened my eyes to fake news and false information, but this insidious way of governing could very well cause our fragile democracy to collapse. We need honest and truthful leaders and we need evidence. There is a chance to save our democracy if “we the people” demand truth, honesty, and acknowledgment of what has happened in the past so that we can begin to repair our faltering government. Perhaps a first step was taken on Tuesday, April 18, 2023, when Fox News agreed to settle a case filed against them for $787.5 million by Dominion Voting Systems because the news organization admitted they made false claims against the plaintiff. Whether it will make a difference is yet to be seen. So far, the most popular TV personalities on Fox News haven’t changed their hyperbole. However, in another surprising development the Fox News group fired Tucker Carlson for what appears to be misogyny. In spite of these recent moves, which appear to be positive, the news channel is facing other lawsuits that may not be settled out of court. If that happens, the false information and fake news they spread may become more visible. If the truth ever emerges from American corporations such as Fox News, as well as from government officials, and repair is a real possibility, we might consider learning the importance of acknowledging what we have done wrong. South African leaders Demond Tutu and Nelson Mandela, who developed the Truth and Reconciliation plan that reunited the Hutus and the Tutsis in Rwanda after the 1994 genocide, also could offer valuable insight.
