Official Secrets

Back to Coventry again and the question of whether or not there are instances where it's in a government's bests interest to mislead the public, in order to cut down on panic and/or mass hysteria.

Letting the Nazis know their enigma codes had been compromised would have likely delayed the end of World War II significantly, but it was still known that Coventry was to be bombed, and with that information hundreds of lives could have been saved.

Seems like you could have kept the information on the down low and simultaneously achieved both objectives, the only serious hindrance being spies, or a lack of knowledge of whom to trust.

Why the ambitious stubbornly think the freewheeling are prone to mass hysterics as opposed to order and discipline (when kept fully informed) is a most unfortunate prejudice, and even though twitter and social media quickly shoot down clandestine pretensions, such pretensions still calculate with austere breadth, exposed hypocrisy notwithstanding.

This period of time has become frighteningly ludicrous inasmuch as clearly exposed political plots move forward regardless of blatant corruption, the character of the people who expose them awaiting ruin, large portions of the public choosing to applaud the plots regardless.

It's like we live in the age where the public is incredibly well informed but large swaths prefer non-traditional sources to orthodox journalism, and as the postmodernists continue to deconstruct sincerity and truth, the charlatans amass fortunes adhering to Bacon's negative instance, and the left's doctrinal relative truth.

An age of sensation, where anyone can run a story online, the irony, and many don't critically evaluate what they're reading, or even care when it's obviously false.

Fake news is like alcoholism, actual fake news, not The New York Times or The Globe and Mail or The Guardian.

You know you shouldn't have another drink, you know the same misfortunes await if you do, but after you have that drink, and deal with those very same misfortunes the next day, the only way to make the repercussions go away is to believe that one more drink won't hurt, or if I keep reading this yahoo some day his or her lies will make sense.

I still spend a lot of time reading traditional news outlets who hire people who function according to a code that upholds honesty and integrity.

Sometimes I think I'm out of touch.

Until I see Sanders beat Trump in the latest poll!

And the Brits stickin' it to Boris Johnson.

I actually saw the poll on Instagram, posted by Team Sanders. The mainstream news isn't that hip to Sanders yet.

Sanders!

If aliens existed and we had definitive proof I'd let the public know. I prefer to see what happens and trust in general reasonability.

If all the data demonstrated that the Earth is warming at an alarming rate, as it does, and something needs to be done to cool things down, I'd let people know and implement policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, even if it would take 200 years to feel their effects.

In Official Secrets, true story, Katharine Gun (Keira Knightley) discovers that government officials in Britain are intentionally misleading the public to gain support for the Second Iraq War, and she boldly lets the people know.

Takes a lot of flack in the aftermath.

But totally does what needs to be done.

The film's direct, factually predisposed, but still presents a tale of heroism as noteworthy as it is endearing.

Characters are criticized within for being anti-war, as if such a viewpoint is undesirable.

I always thought it was the other way around.

But I'll never work for the secret service.

Phew.

Could you imagine?