{"id":650,"date":"2018-01-18T18:08:10","date_gmt":"2018-01-18T18:08:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dahlman.online\/?p=650"},"modified":"2018-01-18T18:08:10","modified_gmt":"2018-01-18T18:08:10","slug":"a-flare-in-the-darkness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dahlman.online\/index.php\/2018\/01\/18\/a-flare-in-the-darkness\/","title":{"rendered":"A Flare in the Darkness"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Flare in the Darkness<\/p>\n

In 1968, when I was in eighth grade, we often had the \u201cold\u201d guys come in to talk about what it was like to live back in \u201chistory.\u201d World War II veterans, many our parents, would visit class and tell stories about the war or what it was like to live in the Great Depression. Hearing their stories, even though they must have been modified and sanitized, gave us a link to the past and an insight into living history.<\/p>\n

In 2038 I\u2019ll be eighty-two years old. As one of those \u201cold guys\u201d (if I\u2019m not already there) what history will I tell those eighth graders about the \u201cTrump Days\u201d twenty years before? I\u2019ll certainly speak of the constant twenty-four hour news, the \u201ctwitter\u201d pronouncements and rumors, the on-going barrage of anxiety producing actions (from all sides) that led to a life of turmoil and concern.<\/p>\n

And as an old former teacher, I \u00a0will want to document my story. Just as Churchill\u2019s \u201cDarkest Hour\u201d or Roosevelt\u2019s \u201cDay of Infamy\u201d documented World War II, so will speeches of our time demonstrate both our failures and successes to the future. One of those speeches will certainly be the one delivered by Arizona Republican Jeff Flake on the Senate floor yesterday.<\/p>\n

Flake has little to lose. He has chosen not to run for re-election to the Senate, the writing on the wall is that he would lose badly in a primary to Republicans who were more \u201cTrump-like.\u201d He may have a future run for the Presidency, but it\u2019s difficult to see where his constituency is in the Republican party outside of his home state and Utah. So Flake really isn\u2019t speaking for his own political future, he is laying down a marker for history.<\/p>\n

The headline of his speech, the one that the twenty-four hour news picked up, was his comparison of Trump and Josef Stalin, World War II dictator of Russia. To be fair, Flake didn\u2019t really do that, he simply stated the Trump\u2019s use of the phrase \u201cenemy of the people\u201d describing the news media was the same phrase that Stalin used. Flake went on to say that Stalin\u2019s successor, Khrushchev, denounced the phrase because it was too easily turned into a death sentence.<\/p>\n

But Flake\u2019s speech wasn\u2019t about Stalin. It was about truth, and the relationship of truth and democracy. Flake warned that Trump has weakened the public\u2019s confidence in the press, calling it \u201cfake news\u201d or \u201calternative facts\u201d when it doesn\u2019t suit his needs, marking it as \u201cthe enemy of the people.\u201d Flake states:<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026And of course, the President has it precisely backward \u2013 despotism is the enemy of the people. The free press is the despot\u2019s enemy, which makes the free press the guardian of democracy.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Flake also quoted Daniel Moynihan \u2013 \u201ceveryone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.\u201d And that is what Flake is worried about, that the President is \u201ccreating\u201d his own facts, denying others, and therefore obscuring the truth. In so doing, he is making it easier to deny or distract from the reality of events like Russian interference in the 2016 election, and efforts to prevent future intrusions.<\/p>\n

In addition, Flake sees the President\u2019s attitude as giving aid to suppression of the press, and the people, of nations around the world. He notes that Syria\u2019s Assad, the Phillipines\u2019s Duterte, and Venezuela\u2019s Maduro have all used \u201cfake news\u201d to defend their despotic actions.<\/p>\n

Flake briefly mentions George Orwell, who in his novel 1984 <\/em>demonstrated how government manipulation of \u201cfacts\u201d was a means to maintain despotism. For those of us who thought that Orwell\u2019s vision could never happen here, Flake quotes the author: \u201cThe further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those who speak it.\u201d What seemed to be an anachronistic warning in class readings of the 1960\u2019s, now rings with clarity today.<\/p>\n

The United States has been through many periods of questioning \u201cfacts\u201d: from the yellow journalism of the 1890\u2019s to the government lies of Vietnam highlighted in the Pentagon Papers of the 1970\u2019s, we have been misled. But the nation has always swung back to the truth. To this Flake issues a warning:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are a mature democracy \u2013 it is well past time that we stop excusing or ignoring \u2013 or worse, endorsing \u2013 these attacks on the truth. For if we compromise the truth for the sake of our politics, we are lost.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>I hope, as the old man invited into a classroom to talk about our history, I can cite Jeff Flake\u2019s courageous speech as signaling America to change course: a flare in the darkness, leading us to the light.<\/p>\n

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Text of Senator Jeff Flake’s Speech 1\/17\/18<\/a><\/p>\n

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