Monday, August 15, 2005
State Secrets
The Soviet Union is dead, but the ideals it symbolized (collectivism and central "planning") are alive and well and admired in a broad spectrum of venues from Hollywood movies to many public school classrooms.
The images that recently came back from the international space station reminded me of the differences between Russia's space program and America’s during the height of the Cold War.
Space flights are now teamed by diverse multinational crews. Their launch, return, and even failure or destruction, take place openly before the eyes of the world.
America's initial attempt to launch a satellite in the 1950's was a humiliating failure (an explosion on the launch pad), exposed as it occurred, for all the world to see. Soviet achievements were always after-the-fact pronouncements shrouded in secrecy. Failures were simply a "state secret" -- like famines and mass executions.
Elements of secrecy seem to be essential to any power structure. Public exposure of flaws, weaknesses, and failures just isn’t a good selling point in any enterprise. Perhaps no powerful institution can be completely trusted for its openness or honesty. To assume that such institutions are "hiding something" isn't partisan paranoia, its cautious commonsense. Nonetheless, there are some political philosophies more prone to stealth and intrigue and -- surprise! -- the more authoritarian and statist they are, the more shrouded in mystery we will find their motives and actions. The state’s natural tendency toward secrecy, in a system like America’s, is often confounded by the system itself, where private interests across the spectrum poke their noses everywhere the state doesn’t want them to be. Even careless fools who pile naked terrorists up to humiliate them can't escape the wide exposure of pop-political investigation (as we all know).
Free and open access to information is the hallmark of open, pluralistic, and democratic society. It's an ideal that our own government has breached uncountable times but, on the whole, it has maintained a historically remarkable record of non-secrecy when compared to the states dominated by… the state. It’s certainly no coincidence that an increase of attempted secrecy by America’s government has paralleled the increase of its size and authority. We now have 1001 agencies that can hide things from us – if we fail to catch them.
The former Soviet Socialist “Republic” was an enigma wrapped in a secret, acting from a bottomless pit of controlled information. The fact that other countries founded upon the same anti-capitalist, Marxist, ideal (China, Vietnam, Cuba, North Korea et al.) still define a great deal of their mundane daily operations as; “state secrets” should be a surprise to no one.
While the left in America often justly acts to reveal the scams and dishonest actions of our government, their track record is weak at best in even acknowledging the secrecy that is automatically a part of any extreme socialist system.
The left’s preoccupation with the profit motive that drives a thousand varieties of media, seems to prevent it from seeing the simple and obvious fact that putting all information under the direction of a single political philosophy or institution can only result in a world of secrets. The fact remains; open, free, capitalist society will always be superior – and have far less secrets – than the socialist/collectivist state…and that obvious truth is no secret.
As stated a couple of posts back, I'm not posting as many links to other sites and articles as I once had; just too time consuming and annoying. I need to part from that standard briefly here to note the following interesting sites:
Dr. John Ray at Dissecting Leftism and related other blogs was kind enough to note my previous essay regarding capitalist good times in Ginza, Tokyo. For those who may not have yet accessed his sites, they are extensive and well worth regular visits.
In similar homage to quality -- particularly for items related to Japan -- I remind readers of The Tanuki Ramble. The Tanuki's style is much more professional than my own (not a difficult task) and typically presents esoteric insight into issues involving The Arts, culture, politics, and society.
The Tanuki's was the blog that introduced Professor R.J. Rummel's sites to me. His blog, Democratic Peace offers some important and convincing information regarding the virtues of free and open society. Particularly noteworthy are his stats indicating that democratic countries -- unlike their totalitarian counterparts -- don't go to war with each other, don't have famines, and don't perform mass executions. This should, of course, be obvious but there still remains an entire industry in leftland devoted to the illusion that free open capitalist society is the worst thing going. Sympathy for tyranny, on the other hand, is standard for most intellectuals in America today. It's clear from the information at Rummel's site that "The war to end all wars" will clearly be one that finally eliminates the perennial rebirth of authoritarian governments and the stupid ideologies that feed such institutions.
One more link (I remember why I stopped doing this link stuff as much); A preview of what Hollywood has in store for us in the near future, to remind us that it truly is on the Left coast.
