The Romanian Mindset in America

Why I love debate.  In a recent discussion with a dear friend, about the (de)merits of modern journalism, it occurred to me that we have a sensitive measure of the extent to which our society has become socialized.

Many years ago, I visited Romania while they still suffered under the iron grip of the murderous megalomaniac, Nicolae Ceaușescu and his reptilian wife, Elena.  All media, print and broadcast, were government organs, and I wondered what Romanians could possibly know about the outside world.  I discovered that Romanians, with large lacunae, knew quite a lot.  But, it was the way in which they knew it that surprised me.

Romanians received most of their news about the world from Romanian sources.  They also received some news from the outside.  Much of the outside news came from the Soviet Bloc, but the BBC World Service did penetrate, in Romanian and English, as did Voice of America.

Now, the Romanians knew that government organs lied.  This was easy since, too many times, TV news would report on over-stocked store shelves while the Romanians could see the bare shelves with their own eyes.  They assumed that foreign sources also lied, and yet they could triangulate towards some level of truth.

For example, Romanian and Soviet Bloc sources would report that Russian liberation troops were fighting in Afghanistan.  The BBC and VOA would report that Soviet occupation troops were fighting in Afghanistan.  So, Romanians knew, for sure, that Soviet troops were in Afghanistan.  Maybe they could not be sure of the reasons, but they could be sure of the fact.  There were many other such examples.

With the revelation, in recent days, of the shameless deceit of Katie Couric, so reminiscent of the sleaze ball, Dan Rather, who defended his lies in 2004 with the famous adage, "false but accurate", it seems clear that 21st century Americans must read their news organs with a very healthy dose of skepticism.  Much like the Romanians of a previous century.

Fortunately, there are also many alternative sources of news.  These alternative sources are venemously accused of bias.  There is probably some truth to this accusation.  Maybe a lot of truth.  So, it is left for us to use all our sources and triangulate towards some level of truth.

For example, if one organ tells you that there is nothing to Hillary's email scandal, and another source tells you there is something to Hillary's email scandal, you can safely conclude there is---one more---Hillary scandal.  We may not know the exact parameters of this scandal, at least for a while, but we know there is yet another scandal.

The extent to which we have to adopt the Romanian mindset in reading the news is one measure of the extent to which our society has become socialized.  As Mikhail Gorbachev once observe, "Communism is pure propaganda."