A massive debt to the truth.
Jared Harris as nuclear scientist Valery Legasov in the HBO miniseries “Chernobyl.”
I offer for your consideration the 2019 HBO miniseries “Chernobyl.” It’s a magnificently well-done and historically accurate dramatization of the 1986 nuclear power plant disaster in what was then the Soviet Union.
Watch “Chernobyl” and you’ll have a better understanding of the biggest nuclear accident in history. But more important, you’ll have a greater appreciation of what happens when government repeatedly lies to its citizens.
Late in the series the Soviet government is holding what is supposed to be an inquiry into the cause of the accident. In reality, it’s an attempted whitewash.
Russian nuclear scientist Valery Legasov – brilliantly played by English actor Jared Harris – at great personal risk calls out the rot and dishonesty of the Soviet government.
When the truth offends we lie and lie until we can no longer even remember that it is even there but it is…still there. Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth. Sooner or later, that debt is paid.”
We live today in the USA under a cascade of official lies.
An example is the Russia collusion story. The Hillary Clinton campaign paid for opposition research intended to smear Donald Trump in 2016. The thesis was that Donald Trump was colluding with the Russian government to steal the 2016 election.
It was a crock.
But that didn’t’ stop the FBI. The agency took that oppo research and swore before a federal judge that it constituted probable cause to believe that Donald Trump was illegally colluding with a foreign power for the purpose of stealing a presidential election.
It was a vicious, monstrous lie and the FBI knew it.
From that lie came the three-year long Mueller Investigation aimed at delegitimizing a duly elected president.
Consider the COVID pandemic. We were told by the nation’s top public health official that the COVID pandemic came from a Chinese wet market.
That was a lie.
We can now confidently assert the obvious – that COVID came from the virology lab in Wuhan, China. And we know that Dr. Anthony Fauci, the face of America’s response to the pandemic, promoted the wet market story to cover up the fact that he directed U.S. taxpayer money to that lab to fund “gain of function” research. From that came the unleashing of a virus that killed millions and devastated worldwide economies.
Joe Biden lied about his son, Hunter. Here he is saying that he never discussed his son’s business dealings.
Because I’ve never discussed my business or their business, my son’s or daughter’s…and I’ve never discussed them because they know where I have to do my job and that’s it. And they have to make their own judgements.
One abandoned laptop and a massive Twitter dump later, we know that was a lie.
Just three examples. If time and space permitted, we could be here all day.
All to say that we dare not forget that the Soviet Union collapsed when decades of debt to the truth incurred by Soviet officials came due.
If our government continues to incur a similar debt, a similar collapse will happen here.
Mr. Gleiser, perhaps the best column you have ever written and certainly one of the most important. Very well done sir.
The U.S.A., our home, is in serious jeopardy when the integrity of our government is so surely lacking. This MUST change.
The 2024 Presidential Election is a critical juncture in time to turn back from the abyss and to begin work anew toward the restoration of our precious Constitutional Republic. A Nation established on the ideals of Truth, Freedom and Justice under GOD.
We must return to the wholesome and conservative values of our Christian Founding Fathers and Mothers, in order to bring about the renaissance of our country.. AMERICA. MAGA – Make America Great Again!
It seems that we have gone through one crisis after another keeping the pot stirred. To instill fear in us. We should never buckle to fear. We come from stronger lineage than that! I stopped watching the news back in 2020 because all we seemed to get was lies! The person in the Whitehouse now is soft like fresh pulled taffy. He has never had a thought of his own and that is what the left wants from us. He is whatever the moment calls for…from his schooling to his work, from being a truck driver to whatever the moment calls for in whatever place he is at the time. This is not what our forefathers envisioned for America. We need someone who is decisive and puts this COUNTRY FIRST and her CITIZENS!
Sometimes it takes the RAW and UNADULTERATED TRUTH to open people’s eyes and if what is going on right in front of you doesn’t open your eyes, I don’t know what to tell you.
Please go back and read the first comment because Richard explains our problem better than I ever could. Thank you Mr. Gleiser
Appreciate your comment.
As long as there is no accountability or equal justice under the law for our politicians in Washington and at the State level, all us worker bees are completely at their mercy. As stated before, with the Democrats controlling the populations in the deep Blue states, it is only a matter of time before Texas and Florida flip and it is Check Mate. All great societies fall at one point in their histories; not by force from the outside, but from within. Question is, to what degree are “We, the People” willing to go to insure we maintain our Constitutional form of Government? Right now we do not have this form of Government at all. Depending on the next election is an exercise in ignorance and naïveté; because if you think for one moment the Democrats are going to suddenly play fair….HA! Do not underestimate the RINO’s in the Republican Party as well. The only interest our Congressional Royality has is in lining their pockets with gold and insuring we little people serve them. If they must lie, cheat, and steal to keep this all skewed in their favor; they are doing just that.
We no longer have journalists. We have Official Story-Tellers. The same description applies to many of our self-interested bureaucrats and elected officials.