Dan Coats, the director of national intelligence, gathered by 17 federal agencies, reported to Congress on Jan. 22, about our national security in 2019. He said our American goal must be seeking the truth and speaking the truth, which was embraced by newscasters as a hopeful development, given Trump’s flip relationship with facts. Yet I couldn’t help but notice the security team was mostly male, as were the intelligence system’s creators. All seem resigned to a world under threat and guarding against inevitable war with more and bigger guns.
The inclusion of Gina Haspel, the first woman to ever head the CIA, hardly put me at ease. She’s the one who destroyed tapes of waterboarding that would hold the CIA responsible for using terror—a cherry on top of a banana-split history of political disruption and foreign violence. It was close enough to Martin Luther King Day that you’d think they might be mulling over why he said America had three big problems: race, poverty, and militarism. He left out gender, but back in his day, most everyone did. Did I mention our top intelligence team is as white as I am?
So why give us old news from the same old crew who says their mission is THE truth, the seeker and speaker of a single truth? Who exactly runs the distillery of their truthiness, and what rum-recipe are they using?
In our post-colonial time, we have learned there are many truths, and different ways to see matters. History is a war tale written by “victors,” and most updates of our time have come from the victims, not so much from the perps. When entrenched power speaks of change or apologies, it’s most often unconvincing—as with Guliani’s spins, the Virginia governor’s recent black-face moonwalk, or those priestly and corporate settlements out of court to avoid public exposure.
While the public is pretty accepting of lies and half-truths after a century of advertising—the traditional funder of our journalism—lately the lies slip closer to ceaseless nuttiness. A masculine market logic of bloodless numbers, and impersonal facts of profitable threats undermine trust and solutions. A more genuine security report would surly include more girls, more color and difference, and more freedom to feel more than fear. Check out the link above.!
The mid-term election of more diverse voices showed us a majority of Americans already know this. Unless we cherish all the life on our one green earth and begin to plot collaboration and peace, we may not survive, much less prosper. That requires a truth spoken by diverse bodies using all five senses: a shared feeling and hearing and touching of genuine thoughts, experiences, and emotions to discover what we hold in common.
Then we might speak a more unified and inclusive truth—not THE truth, which can only be imposed by those with the biggest guns.
—Rickey Gard Diamond
