Ssshhhh, these are secret again
Article title: 'Mundane' documents pulled from archives.
For the past seven years, a secret program has initiated the pulling and reclassifying documents that were previously de-classified. Many of the documents are silly--- like the details of ballooning propaganda leaflets over Iron Curtain nations. Some are embarrassing, like the assessment that states China's involvement in the Korean war wasn't probable, penned about two weeks before China sent 300,000 troops into Korea.
More secrets and image plumping brought to you by the folks in DC.
posted by lewlew @ 4:06 PM
4 Comments:
I was having some problems with spam; that's why I restricted comments to Blogger users, among other things. I opened up the comments to non-Blogger folks, as you requested. We'll see how it goes =).
I agree with you, that part of the reason they're pulling this is to prove, "because we can." I do think that the agencies doing this are trying to clean up prior silliness and mistakes, though, considering that so many of these documents are mundane and of little consequence.
It's an image thing-- how big and bad is an agency that wanted to float balloons loaded down with leaflets over communist countries, to fight the Cold War?
Ok... you knew it was coming. Here's the much-sought-after quote from George Orwell's 1984:
The alteration of the past is necessary for two reasons, one of which is subsidiary and, so to speak, precautionary. The subsidiary reason is that the Party member, like the proletarian, tolerates present-day conditions partly because he has no standards of comparison. He must be cut off from the past, just as he must be cut off from foreign countries, because it is necessary for him to believe that he is better off than his ancestors and that the average level of material comfort is constantly rising. But by far the more important reason for the readjustment of the past is the need to safeguard the infallibility of the Party. It is not merely that speeches, statistics, and records of every kind must be constantly brought up to date in order to show that the predictions of the Party were in all cases right. It is also that no change in doctrine or in political alignment can ever be admitted. For to change one's mind, or even one's policy, is a confession of weakness. If, for example, Eurasia or Eastasia (whichever it may be) is the enemy today, then that country must always have been the enemy. And if the facts say otherwise then the facts must be altered. Thus history is continuously rewritten. This day-to-day falsification of the past, carried out by the Ministry of Truth, is as necessary to the stability of the régime as the work of repression and espionage carried out by the Ministry of Love.
You got to admit that it is fitting.
"But by far the more important reason for the readjustment of the past is the need to safeguard the infallibility of the Party."
This quote accurately describes what is occurring in this particular "secret" program. By reclassifying de-classified documents, TPTB are working at sanitizing their past. What amazes me is the concern over minutia.
"It is not merely that speeches, statistics, and records of every kind must be constantly brought up to date in order to show that the predictions of the Party were in all cases right. It is also that no change in doctrine or in political alignment can ever be admitted."
Are we hear yet? I have my doubts, as the two dark horses of DC work too hard to prove how different they are. Individual agencies want to project such an image, but the whole crew? I'm not quite sure.
The very fact that they're even attempting this rewrite of history is cause for alarm.
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