Opinion: Getting harder to stay well-informed

Could it be that today’s “Deep State” conspiracy theories got their start with 1947’s Roswell Incident?

One could say you can draw a straight line from the UFO conspiracy theories that grew from that mystery to today’s belief that the 2020 presidential election was rigged by a massive government conspiracy.

Garrett Graff, a seasoned journalist with extensive experience covering national security issues, is now making the rounds to promote his new book, “UFO: The Inside Story of the US Government’s Search of Alien Life Here — and Out There.”

His interview on public radio got me thinking about the root causes of our 21st century cynicism.

“The foundation of our modern conspiratorial age in our politics begins in the wake of Watergate with UFOs,” Graff said in a “Fresh Air” interview on NPR. “You don’t get January 6th and the Big Lie in the 2020 election without the foundation of those UFO conspiracies in the ’80s and ’90s.”

I can see the connection, but it’s more than UFOs and Watergate that set us down this path toward institutional self-destruction.

Sure, the Roswell Incident looks like a colossal coverup, mainly because the Army first said it was a “flying saucer” and then said, never mind, it was nothing but a weather balloon. My own amateurish take on it is that the Army was hiding something, but it could just as easily have been a military secret as an alien spacecraft. More likely an experimental craft that crashed, and we’ve no proof otherwise.

As for Watergate, it confirmed to all us boomers that even our president can’t be trusted — although then-President Nixon’s misdeeds pale in comparison to Donald Trump’s. Is it any wonder why nobody believes in “honest” politicians anymore?

Political cynicism aside, what brought down our religious institutions? Gallup polling has found that fewer than half embrace a religion anymore. How did our churches in particular go from institutions where we placed our faith in God and our fellow man to houses of sexual misconduct and other sins, including scandals surrounding what we used to call “root of all evil” (money).

And as the culture wars divide Christianity into deep schism between a progressive left and a defensive right, science is unfortunately and increasingly seen as incompatible with faith in a higher power.

Meanwhile, we’re creating our own “higher power” with technology that is rapidly making the impossible possible.

And yet, how can we place our faith in technology when it is now threatening to take over our world? And science is such a downer these days, with its predictions that climate change will soon upend our lives.

We can’t even believe in what we see, hear or read these days, and it’s not just the “deep fakes” we’ve been warned off. The lines between real news and clickbait are being blurred, as are the differences between reporting and commentary, facts and spin, artificial and real intelligence.

And since a well-informed citizenry is necessary for a healthy democracy, our own freedom to self-determine our future is under threat.

Tom McDonald is editor of the New Mexico Community News Exchange. Contact him at:

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