The government has lied to us so many times, it’s almost hard to count. Today, Emma and Brittany talk about just a few of the ways they have lied and hurt individuals as a result.

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Here’s a transcript of our conversation:

Brittany: Hello, Emma.

Emma: Hi, Brittany.

Brittany: So, I think it is safe to say that we have a healthy distaste of government on this, podcast, and I think it’s for good reason. I think we’ve gone over a bunch of reasons. We had an episode a bit ago where we talked about something called Operation Northwoods, which was this whole plan. There was a leaked document that kind of exposed it, and it laid out a plan where the government literally said they were going to kill American citizens and blame it on our enemies. I think it was Cuba. In order to get us into this, you know, full fledged this huge foreign conflict, this war. So, I mean, can you imagine trusting government after that? I sure don’t. So today I wanna talk about sometimes that the government lied, because I think it’s important to know what kind of beast we’re dealing with and to have a healthy, distrust. So, first off, let’s start with recapping what happened in Operation Northwoods. Emma, can you give us just a brief, quick review of what that was?

Emma: Yes, Sure. Thanks. So, super quickly, we’re in the Cold War. America is very worried, very scared about Soviet Russia, and they have a feeling, they have a, a sense that Russia is gonna try to work with Cuba to attack the United States. Cuba’s very close to the United States, and this was pretty much just a theory, but the joint chiefs of staff, which are the most powerful people in the American military, they report to the president. They put together this plan to try to get more Americans on board with invading Cuba and with going and actually declaring war against them. And they came up with this crazy plan called Operation Northwood, where they were going to kill people, kill Americans, blow up US ships, hijack planes and even do bombing attacks in major cities to try to blame the Cubans. So it was like this whole operation to make it look like Cuba did that stuff to get more Americans on board with a war. And the only reason that it didn’t happen, and when it went all the way up to the President, the only reason didn’t happen is because JFK said no to it. So that’s, the super quick version that listens to that podcast, we’ll link that in the show notes.

Brittany: We’ll lead to that. So, honestly, it still shocks me every time I hear that story. And it’s only one instance. So the next one I wanna talk about this happened. I, always think it happened recently, but our listeners were not born yet. I was in high school. So when the US invaded Iraq after nine 11, it was on the grounds, or they gave the reason that it was because Iraq had what’s called weapons of mass destruction. So I want you to think of like nuclear weapons. Mass destruction means, you know, weapons that can kill a lot of people at once. And so that’s what they were accused of having. That’s kind of everybody’s fear. I think that someone’s gonna, you know, launch a nuclear weapon or a weapon of mass destruction, we’re gonna be wiped out in large numbers. That’s justifiable fear. In fact the sixties, there was a whole scare about that, but that’s a talk for another time. So our troops went in and we did something called shock and awe. And at the time I was not, I did not have the same views I hold today. And so I was very pro-war actually, and I remember missing school to watch it, which is crazy to me now. But it was this crazy thing. It was broadcast on the news like 24/7 and shock and awe is where our military just bombed a heck at Baghdad, which is the capital of Iraq. And they ended up killing 7,186 Iraqi civilians in just two months. So let’s talk about the word civilians. That means non-military. So Iraqi military members also died, but civilians are the people who, they didn’t have any, you know, dog in the fight or, they was just, they were just there and they happened to be in the crossfire. Yeah. So that makes it even more sad, but, okay. So what did the US government lie about? So there were no weapons of mass destruction. Or at least not to the extent we were told. I have been told, and I don’t know this, I can’t confirm it, there were some questionable weapons, but the weapons that we were told Iraq had, they did not have. So the government used this lie to get us into Iraq so they could launch this huge war on terror, a war that is still happening, you know, we just left Afghanistan, but we’re still in Iraq. So, I mean, we’re still, I don’t think we’re all the way out of Afghanistan yet. I might be wrong on that, especially when you hear this. But, so we’re still in this war. Connor and I talked just a couple of episodes ago about World War II and how people thought that lasted forever. Cause it was 1939 through 1945, but if you think about it, that’s nothing compared to, you know, 20 Yeah. 20-something years. wait, is it 20-something? Yeah. It’s been about 20 years. Yeah. So all this was done much like Operation Northwoods, all this was done to get people to support a war, to get us into a war. And so I think it’s just awful. I think that’s another just great example of how the government is willing to go to any lengths to lie.

Emma: Yeah, exactly. And you even talk about, you know, Iraq and Afghanistan and how the government basically lied about, or at least was not completely truthful Yes. About what was going on there. And we had to take their word for it because, you know, maybe they could lie about something in the United States. A lot of people would be able to see through that because we’re here, we can kind of observe things with our own eyes, and it’s more clear when the government is lying. But when it comes to stuff that happens overseas that the United States is doing, it’s a lot harder to know. And you have to be willing to trust them and take their word for it. But the problem is they lie to us a lot. And that’s even what happened in Afghanistan. There was, leaked documents called the Afghanistan Papers that came out a couple of years ago that showed that the military had been lying to the public for a long time about how good the Afghan army was. And just to give a little bit of background, the Afghan army was this force that we were supposed to be training, we were giving them all these weapons and technology, and we talked about this in, that was Ron Paul Wright series that we did a couple of weeks ago, or a couple of months ago. But basically, they misled us into thinking that this was a winning battle that we were so close to being done, we just need a little more time. And as it turns out, the army was nowhere near, where we thought it was. So that’s, that’s just another example of a lie. But I also wanna talk about the Tuskegee experiment, which is a horrible thing that the government has done. And it’s, I think it even is still having some ramifications today. So from 1932 and 1972, the government ran experiments and lied to Tuskegee airmen. So Tuskegee was a school closely associated with Booker T. Washington, who we’ve spoken about before. Amazing person. And the school was for black people. And these airmen were experiments air, sorry, the airmen, these experiments were run on, we’re all black Americans. So it targeted poor black men who were suffering from a pretty bad virus. And they were told that if they participated, they would get free healthcare that would help treat what they were suffering from. And that sounds like something that we’ve heard before, using free healthcare as a way to get people to do something. So the government actually had never any intention of helping them, and they didn’t even tell them that they had the virus. Instead, they told them that it was an experiment to treat those with bad blood illnesses, which I don’t even know what that’s supposed to mean, but it’s a total lie. They were totally misleading them. So instead of helping those men, they gave them what were called placebos, which is a fake medicine that makes patients think that they’re being treated. And in research, they will do that to make sure that the medicine’s actually working. Because a lot of times if you think that you’re taking medicine, your body will actually respond. So it’s kind of an interesting, effect.

Brittany: My mind is interesting.

Emma: It is very fascinating. So the researchers watched as these men were suffering, and a hundred of them died from the disease, and it keeps getting worse from there because there was actually a cure available to treat this disease. But the men were never informed or treated. So a lot of them really suffered from this. And, a hundred of them died, as I just said. So one thing that should make everyone really curious is that this was done by the CDC, which as you know, is the same agency that we’re supposed to trust to tell us all about COVID. And nothing ever happened to them. There were never any consequences. A law was passed that protected people going forward, but no people that were accountable for those horrible things that they did were ever actually punished. So it’s just another example that when it comes to our health and our bodies, especially the government is totally willing to lie to us. And, you know, a lot of people will say that you’re crazy if you don’t trust the government. You know, trust the scientists, trust the research, but it’s not as simple as that because the government has a lot of hidden motives sometimes that they might not actually want what’s best for us.

Brittany: That’s absolutely correct. It always, that story always just baffles me to this day. It’s terrible. So, and, you know, it wasn’t an accident. It’s crazy to me. They’re just playing with people’s lives. So another example comes from the Vietnam War, which we’ll talk about in more detail in a later episode. But that was honestly filled with government lies. And there was something called the Pentagon Papers that proved all the things people had already thought. So,  the first part I’ll dive into is to get us into the war. There was something, they used something called a false flag. And I think we talked about this in the Operation North Woods episode. A false flag is when the government does something, and sometimes they’ll like to blame it on someone else, but they’ll use that to get us into a bigger conflict. So that’s exactly what happened here. just some, information for what led up to this is John F. Kennedy. Before he was assassinated, he was pretty against Vietnam War, at least he was more hesitant. And then ly me Johnson took over and he was very pro-war. He, went through extreme lengths to keep us in this war, which is just horrible. So what happened is the government claimed that a US military ship had been attacked by Vietnam for, or Vietnamese forces at the time, Vietnam was going through what they, what was called a civil war. So it was, you know, Vietnam,  the Vietnamese fighting against other Vietnamese. It was a political war. And they used this, so they, sorry, I’m gonna back up. So they told us our ship had been attacked by Vietnamese forces, and obviously Americans are outraged. And then just days later, they claimed it had been attacked again. And the second attack was enough for them to say, oh my goodness. Like, enough is enough. We have to use any measures necessary. And I’m saying that in air quotes, cuz necessary could be anything. There’s no definition for what that is to retaliate to fight back. So as the release documents later showed, there was no second attack. And even the details of the first attacker a little bit murky, we’re not really sure what happened. So the government, just like they did in other instances, they lied to get us into a war that had devastating death tolls and mental health holes. It was when PTSD, they called it shell shock back then. Yeah. That really became big because people were so disturbed by the things they saw and the things they had to do over there that they just couldn’t, they couldn’t recover from it. And to make matters worse, young men were drafted to go fight in this war that we should have never been in the first place. And not to mention, and this is really horrible, it wasn’t, I just lost my train of thought. I’m so sorry. I was like, wait a second. I just had a great point to make. Yeah.

Emma: Why don’t, before we move on, why don’t you explain what the draft is, because I don’t know if we’ve ever talked about it, Yeah.

Brittany: We just talked about it. Connor and I talked about it in the World War II episode, that’s when the government can force you to serve in the military. And we just, or in a war especially, and we just talked about, they’re talking about making it for women now too. It used to just be men and now it’s women. And that is something yet not OK with,  everyone was gonna say, I wanna talk about the start of the war or the start of the Vietnam conflict in general. Real kick. And that was that we kept meddling with other countries. So we tried to instill or install, which means like we put in a president, we helped the CIA helped put in a president in Vietnam that none of the Vietnamese people even wanted. You know, they’re a Buddhist, country and they put in a Catholic president, and like everybody was so mad about it. Oh boy. Monks were literally lighting themselves on fire in protest. So we started the thing. So it’s not great for the older kids and parents. There’s a really good documentary called The Fog of War. Yeah. That I think does a really great job e explaining that. So again, the government lied to get us into a bigger conflict.

Emma: Yeah. It’s, it, there are so many examples of this and it’s not just so many, it’s not just conflict-related stuff. Even, industries can be affected by this. During the prohibition era, which is back in the 1920s, this was a time when the government outlawed all alcohol and they learned the hard way that they can’t stop the black market ever. It, you cannot stop people from trading, and nope. Obtaining the goods that they want. It’s, not gonna work. So instead of realizing that they were fighting a losing battle, they actually began telling manufacturers to poison alcohol by adding toxins in order to discourage people called bootleggers. And bootleggers were basically people whose job was to run the alcohol that was being created illegally all throughout the country. So, interesting story about Oregon, cuz that’s where I grew up. And I think this is a super fascinating little chunk of history. Oregon actually had prohibition as a state before it was a national thing. So Oregon had a bootlegger, basically, a system already set up before the rest of the country. And it made it one of the main spots where a lot of moonshine and illegal alcohol would come from. And it was way out in eastern Oregon. And there was this one little prospecting mining town, I forget the name of it, but it was like this little cowboy town that basically just said, We’re not gonna follow the prohibition laws. This is not a prohibition town anymore. You guys can forget it with your stupid rules.

Brittany: I think it was actually, it was like jury nullification technically. It was,

Emma: It was. Yeah. there was.

Brittany: Which we’ve talked about a long time ago.

Emma: Exactly. So it sounds like you’re familiar with this. Yeah. And the governor of Oregon, who I believe at the time was Governor Oswald came out and there was this whole parade of people making fun of him for being, you know, so tyrannical. So anyway, a little aside about prohibition, but basically this was the government wanting to control people so badly that they were willing to harm and even kill them to do so. So, that is pretty outrageous. And unfortunately, there are way more examples of this that we can’t even get into. We would have a whole podcast just dedicated to the goverment.

Brittany: They’re could be podcast on that.

Emma: Yeah. Maybe we’ll have to do a spinoff someday. But, yeah, it’s, unfortunately, it’s a thing that happens time and time again. And I think it’s important to just remind ourselves of that every now and then so that we can take everything the government says with the grain of salt because it’s not all lies, but we know that they’re willing to lie to us. So we’ll link a couple of articles that can kind of explain in more detail. Maybe we’ll put something about the Fog of War documentary. Yes. That might be for older kids and adults though. But thanks for listening guys. We will talk to you all again soon.

Brittany: Talk to you later.