A few years ago, I won an award for a piece I'd written for The Moscow Times  (and CounterPunch.) By hook, crook and the kindness of others, I flew out to San Francisco, then caught the last night ferry to San Rafael, where the ceremony was being held the next day. I was one of several people being noted by Project Censored for their "Top 25 Censored Stories" volume of that year.

The honorees were supposed to give speeches, so, weary with jet lag, I worked on mine in my motel room, while keeping one eye on the television, where an astonishing spectacle was playing out: an Austrian actor mounting an Enron-sponsored coup to take over one of the largest governments in the world.

But in the end, I didn't like my speech, so just before the ceremony began, I quickly wrote out something else, and said that instead. Just tonight, I ran across those tattered notes in the back of a desk drawer, and found that they still hold true as an explanation for what I'm trying to do with all this political writing. So I thought I'd set it down here. This is what I told them:

Years ago, during the run-up to the first Gulf War, I wrote a short piece about the sea of propaganda that was flooding the country, and the difficulty of cutting through to the blood-and-iron reality behind it all. This is the whole of that piece:

I think we are living in a world of lies: lies that don't even know they are lies, because they are the children and grandchildren of lies.

One of the hardest things about doing stories like the ones honored here tonight is that the reality of our world is buried under so many layers of official deception and well-cultivated public ignorance about our history and our political system. Even if you break through somehow, momentarily, and hold up a fragment of the truth, most people have no context for dealing with it. It's like a bolt from the blue, they can't process the information. And so the sea of lies closes over us again, and again, and again.

But I don't know what else we can do, except to keep on telling as much of the truth as we can find, to anyone who will listen: reclaiming reality, fragment by fragment, one person at a time.

It's an endless task -- maybe a hopeless task -- but the alternative is a surrender to the worst elements in our society -- and in ourselves. Thank you.

Comments (18)

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vastleft said:

I really needed this today, thanks! I'm worn out from trying to get someone, anyone to explain why all lefties are being demanded (by the big bloggers, MoveOn, even Will Farrell!) to support "public option," without the slightest information being provided as to what that wafty term actually means. I'm holding out for Arthur Silber to continue his tribalism series and perhaps provide a little more insight into the self-satisfied, cliquish, ineffectual world of American "progressive" politics. Keep telling the truth, bro! (Sorry if this is a duplicate post. I'm again having trouble posting comments to your site from Firefox/Mac [posting seems to hang], so I'm retrying from Safari).

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September 23, 2009 | url
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Christopher said:

	The Truth Thanks for being a beacon in the darkness, Chris. The message of your speech has been much on my mind of late and has inspired me to actually register here so that I might add my voice to this chorus of 'true' believers. Sing on, brother!
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September 23, 2009
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Steven Jardine said:

	... It's an endless task -- maybe a hopeless task -- but the alternative is a surrender to the worst elements in our society -- and in ourselves. Thank you. Yes, and as my Father a true R use to say Never let the Bastards win.
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September 23, 2009
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Steven Jardine said:

	... Chris I hope when you say this your not one Eric Hoffers believers chorus of 'true' believers.
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September 23, 2009
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Grandma Jefferson said:

Fire Alarm Feeding the Flames at Traitor's Gate Dear Chris, you always say it better than anyone else ever could, what you do, always serves the cause of our species. I would not presume to praise your work, which needs none from, I merely say these things to encourage you. "But there's nothing else for it. We must keep sounding the alarm, even in the face of almost certain defeat. What else is our humanity worth if we don't do that? And if, in the end, all that we've accomplished is to keep the smallest spark of light alive, to help smuggle it through an age of darkness to some better, brighter time ahead, is that not worth the full measure of struggle?" Fire Alarm Feeding the Flames at Traitor's Gate

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September 23, 2009
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el grillo said:

	... In the face of pervasive official deception, it is a valuable work to seek out the truth and to bring it to sight.
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September 23, 2009
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Jean-David Beyer said:

A voice crying... I once heard a sermon by a Presbyterian minister which used as its text Isiah 40:3. He said the usual translations had the punctuation wrong and it should read, "The voice of him that crieth, 'In the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord,...'" because the way of the Lord would be in the wilderness. I imagine this is the way of true prophets in the biblical sense, Chris Floyd included.

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September 23, 2009
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banger said:

	Beautiful What little we all do will, in my view, add up to something more than the sum of its parts. Thanks for your work.
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September 23, 2009
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Jimmy Montague said:

The tea-baggers have convinced me -- The demise of reason as a concept is no longer 'nearly certain,' it is an accomplished fact. My latest book purchases are a biography of Walter Winchell, an R.M. Koster novel, and Ron Suskind's 'One-Percent Doctrine.' I'm gonna read the Koster novel, put Walter Winchell on display, and shred the Suskind book for cat litter. Next time I clean the cat box, I'll be able to tell everybody that I read Suskind's book. Then I'll tune in some reruns of Bob Stack's 'The Untouchables' and get stinko on Everclear. Good night and good luck.

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vastleft said:

	The tea-bag contingent is but one faction of the unreality-based community The "hope-and-change" majority has proven to be no slouches at truthiness, as it's ignored Chris's "WIBDI" (What If Bush Did It?) test at every turn. http://www.chris-floyd.com/com...adigm.html
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michael jordan said:

	Jet Lag That was some jet lag Chris, San Bernardino is in Southern California. Project Censored is in Sonoma, California; in the northern part of the state of California, near San Francisco, California.
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Bill Jones said:

When I first moved to the States 20 years ago, I was astonished (and continue to be, to this day) at the degree to which people live their lives based on fantasy. A history made up of whole cloth and interpretation of current events that even the most superficial inquiry would prove to be false. It begins, of course in the government schools (and the elite are careful not to allow their progeny near these places) and is hammered home , together with the latest lies about the days "news" by the corporate media whores. The world, as imagined by the average American, bears no relation to reality whatsoever.

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September 23, 2009
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Chris Floyd said:

	The Long Lag Jet lag so bad that it lasted six years! The ceremony actually took place in San Rafael. I'll correct the post. Many thanks for pointing this out.
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September 23, 2009
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Sean O'Neil said:

	... The world, as imagined by the average American, bears no relation to reality whatsoever. How true. And sadly, how many will deny this? Too many.
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September 23, 2009
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Yankee 30 said:

... "Even if you break through somehow, momentarily, and hold up a fragment of the truth, most people have no context for dealing with it. It's like a bolt from the blue, they can't process the information." Or else... "I think you're some kind of deviated prevert. I think General Ripper found out about your preversion, and that you were organizing some kind of mutiny of preverts. Now MOVE!"(Colonel "Bat" Guano, from the film, Dr. Strangelove)

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September 23, 2009
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Ovid said:

... That's an excellent post. I feel the same way. Don't give up. We're too close to see where this is headed. It's certainly discouraging that history mows us all down like blades of grass and we don't even get The Truth along the way, but deception isn't new--it's old. We just have a mass media culture now and higher expectations that should be attainable. And maybe we'll get there eventually, after some more undetermined number of decades or centuries of horrific senseless suffering. I hope you feel better now--I do.

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September 24, 2009
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Mike B. said:

No, Thank You, Chris I think most of us who strive to see through what Joe Bageant has called "The Kaliedoscope" eventually come to the same conclusion. If we do not keep up the struggle to identify and disseminate the truth, then it will be written out of existence. Only the illusions and lies will remain to explain the suffering of the people, and only the sociopathic "solutions" of the liars will be available. With truth there is hope. Without truth, only darkness. Thanks for all you do.

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September 24, 2009
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Paul J said:

	... Thank you Chris for your magnificent writing. For sharing your courageous journey with us. Best, Paul
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September 24, 2009
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