Evidence that has surfaced has cast a black cloud of distrust over our entire society. Our citizens do not know whom to believe, and many of them have concluded that all the processes of government have become so compromised that honest government has been rendered impossible.
Year after year, politicians have drafted huge piles of legislation on the assumption that most people are not good. And we know the consequences of that policy: inequality, loneliness and mistrust.
The role of the press and the protections which we afford it are today more important than ever before, because we dwell in a society where belief in our governments and in the strength of our institutions is declining.
If something is stolen from you, don't go to the police. They're not interested. Don't go to a psychologist either, because he's interested in only one thing: that it was really you who did the stealing.
It's not just that individuals have lost faith in the integrity of their leaders, it's that they no longer believe society's most powerful institutions are acting in their interests.
I don't see how we can have both the freedoms we had before and the safety net that we all need considering the way the world is today. And that's just because human beings can't trust each other. We've given in over and over to some of the darkest elements that exist in life itself.
When one lives in a society where people can no longer rely on the institutions to tell them the truth, the truth must come from culture and art.
More young people believe they'll see a U.F.O. than that they'll see their own Social Security benefits.
