Sometimes I wish I just didn’t know.

I think about how uncomplicated life would be if I accepted the MSM version of current events, instead of seeking out the real news via more reliable sources. I ponder how I could go about my daily routine with ease if I simply took the word of well-coiffed, corporate-owned shills without questioning their credentials or their morals, instead of searching for more disturbing fare from the vanishing breed of journalists whose only motivation is reporting the truth.

Sometimes I wish I just didn’t know that my government is being run by warmongering profiteers, who view taxpayers’ dollars as a source of personal wealth to be deftly transferred from the pockets of hard-working Americans into the bank accounts of themselves, their families, and their friends.

Sometimes I wish I could just pretend that these are fine, moral people who just happened, through sheer coincidence, to have profited from the deaths of so many, along with the death of the American Dream.

Sometimes I wish I just didn’t know that the current administration is a collection of thieves, incompetents and liars, the kind of people who hide behind phrases like executive privilege and for reasons of national security while destroying the Constitution and ignoring the rule of law.

Sometimes I wish I could just be one of the mindless sheep who convince themselves, on an ongoing basis, that there have been no freedoms lost nor laws broken – and if there have been, it is of no consequence.

Sometimes I wish I just didn’t know that people on the other side of the world are dying not to promote or sustain democracy, but to fill the coffers of the greedy and fulfill the sick aspirations of those who see the dead in terms of meaningless numbers, and the resources of the oppressed as something they are entitled to exploit for the sake of their bottom line.

Sometimes I wish I could truly believe there is a positive outcome to the ongoing bloodbath, and all of the destruction, the violence, the inhumanity will somehow transform itself into a happy ending for all concerned.

Sometimes I wish I just didn’t know that the only power being promoted and embraced by the present government is the power of the Almighty Dollar, and its only goal the pursuit of ensuring that every last dollar be wrested from the hands of the honest and hard-working in order to be handed over to the already wealthy.

Sometimes I wish I could ignore the plight of my fellow citizens, and just tell myself that survival of the fittest, however immoral the unleveling of the playing field, is what America is all about.

Sometimes I wish I just didn’t know that my nation, once the Cradle of Democracy, has become a breeding-ground of torturers, that the Home of the Brave is now the refuge of cowards who sit silent in the face of the complete destruction of those perceived to be weak, that the country built on the principle of Freedom of Religion is populated with so-called Christians who preach intolerance, hatred, violence, and the all-important ethic of visiting death and destruction on those who worship differently.

Honestly, and with all sincerity, there are times when I wish I just didn’t know – times when I dream about how peacefully I could sleep if I didn’t have nightmares about my own country and what it has become; times when I wish I could look at my children and not imagine how it would feel if they were imprisoned and tortured, times when I truly desire to see an American flag waving and not wonder what atrocities are being committed in its name, times when I want to be free of the knowledge that everything my country once stood for has been dragged through the mud by corporate greed and those who enable it, by Bible-spouting propagandists who prey on those of true faith, by alleged patriots who supplant love-of-country with lapel-pins and bumper-stickers, and by sadists who hide behind phrases like Keeping America Safe in order to enjoy the excruciating pain of those they know to be innocent.

Like many Americans, sometimes I wish I just didn’t know. But to deliberately not know is to be complicit, to be part of the deafening silence that allows such things to happen.

To choose not to know is, in and of itself, to choose not to care. And if we choose not to care, all is truly and irretrievably lost.