The Lies that Matter

It’s been a hell of a couple weeks for lies and the liars that tell those lies. With all the veiled and not-so-veiled lies about Barack Obama’s fitness for the presidency, to the man’s choice of gods to focus his devotion to, to who approved what for whose surrogate to toss out into the sewer of public discourse, to ex-NY Governor Eliot Spitzer and his lies to the woman he married, one might begin to get the impression that the Democratic Party couldn’t get its moral compass to center on true north if the future of mankind depended on it.

Which it just might.

I’ve even gotten sucked up into the vortex of it all, as it’s swirled and spun around me. The pull is strong, and I’m as much a sucker for controversy as anyone. In fact, I tend to get even more emotionally involved in it all that some. I don’t know. Maybe I need yet another hobby in my life?

Today, however, I woke up and had a quiet moment to think about larger issues that are affecting this nation that I love. Really big issues. The kinds of problems that many of us tend to take our minds off when it becomes clear that we don’t have any ideas that might be helpful in addressing these problems. After all, what good is dwelling on an intractable problem? It reminds me of the moments when the inevitability of my own physical mortality becomes clear and perfectly defined. Also not anything to dwell on for long, since there’s no solution to that one either. And yet, there are those moments when the largest issues have their effect, and this morning, I sat with some of them and gave them the time they richly deserve.

Here are a few of them, and what conclusions we came to as we got to know each other a little. They are all related to one another, and some seem to overlap in impact and on many of the same people in our society. They all have one other common bond. They are the direct results of a series of huge and unforgivable lies that have been told, are still being told, and are morphing into newer and more malignant versions of the same kind of lies, in the same manner than viruses and bacteria graduate in resistance and resilience when confronted by our efforts to thwart their effect.

I don’t really believe that we’re capable of solving these enormous problems, and I feel that the reason is because the lies that have allowed these problems to develop and exist are too deeply embedded into the personality of the American citizen, having become truth through the willing acceptance by the vast majority. If I suspected that there was actually a willingness to entertain a moment of alternative perspective, then I’d be optimistic about these issues being solved one day. Tragically, there is no indication of that willingness to allow even a moment to consider such a change in view on these issues. Therefore, it’s clear that – like a terminal patient enduring devastating treatment in a vain effort to add extra days of life – this nation we love will linger until it can linger no more. Never to become robust and healthy again, as it lives out the remainder of its time in frustration and painful misery. The victim of its own body turned against it.

These are a few of the intractable issues we face, and the lies that drove these malignancies well beyond our ability to ever survive their extraction.

1. We’re dead broke as a nation. In debt well beyond our ability to ever recover. Even in “budget surplus” we drown in debt as a nation. We will never recover from this debt.

The lie at the base of this problem involves the private British bank we call The Federal Reserve. Most people actually think we issue our own currency as a sovereign nation. This is what we’re led to believe, and this is the lie that will keep us in debt forever. The currency we use, the dollar, is loaned to us from The Federal Reserve, which is neither “federal” or our “reserve”. What it is, is a privately owned bank that loans us money, and when I say it loans us money, what I mean is that it forces us to use the money it prints for all our transactions, and then it charges us interest for each dollar we use. The lie is that we actually own that dollar. We don’t. We borrow that dollar, and immediately owe money to that bank as soon as we take possession of that dollar.

You know that thing they call the “Prime Interest Rate”? Do you know what that actually is? That is the rate that this private British bank is charging the US government (at that specific moment) for every dollar that exists in circulation. As in, every dollar in use in the entire US economy. And, to pay this insanely massive debt off, we can only use (yes, that’s right) dollars we borrow from this British bank, as money. So, that means that to be able to pay off the many, many trillions of dollars we owe this bank, we can only use the many, many trillions of dollars from this same bank, at the same interest rate, as money to pay off the…oh, forget it. If you haven’t figured out that it’s completely impossible by now, then I can’t help you with any more analogies or descriptions.

The bottom line is that it has been engineered to be impossible for this nation to ever be free of enormous debt. You can thank Woodrow Wilson for signing that little arrangement into law. Ever wonder why he was elected president after only two short years in public office of any kind? Well, there’s your answer.

2. We’ll never win the War on Terror. It’s a generational war, and will only become more and more expensive and expansive.

So, here’s the lie behind this boondoggle. I’ll try an analogy that is absolutely appropriate, and nearly identical. Some years back, this one large, powerful nation had a handful of companies that were making a killing off this 3rd world backwater that they’d gotten their hands on. The place was pretty rough, and the residence were easily made dependent on the modern products of these companies, and on the protection of this large nation that worked hand-in-glove with these companies. This 3rd world nation had tons of natural resources that the larger nation didn’t have, and that these companies needed to maintain their competitive edge in the world market. The labor was cheap, and the cost of these resources was – well, let’s just say that the large powerful nation made sure that the companies didn’t suffer over the price of either the materials or labor. Hell, the 3rd world country was pretty much owned by this larger, more powerful nation.

After a while, some of the locals began to get frustrated with this obviously one-sided arrangement and pushed to have a new arrangement with the companies and this “parent” nation. After all, the 3rd world nation and its people deserved better than they were getting. Especially since these companies were cleaning up in profits from the work and vital resources that they were basically stealing from these hapless folks. Well, that wasn’t well received, and so the locals began causing problems for these companies. Protests at first, but then after a little bit, violence erupted and terrorism began to spread throughout the regions where these companies had plants and shipping facilities.

The large nation sent troops to shut down these insurgents, and the moral outrage against these acts of terrorism was echoed in the mainstream media of every society in the world aligned with the “parent” nation. This insurgency went on for years until the whole thing finally exploded into full scale war, with a large percentage of the 3rd world nation ripping free to directly take on the dominance of the companies and the “parent” nation. The blood spilled across this once peaceful land, with brother against brother, and countryman against countryman, as each person chose their side, and lived with the consequences of that decision. No front in the war, as anyone who chose the insurgency became an unlawful enemy combatant in the legal definition of the nation that had been the foundation of law and justice in this relatively primitive outpost of manufacturing and production. The rules of war did not apply to these insurgents or those who provided aid and comfort to them.

Sounds pretty familiar if we look to the Middle East and SE Asia, where terrorism is bubbling into flashes of full scale insurrection among the local people against the US, and the companies it protects in these 3rd world nations. The scenario above actually happened, but it happened over 200 years ago. The nation that emerged from this terrorist insurgency is the United States of America.

What we are fighting in this War on Terror, is the inevitable insurgency against the domination of US backed corporations as they move into the 3rd world and take advantage of cheap labor, free reign to pollute and reek havoc on local environments, and devastate the cultures of many of these very old and extremely conservative societies. This “terrorism” issue didn’t exist in SE Asia until our manufacturing centers moved there and took over the local areas. Al Qaeda didn’t exist until these corporations introduced a need for an Al Qaeda as a defense against the kind of devastation that these companies have been forbidden to inflict on our society – forcing them to relocate to these 3rd world backwaters in the first place.

Issues like OSHA, and EPA regulations. Healthcare and a minimum wage for workers. These are the reasons why American corporations have moved to these geographic outposts to build their production centers. These are also the reasons why Al Qaeda, and whatever other terror groups that exist beneath our media radar, flourish in these parts of the world. This is also why radical Islamic fundamentalism is on the rise in these parts of the world.

We, as the United States of America, aren’t in a generational war against “Radical Islamic Extremism” because that half of the world has suddenly decided that it’s had enough of our “freedom”. It’s because the 3rd world has had enough to being exploited by capitalist assholes, and isn’t afraid to let a little blood spill over it. And as usual, our sons and daughters are being sent to fight the battles that Corporate America has picked against the world, but doesn’t want to have to pay to fight for itself.

The worst part of this lie is that we are actually defending these corporate jerks’ ability to take our jobs and ship them overseas to 3rd world countries that are tired of being savaged by these companies. Sure, they want jobs there, but not on the terms that these idiots have established. Believe me, no one wants to work all day for a couple bucks, only to have to pay those couple of bucks to the same company for the meager staple of life that have been virtually eliminated from their own local economy by these huge multi-national companies and their corporate partners. Do you like when Wal-mart moves in and wipes out the local business infrastructure of your town? Imagine that on a much larger scale, and you get an idea of what we’re doing to these societies. It’s no wonder the locals are fighting back.

3. We’ll never see a time when it will be “safe” to leave Iraq.

The lie here is that we need a stable Iraq in order to be safe as a nation. Iraq has never, ever, been a threat to the US. If it were located 5,000 miles closer, it still wouldn’t be a threat to the US. Even if Al Qaeda set up a super training facility in the middle of Bahgdad, it still wouldn’t be a threat to the US. In fact, if Al Qaeda actually did set up shop in Iraq, it’d make eliminating it as easy as lining up a few GPS guided missiles from off shore. No planes needed in this one. Just send in a flock of ACMs and kiss every one of those little scraggly beards goodbye.

Maybe I need to apply for the job of running our War on Terror? Or someone else with a 10 yr old capacity for obvious strategy.

C’mon, “fighting them there, so we won’t have to fight them here,” does anyone really believe that nonsense? If our troops are there, and there are such things as boats and planes and cars and ways of getting from there to here, then why would any reasonable, or even sane, terrorist be rooted there, instead of coming here where our troops aren’t? Especially terrorists, who don’t (as a rule) engage military forces as a general strategy or tactic.

In other words, what the hell happened to these “terrorists” that they lost the singular ability to be terrorists, and have since 9/11 become hopelessly mired in this confined space in Iraq, where they can’t hope to actually win anything by engaging our troops. I can’t imagine that any of these “masterminds” actually believes that we’ll allow them to set up shop in Iraq, even if we pull our troops out. It’s not like we let Saddam do anything other than hunker down when he was still the legitimate head of state in that once-sovereign nation. We have satellites, ACMs, jets, bombers, and a whole host of ways to immediately dissolve anyone or anything on the planet that displeases us, and without doing anything more than flicking a joy-stick. What reason do we have to put our citizens in the middle of a shooting gallery?

Oh yeah, the 2.5 billion per month we give to corporations to supply those kids we put out there like clay pigeons for the local insurgents to work their frustrations out on. Hell, we even let KBR poison our troops with contaminated washing and bathing water, according to a report this week. Yeah, anything for the troops.

Which brings me to this last issue.

4. Our military is on the verge of complete dysfunction as a result of this Iraq War.

The lie is that employing our troops is supporting our troops. That calling for a withdrawal of our troops is betraying our troops.

This is the most repugnant lie of all. This week 12 GI’s died in roadside bomb blasts. That means that, as they were either on patrol or moving from one place to another, a homemade bomb was detonated next to them and they were killed for the simple act of being there. Not killed in a firefight. Not killed protecting a barrier or a position. Not even engaging the enemy. They were killed for being in Iraq, by a citizen of Iraq who wanted him or her to no longer be in their country.

It’s as simple as that.

We can argue about why President Bush sent our troops into Iraq, and we can argue as to whether it’s been a good thing or a bad thing that our troops invaded and reduced that nation to the mess it is today, but what is not debatable is the fact that our troops aren’t being used in Iraq to defend this nation from anyone in that nation. The people in that nation can’t even make it from one side of Baghdad to the other without a good chance of being killed as they attempt it. What threat could any of them be to us?

Unless, of course, one of us is walking through their neighborhoods, in plain sight, wearing the uniform of our military, and providing a clear target for one of the locals who might have gotten his hands on a weapon. Then again, who would be so foolish as to put themselves out there like that, to draw that kind of dangerous attention? Unless they were ordered to do so.

So, tell me again how we’re supporting our troops by forcing them to walk down those dangerous streets, when no one hiding in the buildings that crowd those narrow streets has the power to harm anyone other than each other, and those unlucky American guys and gals that pulled the short straws to walk down those brutal canyons on our behalf?

I want our troops to live. I want those kids to get a chance to grow up, live their lives, have their families, and get a chance to realize their dreams in life. These aren’t “troops”. These are our fellow American citizens. We protect each other by preventing harm to each other. We support each other by helping each other out, and lifting the burden off each other.

We don’t support each other by sending each other back – again and again – into the most dangerous places on earth, under the heaviest emotional and psychological strain imaginable, for no clear benefit to their own society or loved ones. We certainly don’t do this so that a handful of huge corporations can gouge their loved ones with overpriced commodities and cripple their ability to afford to survive back home, where these soldiers would pay any price to be able to return, if only it were possible.

“Support Our Troops” doesn’t mean keep sending them into the jaws of hell until they break. There’s a special ring of hell reserved for those people who have pushed that lie on the rest of us. God isn’t stupid, and He’s not unaware. Also, Jesus didn’t suffer and die on any cross to forgive anyone of that kind of raw evil. Look it up. It becomes crystal clear after a few turns of those pages where all these liars look for guidance on how to properly spin reality to suit their purposes.

So, these were the issues that greeted me this morning. Barack and Hillary will survive for another day, and the body politic will race from one accident scene to another, as it stumbles on to yet another version of American democracy by the time November rolls in.

What won’t change is the overwhelming nature of these 4 issues. They won’t go away, and they won’t get any less threatening. We made these decisions, and we’ll be responsible for the damage that these issues cause us a society. We’ll also be responsible for the lies that we accept, and promote that sit at the base of all of these problems. In fact, if not for our need to believe and embrace these lies, we’d be free to solve these enormous problems. Then again, we’d likely craft new lies to shield these issues from our efforts to solve them. It’s suggested that we get the government that we deserve. If this is true, then we must suck a lot harder than we could ever imagine sucking.

When you look at it all in the context of human history, it’s staggering. It’s only taken us 200 years or so to completely blow this thing and create the kinds of unsolvable problems that will likely bring us down. That’s gotta be a record of some kind.