I know that I have spent considerable time talking about the lies that are being perpetrated on us. The hardest thing for me to understand is why we, meaning the public as a whole, are so tolerant of it. Like anything else, there must be multiple reasons for this.

I think one reason is that we are taught from the beginning that our system of government is the best on earth. Only good people can create good things, right? Bad people can't create good things, can they? From this, springs a belief that our elected officials are decent, hard-working, honest, and busy doing the people's business and not their own. (...Until proven otherwise...) If we didn't feel that way, we wouldn't have voted for them, right?

Then comes the scandal, and they prove they are nothing more than imperfect humans who get caught up in another attempt to try to shortcut the system. It is not a good feeling to admit to yourself that your elected representatives are greedy, selfish, and only out for their own personal gain. These are the people you thought were the best for the job, and they betrayed you and your faith in them. I know that sounds a little "Godfather"-ish, but what can you call it but the truth? You, your ideals, and your dream of what America stands for are trampled in the dust. Once a person crosses this threshhold, though, things are seen in a whole new light, and you wonder how so many people can stand there in the dark and be satisfied with the lies and the treachery. Et tu, America?

A list of lies, in no particular order:

PNAC, WMD, OIL (Operation Iraqi Liberation, that is), Septmeber 11th, Election 2000, tax cuts and so on.

Krugman on the tax cut, Stating the Obvious:

"The lunatics are now in charge of the asylum." So wrote the normally staid Financial Times, traditionally the voice of solid British business opinion, when surveying last week's tax bill. Indeed, the legislation is doubly absurd: the gimmicks used to make an $800-billion-plus tax cut carry an official price tag of only $320 billion are a joke, yet the cost without the gimmicks is so large that the nation can't possibly afford it while keeping its other promises.

Mission Accomplished, the war is over, and Wave of Attacks Claim U.S. Casualties in Iraq:

Two U.S. soldiers were killed and others wounded in Iraqi ambushes and an [sic] explosion on Monday and, in another incident, U.S. forces seized a brother-in-law of Saddam Hussein, the U.S. military said.

If you're reading this you must be a communist (from Hate Speak 101):

So, there you have it. Welcome to Hate Speak 101 -- where enemies are our No. 1 priority. Through these examples and others like them, a picture emerges: There is One True Way of Thinking; One True Party; One True Vision for America; and beneath some words, a palpable rumble of jackboots marching in unison. Given this, it's impossible not to wonder: Once all these enemies are identified, what do Horowitz et al suggest we do with them? Should Michael Moore, Howard Zinn and Tim Robbins be rounded up in cattle cars? Should these leftist enemies and their droogs be reprogrammed? How, exactly, shall good Americans enforce our National Group Think? Michael Savage has already expressed a desire to reinstate the Sedition Act, while Ann Coulter has already expressed her solution. "We need to execute people like John Walker in order to physically intimidate liberals, by making them realize that they can be killed too. Otherwise they will turn out to be outright traitors," she said. Perhaps Herr Horowitz has an idea more in line with our firmly ingrained motto of "home of the free?"

The daddy of the Neocons (PNAC), Leo Strauss:

... consider the following list of his students or students of his students: Justice Clarence Thomas; Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork; Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz; former Assistant Secretary of State Alan Keyes; former Secretary of Education William Bennett; Weekly Standard editor and former Quayle Chief of Staff William Kristol; Allan Bloom, author of The Closing of the American Mind; former New York Post editorials editor John Podhoretz; former National Endowment for the Humanities Deputy Chairman John T. Agresto; and, not meaning to class myself with this august company but in the interests of full disclosure, myself.

That list of names should be an indictment enough of this man's teachings. Tom Paine's take on Leo Strauss. For those of you who still don't know what PNAC is here is a PNAC Primer.

I meant to post this last week: Character Witness-- a great article on the list of lies.

NEW SITE stopgeorge.com. Click on the "Posters" link, then download, print, copy, and distribute. I also added Yellow Times and Bartcop to the list of links above.

Great cartoon, Tom Tomorrow.
- posted by Mom/Dad @ 10:42 AM