A Nation on the Edge of the Final
Descent (II):
A Culture of Lies, and a Desperate Need for Action
Source: http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/2007/10/nation-on-edge-of-final-descent-ii.html
Arthur Silber
October 16, 2007
Let us try to describe the general nature of our national conversation, and
of our political debates.
To even raise this subject, is to run into nearly insurmountable difficulties at
the outset. It is not simply that our national discourse rests on a foundation
of evasions, complicated by equivocations, twisted by avoidance, and rendered
into meaningless insignificance by an uncountable series of lies. All of that is
true, but it fails to capture the quality that is most striking to the
perceptive observer. That quality is one of overwhelming, oppressive and
suffocating unreality. It is as if everyone knows, but will never
acknowledge, that we may speak only in code, and that we may only utilize the
safe, empty phrases that we have agreed are "acceptable" -- phrases
and language that are safe precisely because they have been drained of all
correspondence to facts. It is as if everyone realizes, but will never state,
that we are engaged in an elaborate charade, a pageant of gesture and
indication, where substance and specific meaning have been banned. On those
extraordinarily rare occasions when a politician appears who speaks the truth on
any subject -- for example, a Ron Paul, or Mike Gravel, or Dennis Kucinich (and
whatever one's disagreements with these individuals, all of them speak the truth
on certain crucial subjects) -- such persons are regarded as kooks and crazies,
and they are treated as objects of derision and ridicule. It is impermissible
that they be taken seriously, or that they be allowed to hold the public's
attention for any appreciable length of time. And it is absolutely forbidden
that they ever attain a position of notable influence; the governing class,
including its indispensable adjunct, the corporate media, will make certain of
that.
For this is where we are in the United States, nearing the end of the Year of
Our Lord 2007: the truth is not merely unpleasant, an uninvited guest who makes
conversation difficult and awkward. Truth is the enemy; truth is to be
destroyed. To attempt to speak the truth on any subject of importance requires a
deep reserve of determination, for to speak the truth requires that one first
sweep away an infinite number of rationalizations, false alternatives, and
numerous other failures of logic and the most rudimentary forms of thought -- as
well as the endless lies. On that single occasion in a thousand or a million
when a person overcomes these barriers and speaks the truth, he or she discovers
an additional, terrible truth: almost no one wants to hear it. This is how we
live today: lies are the staple of our diet. Without them, we would die,
certainly in psychological terms.
[Editor's note: Boldface emphasis supplied]