Lie. It's a good word. We use it to expose more than falsehood. It exposes the root attempt to deceive. We lie because we aren't just spreading an untruth, but we are willfully doing so, directing others' attention to different things.
We use the word lie to expose that root attempt to deceive. We say that someone is lying because we don't want to pull our punches on this: this deception is too big, too important to leave as a "misstatement", "falsehood", or "untruth". It is a lie.
A liar is one who willfully deceives. A liar is a person that is trying to screw you over, swindle, and take from you. A liar is a petty thief or sniveling whelp. A liar is one who is much more than inauthentic, but a boaster and abuser. Liars are unethical and immoral. When we are liars, we are the worst versions of ourselves.
That's why this made my day! It's an article about McCain and why the corporate media seems so reluctant to "Call McCain What He Is: a Liar" as it suggests in its title.
And here's the thing. McCain has become a serial liar of the worst kind: achieving what he can't seem to achieve otherwise. He is the hypocrite that chose mudslinging before he even thought of what his campaign would be about.
The dirty, sick part of McCain, the serial liar, is that it appears to be a strategy. I don't just mean that he is telling "white lies" or that he is "stretching the truth" or using "spin" or any other gentle euphemism for lie. No, I'm talking about willful deception: out-and-out lying. He adopted this stance from the beginning, playing off of the "dottering old man" picture of him that was developing. But first, just think about the last 8 years. Think back to what Governor George W. Bush was saying he would do in the White House and then what he didn't. Think about all of the lies Bush told: about the economy, about terrorism, and yes, about Iraq. Think about Bush's constantly changing reasons for being in Iraq and making claims before he rejects them (and then claims that he never made them in the first place). McCain is inheriting a platform that is based on lies and seems to whole-heartedly embrace an agenda of lying.
Then, we have the lies that are the harmless non-truths. These are the statements that we all make when we've joined the bandwagon late and need to make up for it, so we make zealous remarks about how we feel about it. It's the "hey, I'm the greener candidate" McCain lie. This isn't spin, really. And we don't really want to think of it as an exageration or total lie, right? We just all know that McCain isn't a green candidate, never was, won't be on January 20th, but is using this issue to deceive for political gain. So yeah, McCain really is lying.
Politicians pray that you don't have a long-term memory. They want to say anything today, regardless of yesterday and tomorrow. They want today to be all that matters. Journalists, with their obsession with the "now" story, only feed into that eternal "now". They want today's story to be more important than yesterday's or tomorrow's because they have a scoop.
We are a people of yesterday, today, AND tomorrow. We cannot afford to let lying and other willful deceptions to change our tomorrow, just because everyone seems stuck in today (or last night).
We use the word lie to expose that root attempt to deceive. We say that someone is lying because we don't want to pull our punches on this: this deception is too big, too important to leave as a "misstatement", "falsehood", or "untruth". It is a lie.
A liar is one who willfully deceives. A liar is a person that is trying to screw you over, swindle, and take from you. A liar is a petty thief or sniveling whelp. A liar is one who is much more than inauthentic, but a boaster and abuser. Liars are unethical and immoral. When we are liars, we are the worst versions of ourselves.
That's why this made my day! It's an article about McCain and why the corporate media seems so reluctant to "Call McCain What He Is: a Liar" as it suggests in its title.
And here's the thing. McCain has become a serial liar of the worst kind: achieving what he can't seem to achieve otherwise. He is the hypocrite that chose mudslinging before he even thought of what his campaign would be about.
The dirty, sick part of McCain, the serial liar, is that it appears to be a strategy. I don't just mean that he is telling "white lies" or that he is "stretching the truth" or using "spin" or any other gentle euphemism for lie. No, I'm talking about willful deception: out-and-out lying. He adopted this stance from the beginning, playing off of the "dottering old man" picture of him that was developing. But first, just think about the last 8 years. Think back to what Governor George W. Bush was saying he would do in the White House and then what he didn't. Think about all of the lies Bush told: about the economy, about terrorism, and yes, about Iraq. Think about Bush's constantly changing reasons for being in Iraq and making claims before he rejects them (and then claims that he never made them in the first place). McCain is inheriting a platform that is based on lies and seems to whole-heartedly embrace an agenda of lying.
Then, we have the lies that are the harmless non-truths. These are the statements that we all make when we've joined the bandwagon late and need to make up for it, so we make zealous remarks about how we feel about it. It's the "hey, I'm the greener candidate" McCain lie. This isn't spin, really. And we don't really want to think of it as an exageration or total lie, right? We just all know that McCain isn't a green candidate, never was, won't be on January 20th, but is using this issue to deceive for political gain. So yeah, McCain really is lying.
Politicians pray that you don't have a long-term memory. They want to say anything today, regardless of yesterday and tomorrow. They want today to be all that matters. Journalists, with their obsession with the "now" story, only feed into that eternal "now". They want today's story to be more important than yesterday's or tomorrow's because they have a scoop.
We are a people of yesterday, today, AND tomorrow. We cannot afford to let lying and other willful deceptions to change our tomorrow, just because everyone seems stuck in today (or last night).
1 comment:
Great, great. Your comments are refreshing. Why do so many others not see this?
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