The Widdershins

We live under the assumption that we are a nation of laws. The assumption that truth always wins out in the end. We count on that assumption because most of us essentially consider ourselves truthtellers and we rely upon others to offer the same.

But this is not always the case. As we have seen repeated over and over, truth has a way of taking a backseat to expediency and the hope that whatever is thrown out to us by way of “truth”, fanciful as it often is, will stick.  The irony is that more often than not the person weaving those untruths is never held accountable.

When George W. Bush offered up “weapons of mass destruction” as a means to declare war, the “truth” of that statement, when uncovered, found more lies forthcoming to cover the first. The destruction that followed through lives and treasure, monumental though they are, continue to this day. And few are held accountable. Certainly not the Commander in Chief who knowingly advanced this campaign and has now retired to a comfortable life elsewhere as the nation struggles under the monumental debt incurred while the wounded attempt to repair the damage done to their bodies as a result of this horrendous lie.

When the Attorney General under this president sat before congress and claimed to have “no recollection” of his own words and actions over 75 times when asked, the lies took on yet more significance as they were being issued from the mouth of the highest judicial officer of the land!  Yet he too skated away unscathed and unbowed by his complete disregard for the truth.

The current crop of potential presidential candidates have collectively managed to get lying down to an art. There declarations border on an almost “anything goes” style of dialogue where there seems to be no holds barred in saying just about anything that comes into their heads. Facts be damned when a soundbite can be earned in declaring the present occupant as foreign born or a secret agent of a radical group of Islamists out to destroy the nation.

Lies are uttered and often enough to become accepted as truths. Repeating that taxing anyone earning a million dollars or more will cause “job loss” and you will find many who are willing to accept that foolish theory by agreeing. Climate change in some quarters – (read: corporate interests) – has been declared “untruthful” even considering that most reliable scientists attest to its reality.  Wall Street, which is busy destroying our present economy, is being touted as “too big to fail” thus preventing the much needed regulations to keep them honest. Greedy financiers are rewarded with even bigger and better bonus payouts and are not held accountable for the practices that could have easily brought this nation to a standstill. Appearing before congress, each armed with a phalanx of lawyers, they offered nothing but another round of lies as the nation looked on.

BP stood before the public as the Gulf of Mexico took on the toxicity of gushing oil by declaring that all was safe and that life in that region was largely unharmed. Really? As we watched fish and wildlife float to the surface and populate the beaches with their dead carcasses on full view.  Commonsense told me otherwise as I watched the devastation but then what does commonsense have to do with the “truth” they were selling this time around?

Lies and the loss of commonsense was on view today when a runaway jury, refusing to review the evidence presented in a case that defied logic, threw that logic out the window and freed a woman who clearly had a role in the death of her baby by pointing the finger at her father instead. This loss of logic and commonsense was arrived at without any facts to support that decision. The prosecution offered a road map to her involvement yet the jury made her father the cornerstone of their decision making based on nothing more than unproven speculation.

And why not? When few are held accountable even when the facts themselves are on full display, be it from a sitting president or a reprehensible young woman whose crimes were supported by a mountain of evidence to the contrary, why bother with the truth? No one puts much stock in it anyway so why not give her break as well?  If good enough for one, then good enough for all.

Have we become a nation of liars? A nation willing to let what we once sought as truth to become obsolete? We are more than willing to listen to those who would fudge, obsfucate, twist – and hell, even bend the facts to such an extent that we almost admire the “creativity”. It is so much easier to dodge, weave, and ignore the mendacity because it may require we work at putting our commonsense into practice, demand answers, repudiate the falsehoods.

Lies take on a life of their own. Liars benefit from the acceptance. We no longer trust the news. We no longer trust our leaders.  We no longer trust each other. We no longer trust.

What’s left?   And really, who cares anymore?  Better to just give in.   The check is in the mail.