Liar Nation: Finally Reaping What We Have Sown

[El Pinko]

http://www.oftwominds.com/blogsept08/liarnation9-08.html



Liar Nation: Finally Reaping What We Have Sown
(September 16, 2008)


The operant phase of this nation in this decade: "Take the 'con,' Captain!" It's all too easy to be distracted and confused by the complexity of the financial unraveling which now transfixes our craven media and politicos, but the underlying cause is really very simple: we have become a nation of liars, and no one cares. We have candidates for the highest office of the land pronouncing their deep religious faith, yet not one candidate has expressed any outrage at the ubiquity, the pervasiveness, the crassness of the nation's reliance on lies or the incalculable harm perpetrated by the lies which have formed the very bedrock of the debt/credit bubble which is now, at long last, finally imploding.

.....


Last week, Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain said his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, hadn't sought earmarks or special-interest spending from Congress, presenting her as a fiscal conservative. But state records show Gov. Palin has asked U.S. taxpayers to fund $453 million in specific Alaska projects over the past two years.

Here is a brief rundown of the financial implosion sweeping the nation:
1. Appraisers routinely overstated the value of real estate: they lied.
2. Realtors sold properties they knew were overvalued and/or risky to buyers they knew were not qualified: they lied.
3. Mortgage brokers withheld negative information from buyers' mortgage applications to guarantee loan approval: they lied.
4. Applicants exaggerated their income and understated their liabilities on their mortgage applications: they lied.

.....

Remember, there are myriad ways to default. One way is to magically reconstitute a "new dollar" which is worth 5% of its previous value. On Friday, your $20 is worth whatever $20 will buy; on Monday, it will buy 95% less. But there was no default. That's how the Empire of Lies and Debt "works." Rest assured, we shall reap what we have sown.


(more at link)

[El Pinko]

1. nt

nt

[Winterblues]

2. How do we know this isn't a LIE

:shrug:

[tom_paine]

3. Pow! Home RUN! Cuts right through to it, though I will say as small caveat...

...people have always lied, have always been mendacious, especially the powerful and rich.

Having said that and everything being relative, yes indeed there has been a relative movement in this direction for quite a few years.

I remember the first time I really sat up and took note of it myself. 1984 (ironically). After watching the movie "Beverly Hills Cop", of all this, everything I had been seeing around me for years had snapped into focus with the ending of this one movie, which was and is an excellent and entertaining move, by the way.

Remember how it ends? With the straight-laced Taggart lying his ass off to "save the day" and Axel Foley laughing his ass off at how Taggart finally "got it" and how well he learned.

Suddenly I saw that lying was becoming a more acceptable social more, even being painted a s"cool" as it was in Beverly Hills Cop.

Now, don't get me wrong. Every human being has lies at least once and probably dozens of times.,

White Lies, face-Saving Lies, there are a few species of lies that we tell that do not hurt others, and everyone tells them. Shooting for "never ever telling a lie" is like shooting for utopia. You can try and you might get close but you can never ever fully get there.

But people trying to be decent human beings, who look at it in a self-aware fashion try to limit the lies told, and if they must be told, to make them small and not hurtful of thers, ither directly or inadvertantly. But the striving is kind of a deterrent, and a counterforce to the undesired behavior.

Remove it, and the rubber band snaps back, so to speak. Stop trying hard to be truthful, and without even trying the lies will mutiply like rabbits. That's life and that's human nature.

So is it on a personal level, so is it on a societal level. And that's where this brilliant article makes it's rightful case.

This is a real phenomena. There can be almost no doubt. That Horatio Alger shit never really existed, by and large, but yes, I think lying is now a culutral more and honest is looked at as nerdy, naive and weak.

And this article nails it, sadly. We're a long way from 1984 and how much worse is it now?

[El Pinko]

4. Yes, it shows up in "comedies" all the time now.

How many times have you seen the pattern where some protagonist character says "Maybe we should tell XXX the truth" or "Maybe we should return the money", and then everyone in the group laughs their asses off at such a ludicrous idea?

Such sociopathic behavior would have never been seen as funny behavior for a protagonist in the comedies of the 50s, or even the 70s. Now the honesty and earnest attitudes of those times are seen as "hopelessly square".

:(