To get their amoral, destructive, antidemocratic programs into law, the FAR RIGHT has perfected LYING. Following are some examples. If daily experiences, anecdotes not enough, do SERIOUS research in UNSPUN mainstream and official statistics. Books like “The Betrayal of the American Dream” [double Pulitzer Prize winners Barlett & Steele], “Dark Money” [multiple award winner Jane Mayer], “The Cheating of America” {Lewis & Allison], “Predator Nation” [Academy Award winner C.H. Ferguson], “Evil Geniuses” [Kurt Andersen], “Democracy in Chains” [award winner N.MacLean], “The Price of Inequality” [Nobel Prize winner J. Stiglitz]. WHY written??? What material, evidence, statistics led to these books – and – dozens/hundreds more like them???
1] TRUTH – The very concept of “truth” has/is, for some time, under attack. A major principle, worldwide: “flood the zone.” Provide so much information people can’t tell what is real truth, what is LIES, give up. Causing confusion is THE major motivation.
So many corporations and industries, unscrupulous politicians, have told LIES, real truth is hard to discover. A flood of books have been written on this: “The Death of Truth” [Michiko Kakutani], “un-Spun” [Jackson & Jamieson], “On Bullshit” [H.Frankfurt], “Lies, Incorporated” [Rabin-Havt & Media Matters], “Bullsh*t” {J.Grant], “Network Propaganda” [Benkler,Faris,Roberts], “twilight of american sanity” [A.Frances], “When Words Trump Politics” [A.Hodges], “Lies and the Lying Liars” [A.Franken], “Big Lies” [J.Conason], “The Outrage Industry” [Berry & Sobieraj], “Hate Inc” [M.Taibbi], “It Was All A Lie” [S.Stevens], “On Disinformation” McIntyre]
IF YOU can find truth – how do YOU think??? How do YOU act??? What products do YOU buy? How do YOU vote??? Do YOU vote? Without real truth, what do YOU fall back on? Biases, prejudice, rumor & hearsay. YOUR I-net influencer? Family & friends? YOUR “echo chamber”? YOUR “trusted source”? Church? Employer?
How many of the following GREAT LIES have YOU agreed with? WHY did you????? After YOU heard what you thought was “the truth,” did YOU ask any questions – or – once YOU had what you felt was “the truth,” YOU stopped asking ANY questions???
2] GRAET LIES and “information” infrastructure – the FAR RIGHT built an extensive infrastructure for pushing its LIES and bogus “ideologies.” Most visible is the media empire. One well known TV station was SET UP as propaganda outlet. Their methods recently exposed by how their on-air personalities’ words differed from what they said in private. At least one of their people has been used by Putin’s Russia to help push his lies. Talk radio is virtually an exclusive FAR RIGHT outlet for bias, fear, prejudice, and misinformation. Other radio networks are well known as FAR RIGHT outlets, in some cases local stations are ordered to read propaganda on the air.
The FAR RIGHT, following the advice of the infamous 1971 “Powell Memo<” has infiltrated many top university programs, especially law. They’ve pushed “law & economics” bogus ideology; conducted “training sessions” for judges on how to interpret law through the eyes of corporations. They’ve cut funding and donations if universities “strayed’ from following the FAR RIGHT desires on curriculum. They’ve supported numerous writers and “scholars” pushing FAR RIGHT ideology in books, papers, articles, editorials, TV “authority” appearances. I-net posts.
All this has succeeded. The FAR RIGHT has succeeded in confusing Americans about what the Founders said, wrote, intended; and – worse – twisted the meanings of the Constitution and Amendments. They’ve succeeded getting people to question whether THEIR government is helpful by suggesting it’s harmful. They’ve even gotten many to accept such obvious FRAUDS as “trickle-down economics” and “originalism.”
3] Global climate change denial – THE Greatest LIE in human history. THE most destructive LIE in human history. Why is YOUR property insurance bill escalating [if you can buy it]??? Why are “storms of the century” occurring every decade, if not every year? Why are plants and animals migrating away from the Equator? Why are YOU now threatened by tropical diseases and insects?
The Rich and their corporations who profit from fossil fuels have said this GREAT LIE since at least the 1960s. Oil companies own internal 1970s documents prove it. Humanity lost 50 years of climate mitigation [50 years of profits!!!]. Perhaps irreversible changes in nature are occurring – polar ice melt, ocean warming, etc.
This GREAT LIE is also SYMBOLIC of insatiable GREED of the Rich and their corporations. They have been willing to sacrifice their own children and grandchildren’s future to make continual OBSCENE amounts of money – when many are already millionaires and billionaires.
4] “trickle-down economics” will benefit all Americans – perhaps THE greatest post-1980 LIE of the American FAR RIGHT rich. Best rephrased as “TAX CUTS for the already Rich will somehow benefit all Americans.” This became a mantra for the FAR RIGHT, implemented by Republicans at al times. At the beginning of COVID in 2020, one state Republican leader stated the cure for COVID was tax cuts!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This person was serious!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This GREAT LIE wa/is told to “justify” immoral Reagan, Bush II, Trump tax cuts for the Rich and their corporations. Result: concentration of wealth in top 1%, matched only by OBSCENE 1865-1901 “Gilded Age” [an age many of the FAR RIGHT want to duplicate]. Result: explosion of U.S. national debt since 1981 – a threat to our national security. Result: annual debt payments of about $650 billion – WASTED money that could’ve ben used for things such as universal child care. Result: an explosion of billionaires [there were NONE in 1956, near the height of American power]. Result: money NOT paid to workers who create the wealth – wage stagnation since 1973. Result: at least 50% living paycheck-to-paycheck and credit card debt [which goes back to top 1%].
5] “originalism” – THE. GREAT LIE of the Roberts ‘supreme court.” A false twisting of what is DOCUMENTED the Founders really said, wrote, intended, 1775-1791. This CORRUPT “court’ [as pronounced by several analysts/scholars/judges] has written monstrous LIES, into bogus “law.” They’ve so twisted Amendment One a connected activist can “justify” almost ANY human conduct by casting it as “speech,” including bribing legislators with “campaign contributions” [see “Citizens United” aftermath, confessions by Congress people, others]. They’ve crated a new class of SUPER CITIZENS who claim “religious freedom” “rights’ to discriminate, cheat and more.
Read Gaustad’s “Faith of the Founders,” pages 134-45 for explicit 1775-1800 state constitutional prohibitions. They’ve twisted Amendment Two beyond recognition. State laws as early as 1813 prohibited concealed weapons. NO Supreme Court, 1789-2007, IMAGINED a “Well-regulated militia” meant any citizen had personal gun “rights.” Result: more guns than Americans, far bigger chance to be shot anywhere in America – except – inside the “supreme court.”
“Originalism” has been DOCUMENTED by numerous real, mainstream, scholars as a historical FRAUD, the latest Chemerinsky’s “Worse Than Nothing.” Even more contemptuous and perverse, as noted by Supreme Court justices and scholars: the Roberts “supreme court” abandons “originalism” when it won’t get them to their predetermined ideological payoff.
A. study by Senator Whitehouse, discussed in “The Scheme. How the Right Wing Used Dark Money to Capture the Supreme Court.” Appendix “A” lists “The 80″: Decisions by the Roberts Five, 2005-2019” – 80 cases, decided by 5-4 ideological votes; which achieved one of four “conservative interests” in politics, anti-democracy, far-right social agenda, protecting corporations. Any doubt? Get the book, read the 80 cases!!!!!!
Then, “The Shadow Docket” [Vladeck], on “How the Supreme Court uses Stealth Rulings to Amass Power and Undermine theRepublic.” As described by reviewer Epps: “Chamber of Secrets The Supreme Court’s habit of deciding hugely important cases without briefings, arguments, or even a word of explanation threatens democracy.”
6] ‘the tobacco playbook” – for American industries of all types. Guiding principle: denial of REAL scientific, or ANY, evidence which proves what they’ve done is wrong, illegal, destructive. Principle #2: make up your own “scientific” or other evidence. LIE. One corporate leader famously said: “our product is denial.” Scientific evidence smoking killed its customers was/is overwhelming. It didn’t matter. Profits, careers, industry survival, were at stake. LIE.
Good place to start: Oreskes & Conway”s “Merchants of Doubt How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming.
YOU can easily observe this immorality – check stories about various industries fighting. ANY. effort to hold them accountable, from selling dubious products, to efforts to mine resources where serious damage to people and environment has/could occur, to various white collar crimes of cheating/deceiving customers. Even caught red-handed – it doesn’t make any difference – deny responsibility. LIE.
Credibly accused of violations, go before Congress, apologize BUT DO NOT CHANGE YOUR BUSINESS MODEL!!! You’ve seen a famous high-tech leader do twice.
7] “America is a Christian nation.” – NOBODY who has done serious research on what the Founding generations of 1775-1800 said, wrote, intended, could believe this. Many period direct quotes refute this. Documents express “freedom from religion” a person doesn’t believe in. The First Amendment was INTENDED to prevent Americans from having an “established” or official state church. Research what was said at the l3 state ratifying conventions on “freedom of conscience” and freedom of religion. “God” is, DELIBERATELY, NOT in the U.S. Constitution.
1776 North Carolina Constitution, Articles XXXIV: ‘..neither shall any person, on any pretense whatsoever, be compelled to attend any place of worship contrary to his own faith or judgment, nor be obliged to pay, for..any house of worship, or for the maintenance of any minister or ministry, contrary to what he believes right..” REREAD. THIS. is there ANY way this could have been written by people believing “America is a Christian nation?????????
North Carolina was NOT alone. 8 of the original states PROHIBITED an active minister from their government. 4 prohibited a “religious test for office” [Article VI !!!]. 10 prohibited an “established church. Evangelical demands for separation of church and state “supported principally” by Baptists and Presbyterians prevailed in Virginia. Baptist leaders John Leland and Isaac Backus were famous for opposition to an established church. Leland rejected the idea America was a Christian nation, “saying any sort of establishment of Christianity..were, all of them, Anti-Christocracies.” [Levy: “The Establishment Clause”].
CASE IRREFUTABLY CLOSED: “America is a Christian nation”. is a DOCUMENTED GREAT LIE.
8] “globalization will benefit all Americans.” MAJOR LIE – at least the way the U.S. has allowed globalization to operate. Other nations, especially China, “managed’ globalization for best interests of their COUNTRY, not some corporations – doing similar types of things America did 1789 – to build our industries and economy.
Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz: “The world of Adam Smith and the free trade advocates, in which free trade advocates, in which free trade will make everyone better off, is not only a mythical world of perfectly working markets with no unemployment; it is also a world in which risk doesn’t matter because there are perfect insurance markets to which risk can be shifted, and where competition is always perfect, with no Microsofts or Intels dominating the field. In such a world, workers wouldn’t worry about losing their jobs because of trade liberalization; they would move seamlessly into other jobs.” [“Making Globalization Work”]
Globalization has been a boon to many corporations. They move jobs and plants overseas – avoid American taxes, regulations, workers – AND bring the same products back to America for sale [at more profit, more environmental damage]. Some even renounce American citizenship – to avoid taxes.
Parts of trade agreements negate local government’s ability to hold corporations accountable; corporations even get to sue local governments for “lost” profits – often in secret corporate-friendly “courts.”
The main beneficiaries of current globalization are the Rich and the corporations they own. Virtually all other aspects of most societies have been harmed or lessened. When you get to write the rules, YOU usually win !!!!!
And then – there’s China – THE. big winner in post-2000 globalization. “American” corporations have provided the money that made China. THE #1 THREAT. to democracy worldwide. – by moving “American” factories and jobs there; by importing Chinese products; by giving away intellectual property – much of which also raises U.S.national debt.
How close is this to treason????
9] “Women – Native-Americans – African-Americans – Orientals – Jews – Immigrants – Etc. are inferior and dangerous.” Denigration, dehumanizing, and demonizing “the Other” is a big part of the FAR RIGHT message. The arrogance of making one’s self “the real American’ often appeals to those believing in white, male, supremacy.
This. happens. at. a cost.
America will NEVER know what it could have been, IF – women had been full citizens, 1789-20xx, not subject to “the glass ceiling” and other forms of discrimination. America will NEVER know what it could have been had other groups not been denigrated, dehumanized, discriminated against….. An unknown cost………..
The examples supplied by 1789-1940 successful women and minority persons give us an idea of the enormity of this cost. How many more Mary McLeod Bethunes, Jane Addams, Marie Curies, Barbara McClintocks, Coco Chanels, Georgia O’Keefes, Isadora Duncans, Amelia Earharts, Margaret Sangers, Helen Kellers, Maria Montessoris were there?
How many more Frederick Douglass”, Booker T. Washingtons, George Washington Carvers, Dennis Chavezs, W.E.B. Du Bois”, Ida Wellses, Paul Robsons, Thurgood Marshalls, Asa Randolphs, Harriet Tubmans, James Weldon Johnsons, Sojourner Truths, Luis Munoz Riveras, Jesse Owens, Octavio Larrazolos were there?
What if Chief Joseph had been a white man? If Jim Thorpe had been white?
It is said Adolf Hitler learned from America how to discriminate against certain groups of people. Even after various “civil rights” laws and movements – where is 2024 America on the continuum with Adolf Hitler?
AND – at. what. cost ?????
10]. “free market solutions are best” – The Right Wing mantra, the idea unfettered markets by themselves can ensure prosperity and growth – and – therefore government should leave them alone. [Don’t govern !!!!!]
Consider Adam Smith: “We can’t have free markets because the world is too complex and independent to let everyone run around doing whatever he or she wants to do. As a society, we have to regulate conduct when it interferes with other people’s freedoms or when it threatens damage to other people’s properties.”
Consider Dwayne Andreas, former A.D.M. CEO: “there isn’t one grain of anything in the world that is sold on a free market..The only place you see a free market is in the speeches of politicians.” [‘Cornered”]
Consider Nobel Prize winner Joe Stiglitz: “The very fact..market participants spend billions and billions trying to beat the market itself refutes the twin hypotheses that markets are efficient and that most market participants are rational…If markets were efficient, there were never be bubbles. But they have occurred repeatedly.” [“Freefall”]
Stiglitz: “Free market ideology underlay many of the institutions and agreements that provided..the framework for globalization;..those ideas had been the basis for..deregulation that played such a big role in the creation of the current [2008- ] crisis, they underpinned the capital and financial market liberalization that played such a big role in the rfapid spread of the crisis around the world.”
Marjorie Kelly: “..as Hobsbawm observed in “The Age of Extremes,” postwar industrialization was ‘backed, supervised, steered, and sometimes planned and managed by governments.’ The free market was remarkably successful in that era [1945-1975] when it was notably not free.” [‘The Divine Right of Capital”]
Events, not words, proved the GIANT LIE. of “free market solutions.” In reality, this ideology was just another excuse for the Rich and corporations to cheat everybody else. Failure, depressions, crashes, billion dollar taxpayer bailouts, mass unemployment, people losing homes, deaths – meant. NOTHING. to the LIARS. – only get more creative, invent new “theories.” LIE. more effectively. REWRITE. the rules differently. REWRITE. the record.
And, of course, YOU’LL. have many opportunities to observe how the FAR. RIGHT. can LIE. in coming months. The 2024 election season is here!!!!!! Weekly, if not daily – the FAR RIGHT. “information” machine will be working overtime – to convince YOU – black is white, upside down is really right side up, 2 plus 2 is really 5, a person who lost the 2020 election by 7 million votes really won and that he really cares about you [as illustrated by his 2017 millionaires tax cut !!!!!!!!!!!!!!] Then there is that bridge in the desert you need to buy………….
With Justice For All 