The Speed of Right and the Right to Lie


With a little historical memory, the speed of change in what you hear through the media about Iraq is really amazing. It took years for members of Congress (except for the few usual mavericks) to gingerly question the Vietnam war, and they were very careful just how much they could challenge. Even George McGovern in 1972 had to be fairly circumspect. And almost anyone from 1965 to 1974 who condemned leaders for the war risked being pilloried for being unpatriotic. Questioning the motives of Nixon and Kissinger was left to anti-American radicals and radical playwrights.

Six months ago we were writing in these columns about the post Iraq war freeze on criticism, citing the most feeble notes of questioning by reporters who were summarily quashed.

But try listening to a bona fide presidential candidate, a retired army general yet, Wesley Clark. He is saying out loud what only the most “extreme” (i.e. knowledgeable and sensible) observers and experts were saying just before and just after Iraq II, about weapons of mass destruction, motives for going to war, the overall highjacking of the post-9/11 emotion, the perils of occupation and “reconstruction.” He’s questioning the veracity of the President and his puppets (or puppeteers.)

The amazing thing isn’t so much that all these folks were right, and we’re forced to watch the tragedies inevitably unfold as U.S. violence injects growth hormones into anti-western insurgencies. The startling thing is that the opposition critique has become establishment so quickly.

But that’s an observation without much effect, for it doesn’t change things much, and unless one of several Democrats is elected President, it never will. Part of the reason is that no matter how fast the truth catches up, lies are faster. And lies work.

There probably isn’t a more salient or depressing fact about American politics these days than that: lies work. Get enough powerful officials with powerful rich friends to say the same thing over and over, and lies work. You get the war you wanted, a cynical and dangerous fraud instead of real health care help. Buy enough TV time and tell the right lies, and you can convince poor people in Alabama to vote against tax reform which would benefit them more than any other group. That’s what happened in the referendum there, and the role of TV is particularly clear in the companion fact that a higher proportion of poor voted against reform than did the rich, who were going to see their taxes go up. So were corporate taxes, which even after being raised would be nowhere near what corporations pay in other states, and that’s where the money for all the lying ads came from.

Lies work also because there is no legal, moral or cultural opposition to them. Lies of all kinds get on the air as long as they’re in political advertising, with no legal penalty or remedy. Lies are so outrageous and frequent that there is no cultural sanction—the public isn’t scandalized by them, especially if the lies are exciting enough. The excitement is more important than the truth. Besides, these are focus group tested lies. They are lies crafted to evoke particular fears, or play to particular prejudices.

Political lies paid for by corporations don’t get newspapers too upset. After all, their existence depends on pages full of corporate lies called advertising.

The Right to Lie is the lifeblood of the Rabid Right. It’s become a kind of science: the rapid-fire attack of one lie after another, the more sensational and provocative and outrageous the better, because that gets more attention. By the time a lie can be confronted, ten more have replaced it (gone but not forgotten.) This is augmented by the slick lie, the well-done lie by highly paid and highly skilled professional liars in concept and execution. There is a gleeful excitement to all this. Lying is great for the adrenal glands. Lying brings people together. Can you top this one? How did you get them to fall for that one? Let’s work together and blitz them with one Big Lie. Repeat it and repeat it. They’ll try to refute it, but by next week we can refer to it as if were proven truth. Because everybody will remember it. Lying is fun. It’s the game of politics. It’s how you win the right friends and influence the right people. So you won’t wind up being one of those wimps sitting on the sidewalk singing Kumbaya, or living in a hovel or a cardboard box. No more sniveling: lie your way to power. It’s easy, it’s fun and it’s oh so profitable.

So maybe some folks are getting away with telling some uncomfortable truths. But don’t worry, there are more lies on the way. The Bushies will have a quarter of a billion dollars to play with, and that’s just the A team. Corporations have trained us and acculturated us to the thematic lie, the specific lie, the implied lie, the bold lie, the narrated and dramatized lie, the visually dazzling lie. Crash some images together, create the right emotion and the same corporations that sell you drugs you don’t need will sell you the candidates who will make sure that those drugs stay really really expensive.

They’ve dumbed down the country, shafted schools to build prisons, and they’re busy sealing the deal with all morons all the time television. But you can’t blame the victims here. Most people know they’re being lied to. It’s just hard to live thinking the worst of the people running your world. And the lies are so many, and they are so good at finding the vulnerabilities, that they still work. As long as lies and liars get a free ride, we’re going nowhere but down the drain.