A Fable

In Xenophobia, two candidates battled each other for high office. Yusef Abdul Salim, a member of his nation’s top 1 % of income earners, faced leaks that disclosed his $250 million + net worth with millions in offshore banks, transfered into the names of his wife, children, and put into blind trusts run by the family’s lawyers or organized as offshore corporations in order not to pay country taxes. Yuli Smith claimed no knowledge of how his IRA ACCOUNT reached $100  million.

Yuli ran a well-financed campaign of mass deception. Having gotten away with tax evasion, can you imagine the monopoly, power and absolute control he and his billionaire bundlers could wield, if elected to lead a new world order?

Truth Beguiled

It’s a simple but effective skill: blame others. Not me! To challenge it, look at the facts.

But suppose I don’t want to believe facts? I believe I’m smarter, wiser than those who stand in my way. (Or do my nails!) I join with other believers. Belief trumps truth. You have the truth, but I have believers. I win. This cultural strategy underlies GOP policy, spin, and its main campaign. They abandoned truth to go after believers, make them feel warm and accepted, appreciated, elevated as never before—making history by turning history back. Using class warfare, creating an alliance of strange bedfellows, the GOP appeals to the alienated and the in. Mitt Romney’s pain is their pain. Truth beguilded.

Can democracy be used to perpetuate wealth aligned with greed, power, and lies? Will the misperceptions of the wealthy who are insular in their thinking and demanding in their entitlements join forces with a large sector of Americans looking to blame the visible symbol of change, or as they believe, decline?

The idea that no matter the truth, I’m smarter than the other guy, I see played out multiple times every day, on Paul Krugman’s blog, around the web, in troll posts, in sloppy media reporting. Its corollary is smart doesn’t matter, only power and wealth. Along with different versions of greed, some selfish, some insular, some intolerant and threatened. But they all blame others and all believe in buzz words and labels and the truth beguiled.

~Wow, Walter!
This post was almost poetry. You were on fire. A lot of on-line posts are just
repetitive talking points. Your posts are always really good.
This one is my favorite so far.