A World of Deception

The primary goal of any government is to deceive its citizens. It’s why politicians lie. Hell, they lie about lying. To them, a lie is at best a mistruth and is never intentional, let alone their fault. It’s part of a broader conspiracy aimed to bring them down and to deny us our freedom. By the time they get done talking, it’s as if a lineup of dogs took one crap on top of another as a way to hide the initial one.

In our country, an important part of that deception is the media. I am not talking about just the likes of CNN or FOX News, but the media in its entirety. You see, like so many things in this nation, instead of providing a necessary service to hold powerful people in check, it has become another corporate machine whose sole purpose is to generate profits. They entertain more than they educate and sensationalize tragedies while providing minimal coverage about the good. They stack the field against the little guys, like us at Los Angeles Post-Examiner, and brainwash more than inform.

Have you noticed how today, every local news department has their own version of Steve Hartman, someone to deliver a short feel good story at the end of a newscast that glorified the day’s rubbernecking events? Their purpose is to help us cleanse ourselves after soaking our brains with the refuse they present as news.

Thanks to many of my fellow baby boomers, younger generations are deceived about the long lost American Dream we destroyed. Younger generations are deceived into chasing a college degree, not because it lands them a better job, but rather because it turns them into slaves to a career of living in debt. A bachelor’s degree is today’s equivalent of a high school diploma in large part because the more people who graduate from college, the more people will run up debt chasing an MA. Even PhDs abound at a time when few job requirements need much more than on the job training and common sense.

Our public schools are also full of deception. I was once advised that if I ever became a school principal to set aside extra money in my budget to make the exterior look great each year. The former assistant superintendent went on to say that the nicer it looks from the outside, the fewer the parents there are on the inside.

Let’s not forget about all those inflated grades that are handed out. Have you ever wondered about how schools show off their large number of honor roll students? Or how so many students graduate high school with grade point averages close to 5.0? Today’s 5.0 GPA was once a 4.0. The reason we no longer see the short bus pull up in front of a house like in the 1970’s is because we now have more than enough students in our schools in special classes to fill up entire fleets of long buses. Still, the high grades are dished out despite standardized test scores that indicate subject mastery is MIA.

Being a distinguished school is nothing more than another shell game our schools play to help us forget about just how many students do not measure up to state standards. Public schools have become big business so why not sell parents on an honor? If your kids’ school has not been recognized for something outstanding, it’s probably in the minority. You see, kids and parents need brainwashing into thinking their local school is not just another run of the mill place when in reality, it most likely is. Everyone may not actually be a winner, but as long as they think they are, that’s what matters. The real losers do not show up until they are out of high school and they realize they are not the winner they were led to believe. Welcome to the real world, Johnny.

Medicine is great at deception. How many cancer patients really need to undergo chemotherapy and/or radiation? Does a doctor tell a patient they are necessary for a patient’s survival or better for their profit margin? They should be required to present the two treatments as optional while showing the actual data on their benefits or lack thereof. Do they detail just how much damage radiation will do to parts of your body that are not sick or do they just say you have to have it and we have been led to believe you can’t beat the disease without them?

Your family doctor has a practice to grow and it often requires deception. How many actually tell a parent their kid suffers from obesity? It is a disease and it is leading to a shorter life expectancy for future generations as well as resulting in adult onset diabetes, colon cancer, high blood pressure, and heart disease in young adults. Unfortunately, parents hear a doctor use the term obese and react as if their kid was just called fat or overweight. News flash, they are.

Affordable Care is only affordable for those who can pay for a PPO. Otherwise, what we have is universal health care which is anything but quality health care. A name drug is never affordable until a generic version comes out. However, have you noticed when a generic drug does come out, a new and better non generic drug is approved by the FDA that becomes the go to choice of physicians? I am sure this is just a coincidence as are the nice cruises doctors are provided by drug sales reps.

As costly as these deceptions are, they pale when compared to the deceptions we are sold when it comes to war. History has shown there was no domino effect when we jumped into the Vietnam War. Over 58,000 U.S. service members paid the ultimate price just so our government could thump their chest at a red menace. However, are you aware that the war resulted in over two million total deaths when you add up the number of Vietnamese and other parties involved? The only good that can be claimed from that war was it led to the end of the draft.

Then came the so-called weapons of mass destruction that never were and a nearly two decade two front war on terrorism. Over a trillion dollars later, a collapsed U.S. economy, and a now divided nation on several fronts, it can be argued the terrorists won. Our democracy is in doubt, terrorists thrive in the Middle East, and we are on the verge of being dragged into an even larger and more global war. Meanwhile, our military industrial complex profits soar while we are sold the notion patriotism means fighting a war for corporate profits. Our reward is watching those same corporations given tax break after tax break while the rest of us pay the bill only to be told our nation has no more money to spend on improving our lives.

Few in this nation seem to care about the millions of displaced citizens of Gaza, the deaths of over 25,000 citizens, or the politics of a region we only care about for the transporting of goods around the globe. Our government supports a nation who slaughters Palestinians in defense of “freedom” while also supporting another being slaughtered by a man who kills innocent Ukrainians as if they were innocent citizens from Gaza. There are no good guys or defenders of freedom. There are just three gigantic hosts of world orgies, and we pick and choose who to get into bed with and leave the rest to China or Russia.

We are no closer to friendly relations with Iran since the Shah fell in the 70s. We refuse to wean ourselves from our addiction to oil because we have been deceived by big oil companies that green power is worse. We sell weapons to a repressive regime that doesn’t think twice about sticking it to us by jacking up oil prices. Worst of all, most of us can’t tear ourselves away from the devices that can best educate us because we feel the need to post selfies, follow one another on Instagram, and swipe left or right in search of a quickie.

There is a lack of logic and consistency in the thinking of both major political parties that we eat up without any thought. How can one party be pro-life and feel justified blowing up women’s clinics, push for an expansion of the death penalty, and insist on access to guns when our innocent children are gunned down in schools?

How can another party claim what a person does or does not do with their body is their decision only and then mandate we all purchase health insurance? If freedom of choice is valued, why is it we have only two major political parties? When will our elected leaders sever their ties from lobbyists who own their votes while the people go ignored? When is big religion going to be required to pay taxes and stay the hell out of our government when we were built on the separation of church and state? When will our leaders provide the common person with the same health coverage they afford for themselves?

So here we are in a pivotal election year where our nation’s foundation is in desperate need of repair. Is it any wonder a lunatic is an attractive candidate to a largely white following that has little understanding or respect for the principals our nation was built on? Is it any wonder both houses of Congress are littered with human sores who get re-elected at a 90% rate even when they can’t look into a camera and utter a coherent sentence? Is it a surprise the squeaky wheel from the left points fingers and utters slurs while another squeaky wheel from the right does the same, all while sane people in the middle go unheard?

At the end of the day, we care more about our access to things like guns, high priced entertainment, booze, pot, and gas burning pickup trucks than we do our fellow citizens. We can’t be bothered with the connection between the money spent fighting wars that make no sense while we lack the funds for paved roads, affordable and not mandated healthcare, and the comfort knowing we will be cared for by a government from birth to death rather than forgotten and used just to feed the wealthy’s greed.

You want democracy? You can’t handle democracy. Rather, you can’t be bothered with what it requires because you have been deceived to believe happiness comes from purchasing throw away goods designed to distract you from the greatest deceit of all, your liberty.