i remember going to a talk years ago where the speaker said, 'human beings have a unique ability to cover things up (lie).' i disagree, as quail parents can fake injury to lure hunters from their young. and there must be many other examples. still, i have to say, we all have to fabricate to survive, to endure our fellow human beings.
or to get a job. i had a friend who always answered, 'yes i can do that' when he'd never done a task and he would go out and learn, like getting a truck-driver to teach him how to drive a big rig. and a commentator said years ago, 'democratic presidents have to lie a lot to get anything done." now we have a doozy of an example!
what really makes me crazy: how words invented to cover up the actual damage done.
ESCALATION: invented during Vietnam, used to hide the fact it meant thousands of more troops and dead. how it meant taking the money for schools, highways, health care, and blowing (literally) it in southeast asia. alas, people simply didn't read books. all the underbelly of the war exposed by writers where the information could be found, but no, a dirty word like escalation taken as an justification and definition.
PRE-OWNED. o god, this phrase a slumlord's paradise. 'this car was owned by someone who never drove it. a blind lady who just like to sit in the front seat and smell the leather!' what a crock. what used to say used car for sale, telling the honest truth now goes for 'i've only gotten you a little bit pregnant' or 'the cancer you have is actually good for you. it will inoculate you when the real thing comes along'. i propose we advertise houses saying, 'this dump has been very slightly partly trashed."
FAKE NEWS: Even if a president has to lie - a democratic country very reluctant to go into into a WWII - we have a president who's lies, pre-fabricates, covers-up already ten thousand times while in office. he invented the term 'fake news' and continues to create it. the term confuses everything, and these days, for example, christians? who want us all dead (Armageddon) so they can go to heaven read only church bulletins, and those who should know better get everything from talk radio.
CLEAR-CUTTING. yes, the forest service did invent this. 'clear' implies good, healthy, clean. it's a term devised from american history. it meant progress, crops, the railroad. and what has it done, at least in california? created scabs in the sierras which can't hold ground water and thus can't be re-planted. of course, the original plan left standing trees along roadways where drivers couldn't see what had been done. unfortunately, thousands of people fly over these mountains every day, the truth clear for all to see.
why do i always accept a lie as truth? so i can tread water, go to work, read fiction which is truer than what i read in the paper. the problems seem so big, yet perhaps not as big as our imagination. i don't know anything but loss that stirs me to action. am i alone?
