No More Lies!

Each day brings slam-dunk evidence that the doomsday threats marshaled by the administration to sell the war weren't, in Cheney-speak, just dishonest and reprehensible but also corrupt and shameless. The more the president and vice president tell us that their mistakes were merely innocent byproducts of the same bad intelligence seen by everyone else in the world, the more we learn that this was not so. The web of half-truths and falsehoods used to sell the war did not happen by accident; it was woven by design and then foisted on the public by a PR operation built expressly for that purpose in the White House. The real point of the Bush-Cheney verbal fisticuffs this month, like the earlier campaign to take down Joseph Wilson, is less to smite Democrats than to cover up wrongdoing in the executive branch between 9/11 and shock and awe.

ENOUGH!

I have had enough! No more lies! No more cover up! I demand the truth!

How can it be acceptable to constantly have people in a position of authority refuse to tell us the truth? How? I expect my children to tell me the truth. When they don't I provide a consequence. I expect my wife to tell me the thruth and when she doesn't she has to go. I expect my government to tell me the truth and when they don't I am expected to make allowances? Well too fucking bad! I am not making any more allowances!

Lewis Black, my favorite comedian, says that he expects his government to lie to him. It is a tongue in cheek statement but one riddled with truth. In this day and age we do expect our government to hide the truth from us as if we were children. And now the media has joined the government in this duplicity and we have allowed that as well. Why?

I actually want my government to tell me the truth. I demand that my news agencies provide me with the truth. If either of those entities fail to do that simple task, then they must go. If a politician is not honest then he loses my vote. If a media outlet is demonstrated to have provided false statements then I no longer watch or read them. (Do you hear that FOX?)

Why should I not have this expectation? Why should I allow people to be dishonest? Doesn't this create an environment where our preseident can send thousands of our fellow citizens to die for no good reason? Doesn't this create an environment where different news channels can transmit their own version of the truth? Doesn't this create an environment where advertisers can make up any lie they want in the interest of selling their product? Yes it does. And it is wrong!

So today I reclaim my independence! Today I refuse to be lied to anymore! Honesty will be my watchword. Integrity my lantern. I shall live my life expecting the best from everybody I meet. If they cannot demonstrate that level of integrity then I will simply move on.

I am about to be very lonely.