``Surely this administration has not produced more lies per month than the administrations of Wilson, Kennedy, Johnson, or Nixon...'' Carrol
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I will assert categorically this administration has generated more lies per minute than any administration in my living memory. They have lied so much it is not a question of how many. The question is do they know what constitutes a statement of fact? Do they know what a fact is? They can not advocate their own position without lying, even when there is no reason to lie.
I think they are completely incapable of saying anything that isn't a lie.
This isn't just about propagandizing and spinning interpretations in their direction. They are such thorough going frauds that everything they say and do has a completely surreal quality to it---an estrangement---as if they're all ventriloquists and no one is the author of his or her own words.
The lying and deceit are so ubiquitous, so pervasive, so much a part of what these people are that the whole show is not just a staged theater set, but a entire dramaturgy of the unreal. As Michael said, ``Lying is the soul of what's evil with these people.'' I absolutely agree.
It is not a matter of complaining. I usually don't bother anymore. It is a matter of recognizing the sheer magnitude of their malignant and venial deceptions and fabrications has been so overwhelming, that it has made simple statements of fact appear to be an appalling idiosyncrasy, equivalent to a moral failing. For example, Wilson's statement of fact was treason, perpetrated by an enemy.
Some time ago, I decided that nobody was capable of generating so many lies without a system. So the question became what was the system?
The rightwing ideology itself is the system. It accomplishes its magic by a simple method. For each and every statement of fact, a transformative statement of value can be produced from the rightwing ideological library. For example, Wilson's statement of fact wasn't a fact at all. It was a betrayal of trust, and as such, it had to be punished by another betrayal. It takes a certain amount of practice to apply this art, but once it is mastered, it automatically generates an ocean of rationales, justifications, explanations, and interpretations of `facts'. The over arching understanding in this world system is that there are no facts. Every fact is merely a question of differing interpretations, differing orders of value. It is a given in advance that there is no objective world or fact based reality `out there'.
Once you abolish facts, there are no lies, only differing points of view. This is how our current regime can generate so many lies. It simply abolishes facts. With no external reference to material conditions, `facts on the ground', every issue, every controversy, every political position is made equivalent, and in such an equivalence, those who hold the most power simply determine the prevailing view. Since objective reality no longer exists, the prevailing view of those who hold power is made de facto reality.