I swear to God that if I hear one more lie I’m going to scream.

We live in nation of lies. They lied about the “weapons of mass destruction” that led to the invasion of Iraq. They lied about the “banksters” paying back all of the bailout money we showered on them. They lied about Hope and Change. That was a good one. They lied about Covid and about the vaccines. They lied about Russia-gate, and are still lying about the US/NATO proxy war against Russia in Ukraine. They lied and are still lying about about the Nord Stream pipeline bombings and the destruction of the Kakhovka dam.

And, I’m just scratching the surface.

There’s a broad-based assumption across the land, derived from novels, television and the movies, that Americans can’t handle the truth. But, that’s bullshit. I’ve come to believe that our nation is desperately searching for anyone in the government, corporate media or business to lay a little truth on them.

That’s why Robert F. Kennedy’s campaign has been such a breath of fresh air. And what is so striking in Mr. Kennedy’s performance so far is an absence of fakery. It’s more than refreshing, it’s shocking. Makes you go what the fuck? Makes you remember what it’s like to not be lied-to incessantly. Makes you want to see more of it. A lot more. In fact, Kennedy’s campaign hold promise of forcing some of the many festering issues into the light. Similarly, America’s polarization and deepening political divide aren’t caused by the Russians but from its unresolved contradictions and endless lies. For instance, America’s own structural contradictions of a hyper-financialized economy, sucking the substance from its real-economy host. A society living in trembling fear of a hospital bill. Of despairing to put their children through college with its exorbitant fees and a debt burden that can’t be discharged during bankruptcy. And a political system in near constant paralysis, a zero-sum confrontation except when it comes to war or bailouts for banks and mega-corporations.

All of this, but especially the endless lies have left Americans bitter that the system so obviously doesn’t act in their interest, nor does it even really pretend to anymore.

Maybe the biggest lie, repeated endlessly, is that Americans abhor socialism, even the warmed-over New Deal kind proposed by Bernie Sanders in 2016 and 2020. We’re lectured endlessly that any sort of socialism is simply the Soviet Union with its grey bureaucracy and gulags, and besides there is no alternative to “free market” neoliberal capitalism. There’s a good reason for this. Since the late 1970s, a form of predatory capitalism or what can be called neoliberalism  has waged war on the welfare state, public goods and the social contract.  Neoliberalism insists that the market should govern not just the economy but all aspects of society. As a result it has concentrated wealth in the hands of a financial elite and elevating unchecked self-interest, self-help, deregulation, and privatization as the governing principles of society, all while insisting loudly that this system will benefit everyone. 

And now, having precluded socialism or any sort of left-wing response, the evolving anti-establishment protests or revolts are labeled right-wing extremism.

I guess we’re all “right-wing extremists” now.

There does appear to be convergence of thought about the sheer mendacity of ruling elite.

Tucker Carlson–who good little liberals love to hate–is doing a podcast on Twitter that’s drawing millions of Americans desperate for any semblance of the truth. The key passage in a recent episode: [Tucker] “We can point to the precise moment that permanent Washington decided to send Donald Trump to prison. Here it is from the Republican debate in Greenville South Carolina, in 2016.

[Trump] “We should have never been in Iraq; we have destabilized the Middle East. They lied, ok. They said there were weapons of mass destruction there were none and they knew there were none, there were no weapons of mass destruction.” [Tucker] “Now by the time Trump said that a lot of Republican primary voters were starting to reach the same conclusion; how could they not. But it was the next line that doomed Trump to today’s arrest. “They lied” he said, “there were no weapons of mass destruction” and they knew there were none.”‘

[Tucker] “Now when he said that a few in the crowd booed, most just sat there in stunned silence. Can he say that? Well he said that anyway and by saying it sealed his fate. That was the one thing you were not allowed to say because it implicated too many people on both sides, which on this topic is really just one side.”

Whatever you think of Carlson and Trump, they aren’t lying.

Neither is Robert F. Kennedy. He put it so simply in April when he announced a run to preside over the stupendous mess that is our government. He said his mission is an experiment to see what happens when you tell Americans the truth.

Update: “The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane and intolerable.”

– H.L. Mencken