Cheating and Lying

It was in the late '90's that I noticed a story in the news that two thirds of American college kids admitted cheating on exams and papers. Two thirds is an important proportion of a population. It's the center of the bell curve. When two thirds of a group agree on something, the remaining minority know they are _really_ a minority, and the issue has been settled, and any further discussion will be regarded as in poor taste. So it was in the late 90's that an American concensus formed around the notion that cheating and lying were just part of succeeding in today's world. This concensus included a generation of future leaders, from the country club set on down, and it included their parents, teachers, and the entire adult power structure, at least to the extent that all these encouraged cheating by looking the other way.
To me this seemed a disheartening change at a foundational level of the country's values, and I wondered when and how it would start to 'hit home' in terms of real consequences. I suppose we are seeing it, in the current Bush administration.
The Katrina cockup, for example, spread far and wide to every level of government. It seems like a sort of generalized shotgun blast of trouble all over a lot of different groups, but it all makes sense when one realizes that all the trouble boils down to people not doing their jobs, and routinely signing off as if they did. In other words, it boils down to individuals choosing to cheat rather than do what they are supposed to do.
Individuals make this choice in an atmosphere where 'everyone is doing it,' and there is pressure on everyone to 'cheat' so that they enter the code of silence of the guilty. This 'cheating' phenomenon was endemic at every level from the New Orleans Police Dept to the Oval Office.
Related to the 'cheating' phenomenon (kissing cousins, perhaps) is the phenomenon of Lying , repeatedly, and shamelessly, and expecting others, particularly those of lower status, to accept the Lie and pretend to believe it. This is the usual dynamic in abusive households, and the USA is nothing if not an abusive household writ large.
I have made a careful study of the current occupant of the white building on Pennsylvania Ave, and I am certain that virtually all the times he tells a lie, his lips can clearly be seen to move. Hyper-analysis of thousands of hours of video footage reveals a virtual one-to-one correspondance between the Subject's lips moving, and the emanation of a lie therefrom. (Sounds that were not lies tended to be grunts and coughs with no apparent information content.) This is what poker players call a 'tell.' A 'tell' is a nervous habit other players can see that indicates a given player is attempting to deceive them, either bluffing or faking a bluff. Virtually every time Mister Bush appears before a camera and moves his lips, his intent is to deceive, to dissemble, to disinform, to distort, and then to dictate to the scared and stupid that they must flock together behind him with the other War Sheep, or else Santa Claus, Jesus, and the FBI will put them on the Naughty list.
Here in the Shopping Season, we take heart because once again we call Jesus to be born in our world. And like Pagans everywhere I pray earnestly that Jesus show up to lead his Flock with his Righteousness, and in Glory to Someplace Far Away where they can only harm each other. Failing that, I hope He shows up and tells them to give their wealth to the poor (just like before,) and they scatter like chaff before the wind.

Why am I proud to be Pagan? Simply, because my two least favorite living humans, Great White Beast Bush and Osama Bin Laden agree on exactly one thing: They both hate Pagans, and call each other Pagans as a slur. Good. Whatever they both fear most is what I want to be.

A friend of mine used to say that the Truth is the most powerful weapon in a world powered by lies. Maybe if we all made a point of telling some uncomfortable Truth in our own lives this season, the resonance could carry all the way to the highest levels, and shake away the veils of deception behind which todays mass murderers hide.
The Truth is the US Military, which used to have some honor, kicks in the doors of innocent people, shoots journalists in the head at close range, burns and dishonors the bodies of its victims, rapes children and posts pictures of all these atrocities on the internet. And every one of them is a volunteer, who hopes to gain monetarily from supressing the Iraqis or the Afghanis. In short, they are a mercenary army sent far away to steal somebody else's country, and every man and woman of them volunteered. That's the Truth.
The Truth is that about half of Americans who bothered to vote actually voted for Bush in both 2000 and 2004. It may be possible to believe that in 2000 some people did not know that Bush would be such a disaster. But by 2004, there was no mistaking what was plainly the Truth, that Bush had damaged the USA more thoroughly than any terrorist or enemy ever could. The Americans who voted for Bush in 2004 freely approved crimes against humanity, torture, and the theft of billions in public money.
No people anywhere was so brazenly Evil that it voted for the 911 terror attacks. You can't find lists of thousands of people who gave their money specifically to see Americans die. But the same is not true of the atrocities of the US military. Millions of Americans saw the torture pictures from Iraq and actually voted for more of the same. Thousands of Americans gave big money to continue the war crimes. These people should be exposed for what they are, and neither they, nor their children, nor their children's children should ever be allowed to forget what they did to our country.