Pretty lies vs. ugly truths

[carolinayellowdog]

Hey,

Quite a few bestselling books are focusing on the lies of the Bush administration and the failure of the news media to expose them. But I haven't seen any explanation of why lies are so successful with the electorate. My cynical conclusion is that a significant proportion of the public eagerly embraces any lie as long as it is something they *prefer* to believe. Hence Bush/Rush/Hannity et al can get away with telling people that huge tax cuts bring job growth, Saddam was in league with Al-Qaeda, the world is safer and more peaceful now, ad nauseum, and because people prefer to believe these things they do. Many seem incapable of the thought "it would be nice if it were true, but it isn't."

Democrats seem to be stuck with telling unpleasant truths, which people will reject because they'd rather believe pleasant lies. The 2004 election will ultimately come down to truth vs. lies, and given the track record that's not an encouraging prospect. Given what seems to be an unlimited capacity for believing pretty lies and rejecting ugly truths, how can voters be reached?

A hypothetical winning strategy in this situation is to out-lie the liars. Vote for me and everyone gets a pony for Christmas. Gasoline will cost a penny a gallon within the first year of my administration. Retirement age will be lowered to 40, college education will be free for everyone, we won't need health care because no one will ever get sick again... Of course, if it's a Democrat telling relentless lies the media will analyze each one in great detail so this is not a workable solution.

There is plenty of blame to go around, the Republican lie machine and its media enablers deserving the lion's share. But until Democrats can figure out why people hate truth and love lies, and devise a strategy to turn the tables, knowing all about Republican lies won't do us any good.

CYD

[Brucey]

1. Yes, the Dem candidate needs to have

a social psychologist on staff. There is knowledge available that will help us understand how people come to believe things. Rational logic is not the most frequent way.

[RichM]

2. Let's not kid ourselves - Democrats are terrible liars too.

This fantasy that Democrats are the "party of the truth" is an example, in itself, of preferring pretty lies to the hard cold truth.

[carolinayellowdog]

4. What fantasy?

I wrote that in the current situation, Democrats are stuck with telling ugly truths, and that the next election will come down to these truths about the Bush administration vs. its pretty lies. Nowhere was it stated or implied that Democrats are the pristine party of truthtellers. The truth happens at the moment to be Democrats' best ammunition-- if only voters can be made to care about it.

[RichM]

5. OK, I see what you mean. Please disregard my previous statement!

:-)

[grannylib]

3. The Christian Fundamentalists are gonna hurt us....

One of the biggest issues that I see is the blind allegience of the Christian Fundamentalists to the Republicans. Their worship services often have political messages handed down as Gospel.
Speaking of which, I once forced myself to listen to Falwell's Old Time Gospel Hour. For those of you who are not Christian, "gospel" literally means "good news" and in a Christian context, of course, it is the good news of Christ's coming and dying for our sins.

In the entire broadcast I listened to, there was not ONE MENTION of the name of Jesus, but you would have thought that the Republican administration was the Holy Trinity and then some.
The fundamentalists are very skilled at using mass hypnosis-type of techniques; if you can stomach it, watch some of these televangelists and it is almost hypnotic once they begin to speak, and this is intentional. They are leading their blind sheep astray.

[Atlant]

6. I have agreed with this thesis since at least 1984.

As far as I'm concerned, Walter Mondale is the patron saint of
this theory.

"Let's tell the truth. Mr. Reagan will raise your taxes,
and so will I. He won't tell you. I just did."

And Reagan did, indeed. But Mondale took the fall.

Atlant

[shance]

7. Americans addiction to fantasy

and to image, versus living and confronting the realities around us.

Addicts who are "actively using" try to escape reality, but reality never goes away, only our fantasies do when they are shattered by the realities that inevitably come to our door to "collect".

At some point the distractions and illusions that all is well here in America will be confronted with our actions of wrongdoing in Iraq. Many arrogant Americans think we are above this inevitability, but what nation has ever escaped their own wrong doing through out history?

And no addicts, even Rush Limbaugh escape their addiction, and in reality, no matter how much selfish interests might enable Rush Limbaugh and shield him from the truth, until he faces his own reality, he will never be truly respected, lies and wrongdoing will continue and he will always be on the run from reality and never know one moments peace. Of course that is why he uses those drugs.

Thanks to the advertising industry and over-zealous capitalism and corporatism, we have become a society primarily of addicts of some sort, or to put it another way addicts of consumerism.

So, in order to break the addictions, we have to break through the fantasies and learn to embrace, honor and respect reality. The more we engage and live in fantasy and ignore reality, as any addict will tell you, the worse our reality becomes and the more difficult and painful it is to recover.