Let us try to describe the general nature of our national conversation, and of our political debates.
To even raise this subject, is to run into nearly insurmountable difficulties at the outset. It is not simply that our national discourse rests on a foundation of evasions, complicated by equivocations, twisted by avoidance, and rendered into meaningless insignificance by an uncountable series of lies. All of that is true, but it fails to capture the quality that is most striking to the perceptive observer. That quality is one of overwhelming, oppressive and suffocating unreality. It is as if everyone knows, but will never acknowledge, that we may speak only in code, and that we may only utilize the safe, empty phrases that we have agreed are "acceptable" -- phrases and language that are safe precisely because they have been drained of all correspondence to facts. It is as if everyone realizes, but will never state, that we are engaged in an elaborate charade, a pageant of gesture and indication, where substance and specific meaning have been banned. On those extraordinarily rare occasions when a politician appears who speaks the truth on any subject -- for example, a Ron Paul, or Mike Gravel, or Dennis Kucinich (and whatever one's disagreements with these individuals, all of them speak the truth on certain crucial subjects) -- such persons are regarded as kooks and crazies, and they are treated as objects of derision and ridicule. It is impermissible that they be taken seriously, or that they be allowed to hold the public's attention for any appreciable length of time. And it is absolutely forbidden that they ever attain a position of notable influence; the governing class, including its indispensable adjunct, the corporate media, will make certain of that.
For this is where we are in the United States, nearing the end of the Year of Our Lord 2007: the truth is not merely unpleasant, an uninvited guest who makes conversation difficult and awkward. Truth is the enemy; truth is to be destroyed. To attempt to speak the truth on any subject of importance requires a deep reserve of determination, for to speak the truth requires that one first sweep away an infinite number of rationalizations, false alternatives, and numerous other failures of logic and the most rudimentary forms of thought -- as well as the endless lies. On that single occasion in a thousand or a million when a person overcomes these barriers and speaks the truth, he or she discovers an additional, terrible truth: almost no one wants to hear it. This is how we live today: lies are the staple of our diet. Without them, we would die, certainly in psychological terms. Arthur Silber
P.S. Kudos to Chris Dodd for trying to stand up to the telecom crony cabal. A futile gesture perhaps, but at least it's something.