The Big Lie

Outside the body politic it is called lying. It is part of the political culture which holds that the ends, their ends, justify the means.
The truth isn’t the only thing massaged, so does language. Lying to their constituents becomes; massaging the truth, spin, damage control, leverage, news management, issues management and on it goes.
Ironically, the word spin is said to have first appeared in the New York Times, sometime in October 1984, following the Reagan/Mondale debate. The irony being that the NYT is now deep in kakka for failing to detect one of its own journalists peddling spin.
We are talking here of the bias put on an issue, in order to make people believe an interpretation of events favourable to the teller, but not necessarily the full truth.

The question is, if these spinmeisters, beloved of the modern politician, are so good why are the ‘flak catchers’ of the world so busy at present?
In the US Bush’s pals ‘turd blossom' as he apparently calls his chief Aide Karl rove, Dick Cheney VP and his offsider ‘Scooter’ Liddy, are all supposed to be experts at political dissembling.
The current ‘scandal’ in the White House is a direct consequence of the lies and manipulations employed to sell the war in Iraq.
This was a cynical use of power, manipulation of information and potentially illegal activities. The latter, of course, is a matter for the courts, but the corruption is in misleading the public.

What I find particularly amusing now is the cry of ‘no fair, perjury was never part of the prosecutors brief.’ Perjury, by the way, is a legal word for lying.
We are all aware of the hapless burglar, jailed for ‘possession of house breaking tools’. This minor charge settled for because the prosecutor could not furnish the material evidence of the greater crime. ‘Never mind, he was bad and we nailed him anyway.’
Of course it would be better all round to ‘nail’ the guilty parties for their true misdeeds. Even so, the lies are part of their tool kit. If they lied on oath it is merely an extension of the underlying, corrupt, activities.

Australian’s gave a sort of tacit approval to the lies exposed prior to that country entering the alliance in Iraq. It is part of the national psyche; it seems, to accept the obvious lies dished up to them.
Security is a ‘hot word’ in Australia, as it is in the US. Having accepted the lies which led them into the war, then to its consequences of the frightening terror attacks in nearby Bali, they will accept the lies leading to a diminution of civil liberties.
They will willingly accept all of this, until it dawns on them just where their politicians have led them. What then? I can’t imagine under the proposed, draconian laws there will be much leeway to protest after the fact.
A terrorist will be whatever the Australian authorities deem to define a terrorist. If it means controlling a dissatisfied populous, or part thereof, by using anti terror laws, the government of the day will have the means.
These are dark days when countries are willing to surrender hard won civil liberties to political forces of dubious intent.
And behind it all, the spin, the lie, the fundamental corruption of our democracies.