John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY THE SAKER IN THE UNZ REVIEW
“Understanding Why They Lie and Why They Get Away with It”
I find the article somewhat jumbled, but its author has managed a few powerful truths on an important subject.
This phrase does hit the mark, "life in a reality-free world"
It is indeed a realty-free world when it comes to America's activities abroad.
But perhaps there should be little surprise at the fact.
Empire is inherently oppressive and anti-democratic.
We have a tiny percentage of the world's population (America has roughly five percent of world’s population, but America’s establishment, the people who truly count, represent a tiny fraction of one percent) telling everyone else what to do.
And America uses a great deal of violence to enforce its will – bombing, insurgencies, assassinations, wars, and coups. It cannot be otherwise.
In some cases, as with allies, it uses only the pressure of its globally-dominant financial institutions and markets, but that is still coercion, and it is very unwelcome.
Even granting American elections are somewhat democratic, the fact means nothing to those being forced to do what they do not wish to do.
Power is power no matter how granted, as by election, and abuse of that power is abuse no different than abuse by any other kind of government.
From the world’s point of view, America is a form of authoritarian government, and all authoritarian governments lie about what they are doing.
No one likes being openly credited with oppression and killing and theft. That is true even for governments as notorious in our memories as Stalin’s or Hitler’s or the former junta in Argentina, but it is equally true for America in its affairs abroad or for Israel in its affairs with its neighbors.
All that dirty work requires a lot of lying to cover over. America still likes to think of itself as descending from that small group of men pledging their sacred honors, and of course that is an absurd contradiction with today’s reality.
Despite those who work to inform themselves often recognizing the lies, they are a small minority of any society, and I think the lying, on the whole, does work. Much as with the tiresome and threadbare claims of commercial advertising, a sizable part of the population accepts them, or at least does not question them, having no motive for close examination.
And there is no need for guilt on the part of officials doing the lying. If you don’t feel guilty about killing and stealing, why would you feel guilty about some mere lies?
As crimes of empire, lies are just pocket change.
I’ve said many times that you can have an empire or you can have a decent country, but you cannot have both. America long ago chose empire.
You can take that principle a step further: you can have an empire or you can have a democratic state, but you cannot have both.
To say otherwise is as absurd as Israel’s claim to being a democracy while it occupies and abuses millions who enjoy no rights.
