Wish You Were Here

by James Quinn. September 14, 2009

“Truth will ultimately prevail where there is pains to bring it to light.”– George Washington

“For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst and provide for it.”– Patrick Henry

“It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.” – Thomas Jefferson

“Half a truth is often a great lie.”– Benjamin Franklin

“I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts.”– Abraham Lincoln

As I survey what passes for governance in this country today, I yearn for the days past when truth meant something. The supposedly “progressive” politicians who call themselves leaders of this country would not know truth if it dropped from heaven into their laps. The men and women who fought for and founded this Republic were driven by the aspiration for liberty, justice and truth. They fought to get out from under the tyranny of an arrogant, overbearing government and unjust taxation. The Founders of this Republic believed in the truth. Their actions were pure and true. The definition of truth is:

Sincerity in Action, Character, and Utterance

Is there anyone in Washington DC, besides Ron Paul, who is sincere in action, character, and utterance? Truth is no longer practiced in Washington DC. Political agendas are forced upon American citizens through the exercise of lies, deception, half-truths, and fear tactics. These agendas don’t bother to get bogged down in the truth. That would make these agendas impossible to implement. It is much easier to allow corporate lobbyists who have contributed millions to their political campaigns to write the bills, public relations firms to create the lies, and the mainstream media to spread misinformation and lies. The interchangeable political parties pay in excess of $100 million per year to public relations firms. The Pentagon spends $4.7 billion per year and employs 27,000 people just for recruitment, advertising and public relations. The job of public relations firms is not to tell the truth. The truth doesn’t need to be spun and massaged. Only lies, untruths, and deceptions need to be spun.

The definition of lie is as follows:

To make an untrue statement with intent to deceive; To create a false or misleading impression

The country is being buffeted by a violent tempest and driven towards a jagged reef that will rip a fatal fissure in the hull of our ship of state. As our ship flounders in violent seas driven by gale force winds, the weak pathetic excuses for leaders in our country, rather than lighten the load and reversing course, have chosen to increase our speed straight into the teeth of the cyclone.

The U.S. National Debt is $11.8 trillion. Obama’s own projections show the National Debt reaching $21 trillion in 2019. This is before his proposed healthcare plan that Obama insists will not add one penny to the deficit. It also assumes low interest rates for the next ten years. Good luck with that projection. It is laughable what slimy politicians will promise to Americans with a straight face. In February 2009, Obama conducted a brilliant Orwellian named, Summit on Fiscal Responsibility. After ramming a pork filled $787 billion stimulus package down the throats of Americans, which will drive the 2009 budget deficit to $1.8 trillion from $438 billion in 2008, Mr. Obama stood in front of the American people and stated,

"If we confront this crisis without also confronting the deficits that helped cause it, we risk sinking into another crisis down the road. We cannot and will not sustain deficits like these without end. Today I'm pledging to cut the deficit we inherited by half by the end of my first term in office."

Mr. Obama’s idea of fiscal restraint is to increase the annual deficit from $438 billion to $1.8 TRILLION, conduct a fiscal summit promising to “cut” the annual deficit to $600 billion by 2013, and proclaim his own fiscal responsibility. The gall of Obama and his minions is beyond comprehension. He deliberately can make contemptible assertions because he has unwavering confidence in the gullibility and ignorance of the American public. He knows that 70% of Americans don’t know the difference between the Deficit and the National Debt.

Heaven from Hell

So, so you think you can tell
Heaven from Hell,
Blue skies from pain.
Can you tell a green field
From a cold steel rail?
A smile from a veil?
Do you think you can tell?

Pink Floyd – Wish You Were Here

Can you tell heaven from hell? Pink Floyd’s lyrics reflect the alienation that engulfs our nation today. Americans have become alienated from their government. The 535 elected officials in Washington DC no longer represent the people. They represent the entrenched special interests. Do you think you can tell the truth from a lie? Both Democrats & Republicans manipulate public opinion and rely on the extremists and fanatical elements of their parties to spout their lying rhetoric. When their lies are revealed, they just deny the facts or change the story. I wish George Orwell were alive to see how his condemnation of the Soviet Union manipulation of language and oppression tactics have been perfected by American politicians.

“The point is that we are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield.” – George Orwell

Examples of Orwell’s untruths and twisting of facts have been many in the past two decades:

• On Sept. 8, 1992 Bill Clinton said, "The only people who will pay more income taxes are the wealthiest 2 percent, those living in households making over $200,000 a year." According to the NYT, Clinton’s budget raised taxes on people making $20,000. Bob Woodward, in his book The Agenda, revealed, "While Clinton continued to defend his middle-class tax cut publicly, he privately expressed the view to his advisers that it was intellectually dishonest." In other words, a lie.
• Bill Clinton’s best lie ever was, “But I want to say one thing to the American people. I want you to listen to me. I'm going to say this again: I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky. I never told anybody to lie, not a single time; never. These allegations are false. And I need to go back to work for the American people.” The next morning Hillary Clinton declared, "The great story here for anybody willing to find it, write about it and explain it is this vast right-wing conspiracy that has been conspiring against my husband since the day he announced for president." Bill had sex with Lewinsky in the White House nine times. It apparently wasn’t a right wing conspiracy.
• On the David Brinkley show in 1996, Al Gore stated, "The debt, which was just ballooning out of control under the previous two administrations, has now been cut by 60 percent." According to statistics released in February, 1996 by Clinton's own Office of Management and Budget, the gross federal debt for fiscal year 1992 was $4.002 trillion. By fiscal year 1995 it had "ballooned" to $4.921 trillion -- an increase of 23 percent. Al was never good at math. He was always gazing out the classroom window at the clouds, the trees, and the ozone layer.
• “I believe it is appropriate to have an 'over-representation' of the facts on how dangerous it is, as a predicate for opening up the audience." These are the words of Green Guru Al Gore, as his rationale for lying about the threat of global warming.
• Hillary Clinton described her trip to Bosnia during the Presidential primaries as, "I remember landing under sniper fire." Videotape of the arrival show her strolling off the plane in a leisurely manner. Her response was an Orwellian masterpiece. "I did misspeak the other day. This has been a very long campaign. Occasionally, I am a human being like everybody else....I have written about it in my book and talked about it on many other occasions and last week, you know, for the first time in 12 or so years I misspoke."
• On March 25, 2004 President Bush stated “Had I known that the enemy was going to use airplanes to strike America, to attack us. I would have used very resource, every asset, every power of this government to protect the American people.” Bush received an August 6, 2001 CIA memo entitled “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.” which mentioned bin Laden’s desire and capability to strike the US possibly using hijacked airplanes. The CIA warned that bin Laden will launch an attack against the US and/or Israel in the coming weeks that “will be spectacular and designed to inflict mass casualties against US facilities or interests.” The President lied because the truth would have made him look like a fool whose disregard for intelligence led to the deaths of 2,974 Americans. Dick Cheney takes every opportunity to go on TV and proclaim that he kept America safe since 9/11 with his Gestapo like tactics. Not good enough Dick. Three thousand Americans died on your watch Dick. You knew who, what, how and when and you did nothing Dick. You are an incompetent, lying fool.
• "This man poses a much graver threat than anybody could have possibly imagined. The Iraqi regime is a threat of unique urgency. . . . It has developed weapons of mass death." President Bush spoke these immortal words in September 2002. When a President uses words like grave, threat and death, you would think we are about to be attacked. These statements were untrue. Only after the fact, did Bush and his neo-con cronies “adjust” the facts to support their attack of a sovereign country. Democracy in the Middle East anyone?
• “We had intelligence reporting before the war that there were at least seven of these mobile labs that he had gone out and acquired. We’ve, since the war, found two of them. They’re in our possession today, mobile biological facilities that can be used to produce anthrax or smallpox or whatever else you wanted to use during the course of developing the capacity for an attack.” Dick Cheney will go to his grave lying to the American public. He told Meet the Press in September, 2003 that we had found biological facilities. This was a lie. The CIA’s Duelfer’s Report Iraq concluded that Iraq HAD NO WMD’s and unilaterally destroyed its undeclared chemical weapons stockpile in 1991. There are no credible indications that Baghdad resumed production of chemical munitions thereafter. In spite of exhaustive investigation, ISG found no evidence that Iraq possessed, or was developing Biological warfare agent product systems mounted on road vehicles or railway wagons.”
• In February 2003, a few weeks before the Iraq invasion began, then-Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric Shinseki told Congress that "Something on the order of several hundred thousand soldiers ... would be required" to stabilize postwar Iraq. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz rejected this claim, insisting that he was "reasonably certain that they [the Iraqis] will greet us as liberators, and that will help us to keep [troop] requirements down." Rumsfeld shared Wolfowitz's optimism. Rumsfeld said the post-war troop commitment would be less than the number of troops required to win the war. He also said “the idea that it would take several hundred thousand U.S. forces, I think, is far from the mark.” It would have been highly inconvenient to tell the truth right before the invasion. It was much easier to have Shinseki “retire”.
• “We are finding terrorists and bringing them to justice. We are gathering information about where the terrorists may be hiding. We are trying to disrupt their plots and plans. Anything we do ... to that end in this effort, any activity we conduct, is within the law. We do not torture." It appears that President Bush’s definition of torture differs from the United Nations convention on torture signed by Ronald Reagan:

For the purposes of this Convention, the term "torture" means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.

Bush and Cheney contend that water-boarding was not torture. Post World War II war crimes tribunals found that Japanese soldiers engaging in water-boarding and the officers who approved it were guilty of war crimes. The ends do not justify the means.

• The Bush administration sold its Medicare prescription drug plan to conservatives in Congress as having a cost of $400 billion over ten years, enabling it to narrowly win passage in December 2003. The White House knew the costs were $551 billion - more than 25% higher. The administration threatened to fire Medicare’s top financial analyst (Richard Foster) if he released the information. Two months after the President signed the law, the administration revised its costs estimates to $534 billion. Our fiscally responsible President also failed to mention that his new plan created an $8 TRILLION unfunded liability, larger than the Social Security unfunded liability.
• "So I analyzed that and decided I didn't want to be the president during a depression greater than the Great Depression, or the beginning of a depression greater than the Great Depression. I've abandoned free market principles to save the free market system." These remarks by George Bush in December 2008 prove that he is either a fool, a coward, or a liar. Take your choice.
• "When there is a bill that ends up on my desk as the president, you the public will have five days to look online and find out what's in it before I sign it." President Obama made this promise during the campaign. I do not recall having the opportunity to peruse the $787 billion stimulus bill online before Barack put his John Hancock on this pork filled travesty. Hundreds of “crucial projects” were added at 3:00 am the morning it was passed. This is what passes for transparency in Washington DC.
• "I am in this race to tell the corporate lobbyists that their days of setting the agenda in Washington are over. I have done more than any other candidate in this race to take on lobbyists — and won. They have not funded my campaign, they will not run my White House, and they will not drown out the voices of the American people when I am president." This is quite an amusing campaign “promise”, considering there are 15,000 lobbyists crawling around Washington DC like cockroaches spending $3.3 billion “not influencing” our honorable members of Congress. The truth is that lobbyists wrote the $787 billion stimulus bill. The voices of the American people were 10 to 1 against the bill.
• President Obama issued a 14 page report on January 11, 2009 geared to sell his $787 billion stimulus plan. The report promised to CREATE (not create or save) 3,675,000 jobs in the next two years. He declared that if his package was not passed it would be catastrophe for the country, with 2 million more job losses and double digit unemployment. According to the BLS, there were 11.6 million Americans unemployed in January 2009. At the end of August, there were 14.9 million Americans unemployed. By my math, that is 3.3 million job losses since the stimulus package was rammed down our throats using fear tactics and lies. Of course, Barack the Magnificent has recently stated, "We began by passing a Recovery Act that has already saved or created over 150,000 jobs and provided a tax cut to 95% of all working families." He must subscribe to the Joseph Goebbels School of Lying Journal. The bigger the lie, the more likely the masses are to believe it. The chart below is from Obama’s January report. It details the amount of new jobs his stimulus will create by the end of 2010. I’ll be waiting for Obama to post the results on his website. He only needs to create 7 million jobs in the next 16 months.

• "I happen to be a proponent of single-payer universal healthcare coverage. That’s what I’d like to see." These were Barack Obama’s words while campaigning for Senate in 2003. At the 2008 Presidential debate, Obama stated: “I never said that we should try to go ahead and get single-payer (healthcare)." I wonder what he believes now.
• Obama makes the following declarations regarding his healthcare plan:
  • No one will be compelled to buy coverage.
  • No new taxes on employer benefits.
  • Government can control rising health care costs better than the private sector.
  • A public plan won't be a Trojan horse for a single-payer monopoly.
  • Patients don't have to fear rationing.

Barack is counting on the American public to be fooled by his weasel word “compelled”. His plan won’t compel individuals. It will compel companies to dump private coverage for their employees, therefore forcing them into the government option. Obama will tax insurance companies, which will pass this along to consumers. Sounds like a middle class tax increase to me. Please provide me one example of Government controlling any cost better than the private sector. The Democrats have openly stated they will use the trigger as a Trojan horse to achieve their single payer goal. You cannot open up healthcare to millions and reduce costs without rationing care.

Lead Role in a Cage

Did they get you to trade
Your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
Did you exchange
A walk on part in the war,
For a lead role in a cage?

Pink Floyd – Wish You Were Here

The American people have imperceptibly traded liberty, freedom and self-determination for safety, security, and protection by their government – Like a frog being slowly boiled alive. They want their government to lie to them. It is easier to not face our intractable problems. Politicians that promise more benefits with no sacrifice are elected over and over again. Anyone attempting to get elected on a platform of reduced benefits, shared sacrifice, and truthful revelations about our fiscal situation is DOA. Americans prefer simple wrong solutions to difficult realistic solutions, talking points to real debate, material comfort to getting involved in governance. The ruling elite in Washington, on Wall Street and in the mainstream media encourage this behavior by Americans because it allows them to preserve their power. By choosing comfort over truth, we have exchanged a part in the war for a lead role in a cage. In the end these choices will lead to despair.

“If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin, and in the end, despair.” – C.S. Lewis

President Obama’s speech on his healthcare plan last week was a masterful example of Orwellian doublespeak, lies and language manipulation. The American public was buried under a blizzard of lies. Joe Wilson was the only person in the Congressional Chamber with the courage to call a lie a lie. The mainstream media blathered about the institution and respect for the Presidency. Respect is not a right, it must be earned. Based on my analysis, the Presidency deserves no respect. Liars, knaves, and hypocrites do not deserve respect, esteem or reverence. Obama’s words speak for themselves.

• “We are the only democracy -- the only advanced democracy on Earth -- the only wealthy nation -- that allows such hardship for millions of its people. There are now more than 30 million American citizens who cannot get coverage.” For the last six months Obama and his faithful socialist soldiers have spouted the mantra that there are 47 million uninsured Americans. Were they lying then or are they lying now?
• “Then there's the problem of rising cost. It's why so many aspiring entrepreneurs cannot afford to open a business in the first place, and why American businesses that compete internationally -- like our automakers -- are at a huge disadvantage.” The automakers are not at a huge disadvantage internationally because of healthcare costs. They are at a disadvantage internationally because management signed awful union contracts that obligated them to make bigger payments to retirees than to current employees. The union workers had such rich benefits, it bankrupted GM and Chrysler. It would also have helped if they didn’t make crappy cars.
• “Finally, our health care system is placing an unsustainable burden on taxpayers. When health care costs grow at the rate they have, it puts greater pressure on programs like Medicare and Medicaid. If we do nothing to slow these skyrocketing costs, we will eventually be spending more on Medicare and Medicaid than every other government program combined. Put simply, our health care problem is our deficit problem. Nothing else even comes close. Nothing else.” Mr. Obama evidently hasn’t read his own government reports that show Medicare and Social Security already have $107 TRILLION of unfunded liabilities. Does he honestly believe that he will solve our deficit problem with a new government program? Both Medicare and Medicaid were Democrat created social programs passed and signed by LBJ. They are government run programs that are bankrupt and horribly inefficient, wasteful and inept. The unsustainable burden on taxpayers was created and expanded by the Democratic Party. Obama's solution is to create another government run healthcare bureaucracy.

• “Nothing in our plan requires you to change what you have. But an additional step we can take to keep insurance companies honest is by making a not-for-profit public option available in the insurance exchange. Now, let me be clear. Let me be clear. It would only be an option for those who don't have insurance. No one would be forced to choose it, and it would not impact those of you who already have insurance.” More brilliant Orwellian rhetoric. The government option will be priced well under for-profit insurance companies because government doesn't have to make a profit. They just borrow from the Chinese. Employers will start to drop coverage for employees, therefore forcing millions into the public option. Exactly what Obama wants to happen.
• “There are also those who claim that our reform efforts would insure illegal immigrants. This, too, is false. The reforms -- the reforms I'm proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally.” Since these people are here illegally, they will not go into any insurance plan since they don't exist as far as the government knows. I guess they won't get sick. When they go to an emergency room, they will be treated. Who will pay? You and I will pay. Therefore, illegal immigrants will be covered.
• “And here's what you need to know. First, I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits -- either now or in the future. I will not sign it if it adds one dime to the deficit, now or in the future, period.” This quote has the potential to be Obama’s Read My Lips moment. Every bill floated thus far adds trillions to the National Debt. The only way that he could keep this promise would be if he increases taxes on the middle class. But, he can’t do that because he has promised to not increase taxes on the middle class. He is caught like a fly in his own web of lies. I bet he will sign a bill that adds a few billion dimes to the National Debt. He’ll worry about how to lie his way out of that predicament when the time comes. His contempt for the intelligence of the American people is staggering.

President Obama and the Democrats will pass a healthcare bill this year. His presidency depends on it. It doesn’t matter if it is a good bill. Any bill will do. The politicians must do something, just as they have always done. That is why we have an $11.8 billion National Debt.

“A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many bad measures.” – Daniel Webster

Swimming in a Fish Bowl

How I wish, how I wish you were here.
We're just two lost souls
Swimming in a fish bowl,
Year after year,
Running over the same old ground.
What have we found
The same old fears.
Wish you were here.

Pink Floyd – Wish You Were Here

As we continue to run over the same ground, year after year, we have allowed fear to rule the day. We have chosen to be enslaved by debt in order to live like the rich. Half of the children that enter public high schools either drop out or graduate as functionally illiterate. The government has used fear of foreign bogie-men to convince Americans to give up their liberty.

Despite having the largest most powerful military on the face of the earth by a factor of ten, somehow our leaders always seem threatened by some two bit nation. As I swim in this fishbowl called The United States of America, I wish there were some true statesmen among us. The people who pass for leaders today seem so small in stature in comparison to the wise patriots of yesteryear.

“I believe that it is better to tell the truth than a lie. I believe it is better to be free than to be a slave. And I believe it is better to know than to be ignorant.” – H.L. Mencken

“The truth is incontrovertible, malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end; there it is.” – Winston Churchill

“It is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger, real or pretended, from abroad.” – James Madison

The worst lies are the lies we tell ourselves. The chart below details the usurpation of our liberty that has occurred since 1900. In 1900 government spending as a percentage of GDP was 7%. Today it is approaching 40%. Americans chose to let this happen. We allowed Congress to create the Federal Reserve and institute the Personal Income Tax in 1913. Excluding the spikes during WWI and WWII, the government has methodically commandeered a greater and greater slice of the U.S. economy. Government can only grow through the seizing of taxes from its citizens and the printing of money by the Federal Reserve. You may notice that government spending surged from 10% of GDP to 22% during the 1930’s without bringing the country out of the Great Depression. The current Keynesian attempts to cure our economic disease will also fail. As the government acquires more authority over our lives by snatching the reins of our financial system, our education system, our auto industry, our healthcare system and ultimately every aspect of our lives, we will sink further into despair as government always expands and in the end becomes totalitarian in its methods.

Talk is Cheap, Lies are Expensive

As I watched some of the Sunday talk shows this weekend, I had to laugh at the fools who pass for journalists today. The outrage over Joe Wilson calling the President a liar because he was lying shows how trite and shallow these nattering nabobs have become. Four U.S. Presidents have been murdered in office for their views. Let’s have some perspective people. As I watched Sam (worst toupee in history) Donaldson, Cokie Roberts, and David Brooks heap scorn and ridicule on the thousands of concerned middle class Americans marching on the Mall in Washington, while applauding Ben Bernanke, Hank Paulson and Timmy Geithner for saving the world by printing money, I realized that the existing political and financial system will have to be brought down before we have any chance to regain our liberty in this country. The power of the Washington/Wall Street/Media elite is immense. We will not get the truth from these people. We must turn to the past for our wisdom and truth:

“I am sorry to think that you do not get a man's most effective criticism until you provoke him. Severe truth is expressed with some bitterness.” – Henry David Thoreau

“Stand upright, speak thy thoughts, declare The truth thou hast, that all may share; Be bold, proclaim it everywhere: They only live who dare.” - Voltaire

Great is truth, but still greater, from a practical point of view, is silence about truth. By simply not mentioning certain subjects... totalitarian propagandists have influenced opinion much more effectively than they could have by the most eloquent denunciations. – Aldous Huxley

“Truth is by nature self-evident. As soon as you remove the cobwebs of ignorance that surround it, it shines clear.” – Mohandas Gandhi

Only the old guard, still protecting their special interests, will continue to call for civility and compromise. The time for compromise has passed. The time for severe truth is upon us. Those in power never see the inevitable turning of the national mood. A storm is gathering. Those who choose not to prepare will be swept away. It is time for all people of good conscience to stand up and be heard. It is time to be bold. It is time to proclaim the truth. The alternative is to buckle under to the totalitarian propagandists and allow this country to be smothered under the weight of debt and government control. Truth is self evident. Let it shine upon on this country once again.

Join me at The Burning Platform to discuss truth and the future of our country.

© 2009 James Quinn

Bio: James Quinn is a senior director of strategic planning for a major university. These articles reflect the personal views of James Quinn. They do not necessarily represent the views of his employer and are not sponsored or endorsed by his employer. He can be reached at quinnadvisors@comcast.net.

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