Do they really believe their own lies?

I often wonder if the Bush Administration and the people who voted for them, the media, and the various hangers-on and sycophants, all believe the lies. They lie so much that I think their perception of reality has become permanently recallibrated. (oops, better be careful, I'm dangerously close to violating the Gannon copyright.)

Anyway, they remind me of this psycopath I used to work for. She lied, and lied, and never ever admitted it. She lied to her bosses, she lied to her underlings (that was me), she lied to everybody all the time, even about the stupidest stuff. She never gave up, never retracted, and always did anything she could to manipulate the situation in her favor.

When she was finally fired, she brought 17 counts of sexual harrassment agains the sleazy guy she slept with to get and keep her job. She was re-instated, for basically blackmailing the institutution shw worked for, and they couldn't get rid of her until she made a really stupid, very obvious mistake, and was fired again for discrimination against a homosexual employee.

Then, to make it all even more interesting and ironic, the sleazeball she was sleeping with was given a golden parachute, and told to quietly go away. This was a large, religiously-affiliated non-profit, and the publicity would have been devastating.

What is going on in this country now reminds me so much of what it was like to work at that place. The good people couldn't win, because they wouldn't stoop to the tactics of the liars, who made life miserable for everyone else. I'm just starting to think that we've been completely taken over by liars.

Ok, rant over. Is there a reward for being honest? Do you consider yourself to be an honest person? Are you, like me, incredibly frustrated with the dishonest climate in our society?

I'm sure you've heard that before. Unfortunately it's true. We have to get in the mud to beat the pigs.

But on my cynical days, obviously, I believe you might be right.

:cry:

It's a filter of convenience. Once it's donned it's a bitch to get off because one doesn't dare to confront the reality of what you've stood for.

I know some repubes who are chock-full of integrity. Some of them are really quite intelligent as well. They've drunk the cool-aid though on the issue of the admin.. Kind of like zionists (appear as reasonable people on any issue other than the Palestinians). These same repubes really don't know what to make of my rants about the govt because they know I'm a man of integrity too, intelligent as well, and work for the govt.. Thus, not easily dismissed. Those rants definitely unsettle them.

Gyre

pretext.

It seem to set them on a different path, where they might even be parallel with us on somethings, we'll never see eye to eye again.

I guess it all comes crashing down if they admit to themselves and the rest of the world that they've gained their power by lying, cheating, and stealing. Or are they proud of it? I can't believe that they are.

I have a hard time accepting that people are just plain evil.

The blind leading the blind

Even if they don't like to say it out loud, lots of Democrats think that George Bush's supporters are a horde of ignoramuses. Now comes evidence that they're right! A remarkable new report, titled "The Separate Realities of Bush and Kerry Supporters," from PIPA, the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland, suggests that rank and file Republicans are more benighted than even the most supercilious coastal elitist would imagine.

Analyzing data from a series of nationwide polls, the report finds that a majority of Bush supporters believe things about the world that are objectively untrue, while the majority of Kerry supporters dwell in the reality-based community. For example, Bush backers largely think that the president and his policies are popular internationally. Seventy-five percent believe that Iraq was providing "substantial" aid to al-Qaida, and 63 percent say clear evidence of this has been found. That, of course, would be news even to Donald Rumsfeld, who earlier this month told the Council on Foreign Relations, "To my knowledge, I have not seen any strong, hard evidence that links the two."

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/index.html#bush_reality

read the official report here:

http://www.pipa.org/OnlineReports/Pres_Election_04/html/new_10_21_04.html

I've seen the PIPA report, and even cited it in a few debates with the kool-aid drinkers. They simply dismissed it as a "liberal study".

It makes me want to scream!

" It is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship.
Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."
- Hermann Goering, April 18, 1946, while awaiting the Nuremberg trials.