Mega Lies
India Daily Special Correspondent
Nov. 20, 2008

People lie. They all indulge in obscuring the facts, thinking it is not a big deal. People lie to avoid confrontation, they exaggerate, they conveniently forget, they selectively remember when required. Employees lie to their bosses to avoid extra work. Students lie to their teachers to avoid extra homework. But there are lies that cause catastrophe for others -- millions of others. These are not acceptable lies. Lies that affect millions, cause catastrophe in the main street, and in Wall Street are the unacceptable mega lies. Unfortunately, mega liars seldom receive punishment.

The first kind of mega lie is delusion. In her article “The Ways We Lie,” Stephanie Ericsson describes:
Delusion, a cousin of dismissal, is the tendency to see excuses as facts. It’s a powerful lying tool because it filters out information that contradicts what we want to believe. Alcoholics who believe that the problems in their lives are legitimate reasons for drinking rather than results of the drinking offer the classic example of deluded thinking. Delusion uses the mind’s ability to see things in myriad ways to support what it wants to be truth. (341)

When delusion happens to political leaders, spiritual vanguards, and financial watchdogs, it becomes a deadly form of mega lie. For example, the conservative politicians starting from Richard Nixon to the current President, George Bush, all have suffered from the delusion of the supply side of economics. The supply side of economics represents a phenomenon that presumes when the rich becomes richer, their consumption in the real economy trickles down to the common people in the main streets of America. This delusion has led to massive tax cuts for the rich. The conservative politicians hoped that the prosperity would trickle down just like water flows from higher ground to the lower. It never happened. It is now a proven fact that the supply side of economics is a delusion in the minds of conservatives who never cared to justify their deluded thinking with facts, and figures. The result of this mega lie is catastrophic. It has finally put America and the rest of the world close to a depression. Millions are losing their jobs. Millions of senior citizens have lost their precious retirement funds because of the financial meltdown. Hundreds of thousands of middle class, hard working families now face foreclosure of their homes because of this mega lie – delusion. It is not acceptable because it causes massive dislocations of lives, major losses in public confidence in the Government, and a total collapse of the financial systems worldwide.

The second kind of mega lie is the set-up lie. This is a blatant lie camouflaged in such a way that if ever caught red-handed, it is easy to deflect attention to someone else. When US President George Bush decided to attack Iraq, one of the major reasons cited was the presence of the weapons of mass destruction. US Secretary of State Colin Powell demonstrated in the United Nations general assembly, the documented evidence of the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Baghdad. Since 2003 not a single molecule of the weapons of mass destruction was detected anywhere in Iraq. When the media confronted President Bush on this topic, citing the fact that Colin Powell’s so called “documented evidences” were concocted, the shrewd conservative politician pointed the finger towards the Central Intelligence Agency as the source. Now it is a documented fact that the Central Intelligent Agency received a request from the White House to come up with some kind of ‘made up evidence’ that can be used to attack a sovereign nation. The result of that blatant invasion is catastrophic. More than four thousand brave, patriotic, and young US soldiers have sacrificed their lives fighting a war based on set-up lies. More than forty thousand US soldiers are seriously injured. Close to half a million Iraqis have died. The ballooning budget deficit has funded the controversial war that many generations of Americans will pay through higher taxes in the future. The set-up lie is a mega lie because it is a deliberate, and well-planned lie that causes catastrophic losses. It is the product of very shrewd minds that never get punished because they know how to hide behind someone else’s presumed callousness.

The third kind of mega lie is the impulsive coerced-to-accept lie. It is a blatant lie that is easy to recognize if one can take the time to think in a cool mind. But the liar creates a sense of urgency and quickly forces others to accept the lie as a fact. The liar does not allow anyone to think properly. Impulse creates the effect. People get scared of the implied, and projected consequences, and accept the lie as fact. The ideal example of this kind of mega lie is what US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, and US President George Bush did a few weeks back to the common American citizens and their elected legislators. They wanted to bail out their political sponsors -- the financial institutions and investment banks from the catastrophic financial meltdown. They asked for seven hundred billion dollars to make sure these banks and financial institutions survive from the effects of their greed and wrong decisions. They created a scenario that until and unless the seven hundred billion dollars are made available, the stock market will crash, the credit will disappear, the common people will lose their jobs, and the economy will instantaneously plunge into deep depression. The lawmakers in Washington dilly dallied for a week, and finally, handed over the financial lollypop to Henry Paulson with some extra sugar coating. Interestingly, Mr. Paulson, a former Wall Street insider, is still thinking in a cool mind, which friends of his will receive the money first; and, in the mean time the stock market has collapsed three thousand points, and the credit is still frozen. In spite of all this, the global depression is not evident. The US Administration knew very well that people in their cool mind would catch their lies very easily. They used the scare tactics with determined impulse to get hold of the seven hundred billion dollars before exiting the door of Governance into the world of special interest lobbying firms. The effects of this mega billion-dollar welfare to the rich financial institutions and banks are catastrophic for the common taxpayers. The budget deficit ran up 10% overnight. Eventually, the dollar will devaluate, and the standard of living of millions will diminish in America.

Whether it is a delusion, a set-up lie, or an impulsive coerced-to-accept lie, it is a distortion of the facts that causes miseries to millions of people. It creates catastrophe for innumerable innocent, and naïve citizens who never understand what really happened. It is not acceptable. Unfortunately, the mega liars seldom get punished. They disappear in the crowd hoping no one will find them.

Work Cited
Stephanie, Ericsson. “The Ways We Lie.” The Brief Bedford Reader. Ed. X. J. Kennedy, Dorothy M. Kennedy, and Jane E. Aaron. 10th ed. New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2009. 335-342.

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