How Do
We Make America Strong Again? Start Telling the
Truth
By
Charles Hugh Smith
July 25, 2016 "Information
Clearing House"
- You want to make America strong again? The
only way to do so is to start telling the truth
and insisting on the truth.
"Making
America Strong Again" is a potent political
narrative. But what does "being strong"
mean? For some, it's a code-phrase for
bullying--forcing other nations to do our
bidding.
For
others, it describes a re-emergence of
widespread domestic economic vitality.
Another
audience sees the rebuilding of a social
contract and social cohesion as the essence of
strength.
As
laudable as some of these interpretations of
strength might be, to me "being strong" boils
down to one principle, and only one principle:
tell the truth, however painful and unwelcome as
it might be. The essence of weakness is the
cowardice of avoiding the truth. We as a nation
have grown accustomed to the cowardice of
half-truths, half-confessions, half-apologies
and a financial system that rewards fraud in all
its variations of artifice, deception and lies.
What's
presented as "fact" is actually a spectrum of
manipulation and lies.Does anyone with a basic
grasp of the economy really believe unemployment
is 5% or less? Does anyone seeking the truth
believe that a person working one hour a week is
equivalent to someone working 40 hours a week?
Isn't counting both of these positions as
equally statistically important jobs a form of
not telling the truth?
If you
hold great wealth and power, and the source of
your wealth and power is illegitimate, you must
dissemble, fabricate, propagandize and lie to
hide the illegitimacy of your power. That is the
status quo of the U.S. in a nutshell. Those who
earned wealth and gained power legitimately have
no fear of the truth. Those whose wealth and
power is illegitimate fear the truth more than
anything else.
The
Power Elite of the nation has purposefully
co-joined "America" and "Empire," as if the two
cannot be separated. They have successfully
conned much of the public into a strained belief
that the U.S. isn't an Imperial Project, that
we're just looking out for our "interests,"
which just happen to extend into every nook and
cranny of the entire planet.
The
Power Elite has also purposefully confused
bullying with strength. Bullying fails because
the bullied hate the bully with every fiber of
their being. True strength flows from opt-in,
mutually beneficial alliances that people and
nations join out of self-interest. Such opt-in
relationships can only endure if telling the
truth is the core principle, for truth is the
foundation of trust, and trust is the foundation
of durable alliances and cooperative networks.
The
Power Elite of the nation has pushed the
narrative that its own rising power reflects the
rising power of the nation. Nothing could be
further from the truth. The increasing
concentration of wealth and power in the hands
of the few at the expense of the many is the
source of America's weakness, vulnerability and
fragmentation.
Take a
look at this chart. While GDP per person (per
capita) has been rising, household income has
been declining. What does that tell us about the
economic growth we keep hearing about? That it's
flowing to the top and being drained from the
bottom 80%.
Telling
the truth, and insisting on the truth, requires
courage, a moral foundation and
strength. Telling lies, accepting half-truths
and living with fraud as a way of life is easy
because it requires no courage, moral foundation
or strength.
You
want to make America strong again? The only way
to do so is to start telling the truth and
insisting on the truth. Accepting statistical
lies, propaganda and fraud as "truth" because
it's easy and doesn't challenge our assumptions
is a one-way road to ruin.
Charles Hugh Smith's new book is #10 on Kindle
short reads -> politics and social science: Why
Our Status Quo Failed and Is Beyond Reform ($3.95
Kindle ebook, $8.95 print edition) For more,
please visit the book's
website.