Yes It’s True: ‘We’re Right and They’re Wrong’

One of the most troubling comments I’ve come across in my life is something to the effect:

“The more you do the critical thinking and research, the more you come to believe you’ve been lied to all your life.” — Author unknown

The most recent example of this for me has been climate change. We are pummeled every night and day with images and information about extreme weather events, whether it be sweltering heat, massive storms or severe cold. A growing number of people have come to accept that what used to be the butt of a lot of jokes now is becoming more apparent every day.

Some “deniers” like to tell us that we’re just in a cycle and some fools have insisted it’ll crash in 2030, when actually most admit they don’t know when.

I become more frightened every day when I watch the nightly news with images of burning forests out west, the record heat in Europe and shortages of water.

Yet, virtually all politicians ignore that as an issue, because either they don’t want to offend their donors from the fossil fuel industry or they just don’t see the public getting excited enough about it.

I cannot escape the fear that we’re all fools who ignore the terrible signs at our peril. We are fiddling while the earth burns. Comedian George Carlin suggested the earth would come through this crisis just fine. Humans — not so much.

Let’s go back more than 50 years:

The Vietnam War

I spent all of my high school and college years dreading the prospect of being in “kill or be killed” situations halfway around the world in a war we intervened after the French left because we didn’t like the communist leader. We found out too late it was unwinnable because we don’t live there, it was just a war of occupation, not a war against the spread of communism. And not learning from history cost us more than 58,000 lives.

The War on Drugs, Smut, Poverty, Terror

President Richard Nixon announced the War on Drugs in 1971 and it was a massive failure, costing a lot of money and lives. I said so back then as a marijuana smoker who learned they were lying to me about the perils of weed.

It seemed everything the government declared war on eventually prevailed. The only ones who benefitted were the prison, pharmaceutical, alcohol and motivational speaker (DARE) industries.

Supply side (trickle down) economics

Unveiled in 1981 by President Ronald Reagan’s economic advisor David Stockman, trickle-down economics was the idea that doling out tax cuts to rich corporations and their CEOs would result in them investing the money back into the economy.

Stockman himself resigned in 1984 and wrote a book admitting the system doesn’t work for common folks. The rich simply used their windfalls to enrich their stock portfolios, salt money away in the Cayman Islands and keep their boards of directors happy.

Yet the process was repeated later by Presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump. Now we have the greatest income inequality in our history. And we wonder why so many are angry these days?

The abortion debate

I have to admit the Christian Right did a terrific methodical job in overturning Roe v. Wade after 49 years, finally winning by President Donald Trump packing the Supreme Court, with a little help from Mitch McConnell, who said a justice can’t be appointed by a president in his last year, but then can when it’s Amy Coney Barrett.

If you think this issue has been settled, you’ve got another think coming. It’s about as settled as the Civil War.

Yet it has been the cornerstone issue taken up in the attempt to turn the United States into a theocracy.

The invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan

It broils my brisquet to hear Congressman Peter Meijer assert in his TV ads that he defended our country in Iraq. We attacked them, under false pretenses to boot.

And President George W. Bush, who has the deaths of more than 4,000 men and women on his hands, failed to learn the lessons of Vietnam — It is difficult if not impossible to win a war of occupation.

Then we finally had to get the hell out of Afghanistan after 20 years of futility. Meijer crowed about his role is saving a few people during the withdrawal. I repeat: An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

The domestic war with use of assault weapons

One of the few good things President Bill Clinton did was shepherd the passage of the Brady Bill, banning use of assault weapons, in 1994. For the next 10 years gun deaths decreased by more than 43 percent. Then the ban was lifted in 2004, and we’re back to being the killing fields of the world, mostly, I believe because of the availability of military-style weapons. They’re handy, even for those few willing to unleash their power.

Guns should be legal, but regulated. Just like marijuana, abortion, alcohol and driving a car.

I’ve often said the purpose of government is to solve problems and be a fair referee. I don’t see virtually anybody doing that now. They are taking advantage of our fears. And they continue to lie to us.