The Straight Talk Express

Lately, it seems to me that dishonesty has become a disproportionate part of the society I live in. It’s probably a consequence of getting older and having the naivety of youth stripped away (or at least eroded), but I’m feeling like lying is the new black (I appreciate that maybe everyone always lied this much, but this is the first I’ve heard of it). As I bumble my way through my day, more and more often, I’m becoming entangled in one tangled web of deceit after another (and not small lies either, but complicated, interwoven tales that require effort to create and to maintain). Such are the lengths of some of these imaginings that it is often necessary to take a break from logic and reality to maintain my sanity.

The fashion of bending, shaping and sucker punching the truth comes undoubtedly from the top down in our culture. Politicians are so synonymous with lying that the concept has become a cliché. Still, I guess I often marvel at the extent to which the lies are peddled to and accepted by the public; it seems that there is no limit to the spin. Take the scandalous case of the Liberal pre-selection for the federal seat of Cook as a recent example. The nominally chosen candidate, Michael Towke was accused of branch stacking, blatantly making up his CV – including his education and work experience, and of being part of a right wing conspiracy involving my nemesis. Instead of disciplinary action, the state executive of the Liberal party has given its full support to Towke (despite compelling evidence) – in exchange for his withdrawal. The solution then was to counteract Towke’s initial set of lies with some Liberal Party sanctioned ones. He who lies last, lies loudest.

There would of course be 1000 other examples every day – the strange thing at the moment though is that getting found out in your lie doesn’t seem to have consequences. Iraq had no WMD’s, there was no actual evidence to trial David Hicks, Mohamed Haneef was not a terrorist and the world won’t end if the next US President is a Democrat. Peter Costello does not have mystic power over interest rates, Kevin Rudd is not (generally) a drunken pervert and nuclear energy is not the slippery slope to the apocalypse.

This sort of environment makes politicians who specifically purport to tell the truth all the more popular (though none ultimately follow through). It’s the reason John McCain was such a popular Presidential candidate for a time back in 2000, driving around as he did in a bus dubbed the ‘Straight Talk Express’. It also explains why his popularity has waned of late; he got all establishment and forgot to just keep telling it like it is. In Australia, we generally lack a straight talker, but Kevin Rudd is trying and I appreciate his effort. Note it down now though, when it comes time for this Presidential Campaign to lift off, it will be on one key platform: the truth.

Until then, I have few suggestions for fighting back against the culture of deceit. There will always be liars, and there will always be people who are prepared to be lied to. You can all start though by weeding out the more elaborate webs that have been spun in the corners of your lives and refuse to accept the dreamy imaginings your associates have some how manipulated into ‘fact’. Breaking down these most audacious of stories will help bring us back to a situation where lying is the exception and not the rule. After all, indulgence makes us complicit in the lie - as Homer Simpson famously pointed out: “it takes two to lie: one to lie and one to listen.”