Politicians and the Cycle of Lying

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Anonymous If I needed to read more lies Media Matters is the first place I'd go. The man running it doesn't have an honest bone in his whole body. He is little more than a paid hatchet man for the far left.

AS a matter of fact I am going to VA for health care now. If that is the system you want for everyone you are insane. It is marginally better than nothing but not by very much at all. I've used the VA off and on for years. When ever I had decent health insurance I always went private. Better care, better service, far less insanity.

I've lived in this country for nearly sixty years and since I was a teen ager I've come more and more to question the leftist (liberal) indoctrination that is so wide spread.

Education is teaching people how to think what we have now is leftist indoctrination which is teaching people what to think. Is it any wonder that so many kids do so poorly in the applied sciences when all they've been taught is leftist cant?

Mr. Chopra
Politicians are no different than their constituents, just a bit bolder.
The body politic is but a coarsely filtered aggregate of this Nations citizens, so why even bother to anticipate the collection of characters that comprise it to reign superior over itself.

This new crop of Presidential candidates promise change -- Big Change --, guaranteeing it to improve our lives.
Meanwhile that old and weary saying ~ The more things change ... The more they stay the same ~ Yawns as the candidates drone on and waits patiently for them at the gate named Reality.

Lies and the father of them (satan) have been with us from the beginning.
Canon scripture tells us God heard and allowed one lying spirits request to enjoin itself to a group of false (already lying) prophets which resulted in the destruction of a nation.

If a people continue to receive or even tolerate lying leaders to rule among them it appears the sovereign God will afford such a people ample opportunities to continue on its blindness.

You certainly have an appropriate person to discuss this topic.

GARYD - read Erick Alterman of Media Matters and 'Why We are Liberals'. The vast majority of US voters supports the tenets of liberalism, even while denying their liberal affiliations. Pitiful but true - politicians and people in general are indeed afraid of being classified as 'liberal'. However, the term is being re-legitimized and is making a comeback - things coming full circle as they always do.

Those that actually support the real principles and beliefs of neo-conservatism are quite in a minority. Voters were effectively prevented from every knowing their true operating principles (or lack thereof - e.g. taking full control of the government and flauting constitutional law in order to implement their own mad dominionist ideology). Bush/Cheney and this administration being the essence of neo-conservative principles in action - how are their ratings these days??

Unfortunately both the media and the proto-fascist McCarthyites in government continue to slander the word 'liberal' by casting it in the most pejoritive light possible - thus 'liberal' connotes the next thing to 'communist sympathizer'......even democrats continue to fall for this hoax and now refer to themselves as 'progressive'.

What is very odd is that the republicans of Lincoln's day have become democrats, and all the Dixie democrats of Strom Thurmand's day have become republicans - go figure.

While there is a paucity of republican presidents that can be said to have done anything constructive for the American public, even Teddy Roosevelt, one of the good ones, was a far cry from today's 'neo-conservative'. Fiscal conservatism and social progressivism would define his presidency - now that's a real conservative....a republican politician with good fiscal intelligence and the heart of an enlightened social progressive - if one can imagine such a thing after Nixon, Reagan and the two Bushes.

But that was long ago - and the chickens have come home to roost. We all liked Ike, of course, and his famous dictum 'beware the military-industrial complex' - I'd say that predictive forewarning was about 100% accurate .... and coming from one of our last 5 star generals. Ike is rolling in his republican grave about now, I'm sure.

GARYD - leftist toolmakers did you say?? Sounds like an oxymoron. Or was that leftist tools??
I don't know any leftists, but folks with liberal mindsets are beginning to multiply like rabbits.

Actually, if you had even half the brains you seem to think you have, you'd know that many millions are only surviving, and rather grimly at that, because of Social Security benefits. We have Roosevelt to thank for this indispensible financial safety net, and I'm willing to bet that when your time comes, you'll gladly suck up those benefits, including Medicare - and be thankful that you're entitled. You seem to have no idea whatsoever of how many billions are skimmed off the top of the federal budget and into the hands of the already-rich by a bought and paid-for government. You think we have anything like a equal and fair distribution of wealth in the USA? Corporate America loves guys like you - and they thrive in part because of your vastly uninformed but tacit support.

Yes, the poor and impoverished are indeed thankful for any Medicare benefits they may get, because otherwise at age 65 they'd have no medical coverage at all. And if they're poor enough and disabled enough, then Medicaid is another lifeline.....are you completely delusional, or do you think we should still be living in a sink or swim world??

Perhaps your a social Darwinian after all?? Survival of the fiscally fittest - I get a huge kick out of fundamentalist that hate Darwin but support social Darwinism by virtue of their overwhelming support for the GOP.....can you spell irony?? More like perversity if you ask me.

Having worked in not only the field of health and human services for 25 years, but for the VA system in particular, I can tell you many tales about personal financial survival that you are clearly quite unaware of - I see severely disabled and impoverished humans every day of my life and I have zero sympathy for your deeply uninformed position. You've got a mindset that cannot be changed, and this is not a project that anyone is interested in anyway.

Your perceptions have been clouded by your pre-conceptions for all of your life, and I'd take that to the bank.

BTW, if you happen to be a veteran, I'd suggest signing up for those VA benefits - a system that will eventually serve as the model for universal healthcare that we may eventually see come to pass, provided we can elect enough democrats.

Know nothings? That defines you in spades, buster.

We haven't spent the first trillion in Iraq Yet. And what we will spend on the Medicare Prescription Progam will dwarf it within five years.

Sorry I'm not a corporate executive I'm a Machinist by trade and was at one time a school teacher. I live and work in the real world. A real world where in it cost my boss twice what I ever get on a paycheck to have me on the payroll. A world where social security was originally intended as a government slush fund but they didn't allow for increasing life spans over time and so because the left prefers demagoguery to fixing the problem of their creation my kids and your kids will see half their paychecks going to social security and Medicare/medicaid.

A world where know nothings and leftist tools make mindless accusations and unproven assertions and then when someone on the right states the truth about the leftist, the leftists scream bloody murder about the politics of character assassination of which they are the masters.

Appreciate Deepak's comments and spot-on analysis, but would appreciate also less partisan rhetoric in the same analysis.

Thanks --

While you've fooled many of my fellow (uneducated) citizens with you faulty claims about quantum mechanics as a modern snake-bite salesman, don't even begin to think people on this site want to hear anything you have to say about our politics. Interesting, a master of shams preaching to us about truth.

In 2000 when Al Gore was statesmanly enough not to fight the thuggery of Bush supporters in FLorida and the Supreme Court, there was a climate of acceptance of Rove's tactics. Lying was ok which apparently encourage Bush & cohorts to lie some more after 911 and to march on to the invasion of Iraq which had nothing to do with 911 but who cares? Since most Americans were quiescent, Bush lies some more; it becomes a neverending circle. Now that the consequences are hitting us finally after 7 years of Bush deceit and secrecy, the backlash begins. It is very sad to watch America stoop so low and lose its luster for such a country glorified for its high principles. To many immigrants who left their countries because of the corruption of their government, it's like deja vu and truly shocking to witness Bush, Cheney, neocons, and some of the media to be so dismissive of the American electorate.

Obama's halo would shine more brightly as a beacon of integrity if he had taken steps to improve the endemic political corruption / incompetence during his years in Illinois / Cook County / Chicago. His support for the toxic Cook County President Todd Stroger is hard to uderstand from someone who claims to want to improve the quality of government and politicians. (For those who are not familiar with the Stroger disaster, he widely is viewed as a profile in how to pillage the public purse to reward friends and family while still not delivering effective / efficient govt.)

Dear Deepak,

Look at the composition of the followers of one of the candidates that according to her, their vots would be crucial to success in November:

Older women, less educated, poor, conservative, and blue collar white workers.

How many contradictions do you see in this group? Do you have any prescription for solving the puzzle or any short/long term solution?

Dear Deepak,

Look at the composition of the followers of one of the candidates that according to her, their vots would be crucial to the success in November:

Older women, less educated, poor, plus conservative, and more: blue collar white workers.

How many contradictions do you see in this group? Do you have any prescription for solving the puzzle or any short/long term solution?

It's interesting to me that most of the same people that constantly complain about the way things are, are the same people that shoot down the idea that anything can actually be changed.

For months and months "experts" claimed that if Obama didn't change his tactics to the traditional politics of getting down and dirty and doing whatever it takes, that he would not be able to win the nomination. Obama realized that if he took their advice, he would be the same type of politician that he wants to save the country from and he decided that, unlike virtually every other politician out there, he would trust that the people really want what they claim to want. He has all but locked up the nomination and proven that politics does not always have to be the business as usual garbage that so many have resigned to.

Interestingly, the people that called out for change and then criticised Obama for actually going through with it, are seeing that change is possible; at least in an election. Now they're looking on to the possibility of Obama in the White House, and after calling out for change for as long as they can remember, they are claiming that even if Obama were to become President, he really wouldn't be able to change anything.

Are people lying about wanting change? Are people so jaded that they don't think it will ever happen, or is even possible? I can see how someone could lose the hope and faith that it takes to believe change can happen, I have spent a good portion of my life feeling that way. But Obama has shown me for the first time in my life, that it is possible. All we have to do is believe that it's possible and then go out and vote accordingly.

Stop listening to who the media claims will or won't have a chance. Stop mindlessly believing the politicians that never say anything that you don't agree with. Stop thinking that wearing an American flag on your lapel means that you have the best interest of the American people first and foremost on your agenda.

We the people have been in a pen for a long long time. Obama has just walked by and opened up the gate. Will we have the courage to walk through the gate and out of the pen, or have we been so conditioned by hopelessness that we'll just stay in the pen and wait for someone else to come by and close the gate so that we can get back to business as usual?

WOODWARD DOES NOT HAVE PROBLEM WHEN OTHERS LIE BECAUSE HE IS A LIAR HIMSELF. HE WROTE THREE BOOKS FILLED WITH LIES FROM THIS ADMINISTRATION AND MADE MONEY FOR HIMSELF AND THE POST. LIES IS A WAY OF LIFE FOR HIM

GARYD - the rich have never gotten richer than when we're suffering under republican administrations.....maybe you're one of the lucky ones? Are you a member of the corporate elite??

Not only is Bush the worst, but also the most hypocritical of all modern presidents - where did all that compassionate conservatism disappear to??

Thousands dead, thousands out of work, and thousands losing their homes - and a trillion dollar debt in Iraq and counting....now that's a record to be proud of! And now you're pushing for McSAME - no wonder you have no credibility.

Anonymous The only time the rich don't get richer is when we're all starving.

When I get my paycheck from a poor man I'll worry about the rich getting richer.

While the democratic candidates are each flawed in their own way, the republicans never had a viable candidate in the first place, and still don't.

Believe or not, Karl Rove is now in place as a McCain advisor - with the GOP, any human bot will do in the Oval Office....the usual suspects will do all the heavy lifting when the time comes.

You like Iraq and a floundering economy?? You'll love McSAME - and the rich shall get richer.

God preserve us from presidents who think they can save the world or even this country. The presidents primary Job isn't salvation (That is after all the job of God and God alone or God is essentially impotent) it is to try to manage the largest most complex and complicated government in the world.

The most any president can do is try to keep things from going to hell in a hand basket.

In the majority of your past articles there has always been a connection between Politics and Spirituality... in this article, there wasn't any.

It is satisfying to note that politics is being cleaned of falsehood which surrounds it.To me,it is the media explosion which is bringing about this situation

The United States does not need a president that can save only the United States. The people need a president that can save the world, by facilitating the actualization of the collective intent of the people, transcending borders.

A great wisdom being that a nation must first be a success before it can help other nations to succeed, even if only by example. This is complimented by the wisdom, that in helping other nations to succeed, we guarantee the continued success of our own nation.

Paramount to the success of the collective is the preservation of the liberties of the individual, the freedom of expression and the pursuit of happiness with no fear of persecution. For it is the pioneer, radical, outcast, eccentric, rebel, non-conformist, and those that question the status quo that are essential to the evolution of mankind, the collective, being they are the impetus for change, discovery, and invention needed to adapt and evolve.

THE WORLD OF FICTION IS COMING TO AN END.
Embrace your truth before it is embraced for you

Lying is to support a fiction.

The wise (conservative) and those that value freedom (liberal), and those that value both, (party free independents for collective control), do not vote for the President that has their mind clouded with fictions, the consciousness of old.

The constituency would not want a leader that would support the fictions in their minds, the minds of others, or a fictional framework, the candidate being blinded to external by their own internal fictions. For it is a great leader, that leads by extinguishing the fictions in the minds of those that would look to one to lead.

Who has not cast fictions? Who does not support the fictions from which only a few benefit to the detriment of the many? Who can cast out the fictions that divide us?

What you say may be the truth, from some perspective, and false from another, depending on the mind, so the question is are you being honest? If you were me and I were you, knowing what you know, what would you as me want to know? To impart that knowledge to another is being honest.

Obama has a certain innocence about him, a light, and that is why people like him, and that is what this country needs a light to cast out the darkness of ignorance.

2 points: (a) politicians arise simply as reflections of segments of the society, so one needn't lay great store on any specific individual politician, and (b) provided that the rules of the game are well laid out, we should favor a vigorous competition so all possibilities are fully explored.

The usual shallowness I'm coming, unfortunately, to expect from El Deepo.

Why we consider it negative to reveal the truth about the opposition and in El Deepo's case, a lie, is beyond me.

The truth is the truth. It may not be what we want to hear and it may not be pleasant but it is none the less the truth.

I am well aware that there are many people who would have been much happier if Obama could have been allowed to continue pitching the Pablum and vaguely pleasant but vacuous ideas of hope and change.

Dr. Chopra,

I have a mantra that I use when I am going through an extremely rough time "From chaos comes peace".
We have been through much chaos lately, but I sense the wave of peace is coming.

Independent from Lone Star State:

wish you would talk about or put references to who and why her pastor is in jail....

Forgive me if I misattribute the quote, but I think it was Samuel Clemens who said "politicians and diapers should both be changed often, and for the same reason." This is the single most compelling reason for me to vote for Obama for president. He is not perfect, but the other two are far too much the consummate politicans to be anything but full of it.

Mr. Chopra;
"so these groups must be fed with false promises to conceal the actual situation"
Why do 'these groups' keep believing them? Who is the more foolish in this scenario? Those that repeatedly lie to win support or those that keep believing/supporting the liars?

Any pretense to having a Republic with democratic practices has died a premature death at the hands of Capitalism aided and abetted by Christian Fundamentalism!

The primary infection was inflicted by concentrated doses of advertising viterol designed to sell to an ignorant public any junk laying around including politicians. Patriotism and Generousity have become jinglistic slogans used to hide flagrant lies and theft.

The sins of Capitalism, primarily greed for power, have destroyed the very fabric of the nation! The education of our citizenery has become a formality designed to create subservient sheep for religions, corporations, and the military. None of these organizations have the least concern for the Republic; the military being the single one that swears to uphold and defend the nation, its constitution, and its people; but has now become one more politicalized servant of the Corporate Fascism devouring our country.

Although there is signicant doubt that Jesus' actually said,

"If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea", Mark 9:42,

wiki.faithfutures.org/index.php/198_Millstone_for_Temptation,

it is, however, a great passage for judging leadership qualities.

Clinton's millstones:

major # 1, Her dishonest, lying, cheating husband who she should have dumped years ago. Having him in the Whitehouse again would percolate the stench of adultery and womanizing on a 24/7 basis for four more years.

major #2, Her disrespect for unborn children.

major #3, Not recognizing the flaws and errors of contemporary religions.

minor #1, "forgetting" the details of her trip to Bosnia.

Obama's millstones:

major #1, The "Reverend" Jeremiah Wright.

major #2, His failure to immediately condemn Wright's recent speech.

major #3, His disrespect for unborn children.

major #4, Not recognizing the flaws and errors of contemporary religions.

60% do not trust Hillary I am worried about the rest of 40%.

"I won the bellwether state" after she won OH (Obama already won Missouri, tell this to Missouri folks )
Does not congratulate the opponent if he wins
The states Obama won are NOT important
On Bill making $ on Columbia trade deal she just laughs
Calls Obama leftist and then panders: (a) 90 day foreclosure (b) Gas tax holiday
Does negative campaigning and accuses the opponent of doing so
Offers the opponent VP when she is FAR behind
Blames the closing of Indiana factory on BUSH when Bill indeed ordered it
Her ex-pastors are extremists one is in JAIL. Wright despite his bitterness is a patriot and a marine.
Hugh and Tony Rodham defied Bill Clinton's own top foreign policy advisers by entering into a strange investment in hazelnuts in the former Soviet republic of Georgia (they later dropped the deal) and Hugh Rodham took large cash payments for trying to broker presidential pardons.

This list goes on ... PETER PAUL and more.

What more do we need to know. Where is our moral compass. Many women voting for Hillary do NOT want their daughters to be like her!!!!

1. Mr. Chopra is an anti-Christ
2. Mr. Chopra does not understand American politics
3. Mr. Chopra enjoys the limelight just like pasture Wright.

What more can we say for a man that does not believe in an absolute truth!

Wrong!! Hillary has not paid for her lying and telling half truths. Her sense of morality is situational....no principles.

She lied about being shot at, at the airport. she repeated that three times.

her standards are way below what is cynically referred to as 'political'

Hillary gives politics a bad name.

I am a meditation teacher with The Chopra Center. My heart is being wrenched by this election. We all have so much incredible potential to do incredibly good things for ourselves, each other, this country and the world and I find myself dumbfounded by what is going on here and how we are willing to spend our energy and time. It's so ugly - what does that say about where many of us are living? My husband and I were not going to vote but I attended an Obama rally. I was quite taken with him. I was amazed at the courage of a black man who could believe that he could win the Presidency of the United States. What a beautiful soul that must be, his ability to see that what must be inside people in the United States is bigger and more powerful than their hate and fear. It has given me hope that there are some pretty special people in this country.
I hope for all of us that there is a good outcome to this election. I don't believe a group of people can continue to live carrying so much negativity, anger and hopelessness.

All rhetoric has a purpose. When the purpose is open and understood by all the speaker is being honest. When the purpose is hidden and the words manipulative, the speaker is being dishonest. Thus political speech can be a mixture of honesty and dishonesty, as when the desire to be elected gets mixed with the desire to implement ideas. This ambiguity of speech makes it difficult to put ideas into action, because we cannot really know if we will get what we vote for. We vote for someone because they seem to be like us, or appeal to us, but shouldn't we be voting for what we want in our lives? These candidates really mean nothing to us. We will never know if any candidate will give us what we want.

I spoke once to a popular man who ran and lost for congress in Houston. He said you cann't imagine the process of running for office. Everyone that comes up to shake your hand wants something. Often they want opposing things about issues that are important to them but not to most other people. To be successful you must find a compromise. How many of us faced with the same type of issue in the family or among friends have told white lies?
How many elephants are there in these popular issues that no one will discuss:
1. If we have universal care why do we need insurance companies? Insurance companies are huge elephants.
2. Why should we pay more for drugs? Ah another elephant
3. We can change the way congress works? No we cann't.
4. Small companies have terrific problems when their costs of resources go up. They cann't raise their prices and many merely fold. Not our big global companies. If the price of oil goes up, the price of gas goes up and profits are actually higher. When health care cost more the insurance companies raise their rates and drop service to people who have been paying them for a life times and they build another tall building.

I believe it was Herbert Hoover who said, "What's good for business is good for America". How many still believe this - perhaps the biggest lie of the end of the 20th centur and the beginning of the 21st.

I spoke once to a popular man who ran and lost for congress in Houston. He said you cann't imagine the process of running for office. Everyone that comes up to shake your hand wants something. Often they want opposing things about issues that are important to them but not to most other people. To be successful you must find a compromise. How many of us faced with the same type of issue in the family or among friends have told white lies?
How many elephants are there in these popular issues that no one will discuss:
1. If we have universal care why do we need insurance companies? Insurance companies are huge elephants.
2. Why should we pay more for drugs? Ah another elephant
3. We can change the way congress works? No we cann't.
4. Small companies have terrific problems when their costs of resources go up. They cann't raise their prices and many merely fold. Not our big global companies. If the price of oil goes up, the price of gas goes up and profits are actually higher. When health care cost more the insurance companies raise their rates and drop service to people who have been paying them for a life times and they build another tall building.

I believe it was Herbert Hoover who said, "What's good for business is good for America". How many still believe this - perhaps the biggest lie of the end of the 20th centur and the beginning of the 21st.

Nothing about politics has changed since the day a group first sat on rocks to talk about what to have for breakfast.

Look at your own town, city, HOA, collective, office. Check out the world. Mr.Chopra, I am surprised at your position.

Deepak Chopra is above the fray. Hopefully his statement will be read by many.

Mike