Crowd at the America First Committee rally listen to Robert Wood and Charles Lindbergh give speeches promulgating isolationism and cutting off aid to Britain. Chicago, April 23, 1941. Photo - William C. Shrout
- The Federal Reserve was created to smooth the volatility. In reality the Fed was the major factor in the last recession and the current depression. Afraid of the phantom Y2K bug the Fed lowered the interest rates fueling the dotcom bubble, and then similarly encouraged the housing bubble to hasten the depression.
- Eating eggs increases your cholesterol and the rest of the assorted “used to be very bad, now OK” myths.
- Real Estate is the best investment, it always goes up in the long run.
- The markets ultimately accurately predict a value. Corporations and banks act in the rational interest of the shareholders, rather than the self-interest of the executives.
- Globalization and specifically the Free Trade will benefit all Americans (no President would fess up to this lie).
- The Internet will change our lives for the better. In reality the Internet facilitated the outsourcing, accelerated the impoverishment of the middle class, destroyed the creative class – musicians journalist, writers. Instead of leveling the “playing field” it turbocharged the scalable oligarchy and amplified the popular and populist lowest denominator.
- Iraq and Afghanistan is going to be a quick “shock and awe” war to find the nuclear weapons and the war will spark the triumph of democracy in the Middle East and around the world.
- Change.
- Mother Theresa [or insert your favorite ungodly figure here] was a saint and synonymous of virtue.
- The hard work is the core American value and it pays off.
Got more lies?
Further reading:
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
if you need to explain why a lie is a lie….
If you graduate from a good university, you will be able to get a good paying job and the chance to move out of your lower-class existence, so those student loans are a good investment.
America has the highest standard of living of any society, ever (I was shamelessly taught this over and over in high school. I feel like the old Soviet joke is appropriate, “If things are so good, why are things so bad?”)
If you cut taxes for the rich, that money will trickle down to the poor, so it’s okay if you cut social programs to do so.
Capitalism=Democracy
The Internet is today’s printing press … would you have been burning books when they first started being mass produced?
That depends if I were in the printing business.
Just stumbled upon your blog today. I’m actually not even completely sure what your blog is about as I literally just landed here.
Anyway, I thought this list was particularly interesting. I agree with a lot of it. I also completely agree with the above comment that talks about how people in the middle class area of this country are force fed our whole lives that, if we go to a good college, drown ourselves in debt to do so, we’ll get a job (right upon graduation mind you) making at least $50,000 a year (and anyone else who happens to follow a different path is an uneducated hillbilly). However, if THAT doesn’t happen (landing the previously mentioned $50k a year job), just go to grad/law/med/business school for another 2-4 years, drown yourself in even more debt, and THEN you’ll find a job upon graduation. Biggest lie ever told to the high school, undergrad (and grad), middle class population.
That sounded awfully ranty of me …
True, but It’s luck above all, Emilee.