Quite a long time ago, I had my very first full-time job in the meat department of a supermarket. When we had chickens on sale, there were times that there were crates of chickens left over after the sale. We froze them. Then, when they went on sale again, we defrosted them. I recall one time when the department manager was running water over the frozen chickens to defrost them faster, and the word came down from the store office that the big boss had walked into the store. There followed a Marx Brothers-like dash to get the chickens out of the running water and onto trays.
Because freezing and defrosting the chickens and then selling them as fresh was illegal. The game was that everybody knew this was done, but it had to be done in the dark.
Around the same time, a friend who was a cook in an upscale restaurant was visiting, and he was working the grill in our backyard. He was describing in Bourdain fashion the horrors that go on in the kitchen in a fancy restaurant. He had just described how, if a piece of meat fell on the floor, the cook would pick it up, brush it off, throw it on the stovetop for another minute, and then serve it. As he finished the story, the steak he was grilling dropped to the ground. Looking just a tad abashed, he picked it up, brushed it off, and threw it back on the grill.
In a non-food related area, I was volunteering at my daughter's elementary school library. The librarian was pulling books from the shelf and deleting them from the school's records. I am sure I asked what would happen to them next, and she told me a story about how they would be stored in an attic in an administration building. After many later years working in school and public libraries, I can assure you they were not being stored. They were being discarded. When you work in a library, you don't tell the patrons (or the parents) that books are being thrown out.
If you look back on your various jobs and careers, most of you will recall lies you were told, and lies you told. Not too long ago, in congressional testimony under oath, White House communications director Hope Hicks testified that she had told "white lies" for the president. The very president who on Day One made his press secretary tell us that "This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration... period." And then there are the convenient lapses of memory by Jefferson Beauregard Sessions during his confirmation hearing. All under the watchful -- you might say, paranoid -- eyes of the liar-in-chief.
We once lived in a country wherein the business philosophy was "caveat emptor" -- let the buyer beware. Buyers were taken for such a horrific ride that they rebelled, and laws were passed protecting them from harmful lies. Of course, it did not take long for capitalists to fight back for the right to do whatever the hell they please, and we have had ups and downs in the area of consumer protection. These days, Congress and Trump's swamp creatures are busy dismantling consumer protections and the Supremes are solidly behind the big bucks. We seem to have returned to the carnival days of never give a sucker an even break.
In today's atmosphere of cynicism, it is surprising how naive we all continue to be. We are watching Donald Trump and his cronies display in full screen the flagrant corruption and rampant lies of business in America. This is the corruption of the real estate industry, and of the oil industry, and big pharma, ad nauseum. From Bill Gates to the Kochs, the rich got that way by screwing others and telling us how lucky we are to have the opportunity to be screwed.
How do they get away with it? They have learned how to frame their lies in a way that appeals to us. Republicans won congress back in 2014 by well capitalized lies about Obamacare. The Supremes, in Citizens United, gave their blessing to big lies told with the money of big donors. Political ads tell more brazen lies than the most egregious drug commercial, and they work.
Diversion is the other tactic that keeps us fish biting through misdirection. The magic is in making the mark look the other way while their pocket is being picked. I know some very fine and caring Democrats who get rabid over food stamp cheats. While there are going to be a few slick characters who don't need food stamps but have found a way to receive them, this is mostly a myth that goes way back to Reagan's food stamp queen driving up to the welfare office in her Cadillac. The woman in the grocery store line buying that steak may have eaten pasta and beans for a week to afford that treat, and very likely lives a life of worry over making ends meet.
On the other hand, if a wealthy businessman pays no taxes you can be sure it will be painted as well deserved, because he contributes so much to the economy. The worker who earns $20,000 a year? Not so much.
I had a conversation with a guy repairing my washing machine a few years ago. We were having an innocent, non-political chat about retirement and being able to afford it, and he went off on welfare cheats. I said I was far more concerned about the billionaires that were cheating us via the government. And he replied: "Yeah, but you can't do anything about them."
So our entire economic system comes down to getting abused by your boss and coming home and kicking the dog. It is all about feeling so helpless to fight the corrupt powerful that we are willing dupes in the misdirection that causes us to turn on those with less than us.
These days, the Trump swamp has stunk so much that it has even magnified the odors coming from Congress. Paul Ryan's lies about health care and Trump's lies about tax cuts just may be what creates the prism that separates the lies from the reality. It may not be so far between lies about inaugural crowd size to stealing those massive tax cuts. Taking away consumer financial protections and affordable health care might serve to focus us more on the real issues than the diversions. The outcomes of recent special elections may be the proof that we are waking up to the big con that has been perpetrated on us for far too long.
Today the liar-in-chief is rethinking his promise of just yesterday to sign the budget and keep the government running. I heard everyone from Paul Ryan to Mick Mulvaney were surprised. I try not to dwell on the creep's tweets, but I heard he was complaining that the Dems have abandoned the Dreamers and he hasn't gotten the full amount for his damned wall. It would take another entire blog to unpack that load of crap. As I recall though, it was the orange criminal himself who took DACA away from the Dreamers, and Mitch McConnell who has been refusing to bring it up for a vote in the Senate. And we keep hearing about Trump fulfilling his promise to build the wall, but he fails to mention who he said was going to pay for it.... Lies and cons.
November is coming, and I hear that this year it is going to be swamp-draining season, in Washington and throughout the country.
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