Tell me lies, sweet little lies

But again, it’s always the messenger that gets shot.
Telling lies, “black” or “white”, has become so ingrained in the human psyche and human behaviour. We are even capable of lying to ourselves, and at times have the need to do so, consciously or unconsciously, as a survival or coping mechanism. 
Some people describe “white lies” – lies that are not meant to hurt or harm anyone, that are issued without malice – as a necessary evil. We, in our own way, expect some lying in our lives. To many people, telling a lie is easier than telling the truth. In many instances the consequences of the lie are thought of as “harmless” compared to those of the truth. Former US President Harry Truman responded to the rousing desire of his supporters – “Give them Hell, Harry” – by saying that he never gave anybody “hell”, he simply told them the truth, and they thought it was hell.
Then there are truths that are told with bad intent that William Blake says beat all the lies we can invent.
The legendary rock group Fleetwood Mac begged for lies in the song “Little Lies.”

“If I could turn the page
In time then I’d rearrange
Just a day or two
Close my, close my, close my eyes

But I couldn’t find a way
So I’ll settle for one day
To believe in you
Tell me, tell me, tell me lies
Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies…”

When it comes to government, any government, lies are always part of its composite; the euphemism is “spin”. Governments lie to citizens regularly, consistently, systematically and daily. Governments’ lies can have a life of their own; they breed more lies to substantiate or cover up the original lies. Governments’ lies induce governments’ violations of laws, and such violations put in jeopardy our civil liberty. It means that lawbreakers walk free in the corridors of power. It means ordinary citizens will be duped into making choices they would never make had they known the truth, to their own detriment.
We Thais have been told by the government that the rice price pledging programme is beneficial in every way to farmers. Honest people will tell you that it is one truly disastrously bankrupt policy because its benefits to farmers are marginal and that it will eventually lead to the collapse of our rice exporting industry by the end of this year. Unfortunately, this is the industry that brings in stable foreign exchange revenue year after year, and by its own effort has put Thai rice on dining tables around the world.
This is not to mention the related gargantuan corruption supply chain – from cheap and lower grade foreign rice re-labelled as Thai rice, to unwarranted expensive rental silos, to the opaque “auction” process and procedure where every kilo of rice has an additional price tag visible only under the table.
Can the public stomach the truth? More of us will need more Alka Seltzer to cope with indigestion, and a series of anger management therapy sessions to deal with the verity.
We are told that the hike in the minimum wage to Bt300 per day will benefit workers. We are told that new college graduates will be entitled to a starting salary of at least Bt15,000 a month.
The truth is, employers deal with the 40-per cent minimum wage increase by reducing the size of the workforce and the number of new employees. And there are more and more graduates who cannot find jobs, who have now joined the growing class of the under-employed.
Foreign investors are looking to move their production bases or their new investments elsewhere. We now have neither affordable unskilled labour nor competent skilled labour to make ourselves competitive as a destination for foreign direct investments.
How many of us want to even think about this depressing truth, let alone acknowledge it?
As a consolation, our government is not unique in its practice of truth bending. Not to point fingers, we have heard the following statements from governments elsewhere:
“We do not torture.”
“Everyone is innocent until proven guilty.”
“We are winning the war on drugs.”
“All men are created equal.”
“Every vote counts.”
There is a joke made famous in the Ronald Reagan camp during the 1980 US presidential campaign (against the incumbent President Jimmy Carter). And it goes like this: George Washington, Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter die and go to heaven. In order to explain how they got there, Washington says, “I never told a lie.” Nixon counters, “I never told the truth.” Jimmy Carter, in his usual intense and earnest honesty, retorts, “I never knew the difference.”
Sadly, the difference between a lie and the truth may depend on whether one is in the governing class or the governed one.
One can condemn the government’s normal practice of lying to the nth degree. Some may say the truth will always triumph over lies, even those told by the government.
But beware, as Mark Twain, in Mark Twain’s Notebooks & Journals, has warned us: “Truth is mighty and will prevail. There is nothing the matter with this, except that it ain’t so.”