On Brian Williams: How Liars Express Our Values

Ted Rall writes On Brian Williams: How Liars Express Our Values.

You can tell a lot about a society’s values from its lies.

After World War II, Germany abandoned its old values of obedience, conformity, militarism and most recently, Nazism. When veterans of the SS were asked about their military service in the form of that most famous question “what did you do during the war, daddy?” they lied about it. They either claimed that they hadn’t served at all, or that they had served in the regular army, or if there was no way to deny having been in the SS, said they had been nowhere near any atrocities or death camps.

Postwar Germany’s liars projected positive values: anti-militarism, anti-fascism, pacifism, principled opposition to violence.

Here in the United States, our liars lie about the exact opposite things — and their lies reveal an awful set of societal values.

Emphasis Mine

The ideological superstructure in the USA promotes militarism as do all imperialist states. Military power is essential to maintaining supremancy and hegemony.

It is interesting to note that a former imperialist state, Germany, is using economic power instead. The current battle with Greece will reveal the limits of this type of power.