From the November 2003 Idaho Observer:

From the editor's desk

It's all fake

The inspiration for this month's column started innocently enough. In a response to an inquiry from American ex-patriot Bill Engdahl (who has been living in Germany for 25 years), I listed a procession of things that are “fake.” He wanted to know about the pending presidential election campaign cycle and an overview of what Americans are thinking about the various Democrats whose hats have been thrown into the ring.

“As for the political scene, I see something rather odd this time around. I see a lot of going-through-the-motions. An entire reelection industry depends upon the reelection cycle, particularly every four years when a presidential election is part of the deal. The American people are conditioned to get into the every-four- up from the pasture grass to contemplate the colored tags stapled to each others ears if the presidential election machinery was not set in motion,” I explained, then added:

“This country feels so fake now. The food is fake, the water is fake, campaign promises are fake, news is fake, everything that comes from Washington, D.C. is fake, our economy is fake, the reporting of chief economic indicators is fake and most of the people are fake because they base their decision-making processes on fake facts.”

Bill then suggested that I develop the fake thing a little further because he found the repetition of “fake” to be effective. So I scrapped my original thoughts for this month's column, which, incidently, was to use the concept of thinning hardwood veneer to describe our emerging paste and sawdust society to contemplate “fake.”

It's all fake -- everything Americans have created around themselves is fake.

So, our food is fake, our water is fake, our air is fake.

Our food isn't food, our water isn't water and our air isn't air -- they are just carriers for chemical poisons being delivered to us in cumulative, systemic doses.

Campaign promises are fake, the news is fake and everything that comes from Washington, D.C., is fake.

Real issues like 9/11, vote fraud, epidemic chronic illness, epidemic sudden death, epidemic behavioral and developmental problems in our children and the institutionalization of official abuses in all branches and agencies of government are never discussed.

Our economy is fake and the chief economic indicators are fake.

Americans don't use currency, they use debt notes; the rise and fall of the stock market is a fake indicator of a fake economy; consumer spending and unemployment statistics, inflation, deflation and interest rates are figures reported regularly and differently depending upon who is doing the reporting -- all to confuse the truth which is that our entire economic construct is a lie. It is fake.

And most of the people are fake because they base their decision-making processes on fake facts.

We lie to ourselves constantly so that we can pretend that the human constructs in the world surrounding us are real. The truth is that most everything we are being told to believe about the world is a lie to cover the fact that we live in a fake reality.

Government explanations for 9/11 are fake, the Middle East peace process is fake, government justification of the war in Iraq is fake and; the war on terrorism is fake because the real war is on American civil liberties. There is compelling evidence to suggest the moon landing was fake. Public health must be fake (or a failure) because the public is increasingly unhealthy. A high percentage of marriage vows are fake, otherwise over half the people who take them would not be departing from one another long before death. The fact that George Bush, Jr., became president proves beyond doubt that elections are fake. If representative government wasn't a big fake, would ordinary people vote themselves to be be taxed more and more to get less and less? Poverty, homelessness, sex and violence on TV, domestic violence, teen pregnancy, teen suicide, sexually-transmitted diseases, illiteracy, racism, sexism are all social conditions that continue to worsen in the land of the free. Is it not logical to presume the wars government has declared on them to be fake wars?

And the list goes on into nearly every facet and avenue of the American experience. The solution? Be true to yourself, be true to others and stop buying lies.

Thanks, Bill. (DWH)