America once proudly honored the “rule of law,” but nowadays, it looks more and more like the “rule of lies” would be a more appropriate definition.  I am speaking here not necessarily about “lying Joe,” but about lies generated by the whole government system.

Australian journalist Caitlin Johnstone puts it bluntly: “When you live under an empire that’s held together by lies, you’ll be asked to believe a lot of intensely stupid b-------.”  She mentions the top ten, from her point of view, “dumbest things the propagandists of the U.S.-centralized empire try to get us to swallow.”

I believe she misses a few, including crucial ones that are directly related to the U.S.’s 21st-century wars and the current proxy war in Ukraine that has a high potential to escalate into nuclear WW3.

1. “NATO is not moving one inch eastward.”  This lie, according to George Kennan, the eminent architect of the Soviet “containment” strategy and a former ambassador to the Soviet Union, would “inflame the nationalistic, anti-Western and militaristic tendencies” in Russia and therefore was “a fateful foreign policy error.”  New York Democrat Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan added that “it would open the door to the nuclear war.”

2. “Weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.”  This whopper led to endless Middle East wars, resulting in huge human and material losses, as well as the rise of ISIS.  According to the Brown and American University research document “The Costs of War,” it led to over 940,000 deaths due to direct war violence and an estimated 3.6–3.8 million people who have died indirectly in post-9/11 war zones, plus 38 million war refugees and displaced persons.  The U.S. federal price tag for the post-9/11 wars is over $8 trillion.

3. “Trump-Putin Collusion.”  This is the so-called Russiagate fake story, which was actually collusion among lying politicians, intelligence officials, and media who tried to get Hillary Clinton into the White House.  This lie succeeded in destroying Trump’s presidency along with its declared goal of improving U.S.-Russia relations.

4. “Hunter Biden’s laptop has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”  This lie was promoted by Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign manager Antony Blinken, 51 top U.S. intelligence servicemen, and the media, which helped “the Big Guy” get elected.

5. Military and financial backing of Ukraine “for as long as it takes” is meant to support that country’s democracy, when in reality, the goal was to weaken Russia, who dared to reject the U.S. claims to global hegemony.

However, the most outrageous and endlessly repeated lie is that if Putin wins in Ukraine, he will then move farther West, and eventually to the U.S.

There is no intelligence, no proof, no desire, and no means on the Russian side to do that — only accusations by Ukraine’s Zelensky, who is using this scare tactic to get more money and weapons, and by his backers in Washington and Brussels.

In reality, all Russian leaders, starting with Mikhail Gorbachev and on to Vladimir Putin, were ready for full economic and even military integration with the West, including joint U.S.-Russia missile defense and joining NATO, only to be rebuffed.

After the collapse of the USSR, the overwhelming majority of the Russian people desired rapprochement with the West, and particular with the U.S., but Washington squandered this historic opportunity.

As we see now, the claims to global hegemony were a pipe dream, as the multipolar world order is rising before our eyes.  Many Americans feel that the country is going in the wrong direction.  Even the New York Times, which usually follows the Democrat party line, in a recent poll admits that the majority of Americans with or without political affiliations agree that “we are failing as a nation and share a sense of doom.”

The obvious question is, what to do?

For us who are not in the government, and especially the younger generation, here is a helpful quote from the late William Polk, who helped to steer a wise and just foreign policy for the United States, including serving on JFK’s three-man crisis management team during the Cuban Missile Crisis.  This is how he concluded his speech to graduating students at Bennington College in 2008:

Refuse to be marginalized. ... You are national assets. And you owe the country the best you have. Do your jobs as citizens. Demand that your candidates tell you the truth and act with intelligence. ... Participate. You cannot afford to sit back and do nothing. If you do, you are almost certain to pay for your laziness.

A democracy is not a holding company to be run by a board of directors. You are stockholders. Your life and your well-being are at stake. If you care about them, protect them. After you inform yourself, make your voice heard and put your actions where your mouth is. Be a leader. Get your generation into action. Together you are strong. Our future is in your hands. This is your country, your world, and your time.

Image: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center via Flickr, CC BY 2.0 (cropped).