Lies! Lies! More Damned Lies And Death!

[PeterRS]

We know Trump is a liar. He lies all the time. White lies? Not a bit of it. Whopping great big iies on the international stage - and he gets away with it!

Anyone who does not believe that is living in some weird fantasy world. Take his Oval Office meeting with the South African President last week, Cyril Ramaphosa. He accused Ramaphosa of the systematic killing of white farmers. Rubbish! He has already permitted several white farmers refugee status in the USA because otherwise they would be victims of genocide. Rubbish!  He dimmed the Oval Office lights to show a video showing roughtly 1,000 white crosses. "They're all white farmers, the family of white farmers . . . those people are all killed." Rubbish!

For these were not graves. They were props which had been placed during a demonstration as a protest some years ago. They were then removed, but of course the video does not show that. Trump then pulled out a blog post showing an image of South Afrcia. Only it was not South Africa. It was the Democratic Republic of Congo.  After the meeting, Trump as he always does doubled down on his false claims.

Also on that Trump trip was his DOGE, the South African Elon Musk who had earlier been party to the false allegations of mass murder of white farmers. Yet Musk's shareholders are surely now a very unhappy bunch. Not only are Tesla models worldwide being outsold by China's BYD cheaper electric vehicles (Warren Buffet's company had seen its 10% investment in BYD made in 2008 rise by a huge 41 times by June 2022), its sales are dramatically down. In Europe alone: 59% in France, 81% in Sweden, 74% in the Netherlands, 66% in Denmark, 50% in Switzerland and 33% in Portugal.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/may/24/elon-musk-doge-scott-galloway

Britain is now seeing what has become quite an extended backlash against Brexit, the 2016 exit from the European Union. The verdict was extremely narrow and one reason for that were the lies told by the Brexit campaigners (called in an article in today's Observer newspaper "mendacious garbage"). Leaving the EU would free up £350 million per week to aid the National Health Service was one of their many false claims. Rubbish! To mention just two, there has been outrage in the UK from small businesses about the massive amount of form filling now required for exporting their products, and from individual Britons who now have to pass passport checks every time they enter and leave an EU country. I had to do that last year to get into Holland and then out from there to Switzerland. It was huge time wasting madness! Overall, the Observer reckons Brexit has already cost the UK "tens of billions of pounds." 55% of Britons now say Brexit was wrong.

Now, though, the new government has taken the Brexit bull by the horns to undo some of that madness. A Brexit reset is finally under way. Immigration controls throughout Europe are being reconsidered, as are items like farming policy.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/may/23/britain-left-eu-reset-keir-starmer-tories

Finally, Israel. During my education, the mass murder in Vietnam meant little. It was way too far away. The beleaguered state of Israel, on the other hand needed help and many students spent a month or two in the summer working in kibbutz - and were happy to do so. Now, though, the ghastly and disastrous actions of the Netanyahu government in the virtual destruction of Gaza and its inhabitants seems to concern none in power anywhere in the world to the extent that they will actually do something to stop it.

Just today we learn of the family of a doctor, a paediatric specialist dedicated to saving lives, nine of whose ten children were massacred by a missile strike when sleeping in their own home. A tenth child and her husband remain seriously injured. And the Israel Defense Forces have the absolute gall to announce in the light of this particular massacre, "The claim regarding harm to uninvolved civilians is under review.” WIll any israeli be charged with murder? Of course not!

Israel's constant lies are worse than Trump's. At least Trump does not kill - yet! When will all the killing and the lying stop? 

[vinapu]

Valid points. Trump introduced new form of diplomacy  - publicly humiliating other heads of state in the White House. First Zelensky , now Ramaphosa. Not before long some of them may be looking for excuses not to  accept invitation and sudden diarrhoeas among heads of state may take epidemic proportions. 

As for Israel's actions inevitably day is coming when some prominent politician or other influential person accused , rightly or wrongly about being anti-Semitic will respond  'so what?' or ' what's exactly wrong with that ? ". Israelis have plenty excuses to defend their actions but in long run killing 50000 to revenge death of 500 or even 5000  will demand somebody to be called for it. 

As for Brexit , it's for British to  deal with that folly  - 55% say it was wrong but it leaves 45% who still don't think so.

[unicorn]

People believing what they want to believe instead of actual facts? Believing some doofus or doofuses instead of examining actual facts and listening to the experts? Where have I heard that before? Oh my goodness!

 

[PeterRS]

Isn't the real problem that people no longer want to examine facts? It's so much easier just to believe what they are told - or what they have picked up from social media.

[unicorn]

5 hours ago, PeterRS said:

Isn't the real problem that people no longer want to examine facts? It's so much easier just to believe what they are told - or what they have picked up from social media.

I couldn't agree with you more! 😃

[vinapu]

18 hours ago, PeterRS said:

Isn't the real problem that people no longer want to examine facts? 

perhaps they want but are not able to check everything they are bombarded with. Now thank to ubiquitous media anybody can be expert on vaccines, space flights, currency movements and even street prostitution and speak with misleading authority on the subject.  

[unicorn]

9 hours ago, vinapu said:

perhaps they want but are not able to check everything they are bombarded with. Now thank to ubiquitous media anybody can be expert on vaccines, space flights, currency movements and even street prostitution and speak with misleading authority on the subject.  

You hit the hammer on the nail. This is why it's important to try to seek the actual science and facts of the matter. Just because someone in a position of power says something, doesn't mean it's true. This is especially true of matters which we firmly wish were true (such as a heavenly afterlife, immigrants are the cause of one's strife, I don't want to get a shot, and so on). If you firmly want to believe something, you can always find a charismatic leader to convince you that you're right, even though the truth is more difficult to accept. 

Trump is the ultimate master of deceit. He's especially convincing with the feeble-minded, and tells the most bold-faced lies with complete sincerity. Blame your economic woes or missing pet on foreigners. Come up with "easy fixes" (which will only make matters worse). You don't even need to take your shots. Shots are bad for you. Who wants to believe hard truths?

Similarly, it's much easier to say "Get this simple blood test. It'll protect you from prostate cancer." Believe me, it's much faster, easier, and financially rewarding to say that, instead of taking the time to try to educate patients that the issue is far more complex than this. And when the results come out positive (because it will if you keep checking), it's easier to say "Eeek! Get it taken out!" rather than point out that in most cases (especially Gleason scores of 7), it's probably wise to see if the cancer regresses, rather than take aggressive action. And if action is taken, it's more financially rewarding to tell the patient the half-truth that if you get radiation, then you won't be able to have surgery later--but failing to mention that in localized cases radiation failure is virtually unheard-of. 

People want to believe we know what we're doing with PSA screening, so they'll believe the slick talkers, as well as the testimonials of the many men who (usually falsely) believe their lives were saved by PSA screening. Again, so many will believe what they want to believe, rather than what the experts and the science tell us. Getting people to face unfortunate truths is usually an uphill battle.