The trouble with lies is the need for more lies to keep the original truth from outing itself, much to the embarrassment of the liars. In order to justify our creation of a post-colonial puppet regime in Vietnam, we created the fictitious country of South Vietnam and then staged a phony attack on two of our ships in the Tonkin Gulf to justify military invasion and an extended war costing tens of thousands of American lives and the lives of several million native folk, mostly civilians. Unfortunately, the same brilliant minds who lied us into that southeast Asian disaster are the same ones, by and large, who have lied us into Iraq and are lying to us about Iran and other nations that oppose our world will in their homelands.

The lies just keep on coming, and a compliant corporate media colludes with the government to propagate the untruths in the name of news. At best, the nation’s political leaders avoid the truth by ignoring subjects too controversial to discuss without alienating large numbers of the lumpen prols just before an election. If we don’t begin buying local harvests in the third world to feed the starving masses the aid programs will fail, but buying overseas instead of from our corporate agri-giants not only costs votes but big bucks in campaign contributions. Don’t mention it!

The problem arises when reality intrudes in our carefully crafted web of deceit, as in the famines in Haiti, Darfur and Egypt, where food riots are impending. When Venezuela and a dozen other Latin American nations can muster food relief shipments without the profiteering of U.S. and international programs, it calls attention to the uncomfortable truth of our role in the world food crisis.

Here at home we attack, unmercifully, any critic of our historic and contemporary behavior, from the conquest of the native tribes and slavery in the seventeenth century, to our current efforts at imperial control of the world’s energy recourses. The latest victim of this effort is the Reverend Wright, of Chicago’s south side, whose enumeration of our nation’s sins, from a biblical perspective, certainly makes a case for divine punishment and damnation. The undeniable facts of nearly all of Wrights indictments are roundly ignored in favor of discussions of his patriotism and lack of manners in raising those topics.

What is even more regrettable is the revelation that presidential ambition and political concern led Barak Obama to not only abandon his longtime mentor but denounce the truths behind the sermons. Reverend Wright is being crucified and Obama and the rest of the “progressive” movement are denying him much like the disciples. When the truth is treason, leaders lie and we all pay the price.

“Travus T. Hipp” is a 40-year veteran radio commentator with six stations in California carrying his daily version of the news and opinions. "The Poor Hippy’s Paul Harvey,” Travus is a member of the Nevada Broadcasters Hall of Fame, but unemployable in the Silver State due to his eclectic political views.