A world founded on lies

I've said that I'm not going to focus on this stuff for awhile because I find it so depressing. Nevertheless, this rather long piece by Arthur Silber is a must read -- just don't blame me if you too get depressed. Here's a snippet:

We live in a world founded on lies. Our entire national debate is made up of a series of intricate, interwoven myths, lies and tales fabricated by propagandists. Such propagandists are to be found in all parts of the political spectrum. Today's conservatives and other assorted defenders of the current administration, and of its foreign policy in particular (the most loathsome of which are the self-identified, phony "libertarians," who have debased that term beyond the point of recognition -- it now appears that anyone to the left of Hitler may be regarded as a "libertarian," if his paeans to untrammeled militarism and genocide contain the occasional reference to "American values" and "individual rights"), constantly appeal to "American exceptionalism" and our nation's "founding principles," even as they systematically destroy all the values that once, very briefly, made the United States unique.