They’ll never destroy the truth of me

Guest Author Uncategorized

After Ian’s redoubtable battles with the trolls, I asked whether he would be prepared to write a short piece on the subject of lies for The Pub. This is the result, for which many thanks.

I’m not a psychologist. I know that there are comprehensive and far-reaching studies into many aspects of the human psyche. Lying being one of them.

I can give no clinical answer to the mechanics of lying. I can give no broad acceptable reason for why people, many of those we love the most, look us in the eye and lie to us. Is it a variation of fight or flight? Is it an instinctive tribal reaction to deny reality? Ensuring that the tribe, untroubled, goes about its daily business and is comforted knowing that a scandal awaits discussion over the cooking fires and goat pens? That the new scandal is a confection of lies, innuendo and carefully scripted prejudice is never questioned. The scandal produced is sufficient reward. Are lies survival tools?

Like all of us I have been lied to many times in my life. Some instances when you look at person telling the lies, you, quite bluntly, know they’re full of shit and pay them no heed. That, believe it or not, is the difference between lies and bullshit. They sometimes intertwine. Especially when lubricated with beer, bonhomie and barbecues. If lies were harmless fun; it would be these.

Some lies affect you for life.

I was born a twin. My twin sister died at 10 days old. I didn’t know this until I was in my teens. Though, in retrospect, and even now 60 years later I have never felt quite whole. My parents never told me of this. I don’t know why. Was there shame of some description? Perhaps I did something in the womb? Why did I survive? I’ll never know. Both parents have passed, with forgiveness. But not understanding. By not telling me the truth of my birth they lied by omission. The most brutal of lies.

When my older sister fell pregnant and was shunted off to a Salvation Army home for unwed mothers – Harvest Terrace, North Fremantle …turn left off the Stirling highway where the statue is, for any WA folk reading – the lie society expected the family to tell was of a daughter gone travelling. A very cruel, demeaning lie. Jackie, my sister, saw only the top her daughter’s head before she was whisked away to the only mother she would know. Jackie did then travel to Queensland and New South Wales for a couple of years. She was killed in a traffic accident in Sydney one week before she was to get on the Indian Pacific train and come home. All of this because society demanded a lie and as a family we were too weak to resist telling it.

Which is why the lies told by Rudd, Bowen, Crean and others about the leadership challenge numbers on the very day JGPM gave a heart-wrenching speech about unwed mothers and adopted children are all the more despicable. Lies have the cruellest of unintended consequences.

The blatant lying we have endured for the three or more years has pretty much numbed me. The outright obfuscation of truth, the wilful omission of facts is now, purely, the grist of a corrupted mill. A mish-mash of toxic ideology, weakened bravado and a path that leads, not to the heights where man can, should he choose to, glimpse the truth of all that he is and all he can be, but to the darkness of the lie. Could it be that we deserve no more?

I know lies can hurt me. Lies on a great scale can scar me. They can sadden me. They can wound my soul. But they will never destroy me.

A lying Government, such as the present one, can wound, scar and sadden me. They’ll never destroy the truth of me.

Deep down they understand that – and it scares them.

1,736 thoughts on “They’ll never destroy the truth of me”

  3. the WAToday article is by Sallianne Atkinson, former Liberal mayor of Brisbane or Liberal politician. Well known as a board member of ABC Learning Centres who wondered why people wanted to jail her for collecting her directors fees while the company went broke.

    Well she is a model citizen for budgets, accountability and probity

  4. just home great reading thank you all, while our I am still trying to find some one who voted for him, some on tome me Julie b would be acting PM I explained , had no idea about the nationals the part they play .

    the video of abbott is that in Bali you would almost think it was at the U.N

    notice how he sucks his pen, he did that all the time when opposite JG, I was watching the eyes and the body language , think he could not understand what he was reading, reminded me of a pictures of gr 8 students reading and re reading an exam question , that they could not understand.\

    if you have not looked look and see,, I don’t think he has a clue, what its about, no one else is studying the page like he is they are all very relaxed and he does not look comfortable with having a lady sitting next to him,looks like he just doesn’t belong.

    Leone the lady mentioned on the cocas Island s wonder if she is on twitter.

    last week there was tweeter saying the power was down in Nauru but not in the detention centre I ask him about the hospital thinking of the babies to be born , tweeter said thought that was ok
    the tweeters from Christmas island have gone quite

    one mentioned weeks ago he was worried the phone connection may be cut,
    surley not?

    and as for hockey have you seen the tweets by the Kouk re a hockey want quote them as I may not get it quitter right,

    I wonder why would he be in the US now, they must be far to busy to talk to him, is he at the Harvard business
    school brushing up on a quick course of economics,

    howard was in US re the twin towers,,, hope that doesn’t mean the US will default
    as hockey is there but goodness sake he should be here preparing a plan if that was to happen remember the lead up to the GFC Wayne & Kev where making us feel re assured about the world financial problem this person well, never see him.

  6. Kaffeeklatscher,
    He might think orchidaceous is just a longer way of calling him “petal” …

  7. PMBO tries his hardest to get us into another war by talking up the possibility of conflict.
    http://www. lsmh.com.au/federal leone

    =============================================

    you got me thinking, does abbott go back over what Howard said about regions and come up with similar rhetoric to suit the country and the occasion.

    as I am sure he has not a clue about what to say , well about anything.

    he shook hand s with a lady in an orange suit I wonder what country she was from
    then to our amazement grabbed a hold of her elbow , any one else see that.
    I have only just been able to start looking at him this week since the election

    and giglene do you remember during the election he went to all states and said this I s my favourite state said he was more a queenlander than Rudd and WA and here said it was his favourite state.

    how childish,

    I think he has friendship complex/ most likely no real true friends,

  8. Friday Evening Thread

    As both Joe6pack and CK Watt inhabit regions where daylight saving does not exist, I suggest postponing your raffle number requests until the thread appears which, fingers crossed, will be about 6pm AEST (5:30pm in South Australia …).

  10. Denese,
    I think it was because the Liberals put up a “decent” candidate (compared with the previous Liberal disgrace, Mr Wilson Tuckey), and gave lots of (financial) support.

  11. Q. Who stole a couple of days of my week? Last time I looked it was Wednesday and now Fiona tells me it is Friday again. This business of getting old sucks.

  14. Something we acquired for her after my father died was a very large clock which shows the time, the date, and the day of the week. It lives in the kitchen, and is a great help.

  16. was chatting to few people here and there to day the discussion came up about how they think abbott thinks he owes us nothing,, does not have to discuss any thing he has in mind for the country this trade agreement is what s worrying me the most,

    the 5 people I spoke to are all concerned and agree we woke up I a different country the younger ones 40 somethings, feel unrest is what will happen

    proplem is people will find out about things after they happen,

    we must on twiitter I think demand more news conf,
    the juno that I am surprised about is laurie oaks has he retired.

    I just tweeted if the media where fair dinkum re the claims for reinbursement they would of been at Darwin air port with camera rolling.

    Now I see pictures of abbott on a new customs boat talking to staff, uniforms and conflict seem to suit him, seems at home??

  17. denese

    He retired. Travel and family reasons given but he no doubt saw the writing on the wall .

  18. thank you I never new that,
    was there any farewells at ch9..
    I wondered because no matter the pm was they did an interview with laurie the following week,

    =======================================================
    I was thinking the americans if they don’t like a president they can decide to act throught the courts cannot remember what it s called

  19. aree Janice it feel like Wednesday
    now that time of night what to eat
    sigh
    still cannot find my passion for life,
    but as son said mum sit back watch it all unravel don’t let abbott ruin your life

  20. Yet another wedding rorter –

    BREAKING: Assistant Minister for Defence Stuart Robert has repaid costs associated with attending a wedding on October 21, 2011.— Jonathan Swan (@jonathanvswan) October 11, 2013

  21. Denese,
    The retirement Kaffeeklatscher is taking about is that of Mr Crook – he did not run again for the seat of O’Connor in WA.

  22. Kaffee,
    I think Crook discovered that politics isn’t what it is cracked up to be. Whilst he is a conservative, the fact that he opted to sit on the cross benches rather than with the coalition tells me that he maybe thought that neither the Libs nor the Nats were to his liking. Therefore, I would think he found it a pretty lonely workplace and achievement light when it came to his own constituents. In other words, he’d had enough and chucked it in.

  23. A wonderful answer to a typical dumb journo question.

    Armed only with a small knife and a loyal dog, man beats bear in Siberian forest

    ………The bear attacked suddenly, unexpectedly,” Mr Rumyantsev told the local news site . Asked if he was scared during the attack, Mr Rumyantsev said, “Of course. You try meeting a bear, and we’ll see how you do.

    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/armed-only-with-a-small-knife-and-a-loyal-dog-man-beats-bear-in-siberian-forest-8872588.html

  24. foreverjanice

    Good point. It would have been a pretty lonely workplace a long way from home.

  25. Stuart Robert is the fifth Coalition frontbencher in the past fortnight to repay taxpayer funds claimed for attending a wedding.— Jonathan Swan (@jonathanvswan) October 11, 2013

  26. Something we acquired for her after my father died was a very large clock which shows the time, the date, and the day of the week. It lives in the kitchen, and is a great help.

    Didn’t know such a thing existed but it is exactly what I need….I was in the supermarket the other day and a woman asked me what the date was…Told her she was asking the wrong person because I didn’t even know what day it was, let alone the date. She laughed and got out her mobile phone to check the date.

  27. Janice,
    We got it at Big W – or rather, OH and DD did. I was sorting papers, or on the phone to various organisations …

    My mother finds it really does help her keep track of the days.

    However … another thought for you … in the bottom right corner of my computer screen there’s a display of the time and the date, and if I hover the cursor over the date it also shows the day of the week.

  28. Abbott gets a blast from Indonesian refugee advocates in the Jakarata Globe.

    Following the visit of Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott to Indonesia and the commitment of both governments to work together to address the movement of asylum seekers and refugees in the region, SUAKA — the Indonesian Civil Society Network for Refugee Protection — reminds the Indonesian public of our humanitarian values. We are shocked about how fast Indonesian political leaders will agree to follow the immoral behavior and statements from the new prime minister of Australia, who clearly sets his own political interests before human rights and the interests of the region. ……………..
    ………………As a leader in Asean, Indonesia has advocated for human rights protection. Instead of being poisoned by Australian partisan politics and xenophobia, Indonesia can be a leader in promoting regional efforts to protect people fleeing persecution.

    http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/opinion/asylum-seekers-and-refugees-putting-things-in-perspective/

  30. One would think the Coalition would be all in favour of same sex marriage. Just think how many more weddings they would be able to attend. At our expense.

  31. Five front benchers and one PMBO – that makes six wedding rorts so far. All of them ‘inadvertent mistakes’ made by ‘staff’. If these minitsers and PM are so incompetent thast they are unable to check their own paperwork how do they expect to handle complex ministerial portfolios?

  32. As I write, Joe6pack is slaving over the new post.

    I have to go out for a little while, but will be back to serve drinks etc as soon as possible.

  35. In the 18th century, there existed 14-day clocks. That is, they only needed winding up once every fourteen days. In Sterne’s Tristram Shandy Tristram described an incident which he is sure, after doing some counting, led to his conception in what had till then been a childless marriage of some years.

    Every Saturday fortnight, Mr Walter Shandy, a man of strict if eccentric habits, as his last act that night, wound up the clock before joining his wife in once-fortnightly congress. On one such occasion, just as he was near climax, Mrs Shandy suddenly blurted out,
    “My dear! You have forgot to wind the clock!”
    Tristram’s only recorded response of Mr Shandy was, “My God, woman!”
    Nevertheless he is certain that it was that moment when his conception occurred.

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