Lies, Damn Lies and the Fools Who Believe Them

Lies, Damn Lies and the Fools Who Believe Them
By DOUG THOMPSON
Capitol Hill Blue
Jun 27, 2005, 07:45

A bumper sticker on a car outside a coffee shop in the tiny Southwestern Virginia mountain town of Floyd, Virginia, says it all:

“We’re making enemies faster than we can kill them.”

You didn’t used to see such bumper stickers in a conservative town like Floyd where American flags fly from every light pole on holidays and adorn most pickup trucks on the road.

Now they seem to pop up everywhere.

“These colors don’t run…the rest of the world” proclaims another. My wife is fond of one that says “Born just fine the first time.”

At the town’s Friday Night Jamboree, a weekly gathering of bluegrass fans from all over the world, a 70-ish fiddle player opened his set with “let’s have a moment of silence for all the Americans who have died in George W. Bush’s illegal war.” Nobody booed or got upset. They stood silent for 60 seconds and then cheered and clapped wildly when the music started.

If opposition to Bush’s lies-backed invasion of Iraq can appear openly in a traditional, flag-waving Blue Ridge mountain community like Floyd, you can be sure it runs rampant in other, larger places in America.

Polls show Bush’s job approval rating dropping faster than General Motors stock while American opposition to his war climbs. Most Americans now oppose the war in Iraq and question both Bush’s honesty and his reasons for invading another country.....