Someone in higher education needs to admit that lying, cheatingand stealing are standard operating procedure for about 30 percentof Americans.

That 30 percent is a Republican “majority” who takepride in their lies. They defend them like a mama bear whose cub isthreatened.

Average folks with regular jobs are paying debts racked up by anew American oligarchy in a “pre-emptive” war onIraq.

Restructured income taxes fail to efficiently redistributeincome and ease the burden on the super wealthy while weighingheavily on the shoulders of the working poor.

In addition, the Bush administration’s privatization bentmeans that government contracts (in many areas, but especially forreconstructing of Iraqi oil fields) are being handed to hugecorporations.

The unlimited corporate wealth drawn from the public teat byBechtel, Halliburton or General Electric couldn’t becontained by a single bank account, or even a single bank.

These titans of industry don’t actually work themselves.Instead they decide what work others should do for them. That workis disinformation.

They pay their minions fabulous wages that, despite thosewages’ inability to dent billions in assets, tend to lurethose minions into agreement with economic theories that serve therich and make the poor and middle-class even poorer.

Corporate giants spend millions on lobbyists, politicaladvertising, campaign financing and especially owning media of allsorts. Ownership allows control over messages coming fromnewspapers, radio and television. They don’t write storiesbut they can fire those who publish stories undermining theirideology.

The underhanded, win-at-all-cost tactics are not new. JoeMcCarthy and Richard Nixon employed them directly. But thesetactics have become more extreme and stealthy in the post-Reganera.

The best recent analysis of the conservative stronghold onAmerican business, politics and media came out of HarvardUniversity. This is odd, considering a huge portion of thisoligarchy sport degrees from the institution on the wall of thoselightly-utilized offices.

This is not the work of an esteemed economist or politicalscientist with the best credentials. It took Al Franken, acomedian, to see how sadly funny it is that conservative venom iseating away at the American community.

Franken is a Harvard Graduate. But he has divorced himself fromthe pro-establishment position and advocacy of that university.

Scholarship and accuracy are vivid in his book, “Lies: Andthe Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at theRight.” The 12 pages of end-notes and prodigious footnotesthroughout cite specific lies by right wing politicians andbroadcasters. His position, that the people in power are”stupid bastards” is made strong with the evidence.

Franken points out the multiple lies of people in power that,unlike Bill Clinton’s statements about his relationship withMonica Lewinsky, actually affected policy decisions and the lot ofAmericans and people around the world.

Both Presidents Bush, Vice President Cheney, White House PressSecretary Ari Fleischer, National Security Advisor CondoleezzaRice, and Karl Rove, an in-house Bush political strategist, areamong the many politicians he focuses on.

Commentators Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, George F. Will, SeanHannity, and, as Franken refers to him, Bill O’lie-lly of FoxNews all are attacked with good reason and extreme prejudice.

The United States Government lives in the adversarial world ofpolitics. A book like this ought to be used to illustrate how handto hand political combat plays out in national and stategovernments.

As academic texts go, this book could never be described as one.It is not a dry listing of the facts. Franken describes his ownarguments as “funny and attractive.” Beyond that theyare the truth, not to mention hilarious.

An entertaining, and vehemently partisan book,”Lies” easily proves democrats have cornered the marketon compassion, helping average Americans live better and, mostimportantly, telling the truth.

The communications, government and history departments atSacramento State should encourage professors to use this book toexpose the unabashed hubris of this well-heeled segment ofsociety.

Is Andrew’s column fair and balanced? Send comments [email protected]