JetScootr's Journal: Lies

I'm tired of being lied to. I'm talking about spin control from politicians, advertising, well, actually, any public statement made by any public person, and all statements made by corporations. Maybe these people sometimes tell the truth, I don't know. It's hard to find the truth among the lies, even though the truth of a statement is easy to determine. This is just a rant now, but later I'll add rational explanations of this rant, links to examples, what I think should be/could be done about it, etc. This has been on my mind for some time, but writing this is a big job, and I've held off. So I'll try doing it in little pieces, as I get time. Just some quickies:

• Spokesdroids for big companies, industries, and lobby groups that claim to represent the customers of those companies, industries, lobbies, etc. Anything these people say is a lie; that's their job.

• Any part of government that tries to block citizen's access to information that the government holds, with a few exceptions. The only gov't held info that should be kept secret:
  == Info on a citizen that the citizen wants kept private. This should start from a standard set, and be expandable to nearly all personal info, as determined by the citizen. Citizen info that should be public: Arrest/ trial/ conviction info, to ensure true justice; Public service records for all elected positions; Yes/No service info on all paid positions ("Yes, he served in the USAF from Mar 1, 1980 to Mar 2, 1984"), maybe a few others... let me know what you think should be public.
  == Stuff that is truly, actually part of national security. Specific plans for attack/defense; Not locations of things in the US that anybody can drive up and see. Specific details of technologies used to defend the US; Not technologies that are in the bizniz interest of US companies to keep secret; etc.
  == Negotiations records and meetings, while the negotiations are in progress. After a contract is awarded, or a treaty signed, all these records should be made public immediately.

• advertising that is deceptive. I'm not talking about the legal definition of deception in advertising, but what actually does decieve: car ads that fool teenage boys into thinking hot cars==hot sex; ads for exercise/diet products that show professional bodybuilders whose bodies were not built by the product;etc.