From http://encarta.msn.com the definition of:

Deceive:  Transitive verb; intentionally trick or mislead somebody: to mislead or deliberately hide the truth from somebody.

The reader should note that the definition has nothing to do with legal terms used in a court of law (note that Naive Americans use the term “court of law” as opposed to “court of justice”).  The definition is simple and direct.

From the same source on a closely related word:

Lie:  Deliberately say something untrue: to say something that is not true in a conscious effort to deceive somebody.

Lie:  Be deceptive: to give a false impression.

As one can easily rationalize, unless you are an attorney, that deceiving is the same action as lying.  Well perhaps you do not have to be an attorney to arrive to this simple conclusion.  It appears that our entire society has embarked in a deception voyage, which does not appear to have an end in site.  If you disagree, then as mandated by this site, let’s review some examples, which might help one, arrive to the proper conclusion.

I was shopping for groceries over the weekend and among other items, was in need for fruit juice for my grand daughters.  I picked up a pack of “Northland 100% Juice Cranberry Pomegranate” http://www.northlandjuices.com.  I have to confess that the kids liked the juice.  Before tossing the first empty container, I took a look at the ingredients.  You can do the same by going to the Northland web site.  They list them there.  For your pleasure and enjoyment and more important, to make a point, the list follows:

100% juice from apple, grape, pomegranate and cranberry juice concentrates (filtered water, juice concentrates), vegetable color, natural flavors, citric acid, fruit extracts (grape skin, blueberry, pomegranate, cranberry, red grape & apple), ascorbic acid (vitamin C), vitamin A palmitate, vitamin E acetate.

First and most important, I am confident that the good folks at Northland have made sure they follow the law as to what they are allowed to print advertise.  As mentioned above, my grand daughters like the product so my wife and I will purchase it again when the time comes.  That said, lets take a look at:  100% represents the whole.  There is no room for absolutely anything else.  In this case 100% juice also contains things that cannot be passed or confused by juice.  Perhaps this is just wording and I might not have achieved the mastery of the English language as the people that wrote the labels.  If you look the main label on the front of the container is reads:  “100% Juice Cranberry Pomegranate”.  I believe it should read:  ”Apple Juice” and in small size font:   ”including some cranberry and pomegranate juice”.

If you watch TV at all, you probably have watched repeatedly ads for Plavix www.plavix.com.  If you have not, the web site has a milder ad.  Plavix is a prescription drug aimed at reducing your chances of having a heart attack or stoke.  If you were somewhat experienced (not to say an older folk) you would probably feel compelled to call your primary physician and explore the need to start taking this drug.  If you do so, make sure you read and discuss with your physician the disclaimers.  In my opinion they do a better job to discourage a Naive American from taking the drug than the commercials.  But that is just my opinion.

Once again, the ads, literature, etc, etc, etc regarding Plavix are following established guidelines by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), but many Naive Americans might be “deceived” into taking a drug that might easily be avoided by proper exercise and nutritional habits.  Yes, I know, it is easier to take a pill and ignore the rest.

Speaking of pharmaceutical companies and taking pills, last weekend, as usual, I watched “60 Minutes” on CBS.  There was a segment that called my attention.  It is relative common knowledge that a glass of red wine (yes, red wine, not an apple) a day helps reduce heart deceases.  It appears that there is a substance in the skin of red grapes called resveratrol that is believed to be the reason.  One of the two founders of the startup company that is in the process of developing a pill that concentrates the substance (probably in synthetic form) stated that a single pill contains the equivalent of 1,000 bottles of wine.  A standard wine bottle typically holds four glasses of wine.  I can clearly see how the conclusion came about by observing French people drink thousands of red wine bottles a day for years.  As long as the startup company continues to follow the scientific approach and is able to reach to the proper conclusions, all is well.  I have to congratulate the founders for their hard work.  A pharmaceutical giant recently purchased the start up company for about three quarters of a billion US Dollars.  I believe we will soon be watching ads on TV instructing Naive Americans about the benefits (and side effects) of this new drug.

This Naive American calls on fellow Americans to reflect about the consequences of what we say, how we say it, and what we do not say.  Deceiving people will sooner or later catch up with our society.  At this rate perhaps some Naive Americans might stop believing on what career politicians, preachers, business people, etc, etc, etc tell us.

Do you have FAITH that things will change?

Many Naive Americans very frequently hope that somehow, out of the blue, things will work out. A different expression often used in the same context is to “have faith.” These ways of thinking are quite common in the USA.

From a random on-line dictionary selected from http://www.onelook.com:

HOPE: To have a wish to get or do something or for something to happen or be true, especially something that seems possible or likely.

FAITH: Complete trust or confidence.

I am not going to address the above listed words in the context of religion because it is completely subjective and unfounded.

Naive Americans wish for many things every day. When we were children we probably wished that a particular teacher wouldn’t make it to school because we did not complete our homework. Perhaps we wished we were sick for a day or two in order to miss school and stay home in bed watching TV. Perhaps we wished to call the attention of a specific girl or boy and become good friends. Perhaps we wished that as the holiday season approached, we would receive certain presents. The list goes on and on.

As we get older our wishing behavior continues. We might get up in the morning and wish for lighter traffic. Here in the Twin Cities we might wish for a snow day, especially on a Friday so we can get a three-day weekend. Perhaps we wish that our boss will call us into their office and congratulate us with a promotion or (better yet) with raise. I don’t know about you, but I wish the Vikings would win the Super Bowl. I might hope to win the Powerball lottery and tell my boss the cliché line: “Take this job and shove it”. And finally my favorite one, I hope that our president elect will bring change to America.

Lets spend a few moments reflecting on the few examples we mentioned.

I lived in and around the Twin Cities for decades and, with time, the amount of traffic has gotten worse. If I leave home shortly before 07:00 AM, after my car pooling duties are met, I am able to get to work no later than 07:30 AM during the warm months and about 07:45 AM in the cold months. Darkness and snow tend to slow down commuters. If, for some reason I leave home fifteen minutes later, the same route takes about one hour. I can hope and wish for the best, become an aggressive driver (which I am not) or make sure I leave on time.

Our professional football team, the Vikings have never won a Supper Bowl. I can wish and hope they will do it this year. What is in my power to affect the outcome? Many naive sports fans argue that attending all the games (at least the local ones) will help the players feel their “energy” and improve their game. This is certainly a subjective response. The way the players perform on the field is a direct function of the dedication and training they have as individuals and as a team. The coach may have some effect because he is an observer able to provide a different view. One way or another, it appears that the best prepared team with the best attitude wins. My hopping and wishing are quite irrelevant.

Regarding president-elect Obama, in the past few weeks he has been busy putting together his team / staff for when he takes office next month. Obama was elected because Naive Americans heard his promises for change. Given that things on different fronts have been deteriorating in the US since the early 1950′s the American people are hoping and wishing for change. What the Naive American is wishing and hoping for is that a small group of politicians will come up with plans which would improve the state of affairs in all (at least in most) fronts and the changes will not require pain and work by the country as a whole.

Instead of hoping and wishing someone will solve America’s issues, every Naive American has to change in a way that improves what we do at home, at work, and with strangers, regardless if we are a member of the night cleaning crew in an office building, a third shift union auto worker (I would assume that third shifts are no longer labored), an engineer designing software for medical applications, or the CEO of a company that believes he deserves millions of dollars and flies on the company jet.

Please note that the last paragraph has nothing to do with religion or faith. It just has to do with work, morals and ethics.

Vocabulary-Vocabulary.com defines Accountability as:

To account for something is to take responsibility or to answer for something. When you are accountable for something, you must answer for it, account for it, or take responsibility for it.

We Americans must feel better, now that we have elected a new administration that will bring CHANGE to the USA.  CHANGE, however, is not the topic of this blog.  I would like to address Accountability in three ways to allow the Naive American to spend time pondering over the implications; this won’t be pretty.

As the new set of “career politicians” take control of the USA they need to realize they were elected because they made the Naive American believe they had intentions for CHANGE.  More importantly, these politicians also made most Americans believe they had realistic plans to make CHANGE happen.  Four to six years from now, we will see the results of the new administration’s promises.  At that time each and every elected official should be made accountable for their results.  I am going to defer what ACCOUNTABLE entails to a different post.  What we need to understand is that the USA is no longer in a position to continue to collapse due to premeditated actions by politicians.

Now we need to shift gears and take a look at all Americans and ask ourselves, “what if we were held accountable for our actions on a social level?”

Lets go over a few examples.  A judge, the members of the jury and the prosecuting attorneys find an innocent individual guilty.  You might be surprised how often this occurs.  In some cases the defendant has spent decades in prison for a crime he or she did not commit.  The individual is released from prison and hopefully, might get compensation from the city or state.  Nothing happens to the people responsible for sending an innocent person to prison.  They are not held ACCOUNTABLE for their actions.

Stockbrokers in Wall Street accidentally run into the overruled “bucket law”, mysteriously and magically passed in the final days of the Bill Clinton administration.  They were quickly able to amass hundreds of millions, and even billions of dollars.  The US economy collapses, then the stockbrokers and the career politicians that passed the bill into law have not been held ACCOUNTABLE.

Salaried employees with the typical 8:00 AM to 05:00 PM job usually take an hour off for lunch.  Many people claim to take less time during lunch so they can come late and leave early.  Avoidance of rush traffic hours is a pretty standard rationalization.  Eventually, people get used to arriving at work later, taking longer lunches and heading home earlier.  Keep in mind that most people “mentally” leave work an hour or so before the end of the day (checking the time, talking on their cell phones, chatting with coworkers, planning last minute activities and errands, etc.).  This is extremely common on Fridays any day before holidays.  Take a few minutes and add the number of minutes taken away from the workday.  Multiply them by the number of days in a year and by the number of employees in a company.  Last, but not least, multiply the time by the average salary (if such a thing exists).  The typical Naive American steals thousands of US dollars from their employers a year.

I love in a city home to a major commercial airline, it is also a hub.  Many planes congregate towards the end of the day to start services early morning.  The interiors of planes need to be vacuumed overnight.  Maintenance employees belong to a union.  Very often employees with seniority would go to sleep in the planes while the new recruits clean the planes.  Are those Naive American union workers held ACCOUNTABLE for their actions?

A lady I know started work at a new night job.  She was trained how to assemble different electrical assemblies and harnesses.  As a new employee the first day she had put together twenty harnesses during her eight hour shift.  At the end of her workday the supervisor shows up to inspect the work.  She was told not to stress or overwork herself.  A dozen harnesses of that type a day was all she had to do.  Innocently (naively) she mentioned that the job was simple and with additional practice she could easily put together a couple dozen units a day.  The union supervisor told her not to.  As most Naive Americans know, labor is one of the largest contributors to the end price of goods.  Should anyone be held ACCOUNTABLE for this situation?

The Naive American should realize we cannot just blame others for the issues in our country and our lives.  Our country, economy and society are collapsing and we all need to make changes before it is too late!