Pants on Fire

FTR: I wrote this well before Charlottesville. Despite Nazi references, it has nothing to do with Charlottesville.

"The Big Lie" is most often attributed to Adolph Hitler's evil genius friend and Reich Minister of Propaganda from 1933 to 1945, Paul Joseph Goebbels. However, Mein Kampf described and named it first, attributing it to Jews. (Regardless of who may have first described or named the technique, I'd bet its use dates to the invention of hominid communication.) In any case, Goebbels only paraphrased Mein Kampf as to the Big Lie, albeit scapegoating a different ethnicity:

The essential English leadership secret does not depend on particular intelligence. Rather, it depends on a remarkably stupid thick-headedness. The English follow the principle that when one lies, one should lie big, and stick to it. They keep up their lies, even at the risk of looking ridiculous.

Although he would never admit it, George W. Bush, knew how to work the Big Lie stragedy (sic). And, why not? Master propagandist Lee Atwater worked for both Reagan-Bush and Bush-Quayle. Karl Rove, a "natural" mentored by Atwater, worked for both Bush-Quayle and Bush 43-Cheney. Anyway, with (much too) much help from media, Bush the Lesser once told us that we had to invade Iraq because Iraq had been involved in both the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center and in 911. All the rest of the world knew better. Yet, Bush said it with a straight face, unless you count his perennial smirk.

Just to make certain that Americans knew the "need" to invade Iraq was not limited to anything so base as revenge, Bush also lied that Saddam Hussein had WMD that was likely destined for us. Um, the same Saddam Hussein who humbly esked if the US would mind if Iraq invaded Kuwait over a border dispute? The one who cowered in a hole for about nine months after the US gave advance notice that it would invade his country? That guy would have launched an offensive against the USA, rather than be pampered in his palace? Really? (Back then, we adorably pretended that we were bombing the Middle East only in retaliation for 911 and in oxymoronic pre-emptive "defensive" strikes. Now, we don't bother giving Americans excuses.)

Anyway....Bush 43 ungrammatically shared a thought about politicians and propaganda that was not very different from that described by Hitler and Goebbels, except that Bush claimed he was spreading truth:

In my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda.

(President George W. Bush, in an interview with the Jerusalem Post, Washington, D.C., May 12, 2008) And, in 2014, just to frost that cake (and me) Congress lifted a 60-year old prohibition against the U.S. government's "propagandizing" US citizens, cutely as an amendment to the national defense budget. (Pop quiz: Would government require legislative authority to tell its citizens the truth, especially if so doing enhanced national defense?)

The Big Lie is not the only thing that our politicians seem to have borrowed. The following appeared in the psychological profile of Hitler prepared by the U.S. Office of Strategic Services:

His primary rules were: never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it.

Hmm. Does that sound like what Republicans do to Democrats and vice versa? Or what neoliberalconsTM do to those left of them? And what all of them do in so many contexts? How about how Hillary victimsplained her 2016 election loss? Or how the Obama administration and Congress .govsplained it? And so on.

FWIW, Hitler did not originate the faultless politician strategy, either. Some rulers, ancient and relatively modern, even claimed to be gods. And here's a Big Truth, from me: What wikipedia describes about the Big Lie propaganda, politicians who take no responsibility, etc. is still very much with us.

For sifting through whatever politicians and media try to sell you, I offer these: Question everything; assume nothing; "follow the money;" and ask yourself, "cui bono?" And, even after all that, at least half their lies would get past an Einstein. But the lies they try to sell us are not the half of it. Harder than falsehood to detect is the dishonesty of keeping very secret things they should disclose.

Maybe someone will now and again out the truth, as did Wyden and Snowden with the NSA and de facto, repeal of the Fourth Amendment without the consent of the governed (who happen to foot the bills). Or maybe someone will publish pics from the next Abu Ghraib or Bagram. Should we happen to find out, they'll likely mock us dismissively with the weaponized term, "conspiracy" theory.

Oh, and ignore the claims that the secrecy, deceit and "least untruthful" bs is all for our own good, to protect us. Our enemies, real and alleged, know more than we American plebes ever will because they have their own intelligence gathering and we don't. For example, who knew years before you heard of Snowden not to phone home or email? Well, among others, erstwhile Public Enemy #1 (literally), Osama Ben Laden, who used only couriers, much like a Caesar or a Spartan king. I bet Middle Easterners also knew about Abu Ghraib before you did, too, since it was in their midst. No, dear reader, their secrecy is far more about protecting them from embarrassment, and them from us, than it is about their protecting us.

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Bollox Ref's picture

At this point in time, the major role of government is to lie about the lies of yesterday, lie about today, and prepare notes for the lies to be given out tomorrow regarding the lies of today.

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Gëzuar!!
from a reasonably stable genius.

@Bollox Ref

You have such a marvelous way with words, history, etc.

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Bollox Ref's picture

@HenryAWallace

Glad to be of service.

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Gëzuar!!
from a reasonably stable genius.

Bisbonian's picture

is far more about protecting them from embarrassment, and them from us, than it is about their protecting us."

pretty much my guiding principle.

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"I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” —Malcolm X

@Bisbonian

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@Bisbonian
Most "state secrets" are kept in order to protected the governors from the governed, not to protect the governed from any external threat.

PS
Fun fact: Hitler spelled his name "Adolf", not "Adolph". In Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, the filmmakers get it wrong when Hitler signs old man Jones's grail notebook. (FWIW, I just checked wikipedia, which asserts that he was christened "Adolphus", but they mention no record of him ever using that full latinate name.)

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The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

@UntimelyRippd

Think I will leave it spelled in the essay the way that Hitler did not prefer it, though, even if the hide-encased turd can't see it from the Ninth Circle.

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@HenryAWallace
[video:https://youtu.be/ftgAG3Vnif8]

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The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

Queen and Eurythmics songs. Love Annie Lennox, miss Freddie terribly -- so gifted. Such overwhelmingly bad news this past summer I tried to retreat from it all. It's too much and music is the only way (for me anyway) to get through it. I been loading up my Ipod, yes, I still a 2nd generation Ipod, and tuning out! I don't like giving the $$ to Apple but WTF. At work, at the gym, at home I listen to music. Light fires in the firepit in the driveway on weekends, listen to tunes and look at what stars I can see with City light pollution and hope to DOG somehow in my lifetime we pull out of this toilet bowl swirl.

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O.k. When is the next meeting for the revolution?
-FuturePassed on Sunday, November 25, 2018 10:22 p.m.

@WIProgressive

Glad the songs inspired you to post.

Off Topic, your screen name brought to mind a true story told me by someone who worked in Manhattan's welfare department which, I think, was officially called Department of Social Services:

Before Clinton "reformed" welfare, someone somewhere thought giving welfare recipients financial incentives to go to work would be a good thing. Otherwise, the minute they got paycheck #1 that exceeded the amount of their welfare check, they'd get cut off from all benefits, which was both harsh and an incentive not to get a job. So they created such a program, naming it the Work Incentive Program, the acronym of which was WIP.

After they printed up who knows what all, trained welfare staff, etc., they realized at some point that naming a program designed for welfare recipients WIP probably was not the best idea. So, they re-named it and replaced all the original materials.

After I heard that story, I never named anything without first considering what the acronym would be.

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@HenryAWallace Really apt to me today also as I look at my screen name WIProgressive I am not sure I want to continue to be associated with anything labeled as "Progressive" anymore. Although after your story I am considering the acronym "W(h)IP"! Also, considering how f'ing stupid the Gov. and Legislature is being in WI, especially over foxCON, I am not sure I want to be associated with WI anymore either! Just blatantly stealing our tax money and giving it to a foreign corporation that most likely will not result in the jobs they are touting. Even Sen. Johnson is asking should Illinois contribute some tax dollars because that state will supposedly also benefit from the "job creation". This state is so f'ing stupid and so is the country. Sorry for the rant! That's the reason why I stay away -- that's all I have to offer anymore is rants or snark!

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O.k. When is the next meeting for the revolution?
-FuturePassed on Sunday, November 25, 2018 10:22 p.m.

@WIProgressive

Second, it's not true that you have only rants and snark to offer. For example, you've offered me encouragement to keep posting.

If you don't want to come around simply because you don't want to come around, though, that's up to you, of course.

P.S. Your screen name also reminded me of the one thing Sarah Palin ever said that I found funny: http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/140641-wtf-says-palin-o...

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Meteor Man's picture

@HenryAWallace

WTF! See you in the next life.

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"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn

@Meteor Man

But, we don't want you to go. Is there anything I can do to help revive you?

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@HenryAWallace

You'd think anyone with the initials BO would be more tuned into WTF.

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"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon

@dkmich

paid big bucks from taxpayers to review the SOTU.

His initials are BHO, but BO led to Big O for his fans and Big 0 (zero) for his critics.

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@HenryAWallace Thanks Henry! I usually never miss EB. Best compilation of news anywhere. Maybe I will break out of the funk soon!

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O.k. When is the next meeting for the revolution?
-FuturePassed on Sunday, November 25, 2018 10:22 p.m.

@WIProgressive

We'll leave the light on for you.

Yep. This board has any number of worthwhile posters, but Shikspak is one of this board's phenoms. I love all the daily open threads, too, each special in its own way. And lookout pulls together the news of the week on the weekend.

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@HenryAWallace
the entire English language will be consumed by acronyms. Obliterated. Like kudzu devouring a forest.

WTF? IDK and YVMD but IMHO USG, NASA, CIA & MSNBC are in on the plot.

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native

@native

FTR, and only BTW, I once asked people what they'd name a new political party. Someone offered Great American Party, which I loved, except for the acronym.

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Isn't it more that they're slipping lies into every side of every discussion so that there can be no truth anymore?

The CNN narrative of Charlottesville is clearly agenda driven bullshit. Something's happening that we're not seeing. But you will never hear a dispassionate discussion of what we know, what we don't, and what just feels off. Someone might wonder, rightly, where all these Nazis suddenly came from, and how antifa got so big, and what the government was trying to do by essentially engineering a riot. But the only people allowed to say those things in public have been preselected for their known tendencies to bring up the Elders of Zion in the next sentence. And that's not an accident either. Because it means you can't trust anyone, so you might as well give up.

Can't wait to see how super awesome the lives of poor people instantly become the day after a Confederate statue comes down. Yeah, these are the real issues.

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@Cassandrus

refers to Congress and the President claiming Russia "hacked the election" and destroyed the democracy for which our troops gave their lives, etc. This bs was later dialed back to "meddling," then ratcheted back up as far as "interfering," but initial terminology and hyperbole matters, as politicians probably know:

Believing is not a two-stage process involving first understanding then believing. Instead understanding is believing, a fraction of a second after reading it, you believe it until some other critical faculty kicks in to change your mind. We really do want to believe, just like Agent Mulder.

http://www.spring.org.uk/2009/09/why-you-cant-help-believing-everything-...

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@HenryAWallace @HenryAWallace @HenryAWallace

I know my opinion is not shared on this site. But I think the Russian scandal is not an example of the Big Lie, but of the Infinite Little Lies.

I think Trump is super corrupt, he's been in bed with Russian mobsters up to his ass for years, and his team did break eighteen laws til Tuesday and the Russians are definitely trying to fuck with us.

I also think Team Hillary, being inbred Washington insiders and Her being not unfamiliar with shady Russians Herself, seized on these early rumors and warning signs to concoct the tale of "17 agencies" and a DNC "hack," which now looks very liked to be a leak instead.

What's great about this strategy is that it paralyzes all inquiries through gaslighting. Think the DNC is up to no good? "LOL neo Nazi racist sexist Trumpster but her emails LOL." Think something bad did happen with respect to Russia? "LOL Sharia Blue Hillbot David Brock Podesta chuck LOL!"

You have to pick a side, one side only, and declare your loyalty, or everyone goes after you.

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@Cassandrus

discussion focuses on issues. In fact, everyone agreeing on everything could be boring. However, we may not be communicating well. When I say something like "Russia hacked our election and destroyed our democracy" is a Big Lie, I am not saying that Russia did nothing. I am not saying that Russia did something, either. For my purposes in an essay like this, it is totally irrelevant who was behind it. What is relevant is whether my government lied to me. Therefore I am saying only that there is a huge difference between "hacking an election," and put out information about one of the candidates, at least some of which is truthful.

Regardless who was responsible for putting out the DNC and Podesta emails that was truthful data about Hillary's campaign. Pizzagate was not truthful, no matter who was behind it. But even putting out untruthful info is still not hacking and election or killing our democracy, even assuming we ever had a democracy. (We never did: we are, and always have been, a republic with varying degrees of suffrage--and a bought and sold one at that.)

Most people, Luddite or not, recognize "hacking" as a term for messing with a computer in a way you should not. An election involves voting, not yapping about a candidate. Many people in this country vote by a machine that involves software. Hence, the specific term "hacking an election" implies hacking voting machines to flip the result from Hillary to Trump. That's why I referred to other terms, like "meddling in an election" whose connotation is much closer to the truth than hacking and election, but still false. I wrote an essay on this, but without including the pizzagate story or other falsehoods. IOW, my essay was only about the DNC and Podesta emails. https://caucus99percent.com/content/big-lie-russia-interfered-us-preside...

What's great about this strategy is that it paralyzes all inquiries through gaslighting. Think the DNC is up to no good? "LOL neo Nazi racist sexist Trumpster but her emails LOL." Think something bad did happen with respect to Russia? "LOL Sharia Blue Hillbot David Brock Podesta chuck LOL!"

Sounds like a complaint about someone other than I. In fact, it sounds like another board. Arguing with people who argue that way is a total waste of time. They are either not serious people and/or they are dishonest. I wouldn't bother, but that's me.

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@HenryAWallace

Or maybe it's a Big Lie Plus.

Big Lie is the name of a very specific tactic, yes? It's not about lying. It's about telling a lie so completely outrageous no one who knows the truth can believe you said it, so no one even knows how to answer it, and at first no one expects you to be believed because it's so ridiculous. Then you repeat it constantly nonstop until it becomes accepted truth.

I think this strategy was tried with the Russian stuff.

But I don't think the Big Lie is the only or worst propaganda tactic that's happening now. I think spreading lies into every side of the story is much worse, because now most people don't know what to believe.

The gaslighting I quoted isn't about what someone said to me on a message board. It's what they're doing to the whole country. Forcing people to pick from one of two official sides though both sides are just telling different lies.

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@Cassandrus

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@Cassandrus
And there's an immediate effort to remove him from office; belligerence abroad increases; and the atmosphere of civil war gets promoted in the US.

If Hillary had won, what exactly would be different? So, who benefits from that 'choice' we had in 2016?

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Orwell: Where's the omelette?

@jim p

benefited most since the Koch brothers and a bunch of corporations godfathered the Democratic Leadership Council in the 1980s. The people who hang with the Bohemian Grove crowd and the Bilderburg Group.

In Big Bang Theory, genius Sheldon Cooper reads brilliant stuff from a notebook he kept as a child. Penny, the affable woman next door, like me, understood not a word. When he finishes reading, she says, "I'm just a blonde monkey to you, aren't I?"

Compared to the Bilderburg crowd, we're all just blonde monkeys.

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@HenryAWallace watching an ancient China drama: someone from the North nobility says "Southerners are just monkeys with hats."

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Orwell: Where's the omelette?

@jim p @jim p

"I'm only a human to you, aren't I?

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Meteor Man's picture

The Big Lie is the strategy. It's good to have goals, but they have to be achievable. Strategy requires tactics to achieve the goal.

There are others, but the most notorious "Big Lie" in America may be Liberal Media! The narrative of "the liberal media" has been driven by the tactic of endless repetition by the Right Wing Noise Machine.

A new tactic, which is behind the new big lie of "The Alt Left" is The Rescue Game, which was described at The Archdruid Report (gone now) which I summarized here:

The Recue Game is based on Transactional Analysis, which examines the roles that people play in social situations, rather than focus on the inner conflicts experienced by the patient. The pop psychology classic I'm OK, You're OK was based on transactional analysis.
Here's how we play the game as described by The Archdruid.

This is how The Rescue Game works:

Here’s how it works. Each group of players is assigned one of three roles: Victim, Persecutor, or Rescuer. The first two roles are allowed one move each: the Victim’s move is to suffer, and the Persecutor’s move is to make the Victim suffer. The Rescuer is allowed two moves: to sympathize with the Victim and to punish the Persecutor. No other moves are allowed, and no player is allowed to make a move that belongs to a different role.

That may seem unduly limited. It’s not, because when a group of people is assigned a role, all their actions are redefined as the move or moves allotted to that role. In the Rescue Game, in other words, whatever a Victim does must be interpreted as a cry of pain. Whatever a Persecutor does is treated as something that’s intended to cause pain to a Victim, and whatever a Rescuer does, by definition, either expresses sympathy for a Victim or inflicts well-deserved punishment on a Persecutor. This is true even when the actions performed by the three people in question happen to be identical. In a well-played Rescue Game, quite a bit of ingenuity can go into assigning every action its proper meaning as a move.

What’s more, the roles are collective, not individual. Each Victim is equal to every other Victim, and is expected to feel and resent all the suffering ever inflicted on every other Victim in the same game. Each Persecutor is equal to every other Persecutor, and so is personally to blame for every suffering inflicted by every other Persecutor in the same game. Each Rescuer, in turn, is equal to every other Rescuer, and so may take personal credit for the actions of every other Rescuer in the same game. This allows the range of potential moves to expand to infinity without ever leaving the narrow confines of the game.

https://caucus99percent.com/content/rescue-game

"Bernie Bros" are The Persecutors, the New Dems are coming to the rescue, protecting America from The Alt Left with their new and improved Centrism.

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"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn

@Meteor Man

strategy itself. The strategy, tactic or technique is the one described in the quote from Goebbels that is in the essay, which I will paraphrase as follows: Tell a big lie, not a small one, and keep repeating it.

Then there are many, many specific examples of Big Lie, such as "Only white males supported Bernie during the 2015-16 primary season." or "Comey made Hillary lose the election." Or "We have to invade Iraq because Saddam Hussein was involved with the 1993 and 2001 attacks on the Twin Towers" and has WMD he is likely to use to attack us again."

Sorry if the essay did not make that clear.

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Meteor Man's picture

@HenryAWallace And this too:

strat·e·gy
ˈstradəjē/noun

a plan of action or policy designed to achieve a major or overall aim.
"time to develop a coherent economic strategy"

synonyms: master plan, grand design, game plan, plan (of action), action plan, policy, program; More
the art of planning and directing overall military operations and movements in a war or battle.
synonyms: the art of war, (military) tactics

"military strategy"
a plan for military operations and movements during a war or battle.
"nonprovocative defense strategies"

http://www.google.com/search?source=hp&ei=E9CVWf31G8q4jwP7h4-gCA&q=strat...

And tactic:

tac·tic
ˈtaktik/noun

an action or strategy carefully planned to achieve a specific end.
synonyms:

strategy, scheme, stratagem, plan, maneuver;
More: the art of disposing armed forces in order of battle and of organizing operations, especially during contact with an enemy.

synonyms: strategy, policy, campaign, battle plans, game plans, maneuvers, logistics;

http://www.google.com/search?source=hp&ei=LdCVWbH1EISajwPcx5voDg&q=tacti...

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"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn

@Meteor Man

I'm not sure what your post is intended to imply, but thanks.

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@HenryAWallace Meteor Man mentioned the Liberal Media as a Big Lie, and I think that's a good example. (Although it's more confusing during the age when liberals are neoliberals.)

Not sure Alt Left is. It's a Big Lie when used by Joy Reid to label the Bernie Bros. Not sure it's exactly a lie when used by some people to describe antifa and other violent assholes. The complexity makes it a bit Infinite Little Lie-esque.

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@Cassandrus

Rights era. There was an event, maybe Selma, that turned the media around on reporting those stories. And, supposedly, from that point forward, the coverage was sympathetic to
TM

In any event, from 1933 (34?) through January 1933, it well may have seemed to the right wing that establishment media was liberal. And to the left wing that establishment media was Goldilocks objective. Of course, the media was in fact more objective before we had 24 hour news and then 24 hour political news. And internet news and commentary changed the entire ballgame and still is.

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@Meteor Man the original inventors of identity politics?

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Orwell: Where's the omelette?

@jim p

and identity politics are baked into the entire history of the Democratic Party. Someone probably invented the name identity politics, but the existence of what we call identity politics is dictated by the history of the Party.

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One of the most important political theorists of the 20 th century

(well, that sure seems like a long time ago that that century passed, or is it me?....)

I vividly recall reading her 1967 article in The New Yorker. Don't recall the exact details, but think about it often and have several of her books but have not read them recently.

In what is possibly the finest parenthetical paragraph ever written, and one of particularly cautionary splendor today, Arendt adds:

(Oddly enough, the only person likely to be an ideal victim of complete manipulation is the President of the United States. Because of the immensity of his job, he must surround himself with advisers … who “exercise their power chiefly by filtering the information that reaches the President and by interpreting the outside world for him.” The President, one is tempted to argue, allegedly the most powerful man of the most powerful country, is the only person in this country whose range of choices can be predetermined. This, of course, can happen only if the executive branch has cut itself off from contact with the legislative powers of Congress; it is the logical outcome in our system of government when the Senate is being deprived of, or is reluctant to exercise, its powers to participate and advise in the conduct of foreign affairs. One of the Senate’s functions, as we now know, is to shield the decision-making process against the transient moods and trends of society at large — in this case, the antics of our consumer society and the public-relations managers who cater to it.)

This is from an article on Hannah Arendt

Lying in Politics: Hannah Arendt on Deception, Self-Deception, and the Psychology of Defactualization “No matter how large the tissue of falsehood that an experienced liar has to offer, it will never be large enough … to cover the immensity of factuality.”

Here is a link to New Yorker and the 1967 article. Not sure if it works. I subscribe so if I got there, might not mean that you could get there

Truth and Politics

There is a web site with her stuff on it -- somewhere

Doing a search found this article published yesterday

What philosopher Hannah Arendt would say about Donald Trump Donald Trump is not a totalitarian, but his creation of a social movement is very dangerous - and the left is enabling it, explains Roger Berkowitz, a scholar on renowned Jewish-German philosopher Hannah Arendt

She was THE expert on totalitarianism back then.

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@DonMidwest

I was able to access the article in the New Yorker via your link. However, I could not read very much of the article without subscribing.

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Pluto's Republic's picture

In just the past few days, as the Russia Hack of the DNC has been exposed as the conspiratorial Big Lie that it is — this news is finally filtering through the corporate media in places like WaPo and The Hill.

The pushback, filled with lies and misinformation big and small, are perfect illustrations to the propaganda doctrine in this essay.

For the first time in a long time, truth warriors can relax because those lies are being met and slain personally by Adam Carter, who along with the Forensicator, blew the lid off the Big DNC/Crowdstrike Lie about Russia. (This was the subject of my essay, The Road Stops Here.)

In today's episode, Distortions & Missing The Point, he takes on New York Magazine, Washington Post, and The Hill. You might like it.

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____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato

@Pluto's Republic

I wrote about the DNC and Podesta emails in March, if you are interested. https://caucus99percent.com/content/big-lie-russia-interfered-us-preside...

(I did not check to see if you commented on that thread.) The things you referenced seem interesting. I will look at them after I finish replying to everyone who posted on this thread. Thank you again.

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@Pluto's Republic

I will be interested to see if any consensus is ever reached on this. For example, I've seen The Nation get dismissed as having morphed into RT. Two or three millennia later, we're still killing the messenger when we don't like the news.

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earthling1's picture

for the old bumper sticker; Question Authority!

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Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.

@earthling1

Government and media lie. Beware!

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smiley7's picture

In the 1920s, Joseph Goebbels became an avid admirer of Bernays and his writings – despite the fact that Bernays was a Jew. When Goebbels became the minister of propaganda for the Third Reich, he sought to exploit Bernays’ ideas to the fullest extent possible. For example, he created a “Fuhrer cult” around Adolph Hitler.

"The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, and our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of…. It is they who pull the wires that control the public mind." ~ Edward Bernays, "Propaganda" 1928

Of course Trump has changed The Century of Self into The Century of Trump Smile

Thanks for the good read and thread!

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@smiley7

Lucky Strike Green Has Gone to War! https://www.old-time.com/commercials/1940%27s/Cigarette%20Pack%20Color.htm

Turns out, during the 20s and 30s, uranium was used to make greens, different shades of yellow (vaseline yellow, custard) and other colors. It was used all kinds of tableware and food storage--cannisters, spice containers, refrigerator dishes, etc. Radioactivity is even a selling point now: On ebay, some vendors use a black light to show how an item glows in the dark. YIKES!

And, of course, the crystal contained lead and still does. Plus, cigarette smoking was catching on. All kinds of pretty ashtrays, some in pink glass with hearts, some 8-shaped, so two people could smoke side by side, each with his or her own section of the ashtray.

It's a wonder those generations didn't die by 45, just from what they put their food and wine in and on.

At least World War II put an end to that by gobbling up all the uranium.

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smiley7's picture

@HenryAWallace

Interesting, learn something every day here. Cheers.

Long live Art Deco!

I can visualize a room full of this uranium glass and a doobie with great music. Smile

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