The Big Lie
Ross Barnett didn’t invent the big lie, but he was a practitioner. One might even say that Ross was to the manor born. The big lie had been a southern thing from the get go; comes with the turf. First you must lie to yourself, and so they did. Hitler appropriated, without acknowledgment, the concept in Mein Kampf, Chapter 10. That wasn’t all he appropriated from the American South; they had beaten him to a lot of the Nazi shtick.
Joseph McCarthy had given it a pretty good ride in the 1950s. Many a pol has flirted with it since then. Ross’s run was in the tumult of the early 1960s. Then, just when he thought he was being slick, he got exposed by northerners Jack and Bobby. Then, his whole career was flushed down the drain.
Of late, it has been Katy Bar the Door. After all these many years now, Newt is still purveying with all his little heart. Grover having done Goebbels proud; is still at it. Once the flood gates were opened, the Darrells, Treys, Dougs, Jims, Jims, Mitchs, Devins, Teds, Joshs, Mos, Marjories, Marthas, Cindys, Sarahs, . . . have just kept pouring in. The big lie, the profession, was not limited to politicians; in fact, in some cases, talk show hosts and opinion writers preceded the pols; paving the road to hell, if you will. Speaking of which, big-time practitioner Fox News paved the road for a lot of the political practitioners of the big lie. Not to mention any names, but a recently disposed SOB does come to mind.
Turns out, he, the SOB, that is, has long been a student of Adolf’s (Adolf ist SOB auf deutsch). Purloined the whole accusing your victim of what you yourself are doing, and so much more, von seinem lieben Anführer. Such as: leveraging a small percentage of support into the control of a larger group, co-opting law enforcement, defense, state, . . .
Tabloid politics has been around; Murdoch and Ailes didn’t invent it. They did weaponize it with propaganda and deploy it on a heretofore unknown scale. The recently disposed, epitomized, practiced, tabloid politics. Took him from the bowels of NYC’s tabloids to The White House. With a little help from Fox & Co, slimed his way to the top.
All of which has the psychologists still scratching their heads; why do so many of us like to be lied to?
People are far to easily manipulated and far to involved in their personal lives and challenges to even give politics any kind of critical thinking. We are drowned in distractions and our only life raft, fair and honest news reporting, has long since been sunk underwater.
Today all news is opinion. Stopping at red lights is an option. The ultimate regulator, our government, is rendered indifferent; incompetent if not actively involved in our confusion. Who has time to sift amongst the trivia to unearth honest reporting? The list of those who do are this blog, Naked Capitalism, Wolf Street and various special interest groups that give it an honest try, with lousy pay and almost a complete lack of funding from the wealthy. Why should the well to do, the ‘contented’ class, raise the awareness and knowledge of the public at large? Don’t be naïve, this class counsels. Well, their insouciance gave us Donald Trump and the ‘Big Lie,’ proving once again that wealth has little acquaintance with wisdom.
So much said in so few words . . . Well done, Ken.
No. we don’t like to be lied to. But we believe the lies we like. And once we believe them, we really don’t like to be told we believe a lie.
But that’s just the emotional aura. The neurological foundation is that the brain is not a truth machine. Or a logic machine. It is simply an association machine.
(It was a typical Big Lie speech. I watched a bit on CSPAN, til he got into saluting all ‘his tremendous supporters’ in attendance. BORING! )
People who are force-fed practically from birth on the authoritarian superstition and fables that is American religion know nothing but lies. When you’ve adopted the attitude of “When I believe it, I’ll see it”, facts cease to matter.
Blair
because i am a bit obsessive compulsive about these things it looks to me like in American schools you are more likely to be force-fed lies and fables…and superstitions about the evils of religion, I’d have to agree with you about authoritarian lies and facts ceasing to matter.
“anti-religion” turns out to be just another religion.
@Blair,Yes, religion/superstition is a big driver in human decisions. Religion/superstition neither causes nor prevents evil, it is just a human invention invoked to legitimize whatever collective evil the tribe was going to commit anyway.
joel
I wonder if your opinion is based on science?
My opinion — I wasn’t there at the time — is that “religion” may have started out as superstition…or near-superstition… or was at least mixed up with it as far back as we think we remember. But I think it’s roots come from someplace deeper in the human soul (if you will forgive such a word.) People wonder about things…hmmm…just like scientists, and they make up stories or explanations. Some of these turn out to be “wrong”, just as some “science turns out to be wrong. But just like science…which we may agree concerns itself with measurable things and, if you will, the “hard” parts of existence. While religion concerns itself with the soft — spiritual–parts of existence (that soul thing again). And — what I am calling religion here — just like “science” learns as it goes along and evolves (if I may borrow a word) into –what i think is–a deeper understanding.
Superstitions may be abandoned if they become untenable, or just unfashionable, but they don’t seem to evolve or get better or rely on much thought, I would call your version of “science” superstition, but you wouldn’t even know what I mean. Something like belief without evidence..not that there is no evidence for “chemistry” .. but that what you are talking about is not chemistry or any other known science.. it is a belief about science or about religion that has no basis in facts or any kind of knowledge other than it’s something you heard about or were taught in school, by people who may have been scientists, but who were talking out of school at the time.
Anyway, I can’t change your mind. One never does in matters of superstition. It even took science a few centuries to get the idea under some kind of control. Religion..the way I am using the word…does lead to changes of mind…that’s the whole point… but you are right that what people call relition is often hobbled by a large dose of superstition… but it is important to try to make the distinction.
oh, yeah, that other stuff…i call it politics…does use superstition where it finds it helpful. and often kills religion where it finds it troublesome.
if you look at all at religions as they are often practiced by “tribes” you may see that they–the practices– are often important aids to doing good.