“History is written by the winners.” As I Please, George Orwell
“History is re-written by losers who are trying to be winners.” Bill Tuttle
And one of the most effective techniques the losers use in their all-consuming scramble to displace the current winners (or to retain their power as current winners -- but regardless of whether they're the Outs or the Ins, they're still losers) is the Big Lie.
Now we know where Cloward and Piven got their ideas. But try to tell a Lefty that he’s using Adolph’s playbook and he’ll screech like a scalded owl and call you a racist homophobe or some such – but note that he won’t *deny* he’s doing it.
Why will people believe a big lie sooner than a little one? Simple. Most people will tell little lies, either for personal convenience (to receive a reward or to avoid punishment) or to spare the feelings of someone they love when the truth would be hurtful – every husband has faced the killer, “Does this dress make my ass look big, dear?” They’ll tell little lies but will hesitate at a real whopper either because they’re basically honest and couldn’t bring themselves to tell one, or because they’re wary of the consequences if the mark doesn’t believe them.
That’s how the Big Lie works –
1. people believe that no one could possibly tell a lie of such magnitude without being afraid of the consequences – the shame of public exposure as a liar, and
2. they fail to realize that the purveyor of the lie has no sense of shame in the first place.
And the Big Lie *does* work, and it works well. We’ve been seeing examples of it everywhere, for decades, from the “progressive” versions/perversions of textbooks used in our public school system to the pontifications of our political class.
By now you’re probably wondering where this is headed, and, because this isn’t a Whatziss post, I’m gonna tell you. There’s been one particular Big Lie going around that’s now so entrenched that even people who know better are accepting it as truth, and I got so tired of correcting individuals who spouted it that I promised myself I’d go full auto the next time I heard it.
Yesterday, I heard it – “We went to war in Iraq for a lie, because there were no WMD.”
Now, let’s start with the basics. WMD is an acronym for the old Soviet term for nukes (“Weapons of Mass Destruction”), which they distinguished from chem and bio agents (“Weapons of Mass Casualties”), while we lumped everything together, first under the acronym CBR (“Chemical, Biological, Radiological”) and later under NBC (“Nuclear, Biological, Chemical”). Somehow, probably because the boffins in the Five-Sided Puzzle Palace thought it was cool to use Sov terms for everything, WMD replaced NBC in MilSpeak, and the civilians in 1600 Pennsy thought it was cool to sprinkle their public pronouncements with MilSpeak terms (thus accruing Warrior Status Points without the onus of actually having to do, like, Warrior Stuff), WMD morphed into meaning *all* classes of unconventional weaponry, not merely nukes. The Russians are still pretty amused at that, by the way.
So, because Saddam had chemical weaponry and had a history of using them on his enemies, and because he let it be known that his bug guys were working on weaponizing germs of varying nastiness, and because he had a known on-again, off-again nuclear program, politicians who wanted to be in with the cool kids began referring to “Saddam’s WMD.” And they referred to them a lot – all through the ‘90s (and as late as 2003), every Democrat who got face time with a microphone talked about Saddam’s WMD and how unacceptable the situation was.
After the novelty of having waxed a modern army (albeit one with a thoroughly incompetent C-in-C) in a few days wore off, the Dems suddenly realized that George W. Bush had attained rock star status in the eyes of the voters. They panicked, and seized on the fact that Saddam hadn’t hit us with anything unconventional as the genesis of a new talking point for the 2004 election campaign.
“Where are the WMDs?”
They demanded that the troops stop whatever they happened to be doing and scour Iraq until they found Saddam’s stash.
Which was the tactical and logistical equivalent of demanding that the LAPD cease all cop work and scour the entire state of California for the disassembled parts of a white VW microbus – and, oh, by the way, we have no idea whether the parts are in a junkyard, someone’s garage, the kitchen of a tony restaurant, buried somewhere in the San Bernadino foothills, stuck in the branches of a random sequoia, or any and all combinations thereof.
Fortunately, no one in a position of genuine authority took such a stupid idea seriously.
Also fortunately, the troops were finding interesting stuff during their normal search-for-dirtbags-and-weapons-caches operations…
[To be continued…]
“History is re-written by losers who are trying to be winners.” Bill Tuttle
And one of the most effective techniques the losers use in their all-consuming scramble to displace the current winners (or to retain their power as current winners -- but regardless of whether they're the Outs or the Ins, they're still losers) is the Big Lie.
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. Hitler as His Associates Know Him (OSS profile of Hitler), p.51, note 26 – my emphasis)
Now we know where Cloward and Piven got their ideas. But try to tell a Lefty that he’s using Adolph’s playbook and he’ll screech like a scalded owl and call you a racist homophobe or some such – but note that he won’t *deny* he’s doing it.
Why will people believe a big lie sooner than a little one? Simple. Most people will tell little lies, either for personal convenience (to receive a reward or to avoid punishment) or to spare the feelings of someone they love when the truth would be hurtful – every husband has faced the killer, “Does this dress make my ass look big, dear?” They’ll tell little lies but will hesitate at a real whopper either because they’re basically honest and couldn’t bring themselves to tell one, or because they’re wary of the consequences if the mark doesn’t believe them.
That’s how the Big Lie works –
1. people believe that no one could possibly tell a lie of such magnitude without being afraid of the consequences – the shame of public exposure as a liar, and
2. they fail to realize that the purveyor of the lie has no sense of shame in the first place.
And the Big Lie *does* work, and it works well. We’ve been seeing examples of it everywhere, for decades, from the “progressive” versions/perversions of textbooks used in our public school system to the pontifications of our political class.
By now you’re probably wondering where this is headed, and, because this isn’t a Whatziss post, I’m gonna tell you. There’s been one particular Big Lie going around that’s now so entrenched that even people who know better are accepting it as truth, and I got so tired of correcting individuals who spouted it that I promised myself I’d go full auto the next time I heard it.
Yesterday, I heard it – “We went to war in Iraq for a lie, because there were no WMD.”
Now, let’s start with the basics. WMD is an acronym for the old Soviet term for nukes (“Weapons of Mass Destruction”), which they distinguished from chem and bio agents (“Weapons of Mass Casualties”), while we lumped everything together, first under the acronym CBR (“Chemical, Biological, Radiological”) and later under NBC (“Nuclear, Biological, Chemical”). Somehow, probably because the boffins in the Five-Sided Puzzle Palace thought it was cool to use Sov terms for everything, WMD replaced NBC in MilSpeak, and the civilians in 1600 Pennsy thought it was cool to sprinkle their public pronouncements with MilSpeak terms (thus accruing Warrior Status Points without the onus of actually having to do, like, Warrior Stuff), WMD morphed into meaning *all* classes of unconventional weaponry, not merely nukes. The Russians are still pretty amused at that, by the way.
So, because Saddam had chemical weaponry and had a history of using them on his enemies, and because he let it be known that his bug guys were working on weaponizing germs of varying nastiness, and because he had a known on-again, off-again nuclear program, politicians who wanted to be in with the cool kids began referring to “Saddam’s WMD.” And they referred to them a lot – all through the ‘90s (and as late as 2003), every Democrat who got face time with a microphone talked about Saddam’s WMD and how unacceptable the situation was.
After the novelty of having waxed a modern army (albeit one with a thoroughly incompetent C-in-C) in a few days wore off, the Dems suddenly realized that George W. Bush had attained rock star status in the eyes of the voters. They panicked, and seized on the fact that Saddam hadn’t hit us with anything unconventional as the genesis of a new talking point for the 2004 election campaign.
“Where are the WMDs?”
They demanded that the troops stop whatever they happened to be doing and scour Iraq until they found Saddam’s stash.
Which was the tactical and logistical equivalent of demanding that the LAPD cease all cop work and scour the entire state of California for the disassembled parts of a white VW microbus – and, oh, by the way, we have no idea whether the parts are in a junkyard, someone’s garage, the kitchen of a tony restaurant, buried somewhere in the San Bernadino foothills, stuck in the branches of a random sequoia, or any and all combinations thereof.
Fortunately, no one in a position of genuine authority took such a stupid idea seriously.
Also fortunately, the troops were finding interesting stuff during their normal search-for-dirtbags-and-weapons-caches operations…
[To be continued…]
Including Colin Powell, the man who convinced the UN Security Council that war was justified.
Don't stop, Bill... this stuff needs to get out there.
Also remember a report of an infranty unit finding 55 gallon drums of binary agent that when combined made nerve agent.
Then there is the video of all the dumb trucks filled with top soil headed for Syria
The buried NBC vehicles
well you get the idea
I'd be willing to bet that the thankfully late Saddam Hussein's WMDs went northwest to Syria while the USofA was busy herding coalition cats at the UN.
@ Mark: They have several networks: American Broadcasting Communists, PMSNational Broadcasting Communists, Communist Broadcasting Service, and Aunty Beeb, or the Bolshevik Broadcast Corporation. (UK) Then there is 'Faux News.'
But I do think you Got It Right with NBC, so I vote yours as being Better.
*off to find the Midol Drip for NBC*
Yup -- the L-29s were sole-purpose purchased for conversion to UAV aerial applicators. The Iranians were so interested in them that they made one foray into Kirkuk and another into Um Muniyah to flatbed a couple of them back to Iran while our attention was focused on Baghdad.
When our count came up short after the dust settled, the Head Shed figured those two had either been destroyed in the bombings or had never been delivered. Nobody thought to ask the Iraqis what became of them...