The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age
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    The "Big Lie"... How it works and what it is for

    By David Seaton on Mon, 10/18/2010 - 3:16pm |

     

    The big lie kicks in: before and after
    Americans for Prosperity, the rightwing campaign funded in part by the energy billionaires the Koch brothers, is working with the Tea Party movement to increase its impact through the use of new media and social networking. The Guardian

     

    Rupert Murdoch has declared his dissatisfaction with Barack Obama and the Democratic party, saying that two $1m donations by News Corp were intended to encourage change in Washington. Financial Times

    Shortly before leaving for the US to report on the midterm elections, a respected colleague told me that: “Obama’s problem is that he is trying to govern a nation where half the population is insane.” Gideon Rachman - Financial Times
    Today lets look at the "big lie": the art of calling black white and white black and making it stick, how it works and why it works.

     

    I will cut directly to the chase: to me it is obvious that the Tea Party has been evoked, like a political poltergeist, from the shadowy bourne of the American earth, by people like the Koch brothers and Rupert Murdoch in order to terrorize moderate Republicans and keep them from moving to the center and cooperating with president Obama in a time of national emergency.

     

    How bad are things?

     

    Maybe even a bit worse than we think they are.

     

    For example, if we consider the mortgage foreclosure fiasco as the possible tip of an iceberg of massive fraud and generalized, quite unbelievable, negligence throughout the system, something like a metastasis  of  an Enron on steroids, we may be looking at future meltdowns that could make the consequences of Lehman Brother's collapse look as tame as Paris Hilton's prison stay.

     

    I would venture to say that people like the Koch brothers and Murdoch have much better information as to the potential and immanent blowback of all of this and its possible effects on their positions, both  financial and political, than we do.

     

    They obviously are moved to take drastic steps, steps that put the entire system in jeopardy. Therefore, whether us lesser folk have any real inkling of what's going on, by their behavior we may know that something is going on: just as the Chinese detect the coming of an earthquake by monitoring the restlessness of farm animals and songbirds; the way granny knows it's going to rain, because her hip hurts. Something is cooking.

     

    In any one of a dozen national emergencies of the nature I suspect (or might not even dream of) that may be developing or might already be upon us, the natural reaction of the citizenry would be to demand, as in wartime, or any other great national emergency, that their elected representatives work together in a bipartisan fashion to clean up the mess and to put in place regulations and regulators to make sure it never happens again and to punish those responsible severely "pour encourager les autres". 

     

    And, who knows, then,  perhaps in  the cheery glow of new found kameradschaft and moderate bi-partisanship, they might set themselves to reform campaign financing, the infrastructure and even work on climate change and fossil fuel energy dependence.

     

    From a certain point of view this kind of constructive or reconstructive harmony must be avoided at all costs.

     

    So we here we come to the big lie.

     

    What I call the "Tea-Fox-Koch-Murdoch-Beck-Limbaugh-Party" are using classic techniques, nothing new here

     

    To get into the mood and to understand better what the Murdochs and the Kochs are up to and what  techniques they are using to achieve their ends, let us look at what the OSS had to say during WWII about the recognized master of 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 report on Hitler, p.51
    Sounds familiar doesn't it. Now let us hear the "master's voice" as he himself describes in some greater detail how the big lie works:
    (...) In the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying.— Adolf Hitler , Mein Kampf, vol. I, ch. X
    Let us move directly to a concrete example of how this "philosophy" is being put into practice today.

     

    Why are the "Tea-Fox-Koch-Murdoch-Beck-Limbaugh-Party" so afraid of Barack Obama?

     

    Because he is a radical socialist-communist-extremist, right?

     

    Wrong, wrong, wrong!

     

    They are afraid of him for precisely the reason he "disappoints" his progressive base: They are terrified of him because he is a born centrist, reaching out eagerly for members of the Republican opposition in order to "cut a deal" or "split the difference".

     

    That has been his message from the beginning. To refresh your memory:
    I say to them tonight, there's not a liberal America and a conservative America - there's the United States of America. There's not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there's the United States of America. The pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats. But I've got news for them, too. We worship an awesome God in the Blue States, and we don't like federal agents poking around our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States and have gay friends in the Red States. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and patriots who supported it. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.  Senator Barack Obama - Keynote speech, Democratic convention - 2004
    Despite all of President Obama's unearthly and unbearable lightness of being, that speech still has them terrified. The more he appears manifestly mild mannered and generaly ineffectual, the louder they cry "Marxist!" and "radical!"... and worse.

     

    That idea of inclusiveness, the mildness, the desire to negotiate and split the difference, not radical, leftist, extremism, is what has Murdoch and the Kochs frantic and frothing at the mouth.

     

    Why?

     

    Because, under the new rules of globalization, much of the world's economic power and especially the cash, has escaped from state control, regulation and supervision. As the recent euro crisis showed, elected officials of powerful and wealthy countries found themselves suddenly at the mercy of the "markets" and the rating agencies, themselves made up of human beings, whose power, unlike the law makers of a democratic states, is in no way derived from the consent of the governed... and there are people... not many people, but very, very rich people, who are extremely comfortable with that.. and why shouldn't they be?

     

    Now it happens that there is only one state in the whole world that is still, for the moment at least, potentially powerful enough to be able to bring this situation under some sort of control at home and abroad, and this state is in theory a democracy that is elected by its citizens to serve them.

     

    That state is, of course, the United States of America.

     

    Now, for the state apparatus of the United States of America to bring the situation under control in America and to a great extent around the world, all the branches of the state, executive, legislative and judiciary would have to be in nearly total alignment, as they were during World War Two.

     

    Keeping that from happening, paralyzing the political system so that unity is entirely unthinkable except around "supporting our troops" to defend the "homeland" against the threat of "terrorism" is what the Tea Party movement and every move of Fox and Kochs is about.
    The acceptance of policies that counteract our interests is the pervasive mystery of the 21st century. In the US blue-collar workers angrily demand that they be left without healthcare, and insist that millionaires pay less tax.  George Monbiot - Guardian
    I think we have just solved George Monbiot's mystery.

     

    As I said at the beginning of this piece,  the Tea Party has been created in order to terrorize moderate Republicans and keep any of them from moving to the center and cooperating with president Obama in a time of national emergency.

     

    Just to see how effective this strategy is, lets look at the following four year old quote from certainly the best known and perhaps the most respected of Republican moderates, John McCain,
    “People want us to do what we’ve forgotten, which is put aside philosophical differences, which are important, and legislate and get things done.”
    What happened since then? This from Vanity Fair:
    “The senator owes his victory to the pressure he received from conservatives and Tea Partiers,” the conservative guru Richard Viguerie declared after the primary. “To receive that support, he had to give up his maverick positions that have sometimes given aid and comfort to the liberals. I’m sure Senator McCain knows very well that he would not have won if he had continued his reputation as the Democrats’ favorite Republican.”
    So that is what it is really all about: it is about not legislating and not getting things done... to paralyze the government of the United States of America at a critical time in its history. To prevent the system from flushing itself out and regenerating itself. To cut the wires of the burglar alarms to be able to sack the house in peace.


    The danger is impossible to exaggerate, because, in any normal country in the world if democratic politics become impossible and the state is paralyzed, sooner or later you have either a coup d' etat or a civil war... or both, and not necessarily in that order. How long America's incomparable mechanisms of infotainment alienation can fend off that law of gravity remains to be seen.

    Cross posted from: http://seaton-newslinks.blogspot.com

    Comments

    Obama is going to choose a major foreign war as the only way to reunite an economically and socially broken country descending into a pre-revolutionary spiral.


    by Dan Kervick on Mon, 10/18/2010 - 3:31pm

    I really like this essay.

    The international corporation has really been allowed to escape governmental controls all over the world but especially here. In this country it is the repubs who call for apeasement.

    Oh if you regulate us we shall take our toys and go home and fire all American workers.

    But I render the Dayly Line of the Day Award for this here Dagblog Site, given to all of you from all of me for this gem:

    Therefore, whether us lesser folk have any real inkling of what's going on, by their behavior we may know that something is going on: just as the Chinese detect the coming of an earthquake by monitoring the restlessness of farm animals and songbirds; the way granny knows it's going to rain, because her hip hurts. Something is cooking.


    by Richard Day on Mon, 10/18/2010 - 4:06pm

    Thank you DicksterCool much obliged.


    by David Seaton on Mon, 10/18/2010 - 4:21pm

    I like it too.  It's also possible that the this country just makes no sense.  But I like this take much much better. 


    by anna am on Mon, 10/18/2010 - 4:34pm

    Interesting perspective, as always. Not sure I agree about the premise that these people are 'afraid' of Obama. they seem to get most of what they want out of him. I don't see them as interested in raiding and pillaging the American economy in a quick fell swoop, but rather planning a slow methodical liquidation. A plan which requires a measure of stability and a pliant yet half-credible political class. Which is what we have.

    by Obey on Mon, 10/18/2010 - 5:54pm

    I 've said it once and Ill say it again..

            *A*N*A*R*C*H*Y*

    Loyality can be purchased and the Koch brothers and Murdoch have the funds necessary and global reach to secure a firm handle when things begin to break down.  When civil society begins to fall apart and local police are overwhelmed by riots, civil unrest and utter chaos, the public will more than willing to surrender their civil rights to whatever authority presents itself that is capable of restoring order. By the time everyone wakes up they've been hoodwinked into giving up freedoms, it will be too late because those who seized power won't relinquish it and their rabid following will fight tooth and nail to keep saner heads from asserting their rights and freedoms over their protectorates.


    by Beetlejuice on Mon, 10/18/2010 - 5:55pm

    For many years I've wondered if, by piling multiple metaphors one on top of the other, I could make my argument stronger.

    If, for instance, I leapt from tips of possible icebergs to something like a metastasis on steroids, then turned the heat up with future meltdowns, before containing it all in Paris Hilton's prison. 

    The man who could do all that, in one paragraph, would be the kind of man who could also divert and save the Titanic, get drugs out of sports, avoid the China Syndrome and clean up Chernobyl, while befriending Paris Hilton and putting her on the straight and narrow. 

    Wouldn't he?


    by quinn esq on Mon, 10/18/2010 - 6:08pm

    I really like the thesaurus. Even more than Brontasauris. But Tyrantasauris is...well it is much better.

    hahahah. You are an incorrigableasaurus. hahahaah

    Oh here is another one I really, really like.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pa33P9A5iHs

    Maybe it is the marlborough logo. But I like this Smokin Aces movie even if the critics did not like it.

     


    by Richard Day on Mon, 10/18/2010 - 6:14pm

    That's me folksCool

     


    by David Seaton on Tue, 10/19/2010 - 1:51am

    I'm all for revolution as long as it cuts my taxes, and as long as:

    1. I can still get my Rush 24/7.

    2. The three stooges are still on every day on Fox News.

    3. I can get the NFL and MLB on TV, and my season ticket NFL seat assignment doesn't change.

    4. The government keeps its hands off my Medicare.

    5. My Social Security check is still automatically deposited while I am traveling to T-parties in my RV.

    6. My yard guy doesn't get picked up in some round-up of illegals.

    7. Wal-Mart doesn't fire Grand-Daddy and dump him on me.

     

     


    by NCD on Mon, 10/18/2010 - 8:49pm

    medicare is your government at work.


    by Richard Day on Mon, 10/18/2010 - 9:00pm

    LOL...you just discribed Florida's teabaggers.  You left out all the gated communities with high fences to keep out yard man's family from doing them harm...LOL


    by trkingmomoe on Tue, 10/19/2010 - 2:08am

    Yeah I forgot that one. I assumed no revolution would take my guns away, which I keep loaded, safety off, all over my house, the rec room and the kids rooms. Keeps the neighbors at bay along with the chain link fence ( the gated development with masonry walls wouldn't let me keep my RV in my yard, so I flipped them off).


    by NCD on Tue, 10/19/2010 - 11:12am

    Your conclusion is very well put, that their criticisms are lies, in fact they fear the opposite of what they charge. They fear Obama's centrist thrust, for the reasons you so well stated.

    I think the plan of the big donors funding the tea rabble is to throw enough monkey wrenches at Obama that the implementation of legislative reforms can be stalled until the 2012 election. Actually, if the tea party does turn the House, the unintended consequences might be that the tea rabble become the perfect foil for Obama in 2012.

    Leaping from Paris Hilton's jail ( I love that imagery) back to an iceberg or two, what concerns me, for example, is having an incident, say a domestic attack, thrown into the political mix sometime in the next two years, providing some Republican, say on the Judiciary Committee, the opening to recreate the un-American Commitee.  That might melt the Greenland ice cap.    

      


    by Oxy Mora on Tue, 10/19/2010 - 12:36am

    I agree with pretty much everything you've said here.  Well done. But this is the gem of all gems and I'm going to use it over and over and over and over again:

    The acceptance of policies that counteract our interests is the pervasive mystery of the 21st century. In the US blue-collar workers angrily demand that they be left without healthcare, and insist that millionaires pay less tax.  George Monbiot - Guardian

    by Ramona on Tue, 10/19/2010 - 8:34am

    Yes, I agree. It's a monumental enigma. And Democrats have yet to understand the behavior of people who vote against their own economic self interests. I think the conventional wisdom is that they are seduced by the the social scapegoats painted by Republicans. And, for the christian element I think they are hell bent on stopping all abortions, regardless of circumstances, so they vote for the right wing regardless of the economic effects. But I think there is some essential truth in the knee jerk reaction against Democrats and social reform. I don't think the behavior is simply ignorance and prejudice.


    by Oxy Mora on Tue, 10/19/2010 - 9:14am

    I read the Monbiot piece totally differently; he says Progressives keep failing because they frame their/our values in terms of extrinsic values of self-interest, and quotes thinkers who believe we've willfully forgotten that we should, instead, be promoting values of brotherly love, community, inclusiveness, respect for all races and genders, etc.  In other words, time for a new prophet of moral politics, like MLK, Jr.  IMO.

    We all know what cognitive dissonance is by now; that's only a theory that says this can happen, not so much why.  And maybe that cute concept of enlightened self-interest needs to hit the road.


    by we are stardust on Tue, 10/19/2010 - 11:42am

    I'm agog and aghast that there's been such little pushback against this piece.  It reminds me of stuff that The Sovereign and The Idaho Observer print, throwing out some historical allusions and quotes that serve the writer's conclusions; in this case: The Tea Party was created to bring us to some Fascist Demagogues' Wet Dreams brought to us by Rupert Murdoch and the Koch Brothers.

    There are so many different forces at play among the Dissatisfied Americans, and many opportunities for people of goodwill to come together and fight the status quo of upwardly-migrating money, endless war, and the increasing erosion of our civil liberties, which the Obama Administration is continuing and increasing day by day.

    Maybe it's just easier as an expatriate to formulate your Bad Acid Dreams, Dave.  Thanks, by the way, for them intruding into my dreams nightmares of last night.

    Where Liberals went wrong, IMO, was not holding this administration's feet to the fire on countless issues, and too many now interpret as weakness, capitulation to corporate power and Wall Street, and abandonment of moral positions as America-the-good.

    As regards not holding the last administration accountable for war crimes and illegal detentions, we of course by now, we understand better why, as in case after case this DOJ supports the same vile thinking.

    Americans are frightened, we here on the boards are, too; so these scenarios resonnate more than they should, I think.  Most of you believe these are healthy and truth-telling exercises that will neutralize the current political dreck, but I think this is like yelling Fire in a crowded theater.  Just my opinion, of course.

    And I think you'll be surprised at the organized and focus of the pushback after the midterms; after, that is, we come out of the stunned shock of hearing from the newly elected Congresspeople.

     


    by we are stardust on Tue, 10/19/2010 - 10:27am

    Americans are frightened, we here on the boards are, too; so these scenarios resonnate more than they should, I think.  Most of you believe these are healthy and truth-telling exercises that will neutralize the current political dreck, but I think this is like yelling Fire in a crowded theater. 

    What I find ironic, and disturbing, is that those who are fond of what you call these "truth telling exercises," which often remind me of something more like Savonarola-like "the end is coming" preaching, often are also often those who like to yammer on and on about the awful fear-mongering Republicans and conservatives as regards terrorism or deficits or whatever. I see the "it takes one to know one" thing as being operative.

    (In the case of a Josh Marshall giving heavy coverage to "the crazy," I see the fearmongering as very purposeful political machination. With others, seems sometimes it's just their natural bent to freak out and to want to preach about it, a sort of Chicken Little personality disorder, I guess.)


    by artappraiser on Tue, 10/19/2010 - 11:00am

    Just to be clear, I meant that many here consider them truth-telling exercises', but I do think you got that.  ;o) 

    "Chicken Little personality disorder", LOL!  Has it made the DSM IV yet?  Or maybe the Urban Dictionary?  Dickipedia?

    Thanks, Artie; I've been losing what's left of my mind here, waiting for someone to screech.  Double thanks for the Savanarola reference; I don't mind historical references so much when they ballast my arguments.   Innocent


    by we are stardust on Tue, 10/19/2010 - 11:15am

    The sky is falling, but only selectively, it  will fall on some and crush them and on others it will fill their pockets with gold.


    by David Seaton on Tue, 10/19/2010 - 11:33am

    But that, Dave, is happening now, under a Democratic administration, all without the Tea Party's help.  But you have to go and drag in OSS reports and Hitler?  Wow. 


    by we are stardust on Tue, 10/19/2010 - 11:47am

    I really don't think you understand what I have written. This "movement" is has been created artificially to pressure or eliminate moderate Republicans in order to keep any raise in taxes or regulations from occurring. It is a form of political pornography and is similar to the Krupps financing Hitler.


    by David Seaton on Tue, 10/19/2010 - 12:08pm

    I think I get what you mean, I just don't think it was a 'created movement'.  Co-opted, for sure, and financed, but now it's several different groups battling for purity and primacy.  And this reads much like a Rachel Maddow segment, who often is less than careful in linkages, i.e., she often just misses the truth in her outrage and fear.  Olbermann, too; and they can end up doing a disservice to actual news broadcasting, though both of them claim to revere Edward R. Murrow. 

    I get this stuff makes people happy, in a manner of speaking. 


    by we are stardust on Tue, 10/19/2010 - 1:19pm

    The Tea Party costs money to organize it is an astroturf movement and it gets enormous free advertising from Fox. The question is why that valuable air time is given to them and why they are getting millions to organize. I'm not sure why, but I am very sure that the people who are paying for this know very well why what they expect to receive in return.

     


    by David Seaton on Tue, 10/19/2010 - 11:31am

    Here is an interesting article:

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/aug/11/paul-krug...


    by David Seaton on Tue, 10/19/2010 - 1:45pm

    Here is another "Chicken Little", Robert Reich:

    It's a perfect storm. And I'm not talking about the impending dangers facing Democrats. I'm talking about the dangers facing our democracy.

    First, income in America is now more concentrated in fewer hands than it's been in 80 years. Almost a quarter of total income generated in the United States is going to the top 1 percent of Americans.

    The top one-tenth of one percent of Americans now earn as much as the bottom 120 million of us.

    Who are these people? With the exception of a few entrepreneurs like Bill Gates, they're top executives of big corporations and Wall Street, hedge-fund managers, and private equity managers. They include the Koch brothers, whose wealth increased by billions last year, and who are now funding tea party candidates across the nation.

    Which gets us to the second part of the perfect storm. A relatively few Americans are buying our democracy as never before. And they're doing it completely in secret.

     


    by David Seaton on Tue, 10/19/2010 - 2:30pm