The larger problem has been written about for some time, but has been regarded as a counter-culture, very-left-wing topic. Neil Postman, Noam Chomsky, John Ralston Saul, using various terms like "false consciousness". Vietnam built on false casus belli and lies, then Iraq.
My bottom line: Trump lies, and every politician, Poilievre say, i…
The larger problem has been written about for some time, but has been regarded as a counter-culture, very-left-wing topic. Neil Postman, Noam Chomsky, John Ralston Saul, using various terms like "false consciousness". Vietnam built on false casus belli and lies, then Iraq.
My bottom line: Trump lies, and every politician, Poilievre say, is trying out blatant, easily-debunked lying these days, because Bush lied, pretty openly, and it worked.
I mean, it *really* worked. By fall 2004, the WMD lies had been exposed and the New York Times had printed an official apology. (And Black Sites and Torture were in the news.)
He was not only re-elected, but did far better than his first election. Lying had worked.
This is a great job you're tackling here. But your thesis that people can be educated to be proof against it always had a hole in it: the only-slightly-less preposterous lies of Bush were accepted and propagated by all the Ivy League graduates that ran the big dailies.
Having commented that there are connections between the nutty lies of activists and the cynical, prepared lies of administrations, I should post this Atlantic link, where the depth to which Trump is now marinating in Internet activist lies got not just into his rally rambles, but his debate claims in front of 60 million:
Maybe this will out me as being the nutty institutionalist that I am, but: Vietnam and the great WMD lie were failures of our system. You and I both know the litany of things that captured our politics and media and made it possible. I am not convinced that we ever fully rectified those problems, nor held the right people accountable, but ok.
What we're dealing with now, though, is a siege on our systems, and attempt to take them over. My real fear is that, if that happens, our system won't just occasionally err, it will be weaponized to destroy on purpose.
I know people may look at those two things and say "they're the same picture," but I think we need to be put our minds into a much, much pessimistic place when dealing with the latter.
(Wave at JR Saul, by the way, as I know he reads this newsletter.)
The governmental institutions *were* behaving normally, for them, with the WMD sales campaign - I think so more than ever after a fiction novel mentioned "Operation Northwoods" and I was reading the wikipedia article on it a minute later with my jaw in my lap. Never had heard of it.
Journalistic institutions have never caught the false casus belli, I think - not for the Spanish-American, Korean, Vietnamese, or either Iraq War. (The first one had a legit cause, but they threw in some fake dead babies-in-incubators to ensure popularity.)
I admire your faith in an institution with a 0% success record, across 120 years, at that particular journalistic job.
The distinction I can sign on with is that those liars, I think, genuinely believed they were lying the public into doing the Right Thing, and saving the world. Both the pols and the journos may have been exchanging winks.
The new lies, I concede, do not get the other party to sign on with them (as with all the war votes). The new lies also have no possible benign intent, just grift and kleptocracy.
If you liked Operation Northwoods for pie in the sky thinking than Operation Mongoose will knock your socks off. I think both were just products of their times and part of the proposal process of "throw everything at the board and see what will stick"
The larger problem has been written about for some time, but has been regarded as a counter-culture, very-left-wing topic. Neil Postman, Noam Chomsky, John Ralston Saul, using various terms like "false consciousness". Vietnam built on false casus belli and lies, then Iraq.
My bottom line: Trump lies, and every politician, Poilievre say, is trying out blatant, easily-debunked lying these days, because Bush lied, pretty openly, and it worked.
I mean, it *really* worked. By fall 2004, the WMD lies had been exposed and the New York Times had printed an official apology. (And Black Sites and Torture were in the news.)
He was not only re-elected, but did far better than his first election. Lying had worked.
This is a great job you're tackling here. But your thesis that people can be educated to be proof against it always had a hole in it: the only-slightly-less preposterous lies of Bush were accepted and propagated by all the Ivy League graduates that ran the big dailies.
Cheer up: you've got job security.
Having commented that there are connections between the nutty lies of activists and the cynical, prepared lies of administrations, I should post this Atlantic link, where the depth to which Trump is now marinating in Internet activist lies got not just into his rally rambles, but his debate claims in front of 60 million:
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2024/09/donald-trump-debate-terminally-online/679800/
Maybe this will out me as being the nutty institutionalist that I am, but: Vietnam and the great WMD lie were failures of our system. You and I both know the litany of things that captured our politics and media and made it possible. I am not convinced that we ever fully rectified those problems, nor held the right people accountable, but ok.
What we're dealing with now, though, is a siege on our systems, and attempt to take them over. My real fear is that, if that happens, our system won't just occasionally err, it will be weaponized to destroy on purpose.
I know people may look at those two things and say "they're the same picture," but I think we need to be put our minds into a much, much pessimistic place when dealing with the latter.
(Wave at JR Saul, by the way, as I know he reads this newsletter.)
The governmental institutions *were* behaving normally, for them, with the WMD sales campaign - I think so more than ever after a fiction novel mentioned "Operation Northwoods" and I was reading the wikipedia article on it a minute later with my jaw in my lap. Never had heard of it.
Journalistic institutions have never caught the false casus belli, I think - not for the Spanish-American, Korean, Vietnamese, or either Iraq War. (The first one had a legit cause, but they threw in some fake dead babies-in-incubators to ensure popularity.)
I admire your faith in an institution with a 0% success record, across 120 years, at that particular journalistic job.
The distinction I can sign on with is that those liars, I think, genuinely believed they were lying the public into doing the Right Thing, and saving the world. Both the pols and the journos may have been exchanging winks.
The new lies, I concede, do not get the other party to sign on with them (as with all the war votes). The new lies also have no possible benign intent, just grift and kleptocracy.
Point taken.
If you liked Operation Northwoods for pie in the sky thinking than Operation Mongoose will knock your socks off. I think both were just products of their times and part of the proposal process of "throw everything at the board and see what will stick"