The Big Lie Revisited

The Virginian ^ | 7/19/2010 | Moneyrunner

[moneyrunner]

Just by living we run into little lies all the time. “I forgot” is replaced by “the check’s in the mail.” Or there’s this one from the Internet you can see every day “If they tried to do that to me, I would punch them out.” It’s the would-be “Macho man” behind a computer keyboard. But these are little lies. Everyone knows that and everyone can see through them.

Glancing through my copy of the Virginian Pilot today I came across an example of the “Big Lie.” The Big Lie is designed to make a political point that isn’t true. It's often the opposite of the truth. It’s usually part of pattern that is destined to either build up a political view or to destroy a political opponent. The most notorious political propagandist once said, “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.”

So what’s the big lie of the day in the Pilot? This editorial cartoon by Mike Luckovich

[vanilla swirl]

file under “usual liars”

[JimRed]

Cue the PimpBusters guy in 5...4...3...2...

[mc5cents]

The biggest lie in my lifetime has been the left’s constant drumbeat of “we are for the small guy and the GOP is for the rich”. However it may be surpassed by “man-made global warming”. The jury is still out.

[Hegewisch Dupa]

The Big Lie Revisited Just by living we run into little lies all the time. “I forgot” is replaced by “the check’s in the mail.” Or there’s this one from the Internet you can see every day “If they tried to do that to me, I would punch them out.” It’s the would-be “Macho man” behind a computer keyboard. But these are little lies. Everyone knows that and everyone can see through them. Glancing through my copy of the Virginian Pilot today I came across an example of the “Big Lie.” The Big Lie is designed to make a political point that isn’t true. It's often the opposite of the truth. It’s usually part of pattern that is destined to either build up a political view or to destroy a political opponent. The most notorious political propagandist once said, “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.”

So what’s the big lie of the day in the Pilot? This editorial cartoon by Mike Luckovich

perpetuates a lie that “Wall Street” opposes the financial reform bill passed by Congress.

That’s a lie.

I know. I work in the financial services business so I have kept track of the bill. And while neither I nor any other person knows all of what’s in this 2000+ page monstrosity, I know one big thing: it’s supported by – and partially written by - the biggest players on Wall Street including the financial behemoth Goldman Sachs.

Goldman gave most of their political contributions to Obama and the Democrats during the last election. Goldman wasn't alone. Most of the big players on Wall Street skewed heavily to Obama and the Democrats. The head of UBS in America is one of Obama's financial advisers. Their contributions are needed for his re-election. Nothing in this bill will seriously inconvenience the big investment houses. Large institutions will always have a seat at the table when it comes time to draft legislation and they are quite comfortable, thank you, with rules and regulations that drive their smaller competitors out of business.

In the meantime, it’s useful for the present government that people believe the fiction that EEEEVIL Wall Street is raging against this bill, especially when the punch will be landed on Main Street.

And the Pilot’s editors are perfectly happy to play ball and tell the big lie. As a famous actor once said “It’s what I do.”

[spintreebob]

Hits the nail on the head.

Currently capitalists accuse Obama of socialism. Socialists laugh and accuse Obama of selling out to capitalism.

The big lie is that we live in a bipolar world. The archenemy of Adam Smith’s capitalism was not socialism. It is mercantilism aka corporatism.

As long as capitalists and socialists mistakenly think it is a bipolar world, the corporatists win.

[humblegunner]

(Excerpt)

Why?

[Deaf Smith]

The lie is coming or in place when the say: "The intent of this bill/law"

*There is no Intent Of Law, only the Letter Of The Law.

[shibumi]

Thanks for posting the whole article. (As it should have been.)

[Hegewisch Dupa]

My pleasure, you’re very welcome.

[outpostinmass2]

Islam is a peaceful religion.

[moneyrunner]

Thanks for visiting.

[moneyrunner]

There is more than one big lie. The lies about Islam are less easily believed by the average person. The ones about Wall Street are too easily believed because they have been repeated more often over a longer period.

[moneyrunner]

Everyone claims to be for the “little guy.” Even the “honest Abe, rail splitter” slogan was a way to portray a well-to-do railroad lawyer into a common man. There are very few people in government today who are really for the common man. This is especially true of the Left.

[CharlesWayneCT]

You shouldn’t be posting entire articles from a person’s blog site. That is copyright material by the blogger, and it is up to the blogger to decide whether to allow his words here or not.

Also, if the blogger has violated a newspaper copyright by duplicating a cartoon owned by someone else, by copying it here you open FR to it’s own copyright violation. And FR is a much bigger target for such a violation than some blog.

I dislike blog pimps as much as anyone; although my beef is with bloggers who do little more than excerpt real news, and then come here and excerpt their blog exerpt of the real news, rather than posting the real news link and excerpt.

That’s not the case here — the words are the blogger’s own analysis of a political cartoon, and as such they deserve to be treated as original work; and since the blogger posts here, he could easily have posted all his words if he wanted to be nice to us, and he didn’t choose to do so and we shouldn’t do it for him.

[Hegewisch Dupa]

You raise a very good point regarding the cartoon duplication. Blog pimps aren’t exactly the first people to trust with following the rules, so it was wrong of me to assume they have and in the process endanger us. Thanks for the heads up.

[moneyrunner]

CharlesWayneCT,

Thanks for your comment. A few points that I have made before. First, most of the articles that are posted on FR are excerpted.

For some reason a few people on this site (not the owners) insist that if you are a blogger, you should post your entire post from your blog. Partially because some people here have been so obnoxious about it, I will never do that.

Second, If people don't want to read the rest of my essays, they won't click on the link. There are well over a hundred stories posted on FR daily. I once came here to get the news of the day, and you can still do that. I like and admire this site and with the exception of a few obnoxious people, this site is a genuine treasure and a force for good in the Republic. It's why I come back to share my thougts and am honored that people come to my site for the rest of the story.

[CharlesWayneCT]

Most articles are excerpted because that is the requirements of the news outlets.

I write an opinion column that is published by a local paper. I used to post the entire column, but now I am required to excerpt the column. I tried to get permission from the paper to post my entire column, but so far have been unsuccessful.

If I could, I’d post the whole thing, because it’s easier for people to read that way.

On the other hand, I write entire columns as comments here. And I’ve never felt the need to put these in a blog and ask people to come read them.

But that’s just me. I realize different people have different reasons for posting here. My reason is to spread information as much as possible. Others post to get people to visit their blogs. I have a blog, but I don’t excerpt it here.

You will note that I was serious when I defended your right not to have your blog posted in full here. Your words belong to you, and you have every right to control them as you see fit.

I tend not to go to blog sites, because it’s extra work. I love the posters that manage to pick the best 300 words from news stories, so I don’t have to go read the entire article.

If I’m going to COMMENT on an article, I will usually go read it.

I do find it annoying when a blogger posts a blog entry, and the entry is a single sentence link to a news story that they could have simply posted as a news story. If they have included a cogent opinion about the article, that’s a bit different, although I would note that a lot of posters here post the links to the stories, and then put their cogent opinions in the post-comment.

But I would worry about those political cartoons. Newspapers, and the people who sell the political cartoons to the papers, are getting EXTREMELY protective of their rights, as they slowly go out of business. They aren’t RIAA yet, but they will come after blogs, especially if the blog has signed up for one of those google ad things or is otherwise generating revenue.

As soon as they can prove that you published an unlicensed item for profit, they’ve got you.

I never monetized my blog, just so I could avoid any possibility of that happening to me.

[moneyrunner]

I never monetized my blog, just so I could avoid any possibility of that happening to me.

I never "monetized" my blog either but that doesn't stop people from assuming that I have, and that I excerpt my blog posts to generate revenue. I have no idea why. I'm told by very successful bloggers (Instapundit) that even they don't generate much in the way of income. I just don't have the time to devote to posting enough to get traffic up to where people would be willing to advertise.