Reduce Issue to simple black and white - repeat oversimplification

[Q]

Published on Thursday, August 26, 2004 by CommonDreams.org

What Would Machiavelli Do? The Big Lie Lives On

by Thom Hartmann

 
There is nothing new about the Swift Boat ads.

German filmmaker Fritz Kippler, one of Goebbels' most effective propagandists, once said that two steps were necessary to promote a Big Lie so the majority of the people in a nation would believe it. The first was to reduce an issue to a simple black-and-white choice that "even the most feebleminded could understand." The second was to repeat the oversimplification over and over. If these two steps were followed, people would always come to believe the Big Lie.

In Kippler's day, the best example of his application of the principle was his 1940 movie "Campaign in Poland," which argued that the Polish people were suffering under tyranny - a tyranny that would someday threaten Germany - and that the German people could either allow this cancer to fester, or preemptively "liberate" Poland. Hitler took the "strong and decisive" path, the movie suggested, to liberate Poland, even though after the invasion little evidence was found that Poland represented any threat whatsoever to the powerful German Reich. The movie was Hitler's way of saying that invading Poland was the right thing to do, and that, in retrospect, he would have done it again.

The Big Lie is alive and well today in the United States of America, and what's most troubling about it is the basic premise that underlies its use. In order for somebody to undertake a Big Lie, they must first believe Niccolo Machiavelli's premise (in "The Prince," 1532) that the end justifies the means.

Hitler, after all, claimed to have based everything he did on the virtuous goal of uniting Europe - and then the world - in a thousand-year era of peace, foreshadowed in the Bible. If you believe that a thousand years of peace is such a noble end that any means is justified to reach it, it's a short leap to eugenics, preemptive wars, torture of dissidents and prisoners, and mass murder.

Believing that the end justifies the means is the ultimate slippery slope. It will ultimately kill any noble goal, because even if the goal is achieved, it will have been corrupted along the way by the means used to accomplish it.

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0826-02.htm

[peacetalksforall]

1. Shows two things that we've been saying...

the right wing has come up with an amalgam of nazism, fascism, communism, imperialism, colonialism, dictatorship, and invader-master-slave rule....

and they have done it with transparency and little originality, however they would probably argue that it was difficult to and adapt if all for our modern world and select the messengers as well as create the law to assure it or find the people to break the law.

Hartmann is one of the clearest thinkers and writers around. Thanks for posting.

[Q]

2. Thanks for your interest...

...I thought more 'strategists' would be interested.

- The RWingers are following the Nazi playbook almost to the letter. That is...paint an issue as black and white and then repeat the hell out of it until it becomes 'truth'.

- Bush* has literally nothing to run on except fear and the so-called 'war on terrorism'...but perhaps that's all he will need?

[carpediem]

3. I found this very interesting.

It does seem like this is the playbook they are following, even down to the words they use. Thanks for posting this.

[Q]

4. It's the first article I've seen...

...that perfectly describes how the GOPers play politics. For example...they've been very successful at making 'liberal' a dirty word. They've reduced the word to simple 'black and white' terms over the last two decades to mean 'commie' or 'baby killer' or 'Godless'. It's the same kind of codeword the Nazis used to use against the Jews and minorities.

[Brewman_Jax]

5. Use of Machiavellian tactics

This is the first article I've seen that links Machiavelli and GOP tactics. The end justifies the means and all tactics are fair, especially lies.

The sad thing is that it's not new, the GOP has figured out how to do a better job at it.

[lapislzi]

6. Great article, Q

deserves wider circulation. Thanks.

[Toots]

7. Republicans = LIARS from "That Lump in the Bed"

Always refer to Laura as "That Lump in the Bed" because it epitomizes their LIES in one simple phrase. Meaningless LIES just roll off their lips. Republicans = LIARS