Mother Jones: Inside the GOP's Fact-Free Nation

[marmar]

Inside the GOP's Fact-Free Nation
From Nixon's plumbers to James O'Keefe's video smears: How political lying became normal.

— By Rick Perlstein


IT TAKES TWO THINGS to make a political lie work: a powerful person or institution willing to utter it, and another set of powerful institutions to amplify it. The former has always been with us: Kings, corporate executives, politicians, and ideologues from both sides of the aisle have been entirely willing to bend the truth when they felt it necessary or convenient. So why does it seem as if we're living in a time of overwhelmingly brazen deception? What's changed?

Today's marquee fibs almost always evolve the same way: A tree falls in the forest—say, the claim that Saddam Hussein has "weapons of mass destruction," or that Barack Obama has an infernal scheme to parade our nation's senior citizens before death panels. But then a network of media enablers helps it to make a sound—until enough people believe the untruth to make the lie an operative part of our political discourse.

For the past 15 years, I've spent much of my time deeply researching three historic periods—the birth of the modern conservative movement around the Barry Goldwater campaign, the Nixon era, and the Reagan years—that together have shaped the modern political lie. Here's how we got to where we are. ...............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/04/history-political-lying

[RandomThoughts]

1. If people actually read the posts they would know.

I am due beer and travel money.


soldier music vid
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-mDeBgQXeo

[SkyDaddy7]

3. RandomThoughts...Repeats the same thing over & over! nt.

[RandomThoughts]

5. Does that show a fault of mine.

Or a fault of yours for not learning.

Just making sure it is clear.

[SkyDaddy7]

7. My guess is...

Fault lies between hammers dancing in a field of chopsticks & corn flakes fleeing the evil spoon...And then there remains the issue of Beer & travel money that just seems to never go away.

[RandomThoughts]

9. Why would it go away?

And don't flee evil, it only has the power you give it.

And here is a little hint, most people see far more evil in things then there really is.

[The Doctor.]

10. Perhaps when it has an axe?

May we flee then?

When plumbing profundity, btw, be careful of grammar. Your last sentence might mean almost exactly the opposite of what you (perhaps) intended due to a single heinous homonym. The accursed schwa strikes again!

Oh, and if the evil has beer and travel money, may we still flee?

[RandomThoughts]

11. I don't see the other meaning you are talking about.

I don't need an axe.

And I do not have to worry about grammar, people will see things the way they want.

If they disagree with my positions, and I say it perfectly, they will ignore or say it is wrong without argument.

If they disagree with my position, and there is some grammar lack of clarity, why would that be any different.


People choose what they hear, very little of that has to do with what is said.


And I am due beer and travel money and many experiences.



Many years ago I use to be very clear in what I said, some even asked why I talk like that, where I would be sure what I said was understood, those that listened to that, also understood the less clear items in the way they were intended.

So really, making it clear is to point out that the clarity will not matter to some, becuase it is there choice what to believe, not what they hear or what is said.

And I am due beer and travel money and many experiences.

[wysimdnwyg]

4. Request for Skinner

Make it so we can recommend replies inside a thread!

[xchrom]

2. Recommend

[starroute]

6. There's a whole other story that this article doesn't tell

It's the side that has to do not with official government lies but with the Young Republicans and young conservatives of the 1960s and 70s and their blatant disregard for democracy.

And that disregard can be traced directly to the actions of the CIA in the 1940s and 50s and its willingness to use every tool available -- democracy be damned -- to prevent communist or even socialist parties from coming to power in Europe, East Asia, or Latin America.

William Buckley -- himself a CIA officer and close friend of E. Howard Hunt (http://www.nndb.com/people/149/000023080) -- was responsible for bringing this contempt for democracy and dedication to eradicating the left into the conservative movement when he founded Young Americans for Freedom in 1960. Most of today's right-wing dirty tricksters either came up through YAF in the 60s and early 70s or were closely associated with those who had.

Others, like Karl Rove, got their training in the dirty tricks of the 1972 Nixon reelection campaign -- which, of course, also ties back to E. Howard Hunt.

And a third stream goes through the senior Cold Warriors of the 1950s, many of them associated with both the intelligence community and the China Lobby, with whom the young movement conservatives rubbed elbows in any number of anti-communist organizations of the 1970s and 80s.

I don't know of anybody who's told this story in full. I've only been piecing together small bits of it since I got interested in the GOP dirty tricksters during the 2004 presidential campaign. But it's a major part of our hidden history that involves a lot of familiar names -- and a lot of nasty secrets.

[RainDog]

8. k&r n/t