{"id":18390,"date":"2010-11-09T19:12:20","date_gmt":"2010-11-10T00:12:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fryeblog.blog.lib.mcmaster.ca\/?p=18390"},"modified":"2010-11-09T19:12:20","modified_gmt":"2010-11-10T00:12:20","slug":"quote-of-the-day-the-big-lie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2010\/11\/09\/quote-of-the-day-the-big-lie\/","title":{"rendered":"Quote of the Day: &#8220;The Big Lie&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>httpv:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=CC6whPX4s7s<\/p>\n<p><em>Extra!\u00a0 Extra!\u00a0 Read all about it!\u00a0 Barack Obama&#8217;s trip to India is costing <strong>200 million dollars a day<\/strong>!!<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Libertarian conservative Andrew Sullivan in a <a href=\"http:\/\/andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com\/the_daily_dish\/2010\/11\/the-rights-accuracy-problem.html\" target=\"_blank\">post today<\/a> characterizes the last two years as the &#8220;era of the Big Lie.&#8221;\u00a0 It&#8217;s no secret who&#8217;s to blame.<\/p>\n<p>Money quote:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>It seems to me that the last year or so in America&#8217;s political  culture has represented the triumph of untruth. And the untruth was  propagated by a deliberate, simple and systemic campaign to kill Obama&#8217;s  presidency in its crib. Emergency measures in a near-unprecedented  economic collapse &#8211; the bank bailout, the auto-bailout, the stimulus &#8211;  were described by the right as ideological moves of choice, when they  were, in fact, pragmatic moves of necessity. The increasingly effective  isolation of Iran&#8217;s regime &#8211; and destruction of its legitimacy from  within &#8211; was portrayed as a function of Obama&#8217;s weakness, rather than  his strength. The health insurance reform &#8211; almost identical to  Romney&#8217;s, to the right of the Clintons in 1993, costed to <em>reduce<\/em> the deficit, without a public option, and with millions more customers  for the insurance and drug companies &#8211; was turned into a socialist  government take-over.<\/p>\n<p>Every one of these moves could be criticized in many ways. What  cannot be done honestly, in my view, is to create a narrative from all  of them to describe Obama as an anti-American hyper-leftist, spending  the US into oblivion. But since this seems to be the only shred of  thinking left on the right (exacerbated by the <a href=\"http:\/\/andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com\/the_daily_dish\/2010\/11\/memo-to-gop-stop-celebrating-stupidity.html\" target=\"_self\">justified flight<\/a> of the educated classes from a party that is now openly contemptuous of  learning), it became a familiar refrain &#8211; pummeled into our heads day  and night by talk radio and Fox. If you think I&#8217;m exaggerating, try the  following thought experiment.<\/p>\n<p>If a black Republican president had come in, helped turn around the  banking and auto industries (at a small profit!), insured millions  through the private sector while cutting Medicare, overseen a sharp  decline in illegal immigration, ramped up the war in Afghanistan,  reinstituted pay-as-you go in the Congress, set up a debt commission to  offer hard choices for future debt reduction, and seen private sector  job growth outstrip the public sector&#8217;s in a slow but dogged recovery,  somehow I don&#8217;t think that Republican would be regarded as a socialist.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Joseph Goebbels infamously observed, &#8220;The bigger the lie, the more likely it will be believed.&#8221;\u00a0 The <a href=\"http:\/\/andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com\/the_daily_dish\/2010\/01\/palin-on-fox.html\" target=\"_blank\">RNC\/FNC conglomerate<\/a> seems to be betting on that.<\/p>\n<p>Frye on fascism and oligarchy:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Fascism is an oligarchic conspiracy against the open-class system,  deriving its real power from the big oligarchs and its mass support from  would-be oligarchs, the &#8220;independent&#8221; (i.e. unsuccessful)  entrepreneurs.\u00a0 (<em>CW<\/em> 11, 252)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This is apparently how free people become eager accomplices in their own enslavement.<\/p>\n<p>An earlier post, &#8220;Mendocracy,&#8221; <a href=\"http:\/\/fryeblog.blog.lib.mcmaster.ca\/2010\/11\/07\/quote-of-the-day-mendocracy\/\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>httpv:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=CC6whPX4s7s Extra!\u00a0 Extra!\u00a0 Read all about it!\u00a0 Barack Obama&#8217;s trip to India is costing 200 million dollars a day!! Libertarian conservative Andrew Sullivan in a post today characterizes the last two years as the &#8220;era of the Big Lie.&#8221;\u00a0 It&#8217;s no secret who&#8217;s to blame. Money quote: It seems to me that the last year [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[122,129],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-quote-of-the-day"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Quote of the Day: &quot;The Big Lie&quot; - The Educated Imagination<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2010\/11\/09\/quote-of-the-day-the-big-lie\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Quote of the Day: &quot;The Big Lie&quot; - The Educated Imagination\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"httpv:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=CC6whPX4s7s Extra!\u00a0 Extra!\u00a0 Read all about it!\u00a0 Barack Obama&#8217;s trip to India is costing 200 million dollars a day!! 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