Make the lie big, keep it simple, keep saying it and eventually they will believe it.
A high school student chose this quote to go underneath his class picture in the Andover High School yearbook. It’s a quote from Joseph Goebbels. The student, CBS says, didn’t know it’s meaning. He didn’t understand that the comment was associated with a psychotic individual who wanted to purge the world of Jews.
Massive outrage, anger, shock, horror, disgust, embarrassment, rage, and blah blah blah follows. The yearbook must be recalled! Stickers will be issued!
I’m not sure what is offensive about it the statement, and I certainly don’t see anything offensive with him posting it below his yearbook picture.
I know what is offensive about big lies– we all know it so very well nowadays– but I don’t see why anyone should be outraged that this student cited this very timely quote. It’s something we should all be thinking about. I doubt he was advocating the policy– I think it’s quite likely he was being ironic. Even if he wasn’t being ironic, why does everyone have to get so hysterical about everything nowadays, falling over themselves to demonstrate just how unbelievably outraged they are?
Think.
What in heaven’s name is wrong with observing that our society will often believe something that is clearly untrue– that global warming is a myth, that immigrants take jobs, that trade is bad for American jobs, that Obama was born in Kenya, that North Korea wants to attack the U.S. or its allies, that there is a war with something called “terror”, that the Republicans care about deficits? Those are all very, very big lies. They have been repeated and repeated and repeated. And a lot of idiots now believe they are true.
And some idiots believe that we should not be told that big lies, kept simple and repeated, are often believed.
[whohit]Big Big Lies and Idiots[/whohit]