IRRATIONAL EXUERANCE

As students of history ((not the history Donald Rumsfeld has conjured up as he is now going around the country assaulting Americans by stating that they are ignorant of "history" - i.e., they "don't remember" that wars take a long time (they do, Donald, but the wars you were talking about that took a long time - such as WWII - are not the wars they are thinking about. They're thinking about Russia in Afghanistan, the Algerian Wars, France in Indochina, the Iran-Iraq war, and so on)) know, Hitler's minister of propaganda, Joseph Goebbels famously said "It's not enough to tell little lies. People won't believe them, and even if people do believe them, the little lies will not have the desired brainwashing effect. No, to get people to completely buy into the cult of Hitler, the cult of irreality, only the big lies will suffice." (This strategem is somewhat analogous to negotiation - a party begins with a bid that is often objectively outlandish, but pursues it anyway, at least in part, because he, with a healthy sense of gall, and a healthy disrespect for reality, believes his adversary is a complete dupe. This strategy may work sometimes, because negotiation is not warfare, and the amiygdala is not stimulated as much, I would think, in a garden-variety negotiation over, say, a car crash, as it is when one is listening to a speech about a war).

Although Dick Cheney is nowhere as near as charming as Goebbels (who reeked of body odor and who was no ace in the charm department himself - although Goebbels and Hitler both spoke their lies to the German public, not just to handpicked audiences (I make that observation for whatever it is worth; I imply nothing normative about it, relative or otherwise), Cheney has channeled Goebbel's "big lie" irreality strategy to a fare the well. To Cheney, facts CANNOT be permitted to get in the way of his Grand Illusion, lest the shellack of his spin show the slightest sign of beginning to peel or crack:

Consider, if you will, the following news article:


Cheney: Iraq Not in Midst of Civil War
Mar 19 11:09 AM US/Eastern Email this story

By NEDRA PICKLERAssociated Press Writer
WASHINGTON

Vice President Dick Cheney said Sunday that Iraq is not in the midst of a civil war, but instead described the violence as a desperate tactic by terrorists in the country to stop the move to democracy.

"What we've seen is a serious effort by them to foment a civil war," Cheney said in an interview on "Face the Nation" on CBS on the third anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. "But I don't think they've been successful."

Cheney said he disagrees with Iraq's former interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, who said in an interview Sunday that the increasing attacks across his country can only be described as a civil war.
"It is unfortunate that we are in civil war. We are losing each day as an average 50 to 60 people throughout the country, if not more," Allawi told the British Broadcasting Corp. "If this is not civil war, then God knows what civil war is."

Cheney said he did not think optimistic statements that he has made about the war have contributed to Americans' skepticism about the war. For instance, the vice president predicted that invading U.S. troops would be greeted as liberators and then said 10 months ago that the insurgency is in its last throes, even though violence still rages. Cheney said the optimistic statements "were basically accurate, reflect reality."

He said most Americans have a negative perception of Iraq because they keep seeing daily violence in the news instead of the progress being made toward democracy.
"There is a constant sort of perception, if you will, that's created because what's newsworthy is the car bomb in Baghdad," he said. "It's not all the work that went on that day in 15 other provinces."
The top commander of U.S. forces in Iraq said Sunday that U.S. troops likely will remain there for the next few years though the numbers will be scaled back as Iraqi forces gain strength.
"I see a couple of more years of this with a gradually reducing coalition presence here in Iraq ... as the Iraqi security forces step forward," Gen. George W. Casey said.
Casey said he did not think at the time the war began that the insurgency in Iraq would have been as robust as it has been.
Casey, appearing on NBC's "Meet the Press," said he did not believe Iraq was in danger of falling into civil war, although he said it remained a possibility because of increased sectarian tensions and violence.
"The situation here is fragile," he said. "I suspect it will remain fragile here until we get a new government, a government of national unity, formed."
Citing training of Iraqi security forces and elections over the past year, Casey said good progress was being made politically and militarily in Iraq.
"What the long-term nature of our presence here might be is a subject for a discussion with the new government of Iraq," he said.
A prominent opponent of the war, Democratic Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania, repeated his call for redeploying U.S. troops over a six-month period to take them out of what he called a civil war.
"We have to say to the Iraqis, 'This is your war. This is no longer our war. You've got an elected government. This is up to you now to settle this thing,'" Murtha said.
Murtha, also appearing on NBC, said he didn't see progress in Iraq in terms of the slow training of security forces and the low levels of employment, fresh water, electricity and oil production

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The Big Lie at work. Or, more accurately, telling a Big Lie by saying that your Big Lie was not a lie. Several points are worthy of discussion here: Cheney never actually follows up a point he makes. "There is no civil war," he says. This is an assertion. Allawi holds a contrary opinion, and makes an ARGUMENT to support his opinion. There is a difference between an assertion and an argument (the latter is pretty much never less persuasive than the former); Gore Vidal recently pointed out that a recent survey revealed that over 60% of college students could not tell the difference between the two. Neoconservatives, to whom facts are either areality, nothing, irritances, or toenail clippings, may not understand the difference either.

Cheney then next states (Rememer, he was speaking on "Face the Nation," one of the "li-brul" TV stations he has denounced as reporting only the "bad" things going on in Iraq; naturally, one would think that when he went on this program, he would be armed with specific instances of as many good things going on there as he could muster. Right), without irony, that it is the carbombing stuff, not the opening of a firehouse in Tikrit, that is newsworthy. This begs the question of why he "cannot understand" why people are not focusing on what he has at other times called "more newsworthy events," such as these firehouse openings. So, the Vice President cannot even get his story straight as to what stories WE should get straight in terms of how we should attach relative importance to them.

Next, he raises the argument that all unpopular Presidents and their henchmen have raised during unpopular wars: the media simply isn't reporting enough of the good things going on. Well, after he told us these stories aren't newsworthy, why would they? More to the point, someone who, unlike Cheney, is grounded in reality, would have realized by now, "Look. The media isn't going to report the good news. This isn't a liberal/conservative/bias thing. The media reported only negative stuff coming out of Vietnam when Johnson was President. Remember when Johnson said, "If Walter Cronkite turns against me, I've lost Middle America," and then Cronkite said, "We are losing this war?" Moreover, even if the media only reported the good things, and a law was passed silencing every critic of the war, success still depends first, foremost, and only on the military being able to successfully implement a thought-out strategy. This hasn't been done. SO, since this won't be done, and since the media will do what it will do, what can we do? Try to spread our own propaganda, of course, in the most effective way possible."

Anyone who was brave enough to go to Bush or Cheney and state the above - i.e. the obvious - deserves a medal (after being fired, of course. This happpened to George Tenet, I know, but our anonymous advice-giver here would ACTUALLY deserve the medal).

So, how could the government most effectively spread propaganda to the effect of stating that our mission in Iraq is a success?

1. It can continue the Big Lie strategy. However, to state this possibility is to beg the question of whether it is still viable. Hitler, 60 years ago, was not confronted by the enemies residing in the foxholes of the Internet, the blogosphere, the Freedom of Information Act, the ACLU, or the television, for the most part. His medium was his message - and the fact that the only media that existed at that time - speeches, radio, and state-owned newspapers, allowed this McLuhan-like world to operate just fine.

Now, the Big Lie strategy is less viable. As an initial matter, to the extent that it is viable at all, it is viable because there is a segment of the electorate (roughly 1/3, it seems) who will believe practically anything Bush and Cheney say. This segment of the electorate, coincidentally or not, has, in surveys, been found to read newspapers less than the public-at-large, to have lower rates of Internet and "blogosphere" usage than the public at large, to have less years of education than Americans as a whole, etc.

The main reason why I think the strategy is less viable today (besides the fact that Bush and Cheney keep pushing the same buttons in precisely the same way in a way, and besides the fact that they do not hold rallies at night featuring individuals beyond theiir core supporters) is because, despite this government's Herculean effort to secretize and privatize all manner of information, the extent to which there is a free flow of information today far exceeds the extent to which there was such a flow of information 60 years ago - thanks to the aforementioned Internet, etc. People can see for themselves what is going on. They can read, if they so choose, the dozens of conservative websites telling them that things are peachy, keen and wonderful in Iraq. The reason why they do not do so, I am guessing, is because so many of these sites are so shrill, and so contemptuous of anyone who thinks, that people just tune the sites, and their information, out.

This onservation serves as my segue to the second way in which the government can get its propaganda machine up and running:

2. By doing something roughly resembling the truth (at least, as government understands the term) - that is, by, as the old song goes, paraphrased, "Accentuating the positive and eliminating the negative."

This strategy is a big lie, but not the BIG LIE. The government can choose to accentuate the positive and acknowledge the negative, and if it does so, can move even further away from the big lie strategy.

How can such an accentuate/acknowledge strategy work? First, I would make sure that none of the usual Bush/Cheney spokesreptiles be involved in the propaganda effort. That means you, Dick Cheney, and you, Scott McClellan. Botth of you have lying so hardwired into your system that telling the truth would cause a self-destructive feedback loop.

Why doesn't the White House (not necessarily in the person of George Bush) hold more press conferences, during which time it can report good news, acknowledge bad news, and then open up the floor for questions, excluding NO reporter? Why isn't it making use of such conferences on prime time?

At present, the White House is transmitting information about the war in such a manner as to TURN PEOPLE AGAINST IT as quickly as possible. On any given day, Scott McClellan will start a press conference, will mention nothing about how 50 people just died in Iraq, will mention how a school was opened in Samarra, and then will describe Democrats as terrorists, in roughly that order. End of speech. (Note: the White House must be prepared to have an answer to those - pretty much everyone - who says "Why are firehouses being opened in Samarra when they're being closed here? Why are we spending billions of dollars rebuilding Iraq's infrastructure when we are spending billions of dollars at home shtupping the rich with tax cuts. " By the way, there IS no answer to this question. In the latter part of this speech, I have simply chosen to adopt the role of the conservative "other" - i.e. I have decided to pretend I care about the current administration's fate and have attempted to offer what it, at this point, I think, would actually need in terms of advice on how to carry out a futile and wrong mission). McClellan then stonewalls reporters who ask legitimate questions, cannot even answer questions that ask for specific details about the recently opened schoolhouses, and tells reporters that they must be careful about what they say, because "we are in a time of war." He lies (maybe not in the Big LIE way, but in a squirmy, muffled way). He is belligerent. Bellicose. In short, he's not the kind of guy you'd
want as your ad man.

I would suggest that the White House bring in some fresh faces to hold these conferences/speaking sessions. People who are unknown to the American people for the most part, who aren't blatantly partisan, who do not talk down to us or to reporters. People who admit what their role is/should be.

Why, I can even script a speech for them: "Hi, I'm here to report the progress that's going on in Iraq. If you want to hear the bad stuff, watch the news, and my opening acknowledgment of the bad stuff, but I'm not getting into details. That's not my job. Now, here's that opening acknowledgment. 50 soldiers died today. We mourn theiir lives. But, I'm here to report the good things. A police station just opened in Mosul. Here are the details. I think it's important that this station opened because _______. Thanks so much for your time. Now, does anyone have questions about the police station? It's not that I don't want to talk about the bad stuff, but it's not my area of expertise. I'm just a salesman. Nothing more, noting less."