The Truth, the Whole Truth, and Anything But the Truth

I have been musing on the peculiar attitude to the truth in politics which in recent years, it seems, has become a battleground of competing claims. I use the word 'seems' because in reality truth in politics has always been contested, but with the spread of social media what once were simply daft claims but also extremely offensive ones have been edging toward the centre ground of our debates. One can watch with alarm the rabble-rousing chants of CNN Scum! at a Presidential rally where he himself condemns the media as 'disgusting' -but note it is not because they fake the news, but because they don't adore him, as if adoration were a necessary part of American politics.

Where the intention is to deceive, one finds even the most trustworthy politicians capable of telling a lie, be it a brazen lie or more likely, an interpretation of a fact, because in that Machiavellian sense the end justifies the means. We could list a catalogue of lies, within which the 'false flag' would appear, being the favoured tactic conspiracy theorists love to embrace because it both proves and does not prove that the State tricked the people into believing that something happened that did not.

If we can agree that philosophers have struggled with the 'truth', it may be that while there are facts that can be verified -we know that France won the FIFA World Cup because we watched it happen live on tv- it may be that it is the interpretation of facts that creates competing narratives. One might say France did not win the World Cup, Croatia lost it, the emphasis being on the weakness of Croatia as the cause of France's win, rather than the superior expertise of Les Bleus.

In the context of the President's war against the Media, and the Infowars war on the truth of Sandy Hook, interpretation becomes -or appears to become- the vital spark, but is this the case? If Alex Jones had verifiable facts to support his claim that Sandy Hook was a hoax, he might be believed, but not only does he not have such facts, the facts don't matter. The interpretation offered does not even relate to Sandy Hook but the long-established campaign by Jones to undermine the State, to do so by claiming, again and again that 'the people' are being lied to in order to sow doubt not just about Sandy Hook but with everything 'the State' says, on the basis that it is a protection racket for the 'deep state' where all the money and power is, the money being the dollars you worked for ending up in a rich man's pocket.

If you believe in the 'illusory truth effect' then by repeating something often enough people will believe it -during the EU Referendum campaign the Leavers repeated again and again 'Take Back Control' even though the UK never lost control in any sense of the word with regard to its membership of the EU. If you say 'Crooked Hillary' enough times, enough people will believe there is something there to be investigated, and if there is an investigation that finds nothing illegal, that is the 'deep state' protecting one of its own elites. There is a discussion of the Illusory Truth Effect here-
https://www.vox.com/science-and-heal...illusory-truth

Listening to the former leader of the Conservative Party (Ian Duncan-Smith) on BBC at lunchtime today I was struck how he argued that the objection that led the UK to vote to leave the EU was based on the political fear that over time the integration of EU members into a Federal or 'super-state' (though he did not use those words) would erode the identity of the Nation-State. It struck me that what Duncan-Smith, the EU Leavers, Marine le Pen, US Republicans loyal to their new President, and Alex Jones, Nigel Farage and ex-con 'Tommy Robinson' all have in common is in fact the distinction they make between Nation and State.

If the State is the problem: the Nation is the solution, because 'the Nation' is US, where the State is THEM. This rift between government and the governed is a reflection of the abuse of power that has enabled the privileged and the powerful to become rich at everyone else's expense, but more than that, in a context shaped by immigration, becomes the 'sell out' of OUR country to 'foreign interests' to the extent that foreigners are 'allowed in' and breed, so that in time, OUR country will no longer belong to US.

Thus, the 'populist' movement seeks to undermine established forms of rule to 'return' power to the people who, after all, own -or should own- the nation they built, lived in and died for. But when you ask what in fact this Nation is, the answer narrows it down to 'people like US' which for Alex Jones means, quite simply, White People of European Descent.

In the end, the truth may be malleable, but the proof of the 'post-truth' movement is that they have their own facts and their startling truth -that not everyone belongs to the USA and thus not everyone has the right to live there. If he were to be truthful, Alex Jones should claim he wants the USA to be free of government, of taxes, and foreigners- as defined by him.

It is the intention behind the lies that reveals the politics they want to create, most often an impossible politics, but one which, when applied in practice, produces hatred, violence, misery and failure.

I have a real hunch that 4,000+ lies in office may be but one of the nails in Trump's coffin, While the Republicans are holding a News Conference about sanctioning Russia, Trump is saying Russia is our friend. I have a feeling everything learned about Trump will get tossed out by Historians, because it's such an aberration, and revelations about Trump from Mueller are going to place Trump in a category no one will ever want to relive. There is a reason nobody's ever done it like Trump before, because everybody who hasn't had their head twisted by conservative media can see Trump is heading for choppy waters.
It seems like as Media progresses, Gaming the Media progresses along with it, the Press knew about Kennedy's girlfriends and FDR's polio, but kept quiet. Once you were Elected, you were President of ALL the people, for better or worse. Nixon broke the mold, and by the time Ken Starr's ugly face appeared, politics was war. The Civility is an illusion.
You still have excellent politicians in office, maybe it's been a variation of the way it's always been, this spinning earth is traveling at a thousand miles per hour below our feet, without asking for our permission.
The FBI gives their agents lie detector tests all the time, one bad apple is all you need to spoil the barrel.
Did you hear about the survey that put Fox News right behind the BBC as the most trusted News Agency in the World? If you watch Fox News you did.

https://preview.ibb.co/dOu7bK/MW_GE5...8115701_NS.jpg
how do you delete your account

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by buttslinger

I have a real hunch that 4,000+ lies in office may be but one of the nails in Trump's coffin, While the Republicans are holding a News Conference about sanctioning Russia, Trump is saying Russia is our friend. I have a feeling everything learned about Trump will get tossed out by Historians, because it's such an aberration, and revelations about Trump from Mueller are going to place Trump in a category no one will ever want to relive. There is a reason nobody's ever done it like Trump before, because everybody who hasn't had their head twisted by conservative media can see Trump is heading for choppy waters.

---

I think it is too early to say, as the Republican primaries are producing mid-term candidates who are riding in on the back of their hero and may yet transform the Republican Party into an even nastier party than it has been. Rather than split the party, the 'old style' Republicans are retiring, some will lose their seats, but the mid-terms could cement the polarization in party politics that has been growing since the 1960s-70s and thus make practical government even harder. Democrats may think they have it sewn up but we can't know for sure, and I would have thought it better for their veterans -Chuck Schumer,Dianne Feinstein and Nancy Pelosi for example- to retire for a younger more articulate set of candidates talking about the positive future they believe in. I still believe there is only so much negative propaganda Americans can take, and that they want a more optimistic view of their future.

The irony of the latest broadside against the fake, disgusting media is that only a few weeks ago that is how he described his interview in The Sun, published by his big buddy, the soft-porn merchant Rupert Murdoch whose journalists in the UK regularly broke the law to get a story. Ok so in reality it was because he meant what he said but had to change tack and praise Theresa May out of embarrassment, and just in case she cancelled his meeting with the Queen, but it was still the moment Murdoch got lumped in with everyone else, probably because he just doesn't care who he slags off, he can always praise them later.

But not CNN. This to me is where the resentment and revenge becomes a dangerous path on which to tread -if it was Erdogan Acosta would be in prison by now -and with Sarah Huckabee refusing the reject the idea the press are the 'Enemy of the People' one wonders why the President doesn't indeed arrest journalists like Acosta and shut down CNN, it is what he wants to do.

The New York Times just hired a South Korean girl whose twitter is full of racist shots against everybody, she says she's "fighting back" so it's OK.
Just because the Elections are determined by the People, that doesn't mean we have 300 million Generals, it means we have 300 million Privates, that's the only way the system will work, if we have garbagemen and toilet scrubbers. Trump is promising all his Rednecks he's going to make them rich, like his Seminars. The Tricks of the trade have overtaken Governing. Lying is a Policy. If Consumers don't read the label, they get breakfast cereal crammed with sugar and think it's swell.
The fact that Republicans are defending the President as well as themselves is one more sign they don't really know what they're doing, they're just trying to get through this Whole mess Whole... The Democrats don't have a star like Hillary anymore, but the Republicans have no star on the horizon either.
Obama warned us that being President doesn't change who you are, it magnifies who you are. Would the Republicans even notice if Trump fell victim to Dementia?
Mueller is the Sword of Damocles hanging over all this, what he says will roar louder than Trump, because it will be the TRUTH, something we haven't heard in a while. The truth is a commodity for sale to the highest bidder.
Look out Donald, nothing brings Americans together like a common enemy. What are Fox Viewers going to do when they find out CNN was right about everything????