Lies that get halfway around the world, and then become entrenched
We’ve seen it many times before. Whenever there’s a murder or a terrorist attack that has some political overtones, first reports are that the person was/is a Trump supporter.
This also happened with the J6 pipe bomber suspect. The usual unnamed sources tell the MSM the person is MAGA, which gives the media license to report it, and so often it turns out to be untrue.
Just like the idea the Hegseth ordered a hit on two guys clinging to the wreckage of a completely destroyed boat, saying “kill them all.”
Or what later became known on the right as the Charlottesville Hoax, but known on the left as “proof that Trump is a white supremacist.”
The MSM is willing to put out these poorly-sourced stories that are later found to be false, for the simple reason that they know a great great many people will continue to believe them. That’s why, for example, Joe Biden was able to kick off his 2020 campaign with the utterly debunked Charlottesville Hoax; because for so many Democrats, it had become entrenched not just as truth, but as a foundational truth about Trump. A lie doesn’t just get halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to put its boots on, but often the lie stays entrenched in people’s minds.
This is especially true, of course, if the lie takes the form of confirmation bias. If a person already “knows” that Trump is a racist, any further “evidence” of that “fact” will find a welcome home and be extremely difficult to dislodge.
One of the strongest beliefs for well over half of Americans is that behind the JFK assassination was some sort of shadowy cabal of powerful plotters. It’s been proven beyond a reasonable doubt that this was not the case, but it has barely affected that deeply-held belief in the conspiracy. I was reminded of this yesterday when I listened to a bit of an interview between Russell Brand and head conspiracy theorist Candace Owens. Both are popular podcasters, and Owens is currently peddling a host of conspiracy theories about Charlie Kirk’s assassination. Brand was questioning her and evinced some doubt about what she was saying, but then he added something like this, “Of course, for my whole life I’ve been hearing that JFK was killed by a lone gunman, and of course that’s false, and so I’m open to what you’re saying.”
That, in a nutshell, is the sort of thing that paves the way for poison peddlers such as Owens. “Everybody knows” certain things that are actually untrue, and those things foster the conspiratorial mindset that can believe just about anything. When the belief system becomes strong enough, for many if not most people no logic and no amount of evidence can destroy it.
I dunno know. “Everybody Knows,” as I hear it, is a straightforward appeal to sensible cynicism, not conspiracy theories, that even a conservative might appreciate:
____________________________
[Verse 1]
Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That’s how it goes
Everybody knows
–Leonard Cohen, “Everybody Knows”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IfmiKnZi3E
____________________________
Of course, at the level of Democrat psy-ops, sure.
huxley:
IMHO it is neither. It is an ironic commentary on what “Everybody Knows” – things which may nor may not be true, but that people think of course are true.
I’ve written about this previously, here. I am convinced of it because I doubt Cohen would be so simple-minded. It’s sort of like many of Frost’s poems – as Frost said about some of his poems, they’re “twisty.” I think Cohen is being “twisty” here.
neo:
I don’t hear it that way. It seems to me that Cohen is talking about things he believes are generally, cynically true and extends that to everyone.
He isn’t talking about conspiracy theories that some come to believe because of media manipulation.
He isn’t, for instance, singing:
Everybody knows that Oswald was a patsy
Everybody knows that the Warren Commission lied
It’s not a meta-song about people’s beliefs. It’s about systemic distrust.
huxley:
Of course not. Because Cohen isn’t talking about that. He’s talking about basic assumptions and IMHO he is speaking ironically. I don’t think he’d bother to make a song as simple as the one you’re describing.
For example, see these lyrics:
Sarcasm. Irony. What’s true and what isn’t, that people assume? He’s playing with that.
neo:
The first half of the song is, I would argue, emphatically true about systemic distrust.
In the second half he extends it into the personal sphere with the same general cynicism.
What’s true and what isn’t, that people assume? He’s playing with that.
Really?
No, I think he’s saying that most people today assume a lack of faithfulness, as well as that life just don’t turn out as one would like.
Cohen is not playing in this song. He has distilled his cynicism into a bitter elixir.
I guess it shouldn’t, but it does bug me when people say, “Well, we *know* that JFK was killed by . . . .”
No. We do not know that. Conspiracy people lie a lot and continue to lie after having been shown to be wrong.
There is no evidence at all pointing to anything but Oswald acting alone.
huxley:
I strongly disagree.
And for the most part, Cohen eschews politics in his songs, or simplicity. I hear the sarcasm in his voice in this song, the whole way through. You obviously disagree.
What about Democracy (is Coming to the USA)?
Marisa:
What about it? Have you read the words lately? Also very “twisty.”
neo:
Well it’s been fun. I don’t often get the chance to make such a fine literary statement as:
He has distilled his cynicism into a bitter elixir.
Nonetheless, while you have registered your disagreement and quoted two stanzas, you haven’t really made the case for Cohen’s sarcasm or irony other than his own weary dry cynicism.
I say Cohen meant every line. He wasn’t critiquing those positions as something one might believe or not. He meant it all.
huxley:
I don’t expect to convince you. We disagree. Period.
Everybody knows that Climate Change (anthropogenic) is real, that whiteness is the root of all evil, that there are infinite genders, …..
“Everybody knows…” is the fall back position of the establishment media and the leftist hive mind. I’ve recognized that early on, and it always enraged me. For instance, “everyone knows that Trump is a fascist, racist, dictator, etc.”
“Everybody knows” is really short-hand for “Everyone in MY circle knows” which is reasonable enough, because that’s who you turn to for direction or validation.
The problem is that too many people forget they have elided a meaningful phrase.
When a person is confronted with an opposing claim X and responds with a tone of perplexed surprise that “everybody know Y,” it’s an indicator that the speaker has no concept that anyone exists OUTSIDE of their bubble.
When the tone is more like an arrogant pronouncement, it’s an indicator that the speaker realizes there is something outside their bubble, but the inhabitants don’t rise to the level of people who must be considered: in that case, the elided phrase is “everybody who is important knows.”
It’s a subtle difference.
The first group might have some potential for mind-changing, if they can be convinced of the reality, and value, of the world outside their bubble.
The second has already made their decision about who is in the “right” club, and who is not.
“everybody knows” is short hand for, “If you don’t believe it, something’s wrong with you.”
“Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth.”
Joseph Goebbels, Minister of Propaganda under Hitler
The above quote is what motivates the mainstream media in its “reporting” of anything Trump (or really anything they report about republicans).
They realize that continuously repeating lies about Trump will convince millions of voters that Trump is Hitler, that republicans are his SS troops and that the only hope for America is to vote into office demonkrats regardless of how stupid, inept, senile, ignorant , dishonest, destructive and hate-America-first the democrat may be.
The MSM’s alliance with the democrat-party-aligned deep state and the demonkrat party is the perfect propaganda trifecta whose effectiveness in broadcasting the “big lie” cannot be overstated.
Now combine this with the millions of recent (say, last 5 or 10 years) college grads (who are voters) who have been completely brainwashed into believing that the worst thing that planet earth has ever experienced was and is the USA and that the USA needs saviors like the communist elitist Mamdani or the near-communist Newsom (who has a very good shot of becoming president) or the corrupt leftist POS Pritzker, et. al., and you have a construct that is very potent.
(No need to mention the millions of illegals or dead people who “vote” for demonkrats).
The republicans, already lousy at public relations, must find a way to get out their message that completely side-steps the MSM and is just as effective as the MSM propaganda machine.
I have no idea how this can be accomplished
The Left is never challenged on dates, numbers, nothing.
Related…
Another strange and sordid episode fomented by “Biden” and “his” criminal DOJ.
“Freshly Pardoned [Texas Democratic Representative] Cuellar Says Biden DOJ Tried To Entrap Him…”—
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/freshly-pardoned-cuellar-says-biden-doj-tried-entrap-him-trump-lashes-out-over-lack
Keep in mind that a similar tactic was used against NYC Mayor Eric Adams and for essentially the same reason.
Some years ago I came across some of the essays by Dr. David Brin, PhD astronomer, futurist consultant, and science fiction writer. I gather he started as a conservative libertarian, with a sort of “pox on all their houses” approach, but he has ended up with a really strong case of TDS.
None the less, well before that, he proposed an aphorism well worth considering here:
Criticism is the only know antidote to error [CITOKATE]*.
He cites its value and applicability in scientific and legal venues, with hopes it might be applied more generally. Clearly the media and other indoctrinates have no desire to accept criticism in any form. Thus they are fully loaded with error.
*I chose to pronounce it with a pseudo Japanese flavor, as “See-Toe-Kah-Tay”, although I have been informed by my Japanese speaking neighbor that there is no such phrase or word in Japanese.
@ R2L > “Criticism is the only known antidote to error [CITOKATE]”
This is why the Left must shield its errors from criticism, at all costs, even if it means taking off the mask they have worn so long in the US and world-wide.
However, criticism not founded in truth is not an antidote to anything, and most of the criticism of the Right from the Left (not all, clearly) seems in this era to be founded on nothing more than “I don’t like it” and “my friends don’t like it” and “Rachel Maddow et al. don’t like it” and “the Global Socialist Elites (who are billionaires despite condemning capitalism) don’t like it.”
I have read and enjoyed a number of Dr. Brin’s SF books, which are very inventive and well-written.
That he has fallen into the TDS/OMB trap does not enhance his reputation for scientific objectivity.
He’s not the only person who doesn’t apply their normal principles of reasoning to Donald Trump.
The President seems to be able to warp usually-intelligent brains just by existing.
As for pronunciation of the acronym, given the often perceptive remarks of one of my favorite commenters here, I would suggest “cite-o-Kate.”
IOW, likening it to a “citation of Kate” as indicative of its worth.
“Criticism is the only known antidote to error”
What the Democrats propose and enact are never errors; they are intentional, purposeful words and deeds all aimed at achieving absolute power.
Nothing is off limits to them.
Further, any “errors ” made by the demonkrats are shielded and covered up by their propaganda arm,the MSM, as well as by their powerful allies, the deep state.
Criticism alone is useless if nobody gets to hear or see it.