Originally Posted by PonyExpress

All of this could have been accomplished if he were simply a more effective public speaker, a salesman. But that lack of charisma has been his greatest weakness, and one for which there is no remedy but victory.

Originally Posted by BelichickFan

Bush actually is fairly charismatic . . . he's just unable to form complete and strong arguments even when they're staring him in the face.

Originally Posted by glecco

It may be of some historical interest of how the “Big Lie” has been used in the past. It may of some current interest to some as to how this practice is being used by extraneous forces in other places against other peoples around the world.

Of what is of great interest to most of us is how this practice has challenged the citizens of this nation during the last few years - and by whom.

It may be a technique which has successfully contributed to the current state of affairs in which we now found ourselves entrapped.

Originally Posted by PonyExpress

3. The claim that President Bush is the one who used "The Big Lie" technique leading up to the Iraq war, vis a vis WMD, is in IMO itself a Big Lie worthy of Goebbels. And yet, as Goebbels stated, "if you repeat something often enough, sooner or later people will believe it." And so we are left with a disillusioned American public doubting the righteousness of a world wide conflict, the moral intentions of their leadership, and despondent at the prospects of losing a hopeless war, when in fact we should perceive ourselves as a righteous nation, confident in our virtue and on the cusp of one of our greatest achievements. That is what the Big Lie can do, rob a nation of its soul, as it did to the German people in WWII, to the Russian people, and continues to do to the Muslim peoples who suffer throughout the Middle East under the yoke of totalitarian regimes.

In this I blame our President for his failings: He should have been better prepared to combat enemy propaganda filtered through the Western media and University system, should have better prepared the nation for the duration and cost of the Iraq conflict. All of this could have been accomplished if he were simply a more effective public speaker, a salesman. But that lack of charisma has been his greatest weakness, and one for which there is no remedy but victory.

Originally Posted by PonyExpress

The "Big Lie" is a propaganda technique defined by Hitler in Mein Kampf as the use of a lie so "colossal" that no one would believe that someone "would have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously".

Hitler wrote: "in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously."

Goebbels, Nazi propaganda minister, adopted this strategy and brought it to terrifying perfection directed at his own and subjugated peoples. Even as the Jews were powerless and being slaughtered, speeches were continually made that the Jews were the moving force behind the war; even though the Jewish influence in the Soviet Union had ended with the liquidation of the Trotskyites, the "Bolsheviks" were depicted to the German population as a Jewish Nation.

Many I'm sure are aware of the Nazi influences in the Arab world, and the way Mein Kampf is today considered a classic and treasured reading throughout that region, and Hitler a hero. How did this occur? The Ba'ath party, which currently rules Syria and previously controlled Iraq, was created nurtured and inspired by the Vichy French and the Nazis during WWII. It is no surprise that through this and other vehicles both the belief system and propaganda styles advocated by Hitler and Goebbels have become part and parcel of Muslim internal and foreign policy. We know the sympathies between the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj-Amin Al Husseini, and Hitler, who met together in Paris in 1941. As the Mufti declared in his 1944 radio broadcast to the Muslim SS troops serving in the Balkans:

"The Reich is fighting against the same enemies who robbed the Moslems of their countries and suppressed their faith in Asia, Africa and Europe…. National Socialist Germany is fighting against world Jewry. The Koran says, 'You will find that the Jews are the worst enemies of the Moslems.' There are considerable similarities between Islamic principles and those of National Socialism, namely in the affirmation of struggle and fellowship, in the stress of the leadership idea, in the ideal of order. All this brings our ideologies close together and facilitates cooperation. I am happy to see in this [military] division a visible and practical expression of both ideologies."

Following the defeat of Germany, as Joel Fishman writes, ( http://www.danielpipes.org/rr/4465.php), "many Nazis found refuge in the Arab world. From 1953, Egypt absorbed some two thousand of them. Some worked in Nasser's secret service. Some administered concentration camps. Others were involved in the design and construction of rockets.
Among this population were specialists in anti-Semitic propaganda. From Egypt, they disseminated anti-Semitism in the Arab world as well as the doctrine of Holocaust denial....

"After the defeat of Germany, the propaganda methods of inversion of reality and the Big Lie fell into temporary disuse. Nevertheless, the Soviet Union and its allies in the Arab world reintroduced them during the 1960s, particularly after the Israeli victory in the Six Day War in 1967. That outcome represented a humiliation and posed an internal danger because it shook the foundations of authority. It heartened the minorities in the Soviet Union, not least the Jews. Having suffered a major reverse, the Soviet Union and the Arab countries decided to use political anti-Semitism to shift world attention from their own failures. They sought to delegitimize Israel, bringing about its isolation and destruction. Both the Arab world and the Soviet Union used inversion of reality as a method and drew on the idiom of Nazi propaganda."

At that time, there was a connection forged between the far left in the West, an extension of Soviet influence, and Islamo-fascism. Together they embraced the Big Lie as a means for manipulating Western opinion regarding the Middle East. Today, the alliance between the Far Left and Islamofascism continues to flourish; and the Big Lie has become a staple weapon of America's enemies in the War on Terror.

Several Big Lies, embraced and propagated by the Left, confirm the continuing existence of that alliance and relationship.

1. That the United States and Israel engaged in a conspiracy to destroy the Twin Towers and blame it on the Muslims. Even as Leftists like Noam Chomsky et. al. and Islamofascists rejoiced at the audacity of that horrific crime, they were propagating that Big Lie to the gullible masses here and abroad, using sympathizers and fellow travelers in the media, universities and politics as their mouthpieces. Popular examples of such prominent imbeciles are Rosie O'Donnel, Charlie Sheen, just fellow travelers foolishly suckered by a tried and true method of manipulation.

2. That the United States is LOSING the war in Iraq. Actually the United States is decisively winning the War in Iraq, one of the great military and political achievements in the history of our nation, if our politicians can stay the course. Al Qaeda is rapidly abandoning prospect of establishing a Caliphate beginning in Iraq, because of the lack of reciptivity of the Iraqi Sunnis, with whom the fascists are exasperated for their recalcitrance. The target of their ambitions is shifting away from Iraq, a dead end and a certain US success (provided our military continues to be supported), toward the overthrow of the Alawi Syrian regime. The fact that reports of our "loss" in Iraq are so persistent suggests that many in our own public media have become mouthpieces for enemy propaganda. The UN oil for food scandal in the French Press demonstrates the current vulnerability of the 4th estate to such influences. The designs of the opposition party (the Democrats) on securing the White House are another more obvious reason for the repetition of images meant to steal defeat out of the jaws of victory.

3. The claim that President Bush is the one who used "The Big Lie" technique leading up to the Iraq war, vis a vis WMD, is in IMO itself a Big Lie worthy of Goebbels. And yet, as Goebbels stated, "if you repeat something often enough, sooner or later people will believe it." And so we are left with a disillusioned American public doubting the righteousness of a world wide conflict, the moral intentions of their leadership, and despondent at the prospects of losing a hopeless war, when in fact we should perceive ourselves as a righteous nation, confident in our virtue and on the cusp of one of our greatest achievements. That is what the Big Lie can do, rob a nation of its soul, as it did to the German people in WWII, to the Russian people, and continues to do to the Muslim peoples who suffer throughout the Middle East under the yoke of totalitarian regimes.

In this I blame our President for his failings: He should have been better prepared to combat enemy propaganda filtered through the Western media and University system, should have better prepared the nation for the duration and cost of the Iraq conflict. All of this could have been accomplished if he were simply a more effective public speaker, a salesman. But that lack of charisma has been his greatest weakness, and one for which there is no remedy but victory.

Originally Posted by PatsFanInVa

...I am not a conspiracy theorist as regards 9/11. It's pretty clear what happened, from my point of view: a bunch of terrorists hijacked planes and ran them into buildings. Everything else is commentary, including whatever the "WTC 7" footage is supposed to prove.

Originally Posted by All_Around_Brown

Can you elaborate? I think I get you, but Im not sure.