Molly

Gold star for 'but even I'm getting sick of your childish fucking attacks on this "issue".'

"Ironically it seems as if Harper has made one big happy family of the left. It's amazing how families come together when someone grabs the carving knife at Sunday dinner and threatens everyone with it."

Naturally the common people don’t want war. But after all, it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy, and it’s always a simple matter to drag people along whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. This is easy. All you have to do i...

... is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and for exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country.”

--- Hermann Goering

Archives:

"Mr. Flaherty has a credibility problem. " ...

"The idea that the neocons are "democratic idealists" is one of the more astonishing political myths of the past decade." -- Bloodyminded

And, of course, "I don't believe a word of it. Not one word."-- Wilma Flintstone

•"If a window was broken or a drain was blocked up, someone was certain to say that Snowball had come in the night and done it, and when the key of the store-shed was lost, the whole farm was convinced that Snowball had thrown it down the well. Curiously enough, they went on believing this even after the mislaid key was found under a sack of meal."

- George Orwell, Animal Far...

What this means is to have the power of the grand narrative: to describe the society and its problems in a way that fits into a certain political agenda. Because as we all know, politics is not about solving problems per se but about finding problems for which one's party has the solutions.

Political language -- and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists -- is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.

George Orwell, "Politics and the English Language", 1946