by Werther

CounterPunch

02/23/05

Since the attacks of 11 September 2001, the American public has endured an astounding avalanche of official lies, half truths, pseudo-events and sheer balderdash that will surely enter the Guinness Book of Records. Among the most persistent and infuriating lies of government, to those who have imbibed their knowledge of the past from the crystalline springs of Gibbon and von Ranke, is the misleading historical analogy. Its purpose is twofold: to relativize whatever current disaster the governing class has waltzed the hapless populace into; and to kill any usable past. The technique also has the added benefit of making government placemen sound learned at least in the estimation of an audience which gains its knowledge of the world through Fox News and other State media.

http://www.counterpunch.org/werther02232005.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp