The Lie that is Bigger than Trump’s Lie about the Election
(The Biggest Lie is the Lie that Most of the American People Believe)
By
David Gottfried
Of course, Trump and his gang of right-wing lunatics are repugnant. Of course, their contention that Trump won the election in 2020 is utter rubbish. But Trump’s lie is not the greatest lie afflicting the American people.
Trump’s lie is not the greatest lie because reasonably intelligent people, throughout America, are not in the dark. They know Trump is lying and their knowledge of the falsity of his contentions can be proven by studying election returns: In Wealthy Republican suburbs across the United States, Trump bombed. Whether one looks at the swing republican suburbs of Philadelphia, or Gross Point, Michigan or Nassau County, New York (In 1972, Nixon won that county by 300,000 votes to 200,000 votes) one finds that college-educated, upscale Republicans knew that Trump was on a par with Pappy O Daniels, the Governor of Texas in the 1920’s. a mental midget who explained his reluctance to provide interpreters to Mexican-Americans by saying, “If English was good enough for Jesus Christ, it’s good enough for Mexicans.”
Intelligent Americans know Trump lost the election, all reputable news outlets know Trump lost the election and if he is not destroyed it will not be because of our ignorance. It will be because people who know he is a liar will still support him because he is a racist and fascist and some of his supporters positively salivate at the prospect of war, whether it is race war, war against Semites (Jews or Arabs or both Jews and Arabs), or simply anarchic, chaotic, id-directed arson and mayhem for the hell of it. (One of his supporters, at the January 6th day of disgrace, wore a T shirt that said “Camp Auschwitz”)
But there is a bigger lie. It is a web of lies, for the most part, about foreign policy. Actually, it does not constitute an actual lie as the word lie is normally defined. The truth has always been available to those who are desirous of reading intelligent news sources. However, most Americans would rather watch the Beverly Hillbillies. Most reputable news outlets, including CBS, NBC and the New York Times, while not actually lying about the news, only tell you half the story. And half the story is, in effect, often a damnable lie. This idea is not original. Herbert Marcuse said this, in One Dimensional Man, in 1964, and Noam Chomsky has said this for years. But we Americans keep forgetting what we learn, just as during the presidencies of Billy Jefferson Davis Clinton and Ronald Ray Gun we forgot the lessons of the Great Depression and once again made America very safe for bloodthirsty tycoons who gave us the Great Recession.
In any event, the great lie of American foreign policy is a lie which succeeds in convincing Americans that we are the most noble nation on earth and that the rest of the world hates us because the rest of the world is evil. The greatest lie is a lie, perpetuated by the media, which edits and photoshops America’s portrait until scrooge looks like St. Francis of Assisi.
Very simply, there are so many black marks on America’s record, and most empty-headed “Hee Haw” watching Americans are as naïve as a three-year-old who believes in Santa Claus.
For starters, consider these historical tid bits deftly kept from the ears of infantile Americans:
1) Why so many Koreans hate us and why they have every right to hate us:
President Teddy Roosevelt arbitrated an end to the Russo-Japanese War of 1905. Essentially, he was not an honest party: He decided that Japan was entitled to rule Korea, and in return Japan agreed to our dominion over the Philippines. When TR gave Korea to the Japanese, he consigned the Korean people to decades of torture at the hands of Japanese sadists.
2) Why North Korea is justified in not wanting to give up its nukes
I have read that North Korea proposed an agreement along the lines of the deal JFK struck with Cuba: Cuba gave up its nukes, and JFK agreed not to invade Cuba. However, the U.S. refuses to agree not to take North Korea. Hence, they keep their bombs. Of course, what I read might be a lie, but why should I believe the American side of things: For years America lied about a non-existent attack in the Gulf of Tonkin.
3) Why so many members of NATO get sick of American “protection”:
Many member states of NATO tender little money to NATO’s defense. American politicians, for years, have complained that America puts up most of the money for NATO. This complaint is proffered to make Americans believe that America is always noble and that foreigners are always cheap skates who want a free ride from hard-working, virtuous Americans. In fact, the NATO members of Western Europe (The states in Eastern Europe are a different story entirely) are DOING THE UNITED STATES A BIG FAVOR BY BEING IN NATO. They are casting their lot with America. By doing this, by harboring United States troops and weaponry, they make themselves targets of Russia. These western European states would arguably be safer if they were neutrals. Sweeden and Austria are neutrals. When was the last time the “Russian bear” menaced those states?
4) Why so many anti fascists and anti-Nazis hate us and have every right to hate us:
a) We discuss D Day as if it were the only battle in World War Two. In fact, in the autumn of 1943, for every German soldier fighting the British and the Americans in Italy, there were 8 Germans fighting the Russians on the vast and deadly Eastern front.
b) The US entered World War Two on December 7, 1941. We did not invade Normandy until June 1944. Were we waiting to see whether the Nazis would beat the Russians or whether the Russians would beat the Nazis?
c) Many of my fellow Jews love Truman because he recognized the State of Israel. Of course, most of them don’t know that he said he was delighted, upon learning that Hitler had invaded the USSR, as he said America could sit tight while two malignant nations decimated one another. And while he was delighted, the Final Solution was accelerated. The Einsatsgrupen, or mobile killing units, were right behind the advancing German army, killing as many Jews as possible, the mass murder of Babi Yar gave us a visage of hell, and millions of German soldiers advanced East with all the humanity of covid viruses.
5) Why so many Frenchmen hate us and have every right to hate us:
When US troops captured Northwest Africa from the Vichy French, we let the Vichy French continue to rule Northwest Africa. The Vichy French were allies of Hitler. The US troops could have let the Free French take control of Northwest Africa, but the US gave the honors to traitors who collaborated with the Nazis and put Jews on trains to concentration and death camps.
6) Why so many people the world over hate us:
a) We claim that we believe in and promote democracy, but we stopped elections, scheduled to be held in South Vietnam in 1956, because we feared the communists would win.
b) We overthrew Mossadegh in Iran because he wanted to nationalize the oil industry in that nation.
c) We overthrew Allende in Chile because he wanted to nationalize the holdings of mining stocks
d) When Guatemala elected a leftist president or prime minister, American planes bombed Guatemala City
e) When Greece elected a leftist regime in 1967, the CIA fomented coup
f) When the Dominican Republican moved to the left, in 1965, and threatened the assets of US corporations, President LBJ dispatched the marines and thousands of residents of the Dominican Republic were killed.
V interesting to read this column now, July '22, when NATO has finally gotten its way, enmeshing us in the massive folly of an unending proxy war with Russia. I spent the last half hour trying to find a Trotsky quote about how US imperialism is perceived as "blameless" and can't. You've restated it. As Gide said, "Of course it's all been said before but nobody was listening so we have to say it again." Quibbles ? The French don't hate Americans. In that regard, you're projecting.
This whole post offers spicy food for thought--and great arguments.