Re: [pf] "The" meaning of: >> Big Lie <<

At 07:08 3/6/2001 -0400, Gary Barrett wrote:
>Remember ... how Clinton's people had vandalized the executive offices,
left lewd messages on answering machines, removed "W"s from their PCs, etc?  
>Remember that story that got all the headlines? ...
>[now: ]
<Start article> Friday, May 18
>... The Washington Post reported on the alleged vandalism shortly after
President Bush took office in January. The Post and other outlets soon
raised doubts about the claims, and also reported on Bush's statement that
the allegations were false. ...
>Jones: "There was a sort of fertile ground for believing anything bad."
><End article>
>

· This example could reasonably be labelled "Another Big Lie?", including
the question mark, but /I/ reserve the phrase for something bigger, that
usually takes much more authoritative repetition to get the masses to believe.

· Examples; the turning of Caesar into a god; the converting of ordinary
sensible Germans into supporters of Hitler and Naziism; the Allies'
demonising of the Japanese in WW-II. Widespread (hard to find any
skeptics); long-lasting: years and decades; and often with the goal of
turning the followers into fanatics or at least with no tolerance for dissent.
  I've had to accept that ordinary people are susceptible to such
manipulation (consider religious wars), but I have found it hard to credit,
ever since, in my teenage, my mother asked me to examine my statement that
Mercury outbords were obviously much superior to Evinrude and Johnson
outboard motors.

David.
(David MacClement) davd@ihug.co.nz 
http://www.geocities.com/davd.geo/index.html#top
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