Krugman: "...they don’t operate a lie machine 24/7 the way modern Republicans do."

[babylonsister]

http://www.truth-out.org/deliberate-deception-us-blaming-fannie-and-freddie-crisis/1326316248

Deliberate Deception in the US: Blaming Fannie and Freddie for Crisis
Thursday 12 January 2012
by: Paul Krugman, Krugman & Co. | Op-Ed


Joe Nocera gets mad. And it’s a beautiful thing to see.

In a Dec. 23 column in The New York Times, Joe once again went after the Big Lie — the claim that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac caused the financial crisis — and drove home the point that the people advancing this story aren’t just wrong but are acting with intent, engaging in deliberate deception.

Joe cites an op-ed published two days before in The Wall Street Journal by Peter Wallison, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute who “almost single-handedly created the myth” about Fannie and Freddie. “In Wallison’s article, he claimed that the charges brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission against six former Fannie and Freddie executives last week prove him right,” Joe wrote. “This is another favorite tactic: He takes a victory lap whenever events cast Fannie and Freddie in a bad light. Rarely, however, has his intellectual dishonesty been on such vivid display. In fact, what the S.E.C.’s allegations show is that the Big Lie is, well, a lie.”
Read the whole thing.

Basically, Joe is arriving where I’ve been since 2000: what’s going on in the discussion of economic affairs (and other matters, like justifications for war) isn’t just a case where different people look at the same facts but reach different conclusions. Instead, we’re looking at a situation in which one side of the debate just isn’t interested in the truth; in which alleged scholarship is actually just propaganda.

Saying this, of course, gets you declared “shrill” and denounced as partisan; you’re supposed to pretend that we’re having a civilized discussion between people with good intentions. And you’re supposed to match each attack on Republicans with an attack on Democrats, as if the mendacity were equal on both sides.

Sorry, but it isn’t. Democrats aren’t angels; they’re human and sometimes corrupt — but they don’t operate a lie machine 24/7 the way modern Republicans do.

Welcome to my world, Joe.

[MarianJack]

1. 24/7 Lie Machine?

Sounds like a new slogan for faux news.

PEACE!

[mazzarro]

3. Yes indeed - 100 % - k & r - n/t

[Stuart G]

2. k and r nt

[rfranklin]

4. My local wingnuts have taken the Wallison version as Gospel...

and facts do not trump faith.

[Jim Lane]

5. Thanks, I've added this to Wikipedia

You linked to Krugman who linked to Nocera who linked to Karen Petrou, and I've quoted her analysis in the relevant Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subprime_mortgage_crisis#Government_policies

babylonsister, I've often edited Wikipedia with information you provided, but I think this is the first time I've used two of your posts in one day. Thanks for this one and for your post about the lying Republican candidate in Missouri -- http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002164120

[babylonsister]

6. And thank YOU for all you do to get the truth out there!

[Jim Lane]

9. DU has so much information that would improve Wikipedia

I'd love to work with any DUer who wants to get some of these truths out there on Wikipedia. You italicize with two apostrophes instead of with a bracketed "i", but it's not hard to learn the system.

There are very active right-wingers on Wikipedia, and dealing with them can be a pain. For progressives, though, the site has a lot of advantages: no advertiser control, no fees, content determined by volunteers' willingness to work rather than by whose Super PAC spends more millions.

In July 2008 I added some information to Palin's bio. When McCain picked her, that bio, with my work still incorporated, got five million hits in two days. Did anyone leaflet or phone-bank five million people?

[Bolo Boffin]

7. Love that last bolded sentence.

Try watching Mitt Romney's stump speech without banging your head on a wall from the lies. Ay-yi-yi.

[treestar]

8. Another one is the CRA causing the housing crisis

Claiming that the government forced the banks to make loans to people who couldn't pay.

[Mopar151]

10. The lies are interwoven enough to sound plausible

And presented consistently, using the science of propaganda - in such a way that it turns better instincts rancid.