The Big Lie

[uppityperson]

This speech is several yrs old, but is still very apt with the next upcoming election. Change a couple times in McDermott's speech and it is still valid today.

http://www.house.gov/mcdermott/sp040618a.shtml

The Big Lie
House of Representatives - June, 18 2004

Mr. Speaker, this administration is out of control. They have made obeying the law a thing of the past.

They have implemented "the big lie" theory of communications. This theory takes propaganda to a whole new level.

Under the big lie, you fabricate a story and call it the truth. You disseminate the story as widely as possible. You wrap the propaganda in the mantle of national symbols, and you prey upon the fears and emotions of your citizens. You repeat the propaganda every day in every way. You say it over and over and over again, knowing if you say it long enough people will believe it.

Anyone who dares to question the propaganda becomes the enemy. Any evidence to the contrary is hidden, called tainted or dismissed as the work of your enemies.

This is a portrait of America today painted by this administration. In the face of overwhelming evidence presented by members of its own party, the administration keeps reporting the same old false story. They say anything, and they have.

War Secretary Don Rumsfeld first told the American people, we do not have to abide by the Geneva Conventions. Then after Abu Ghraib he said, America supports the Geneva Conventions.

Now the truth emerges. Rumsfeld personally ordered an Iraqi suspect held in solitary confinement at a secret location for 7 months. The inmate was hidden from the International Red Cross and any other human rights organization. Rumsfeld made someone disappear. Rumsfeld personally committed a violation of the Geneva Conventions that is so egregious, it could qualify as a war crime.

Rumsfeld has not had time yet to blame some soldiers and throw them overboard like he continues to do with the soldiers in Abu Ghraib. And the blame game is in full swing over at the White House.

Now even members of the President's own Republican Party are joining me on the enemies list. The bipartisan 9/11 Commission issued a key finding: there is no credible evidence linking Iraq and al Qaeda to attacks on America. It is not there. Saddam was a thug, but not a bin Laden pal. The 9/11 Commission finding proves without any doubt that the President misled the American people about the war in Iraq. Instead of accepting the finding, the President went into full frontal denial today.

Presented with conclusive and compelling evidence, the President simply announced that he knows there was a link, so there is a link. A bipartisan commission of distinguished U.S. leaders whose only mission is to find out the truth on behalf of America is about to be neutered by the administration.

Facts? Forget them. The President knows the truth. He must have seen it in a vision. Evidence? Who needs evidence when you have a President who is all knowing? Undeniable conclusion? Deny it.

Then what do you do when you are this President and this administration? Next, and you can count on this, Republican storm troopers come into the House, will step to the microphone and denounce the commission. The Republican leaders in the House will denounce the members of the 9/11 Commission as partisan, even the Republicans on the commission.

In the big lie theory of communication you never let the facts get in the way of the propaganda.

So less than 4 hours after the 9/11 Commission tells America that there was no link between Iraq and the attacks, the President says otherwise. The charade goes on.

Over a year ago the President misled the American people and the world about Iraq, and he continues to do the same thing today. The President retreated from the war on terror and the hunt for Osama bin Laden to settle an old score against a family enemy in Iraq, but America has lost 800 U.S. soldiers in Iraq. America has seen thousands of U.S. soldiers wounded in Iraq. We have spent $200 billion.

The death, destruction and mayhem never had to happen. There are ways of dealing with Saddam, but the administration wanted blood from an old family nemesis.

The President has made the world more dangerous. The administration has made America look and act like a lawless thug. The War Secretary has made the world shudder with the awful truth seen in prisoner abuse pictures that no amount of rhetoric can deny. The big lie can make people afraid. The big lie cannot stop the truth.

America has seen and now America has heard. The President misled the American people about Iraq. The American people will respond in November. The 2nd of November is coming.

[uppityperson]

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