tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-712277970998561202024-03-13T12:15:01.257-07:00Goebbels Didn’t Say ItIf you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State. [Falsely attributed to Joseph Goebbels]Randall Bytwerkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09586984644417180021noreply@blogger.comBlogger63125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-71227797099856120.post-91072707316259225372022-10-27T07:25:00.004-07:002022-10-27T08:36:36.190-07:00“Propaganda in Focus” is Fooled"Propaganda in Focus" is the project of a variety of scholars who are good at practicing what they claim to study, but its writers can be as gullible as anyone else. A recent post by Greg Simons titled “<a href="https://propagandainfocus.com/nordstream-pipeline-sabotage-the-propaganda-of-interpretation-and-misrepresentation/" rel="nofollow">Nordstream Pipeline Sabotage: The Propaganda of Interpretation and (Mis)Representation</a>” concludes using rather dubious reasoning that the United States was probably responsible. In the process of building the argument, Simons paraphrases the Goebbels quotation this blog follows:
<blockquote>“According to the Nazi Minister of Propaganda, Josef Goebbels, if one tells a big lie enough and keeps repeating it, gradually it becomes accepted by more and more as the truth. In this context, the truth is the enemy of the state and its intentions. In the contemporary context, the truth is the enemy of US geopolitical aims and ambitions.”</blockquote>
Although it is a paraphrase, the “enemy of the state” comes from the fabricated quotation this blog follows, indicating that Simons thinks it is genuine, even though the <b><a href="https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/joseph-goebbels-on-the-quot-big-lie-quot" rel="nofollow">source he quotes from</a> </b> notes that Goebbels didn't actually say it.
He also is a fan of Tucker Carlson. Randall Bytwerkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09586984644417180021noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-71227797099856120.post-77169017410790394702022-03-23T13:57:00.000-07:002022-03-23T13:57:04.445-07:00Robert Malone is FooledRobert Malone, the notorious vaccine skeptic, has published a goofy article titled “<a href="https://thenewamerican.com/magazine/tna3807/" rel="nofollow">Why Did so Many Fall for the Covid Narrative?</a>”
He manages two Goebbels misquotations. The first is the quotation this blog follows. He claims the world-wide COVID hoax is an example of Goebbels’s insights. He also cites Goebbels as saying something else, which again Goebbels did not say — it’s from the introduction to a book about Goebbels.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK5qN0HSIqcf8TZXXg0NgDZDP1Iw7VW4ZuiiaCaZYsZVL89xzC-fXTcweMV2yX21OMGOHD63ZMekFMXIOJWUzG7d8DaGcZZ8RCljfb5-yJSwG2IwFpN5DaFsSAsbN_WO7az1Gyx3W15MM7oR4xfLp0cGr8Uy48vJJHHMH_Kn06gmzLVEJ80OtuufM/s1480/IMG_0853.jpeg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="600" data-original-height="1451" data-original-width="1480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK5qN0HSIqcf8TZXXg0NgDZDP1Iw7VW4ZuiiaCaZYsZVL89xzC-fXTcweMV2yX21OMGOHD63ZMekFMXIOJWUzG7d8DaGcZZ8RCljfb5-yJSwG2IwFpN5DaFsSAsbN_WO7az1Gyx3W15MM7oR4xfLp0cGr8Uy48vJJHHMH_Kn06gmzLVEJ80OtuufM/s600/IMG_0853.jpeg"/></a></div>
What does one say? I say it tells us something about Malone’s reliability, and it isn’t good.Randall Bytwerkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09586984644417180021noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-71227797099856120.post-42075367101458941222021-08-16T03:30:00.004-07:002021-08-16T03:35:34.477-07:00Mark Twain on Fake QuotationsMark Twain, who himself is regularly credited with things he did not say, could do it himself.
The excellent <a href="https://quoteinvestigator.com/2021/08/12/invented-quote/">Quote Investigator</a> blog reports how he won an argument by inventing a quotation.
As he said:
<blockquote>"It is my belief that nearly any invented quotation, played with confidence, stands a good chance to deceive. There are people who think that honesty is always the best policy. This is a superstition; there are times when the appearance of it is worth six of it"</blockquote>
Randall Bytwerkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09586984644417180021noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-71227797099856120.post-58077912048190087862021-05-11T06:11:00.001-07:002021-05-11T06:11:30.252-07:00<p> I haven't done an update on the quotation for a while. The last time I checked on 20 August 2019, Google reported 44,000 hits. A Google search today (11 May 2021) finds 96,000 hits. Bing, which apparently doesn’t omit anything from search results, finds 1,860,000 pages, down from 3,500,000 in August 2019. As always, the search phrase is “truth is the greatest enemy of the state.”</p><p>At least my blog page and article debunking the quotation show up on the first page of Google results, and also on Bing, so those who are suspicious enough to check may find enough to make them dubious about the quotation. </p>Randall Bytwerkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09586984644417180021noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-71227797099856120.post-52007329324711892862021-01-19T06:10:00.008-08:002021-01-30T11:07:49.762-08:00Alpha History Gets an “F”<p> Alpha History is an Australian site that claims to be curated by credentialed academics. Shall we say that they do not provide much evidence to put confidence in their “scholars.” Their post on <a href="https://alphahistory.com/nazigermany/nazi-germany-quotations-propaganda/" rel="nofollow">Nazi propaganda quotations</a> includes the quotation we are following, along with other fabricated quotations. As usual, they fail to provide sources. </p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CQATbA8wj7E/YAbs_ZuIHQI/AAAAAAAAcYs/N3PEmg8hvs49uheLBzeh-yGmJPggc35YACNcBGAsYHQ/s2048/266E4A57-0014-4E2B-BCDF-366951F9F042.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1118" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CQATbA8wj7E/YAbs_ZuIHQI/AAAAAAAAcYs/N3PEmg8hvs49uheLBzeh-yGmJPggc35YACNcBGAsYHQ/w350-h640/266E4A57-0014-4E2B-BCDF-366951F9F042.jpeg" width="350" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(43, 43, 43); color: #2b2b2b;"><br /></span></div><span face="Lato, sans-serif" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(43, 43, 43); color: #2b2b2b; font-size: 18px; text-align: start;"><div style="text-align: left;">According to the site:</div></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span face="Lato, sans-serif" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(43, 43, 43); color: #2b2b2b; font-size: 18px; text-align: start;"><br /></span></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span face="Lato, sans-serif" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(43, 43, 43); color: #2b2b2b; font-size: 18px; text-align: start;">“Alpha History is written, curated and compiled by qualified teachers and historians. Content on Alpha History is written specifically for students at middle school, high school and undergraduate levels.”</span></div></blockquote><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The site has since removed the dubious quotations.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The site also included a lot of copyrighted material from my German Propaganda Archive without credit, but has remedied that.</div><p><br /></p>Randall Bytwerkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09586984644417180021noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-71227797099856120.post-84699867911239684572020-11-12T13:32:00.002-08:002020-11-12T13:41:52.451-08:00Astonishing News from Russia<p> If you need evidence that the Russian press has not improved since Soviet days, an astonishing article titled <a href="https://www.pravdareport.com/opinion/145243-us_election_show/">“The Great Dog and Pony Show of 2020” </a> in the 11 November 2020 issue of <i>Pravda </i>will provide it. Allegedly by one Jim Jones, it is a mishmash of deep state nonsense, historical error (did you know that John F. Kennedy was a Republican or that the U.S. had a president named “Ronal Regan”?), and sheer incoherence. Not surprisingly, it uses the fake Goebbels quotation this blog follows to support a supposed deep state Democratic conspiracy to deceive the world.</p><p>It really is an incredible piece, worth reading for amusement if nothing else.</p>Randall Bytwerkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09586984644417180021noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-71227797099856120.post-76578575229656521432020-07-13T15:42:00.001-07:002020-07-13T15:42:42.296-07:00Thomas Sowell Fails to Do His HomeworkThomas Sowell, in a recent <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/media/thomas-sowell-systemic-racism-has-no-meaning" rel="nofollow">interview with Fox</a>, misquotes Goebbels as saying “people will believe any lie if it is repeated long enough and loud enough.” He does qualify his statement by saying that “Goebbels is supposed to have said” it.<div><br /></div><div>As I have observed often before, although Goebbels believed lying to be a necessary tool of the propagandist, in public he always maintained that his propaganda was truthful. Indeed, he preferred to tell the truth, although often selectively. </div><div><br /></div><div>Sowell’s quotation is also more a revised version of Hitler’s notorious claim about the “big lie” technique, although Hitler, too, was not claiming it to be his policy, but rather accusing the Jews of Vienna of the tactic.</div><div><br /></div><div>Sowell is normally a careful scholar, so it is disappointing to find him citing Goebbels inaccurately.</div>Randall Bytwerkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09586984644417180021noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-71227797099856120.post-83505222863984554172020-04-25T08:09:00.003-07:002020-12-16T03:58:00.951-08:00Still another fabricated Goebels QuotationA visitor to the site asks me if this quotation, allegedly by Goebbels, is genuine:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 18px;"><i>Let me control the media and I will turn any nation into a herd of pigs.</i></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: medium;">A Google search on 25 April 2020 finds 5,500 results.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: medium;">It is almost certainly fabricated, and for the usual reasons.</span><br />
<br />
<ol>
<li><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: medium;">No one I checked provides a source. The sites that cite it are often dubious (e.g., RT [formerly Russia Today] is a familiar source of dubious information). The RT citation is from 2014, making it one of the earliest I can find.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: medium;">No reliable scholar cites it. I checked Google Scholar and Google Books. There are a few Google Books citations, but none from a book that inspires any confidence.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: medium;">Although I have not read everything Goebbels wrote, I have read a lot. I have never </span><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: medium;">encountered this quotation.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: medium;">As I have observed before, Goebbels is unlikely to have said something like this. A good propagandist —and he was that— is unlikely to make such a statement. </span></li><li><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: medium;">“Media” is not a word Goebbels would have used. “<i>Die Presse</i>” was the contemporary term.</span></li></ol>
<span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: medium;">In short, one cannot prove a negative, but it is highly unlikely that this is something Goebbels said or wrote. As usual, if you find someone who cites this, is is excellent evidence that he or she does not check sources.</span>Randall Bytwerkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09586984644417180021noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-71227797099856120.post-20662515195575716052019-09-14T07:54:00.000-07:002019-09-16T19:14:07.810-07:00Another Misattributed Goebbels QuotationA visitor to my site asks about this quotation, allegedly by Goebbels, which is cited often on the Internet:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">There was no point in seeking to convert the intellectuals. For intellectuals would never be converted and would anyway always yield to the stronger, and this will always be “the man in the street.” Arguments must therefore be crude, clear and forcible, and appeal to emotions and instincts, not the intellect. Truth was unimportant and entirely subordinate to tactics and psychology."</span></blockquote>
<b>Goebbels didn’t say it.</b> It is instead taken from Hugh Trevor-Roper’s introduction to <i>Final Entries 1945: The Diaries of Joseph Goebbels </i>(New York, Putnam’s, 1978), p. xx. It is a reasonable summary of Goebbels’s views— but he never would have put it in that way. As I’ve observed before, in public he always maintained that propaganda had to be truthful.Randall Bytwerkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09586984644417180021noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-71227797099856120.post-30558061685330716002019-08-20T05:47:00.000-07:002019-08-20T05:47:04.144-07:00Tracking Report #12<span style="font-family: inherit;">It’s time to see how the viral (but fake) Goebbels quotation is doing on the Internet. As always, I search for the phrase “<span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222;">truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222;">On 20 August 2019, a Google search finds 44,000 hits for the </span><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34);">phrase. About 50 have been added in the past month.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: inherit;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34);"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: inherit;">Google however, doesn’t list all hits any longer. Microsoft’s Bing still does. It finds 3,500,000 hits.</span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #222222;">A Google search for the phrase in German (“</span><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222;">somit wird die Wahrheit durch die Ausbreitung der größte Feind des Staates”) finds 57 hits. Bing, on the other hands, finds 11,900 results.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222;">A small consolation is that our page debunking the quotation is the #1 hit on Google. </span></span>Randall Bytwerkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09586984644417180021noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-71227797099856120.post-64951984035445441262019-08-09T13:46:00.000-07:002019-08-09T13:46:57.437-07:00NewsMax Goes for Fake QuotationMarc Rudov has an article on NewsMax titled <span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif;">“<a href="https://www.newsmax.com/marcrudov/trump-racism-presidential-election/2019/08/08/id/927929/" rel="nofollow">Trump's Real 2020 Opponent Is the Accusation of Racism.</a>” Rudov, who claims to be a “<a href="http://marcrudov.com/" rel="nofollow">branding advisor to CEOs</a>,” uses the quotation to support his argument that unless Trump can dispel the racist argument, he will lose the election.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif;">This is an interesting use of the quotation. For one thing, Trump has control of the state at this point (assuming one doesn't accept the “deep </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif;">state” claims). Given the context, Trump would be the one destroying truth.... And one would hope that a consultant to CEOs would use reliable evidence.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif;">As is so often the case, the quotation sounds so plausible that people don’t bother to check their facts.</span>Randall Bytwerkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09586984644417180021noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-71227797099856120.post-47692522654278742262018-12-18T17:31:00.001-08:002018-12-20T13:47:30.693-08:00The Heartland Institute <span style="font-family: inherit;">The Heartland Institute is a decidedly right-wing organization that claims to provide “somewhat reasonable thoughts on life and liberty.” Today its website carries an essay by one Seton Motley, asserted to be: </span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #313131; display: inline; float: none; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">One of America's leading authorities on technology and telecom policy, Motley is a writer, television and radio commentator, political and policy strategist, lecturer, debater, activist, and policy advisor to The Heartland Institute.</span></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #313131; display: inline; float: none; font-style: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"> Seton’s article is titled: </span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://blog.heartland.org/2018/12/one-year-later-the-lefts-net-neutrality-lies-look-even-dumber/" rel="nofollow">One Year Later, The Left’s Net Neutrality Lies Look Even Dumber.</a>” He asserts that an apparently monolithic “Left” lies about everything, and notes that its arguments for net neutrality are an example of Joseph Goebbels’s big lie strategy. Entertainingly, he uses the Goebbels quotation this site tracks, supported by a link to a <a href="http://thinkexist.com/quotation/-if_you_tell_a_lie_big_enough_and_keep_repeating/345877.html" rel="nofollow">dubious quotation web site </a>that I have dealt with elsewhere. </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Seton seens to have no notion of reliable sources. If it’s on the Internet it must be true (but only if it agrees with his prejudices).</span></span></span>Randall Bytwerkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09586984644417180021noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-71227797099856120.post-48001406762463183582018-08-01T07:37:00.000-07:002018-08-01T16:03:11.967-07:00Sharyl Attkisson Uses Dubious Quotations<a href="https://sharylattkisson.com/"><b>Sharyl Attkisson</b></a> is an investigative journalist who “tries to give you information others don’t want you to have.” Unfortunately, some of her information isn't accurate.<br />
<br />
Her recent book <span style="caret-color: rgb(17, 17, 17); color: #111111; font-family: inherit;"><i>The Smear: How Shady Political Operatives and Fake News Control What You See, What You Think, and How You Vote</i> (</span><span style="color: #111111;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(17, 17, 17);">Harper, 2017) includes a variety of quotations attributed to Goebbels, some of which are dubious. Here is a section from the book, taken from amazon:</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #111111;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(17, 17, 17);"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-XSU9QxTu3ug/W2G05fzVhjI/AAAAAAAAYlE/6OOgE_yc7io_0D524_6sgvPreRR8D6LEQCLcBGAs/s1600/Untitled.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="433" data-original-width="481" height="360" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-XSU9QxTu3ug/W2G05fzVhjI/AAAAAAAAYlE/6OOgE_yc7io_0D524_6sgvPreRR8D6LEQCLcBGAs/s400/Untitled.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Let’s take a look at them. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
The first one is found on a variety of dubious Internet quotation sites (always check your quotations in a good published collection). I can’t find anyone who provides a reliable source.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
The second one is accurate, taken from the Lochner edition of Goebbels’s diaries (entry of 14 March 1943). </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
The third is part of the fabricated quotation being followed on this page. Enough said.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
The fourth is probably accurate. I can find a 1933 <i>Time</i> magazine citation, but I haven’t checked the actual issue to be sure. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
The fifth is consistent with what Goebbels said — however, it is not a quotation from him. Instead, it is a summary of what he said taken from a classic article by Leonard Doob (“Goebbels’ Principles of Propaganda,” <i>Public Opinion Quarterly,</i> 14 [1950], p. 440). </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
In short, of five quotations, two are accurate, two are dubious, and one is attributed to Goebbels (in quotation marks), but is actually a summary of his views. Additionally, only one of the quotations is actually from Goebbels’s diaries.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
As best I can tell, Attkisson has depended on the Internet for her quotations, not bothering to check their accuracy. I’m surprised, since the publisher is a good one, and good publishers usually make some effort at fact-checking.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Thanks to Gary N. Curtis, whose blog <b><a href="http://fallacyfiles.org/index.html">Fallacy Files</a></b> brought this to my attention.</div>
Randall Bytwerkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09586984644417180021noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-71227797099856120.post-25162772600322987702018-06-17T05:09:00.000-07:002018-06-19T05:26:06.419-07:00Andover High School Turmoil over Fake Goebbels Quotation<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">The <i>New York Times</i> of 16 June 2018 has an article about Andover High School in Massachusetts that was distressed to discover a <b><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/16/us/massachusetts-yearbook-nazi-quote.html">Nazi quote in its yearbook</a>. </b>The relevant passage:</span><br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The quote, which reads “Make the lie big, keep it simple, keep saying it and eventually they will believe it,” is widely associated with Hitler and Goebbels’s use of propaganda to build the Nazi empire. The quote is not attributed in the yearbook, and appears in black text underneath the photo of the student, who has not been identified.</span></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Now, the quotation is a reasonable summary of the principles of Nazi propaganda (or, indeed, of much advertising and political discourse), but it is not a direct quotation from either Hitler or Goebbels. Part of it is based on Hitler’s widely </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: , "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif;">misquoted discussion of the “big lie” in <i>Mein Kampf.</i> Although Hitler was entirely willing to lie, he is accusing the “Jewish press” of Vienna of the tactic. As I’ve noted elsewhere, it would be a poor sort of propagandist who publicly proclaimed that he lied.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333;">There are lots of fabricated quotations out there (Lincoln, Churchill, etc.), but fake Nazi quotations are the pit bulls of political controversy. As </span><b style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law">Godwin’s Law</a></b><span style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333;"> has it, they stop conversation. The worst one could charge an enemy with in the past was being a tool of the Devil. Since belief in him has diminished, the Nazis have taken his place. During the Bush years, thousands of Internet posts proclaimed that he was following Goebbels’s principles, often using the quotation this blog follows. Then it was Obama’s turn to be the new Goebbels. Now Trump…. Actually, after Singapore I think the better historical reference for Trump may be Neville Chamberlain (“Peace for our time”), but that’s another matter.</span></span><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Randall Bytwerkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09586984644417180021noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-71227797099856120.post-73640326473064484602018-04-19T14:25:00.003-07:002018-04-19T15:52:26.926-07:00Speech on Fake News Uses Fake QuotationJen Senko put out a film in 2016 titled <i>The Brainwashing of My Dad, </i>describing the effect of Fox News, etc., on her father. She gave a speech based on the film to the New York Society for Ethical Culture in 2017 — and cites the dubious Goebbels quotation. So a speech on fake news uses a fake quotation. If you’re curious, the reference is at about the 5-minute mark on this Y<b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAhuyBzEep8">ouTube video.</a></b>Randall Bytwerkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09586984644417180021noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-71227797099856120.post-64662923109260651282018-04-12T13:13:00.003-07:002018-04-19T14:16:21.716-07:00Global Research Displays Shoddy ResearchA conspiracy-type site GlobalResearch has a piece titled “<a href="https://www.globalresearch.ca/propaganda-disinformation-and-dirty-tricks-james-earl-ray-was-innocent-of-the-assassination-of-martin-luther-king-jr/5635625" rel="nofollow">Propaganda, Disinformation and Dirty Tricks: James Earl Ray Was Innocent of the Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.</a>” It uses the usual dubious argumentative style and cites the fabricated Goebbels quotation as evidence that the “Deep State” is involved in all sorts of dreadful things. The conspiracy allegedly involved:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #362f2d; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: justify;">Deep State operatives such as the afore-mentioned highly secretive conspiratorial groups such as the CIA, the infamous J Edgar Hoover, Hoover’s equally infamous and very racist FBI at the time, the Pentagon, the US military’s sniper squads, the racist Memphis Police Department, the Mafia, assorted war-profiteers, the mainstream media, and many elected and non-elected officials that exist at every level of government.</span></blockquote>
I’m always surprised at that those who believe that such a massive conspiracy involving thousands of people could be concealed. That many people could keep the secret? Truly, the “Deep State” must have astonishing control over its participants.<br />
<br />
As usual, a site that assumes anything it finds on the Internet must be true should be disregarded.Randall Bytwerkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09586984644417180021noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-71227797099856120.post-74201954282613568102017-12-06T22:52:00.000-08:002017-12-06T22:52:26.252-08:00Austrian Site on Fake QuotationsThere are a fair number of people engaged in the Sisyphean labor of discouraging dubious quotations.<br />
<br />
Gerald Krieghofer has an Austrian site titled <b><a href="http://falschzitate.blogspot.com/">Zitatenrätsel</a></b> that tracks them in the German-speaking world. He has a 6 December 2017 post that looks at <b><a href="http://falschzitate.blogspot.lt/2017/12/eine-luge-muss-nur-oft-genug-wiederholt.html">dubious Goebbels quotations</a></b>.Randall Bytwerkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09586984644417180021noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-71227797099856120.post-80730473231366400842017-11-03T15:22:00.000-07:002017-12-06T23:23:53.218-08:00Article on Fake News Uses Fake Quotation<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Peacock Panache, an site on the political left, has a post titled “<b><a href="http://www.peacock-panache.com/2017/11/fake-news-big-lie-32504.html" rel="nofollow">Fake News and the Big Lie</a></b>” on 1 November 2017. It is less than enthused about Trump Administration statements and claims:</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: medium;">The study did find that Trump’s constant calling-out of specific media sources affected public perceptions of the accuracy of those sources. That shouldn’t surprise us. There is a famous Joseph Goebbels quote, describing the propaganda tactic known as “The Big Lie.”</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;">It then cites the alleged quotation by Goebbels.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span>
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: "didact gothic"; font-size: medium;">So we have an article assailing fake news that uses a fake quotation.</span></span><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "didact gothic"; font-size: medium;"> </span>Randall Bytwerkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09586984644417180021noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-71227797099856120.post-1160280295303635302017-06-22T12:01:00.000-07:002017-06-22T12:02:02.918-07:00"Reliable" Sites and the Dubious Goebbels QuotationI’m particularly annoyed by sites that look reliable, but spread the dubious Goebbels quotation that this blog is following. That is almost always a sign that a site should be avoided.<br />
<br />
One example is the <a href="http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/" rel="nofollow"><b>Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team</b></a>. On the surface (but only on the surface) it looks to be a scholarly site, although it provides very little information on who is behind it. However, its page on <a href="http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/holoprelude/goebbels.html" rel="nofollow"><b>Joseph Goebbels</b> </a>is headed by the dubious quotation. I’ve twice e-mailed them, but they haven't removed the material. On the same page, they reproduce a large section of one of my translations, with no credit.<br />
<br />
In short, it’s not a site to be recommended.Randall Bytwerkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09586984644417180021noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-71227797099856120.post-48900412705182082002016-11-25T13:09:00.000-08:002016-11-25T13:09:22.382-08:00Tracking Report #11It’s been a while since we did a tracking report on the fabricated quotation by Joseph Goebbels.<br />
<br />
The last one, in fact, was on May 20, 2015. At that point there were 45,000 Google hits. On November 25, 2016 the total is 40,600. It would be encouraging to think citations were ebbing, but is a result of changes in Google’s algorithms rather than a decline in use. Microsoft’s Bing search engine provides 2,430,000 results. <br />
<br />
Fortunately, our pages are at the top of most search engine results, so those who try to be accurate will find sufficient information as to discourage them from further spreading nonsense.Randall Bytwerkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09586984644417180021noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-71227797099856120.post-50769399382192351182016-11-25T12:53:00.000-08:002019-08-11T18:25:51.416-07:00The Fabricated Quotation and Donald TrumpOver the years that we have followed this fabricated quotation allegedly by Joseph Goebbels, we find it is regularly used by both those on the right and left to assail their opponents. Let’s look at what has happened since the advent of Donald Trump.<br />
<br />
A Google search on November 25, 2016 finds about 35,000 web pages with the quotation that mention Donald Trump. Clinton supporters used it to denigrate Trump, and Trump supporters used it against Clinton. Some examples:<br />
<br />
An August 11, 2016 post on <b><a href="http://www.westernjournalism.com/thepoint/2016/08/11/hillary-clinton-is-one-big-lie-who-shes-modeling-is-outrageously-obvious-and-dangerous/" rel="nofollow">westernjournalism.com</a> </b>claims that Clinton is following Joseph Goebbels’s strategy in dealing with Donald Trump. It claims to be “a rapid, up-to-date political news service that is relevant to the Tea Party movement of Constitutional conservatives.” It doesn’t believe in fact-checking, apparently.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/"></a><br />
<br />
Dr. Rich Swier, who advertises himself as a "conservative with a conscience,” does not apply his conscience in matters of accuracy. In a September 13, 2016 post titled<br />
<br />
“<a href="http://Trump "thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State"" rel="nofollow"><b>Hillary’s Goebbels Problem — ‘The Big Lie</b>’</a>”<br />
<br />
he accuses the Clinton campaign of using Goebbels’s methods by “frantically seeking ways to hide the truth about Mrs. Clinton.”<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, <i>Sputnik New</i>s, a Russian site with a remarkable ability to convey untrue material, carried a piece in September 2016 titled “<b><a href="http://a rapid, up-to-date political news service that is relevant to the Tea Party movement of Constitutional conservatives" rel="nofollow">Trump’s Immigration Speech and Godwin’s Law</a>.</b>” It cited the Goebbels quotation and claimed that Trump was using Goebbels’s methods.<br />
<br />
Closer to home, the <i>Piqua Daily Call</i>, a newspaper in Florida, published a column by Maria Boone titled “<b><a href="http://dailycall.com/opinion/columns/17863/burning-down-the-house" rel="nofollow">Burning down the house</a></b>.” She says, among other things:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div style="border: 0px; color: #444444; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; orphans: 4; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
An infamous man from history once declared “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic, and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”</div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #444444; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; orphans: 4; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
The speaker worked for a man who has much in common with Donald Trump. This man found himself on the cusp of power in a country that was floundering in turmoil and dissatisfaction with its government. The bossman, like Trump, found he could garner support by proclaiming who people should be afraid of and who they should blame for all their problems. The speaker was Joseph Goebbels, Propaganda Minster in Nazi Germany. His boss was Adolf Hitler.</div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #444444; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; orphans: 4; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Trump has found his own Goebbels in Steve Bannon, an anti-Semite, xenophobe, misogynist, white nationalist. Bannon has been named chief strategist and senior counselor for the Trump administration. Bannon hosts a website that asks questions such as “Would you rather your daughter be a feminist or have cancer?”</div>
</blockquote>
There are more. We’re actually surprised there aren’t more than 35,000, but they will surely come as the left begins focusing on Trump’s presidency and the right assails those who fail to recognize his virtues.Randall Bytwerkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09586984644417180021noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-71227797099856120.post-92029895187817649572016-03-22T14:47:00.000-07:002016-11-29T06:07:32.367-08:00"Propaganda News" is GullibleOne would hope that a site named “Propaganda News” would be wary of uncritically accepting material — but that isn’t the case. In a post titled “<a href="http://www.propaganda.news/2016-03-21-social-engineering-through-the-propaganda-of-the-republican-presidential-race.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><b>Social Engineering Through the Propaganda of the Republican Presidential Race</b></a>,” the full alleged Goebbels quotation is given to support this argument:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">When it comes to politics, </span><em style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">everything</em><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 18px;"> is propaganda. By now, most of us have come to realize that there is no difference between the Republicans and the Democrats; however, they are too quick to assume that an outsider like Donald Trump is truly an outsider, or Ted Cruz is the next Reagan....</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 18px;"> In order to understand this fully you have to come to accept that our nation has been marked for conquest, and when Obama said fundamental transformation, he meant transformation to a socialist/communist state, period.</span></blockquote>
If “everything” in politics is propaganda, I suppose it applies to this site as well, which the author seems to confess at the end:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">By accepting Ted Cruz or Donald Trump as our presidential candidates we are signaling to the left that we are willing to surrender certain values in order to solve problems they have forced upon us. It’s that simple, we are being socially engineered. Of course, this is just my opinion.</span></blockquote>
But he seems to think his opinion is a pretty good one....<br />
<br />Randall Bytwerkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09586984644417180021noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-71227797099856120.post-17176186954475339032016-02-18T13:57:00.000-08:002016-02-18T13:58:24.577-08:00Goebbels and Merkel?Our fabricated quotation shows up on a variety of German sites. Today, it appears in a comment on the <i><a href="http://www.dw.com/en/opinion-merkel-to-parliament-refugee-drama-still-depressing/a-19054805" target="_blank"><b>Deutsche Welle</b></a></i> web site, accusing Chancellor Merkel of imitating Goebbels. Since it’s buried deep in the comments section, I’ll reproduce it here:<br />
<br />
<br />
<header style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #777777; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 1; margin-bottom: 3px; padding-right: 46px;"><blockquote>
<span class="post-byline" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="author publisher-anchor-color" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;"><a data-action="profile" data-role="username" data-username="disqus_YdXNyDf2Dg" href="https://disqus.com/by/disqus_YdXNyDf2Dg/" style="-webkit-transition: color 0.1s linear; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(0, 135, 235) !important; font-family: inherit; line-height: 1; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.1s linear;">Tina</a></span> </span><span class="post-meta" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block;"><span aria-hidden="true" class="bullet time-ago-bullet" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #cccccc; line-height: 1.4; padding: 0px 4px;">•</span> <a class="time-ago" data-role="relative-time" href="http://www.dw.com/en/opinion-merkel-to-parliament-refugee-drama-still-depressing/a-19054805#comment-2520188661" style="-webkit-transition: color 0.1s linear; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: rgba(0, 39, 59, 0.34902); font-family: inherit; font-size: 12px; line-height: 1; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.1s linear;" title="Thursday, February 18, 2016 9:18 AM">a day ago</a></span>DW article Merkel Unmoved by Criticism: " "Despite all the critical findings in surveys, more than 90 percent [of German voters] say as they did before, that whoever has to flee terror, war or persecution, should have the possibility to be admitted into Germany and to find shelter. I think that's wonderful," she said."<br />
Interesting. I thought it was closer to 90% of Germans thought the refugee crisis was poorly handled by Merkel. I guess Mrs. Merkel is using Mr. Goebbels' strategy of the "Big Lie."<br />
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”<br />
Keep repeating it Mutti. Everyone doesn't believe it yet.</blockquote>
“Everyone” does seem to believe what they see on the Internet, however.</header>Randall Bytwerkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09586984644417180021noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-71227797099856120.post-80669996075536661832016-01-08T15:20:00.002-08:002016-01-08T15:20:57.473-08:00The Dubious Goebbels Quotation Shows up in Canada<span style="font-family: inherit;">We’re suspicious of any organization that uncritically accepts the dubious Goebbels quotation. It indicates a lack of an ability to evaluate information.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The latest example is the Centre for Research on Globalization, a Canadian organization. In a post on 7 January 2016 titled “</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://www.globalresearch.ca/frances-police-state-the-gravediggers-of-the-french-republic/5499701" target="_blank"><b>France’s Police State: The Gravediggers of the French Republic</b></a>,” it uses the quotation to support the argument that French security measures are about to turn France into a police state the equal of Nazi Germany.</span>Randall Bytwerkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09586984644417180021noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-71227797099856120.post-3627042559239034342015-08-06T06:45:00.000-07:002015-08-06T06:45:10.702-07:00“The Blaze” Falls VictimPaul G. Merkel, writing for <i>The Blaze</i>, has a piece titled “<a href="http://www.theblaze.com/contributions/hollywood-and-progressive-politicians-unite-to-spread-anti-gun-propaganda/">Progressive Politicans and Hollywood Unite to Spread Anti-Gun Propaganda</a>.” It begins with the fabricated Goebbels quotation.Randall Bytwerkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09586984644417180021noreply@blogger.com0