It’s time to see how the viral (but fake) Goebbels quotation is doing on the Internet. As always, I search for the phrase “truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”
On 20 August 2019, a Google search finds 44,000 hits for the phrase. About 50 have been added in the past month.
Google however, doesn’t list all hits any longer. Microsoft’s Bing still does. It finds 3,500,000 hits.
A Google search for the phrase in German (“somit wird die Wahrheit durch die Ausbreitung der größte Feind des Staates”) finds 57 hits. Bing, on the other hands, finds 11,900 results.
A small consolation is that our page debunking the quotation is the #1 hit on Google.
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. [Falsely attributed to Joseph Goebbels]
Tuesday, August 20, 2019
Friday, August 9, 2019
NewsMax Goes for Fake Quotation
Marc Rudov has an article on NewsMax titled “Trump's Real 2020 Opponent Is the Accusation of Racism.” Rudov, who claims to be a “branding advisor to CEOs,” uses the quotation to support his argument that unless Trump can dispel the racist argument, he will lose the election.
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 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.
As is so often the case, the quotation sounds so plausible that people don’t bother to check their facts.
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 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.
As is so often the case, the quotation sounds so plausible that people don’t bother to check their facts.