Politics and Religion

Hannah Arendt on Totalitarianism
impposter 49 Reviews 195 reads
posted
1 / 12

http://www.openculture.com/2017/01/hannah-arendt-explains-how-propaganda-uses-lies-to-erode-all-truth-morality.html [Published Jan 2017]  
Hannah Arendt Explains How Propaganda Uses Lies to Erode All Truth & Morality: Insights from The Origins of Totalitarianism.  
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"... Arendt, on the other hand, looked closely at the regimes of Hitler and Stalin and their functionaries, at the ideology of scientific racism, and at the mechanism of propaganda in fostering “a curiously varying mixture of gullibility and cynicism with which each member… is expected to react to the changing lying statements of the leaders.” So she wrote in her 1951 Origins of Totalitarianism, going on to elaborate that this “mixture of gullibility and cynicism… is prevalent in all ranks of totalitarian movements”:
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In an ever-changing, incomprehensible world the masses had reached the point where they would, at the same time, believe everything and nothing, think that everything was possible and nothing was true… The totalitarian mass leaders based their propaganda on the correct psychological assumption that, under such conditions, one could make people believe the most fantastic statements one day, and trust that if the next day they were given irrefutable proof of their falsehood, they would take refuge in cynicism; instead of deserting the leaders who had lied to them, they would protest that they had known all along that the statement was a lie and would admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness.
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"Why the constant, often blatant lying? For one thing, it functioned as a means of fully dominating subordinates, who would have to cast aside all their integrity to repeat outrageous falsehoods and would then be bound to the leader by shame and complicity. ...
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"Arendt and others recognized, writes Levy, that “being made to repeat an obvious lie makes it clear that you’re powerless.” She also recognized the function of an avalanche of lies to render a populace powerless to resist, the phenomenon we now refer to as “gaslighting”:
The result of a consistent and total substitution of lies for factual truth is not that the lie will now be accepted as truth and truth be defamed as a lie, but that the sense by which we take our bearings in the real world—and the category of truth versus falsehood is among the mental means to this end—is being destroyed.
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"The epistemological ground thus pulled out from under them, most would depend on whatever the leader said, no matter its relation to truth. “The essential conviction shared by all ranks,” Arendt concluded, “from fellow traveler to leader, is that politics is a game of cheating and that the ‘first commandment’ of the movement: ‘The Fuehrer is always right,’ is as necessary for the purposes of world politics, i.e., world-wide cheating, as the rules of military discipline are for the purposes of war.” ..."

inicky46 61 Reviews 40 reads
posted
2 / 12

This part, in particular, really rang true:  
Blatant lying "functioned as a means of fully dominating subordinates, who would have to cast aside all their integrity to repeat outrageous falsehoods and would then be bound to the leader by shame and complicity."
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willywonka4u 22 Reviews 41 reads
posted
3 / 12
willywonka4u 22 Reviews 35 reads
posted
4 / 12
durran421 38 reads
posted
5 / 12

"Blatant lying" = TATL and most democrats.  
Yep, I'd say that definitely "nailed it"

inicky46 61 Reviews 32 reads
posted
6 / 12

every time he posts here.
Which is why he's the BLOAT.

LostSon 43 Reviews 33 reads
posted
7 / 12

Posted By: inicky46
Re: Like the god he worships, The SPOAT lies
every time he posts here.  
 Which is why he's the BLOAT.
Ick… 🙄 seriously… you tell more lies than laffy did and then point your angry old stinky finger at everyone else and steam liar…  ya do  🤷🏻‍♂️

durran421 34 reads
posted
8 / 12

Dude couldn't type a true statement if you paid him with a Rolex Daytona......which, he doesn't own. He lied about that too.

inicky46 61 Reviews 38 reads
posted
9 / 12

Loooooser King of Stolen Valor lies about EVERYTHING.
He wouldn't know the truth if it was shoved up his ass.
By now he must be getting too little oxygen to his brain after keeping it shoved up The SPOAT's ass for so long.
Looooser is a stooge.

coeur-de-lion 400 Reviews 37 reads
posted
10 / 12

forget to include his 1099 from McDonalds when he files his taxes.  The Democrat bureaucrats at the IRS will be all over him with a new indictment.  

impposter 49 Reviews 43 reads
posted
11 / 12

IRS evidence that Trump is such a brilliant business man:
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http://www.theeroticreview.com/discussion-boards/politics-and-religion-39/re-current-estimates-are-that-trump-may-owe-the-irs-100-million-450575
Re: Current estimates are that Trump may owe the IRS $100 million
I think it might be a lot more than $100M.
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1. There's the matter of a mysterious (undocumented) "loan" of $50M held by Trump Org.. ... [Tax Fraud]
2. One of the $100+ M tax liens may be from making a false claim to the IRS in order to obtain a $73M tax refund. Trump "abandoned" his worthless Trump Casino stock ownership in the 1990s in order to be able to claim part of his  huge ($1+ B) tax loss ... [Tax Fraud]
3. There is another IRS dispute that may be over $100 M about Trump double dipping on tax deductions on his failed Chicago Trump Tower project. ... [Tax Fraud]
4. And ANOTHER Trump tax scheme was recently described in the new book "Lucky Loser: ...  
There was a tax advantage to claiming a "$15M investment loss" instead of a "$15M unpaid loan" loss. The IRS might be looking into that again. [Tax Fraud]  
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Which reminds me ... has Trump released his latest tax returns for this (2024) campaign season?  

Posted By: coeur-de-lion
Re: I hope Trump doesn't . . . .
forget to include his 1099 from McDonalds when he files his taxes.  The Democrat bureaucrats at the IRS will be all over him with a new indictment.  
Is prison income from making license plates taxable?  Trump will "forget" to report it on his tax returns.

impposter 49 Reviews 48 reads
posted
12 / 12

"The Democrat bureaucrats at the IRS"??????
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http://edition.cnn.com/2022/11/13/politics/trump-irs-audits-kelly-mccabe-comey/index.html
Trump sought tax investigations of political foes  [Nov 13, 2022]
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"Former President Donald Trump repeatedly told his onetime White House chief of staff, John Kelly, that he wanted the Internal Revenue Service to investigate his political foes, Kelly told The New York Times. Among the people Trump wanted to “get the I.R.S. on” were former FBI Director James Comey and former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, Kelly told the newspaper.
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“I would say, ‘It’s inappropriate, it’s illegal, it’s against their integrity and the I.R.S. knows what it’s doing and it’s not a good idea,’” Kelly said he told Trump, according to the Times. “Yeah, but they’re writing bad things about me,” Trump responded, according to Kelly. McCabe and Comey, both fierce critics of Trump, were ultimately selected by the Internal Revenue Service for an intensive tax audit. ..."

Posted By: coeur-de-lion
Re: I hope Trump doesn't . . . .
forget to include his 1099 from McDonalds when he files his taxes.  The Democrat bureaucrats at the IRS will be all over him with a new indictment.  

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