How come so many people were so easily fooled?
I will leave out the current history, simply because it is likely to result in totally off-topic debate. But going back, Zinn makes these points as a matter of history –
…President Polk lied to the nation about the reason for going to war with Mexico in 1846. It wasn’t that Mexico “shed American blood upon the American soil” …
…President McKinley lied in 1898 about the reason for invading Cuba …
…He [McKinley] also lied about the reasons for our war in the Philippines, claiming we only wanted to “civilize” the Filipinos…
President Woodrow Wilson… lied about the reasons for entering the First World War, saying it was a war to “make the world safe for democracy,” when it was really a war to make the world safe for the Western imperial powers.
Harry Truman lied when he said the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima because it was “a military target.”
Everyone lied about Vietnam—Kennedy about the extent of our involvement, Johnson about the Gulf of Tonkin, Nixon about the secret bombing of Cambodia, all of them claiming it was to keep South Vietnam free of communism …
Reagan lied about the invasion of Grenada ...
The elder Bush lied about the invasion of Panama …
To which one might add that Clinton lied about his wandering willie; Roosevelt lied about the long term impacts of his welfare policies and so on depending upon your personal political point of view.
If one wants, you can try and fill in the ellipses with the reasons for each instance. I would not know enough of American history to be totally honest about them. Don’t, please, just bring Zinn’s rationales in here because that again is not the purpose of this post. I might even be tempted to censor any comments that might so do.
Please, I want to get to the bottom of Zinn’s opening question by the direct route. I want to find out why there is such total and unquestioning acceptance of government rhetoric as shown by the likes of “Right, Wing-Nut!”.
Why, given America’s history of political policy by falsehood, does a seeming majority of its electorate not learn by that history?
How many (of the admittedly very few who might pass this way) accept the word of those in power without question, without complaint?
Are there any in America who look at the candidates they are presented with at election time and say to themselves “OK. Which of these wallies is telling the biggest porkies?”
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Are there any in America who look at the candidates they are presented with at election time and say to themselves “OK. Which of these wallies is telling the biggest porkies?”
I am pretty sure no American would say that. I don't even know what it means.
“OK. Which of these wallies is telling the biggest porkies?”
Translated -
"Which of these idiots is telling the biggest lies."
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