I agree, steplock. Viet Nam is the exact opposite of Kerry's greatest strength. It is his greatest weakness. The more information that comes out, the more obvious it is that there is no better situation to indicate his disqualification as Commander in Chief.
So then why would they make it their #1 selling point? Simple...purely, 100% tactical. In reality, military competence, the most important criteria for president in the post-9/11 world, is demonstrably best exhibited by George Bush. As Commander in Chief, he presided over one of the most effective military actions in American history, the sequential elimination of the Taliban and Hussein. Kerry's greatest military achievement? The successful neutralization of a sampan full of rice. And it goes downhill from there. To the point where his superiors actually had to BEG him to leave.
Trying to remake Kerry’s military image, if successful, would simultaneously neutralize Bush’s greatest strength and remediate Kerry’s greatest weakness. Not unlike a plastic surgeon taking Bush’s relatively youthful, energetic face and transplanting it onto Kerry’s wrinkled, haggard old Botox bucket. Good trick if you can pull it off.
And Kerry’s team knows it can. Why? Because the most successful propagandist in history has already proven it.
Ask people “what was the most evil society in human history?” and most would say Nazi Germany. Then how could the German people ever get to the point where they not only accepted it, but were willing to die for it? The mastermind behind the process, none other than Hitler himself, explained it so simply, but we still don’t get it:
“By means of shrewd lies, unremittingly repeated, it is possible to make people believe that heaven is hell -- and hell heaven. The greater the lie, the more readily it will be believed.”
That’s all anyone needs to know to turn a coward into a hero. Of course that is only in public perception, not reality. Unfortunately, elections aren’t determined by the way things are...they are determined by the way people PERCEIVE them to be.
So if that’s the problem, what’s the solution? There is only one way to counter the “Big Lie” - and that is the “Big Truth”. For every time the liar says hell is heaven, we need to point out the heat of the fire, the smell of the brimstone, and that guy over there poking people with a pitchfork. And every time the liar says heaven is hell, we need to point out the music of the harp, the softness of the cloud and the smell of the flowers in the garden. To turn Hitler’s phrase, “by means of shrewd truth, unremittingly repeated, it is possible to remind people that heaven is HEAVEN, and hell is HELL...and a hero is a HERO...and a coward and a traitor is a COWARD AND A TRAITOR”.
Everyone who sends an email or posts to a forum or talks over the water cooler is wielding our only weapon, our only hope against our heaven (as America surely is compared to other countries) turning into hell (which our country surely will be under a coward like Kerry). Over-reacting? Apparently TaRAYzaa doesn’t think so. Remember, she said it would be four more years of hell under Bush. Do you agree? Then it’s time for another dose of the Big Truth.
Well, this is already longer than I intended, but I’ll close with some other Hitlerisms I found during my research. They speak for themselves. For the love of all that’s good, folks...keep up the fight.
“I use emotion for the many and reserve reason for the few”
“What luck for the rulers that men do not think”
(and this one, especially for this election)
“The victor will never be asked if he told the truth”
—Adolph Hitler
Great post!