Revisionism

It never ceases to amuse me.

We've reached the point in our worthless political "debate" where revisionism is mandatory.

One of the curiosities of the current wave of political revisionism is the elimination of the Bushes (and often of Trump Himself) from the presidency. Oh yes, it goes this way:

Kennedy
----------------
Interregnum
----------------
Carter
Reagan
Clinton
Obama

In the revisionist view, Obama (or sometimes The Hag Clinton) are still in office, and they must be opposed with every fiber of ones being because ... something.

Trump is at best an afterthought, a nonentity or even a puppet of the Deep State run by the Clintons and Obama. On the other hand, he's God-Emperor who will smash the Deep State and the Clintons/Obama who run it. Cognitive dissonance doesn't begin to describe it.

But the Bushes, strangely, simply weren't.

Fascinating.

And I think it's quite deliberate.

To the extent the Russian Thing has any merit or relevance to the situation we face now, I think it has to do with the fact that it has shown how easy (and cheap) it is for "interests" to shape the battle space as they say in the military. Influencing and managing public perceptions has become a Thing, going back a long way to be sure, but made manifest in the lead up to and implementation of the Second War on Iraq -- the one initiated by the Bush 2 Regime (one of the ones eliminated from the revised list of regimes).

Perception management and revisionism was very successful. It was so successful that it is seen as a model still followed by numerous interests and political players to induce, shall we say, certain favorable beliefs in a sufficient number of people to enable the worst elements of our society to literally get away with murder.

Or anything else they happen to want to do.

It's really quite remarkable, and it goes on all the time now.

Trump used some of these techniques -- particularly blatant lying, incitements to violence, and appeals to white people's feelings of betrayal  -- in his campaign, but it wasn't particularly effective because it was so transparent. More effective was the background drumbeat, much of it based in facts or deep rooted beliefs, that said The Hag Clinton was poison, and-- most especially -- she would single-handedly start WWIII with Russia by imposing a unilateral "no-fly zone" over Syria.

It was a pernicious falsehood, but that didn't matter because it was believed by enough people to become fact in their minds. Much as the falsehoods about Iraq were believed (after much intense propaganda) by a sufficient number of Americans to make at least the initial phases of the Second Iraq War possible and widely supported.

I didn't believe the falsehoods then or now, but the techniques that induced such false beliefs are employed more and more universally -- because they work.

Ragging on Clintons, Dems, and Obama -- while ignoring Trump and his hench-people and what they are doing -- is part of the process of perception management. So long as people can be made to fixate on what certain players in the past did or didn't do, and specifically on their intrinsic evility  *shades of Saddam* so long will the current regime be enabled to do as it will.

It works. At least up to a point.

And when it doesn't?

Not pretty.

Meanwhile uncounted victims are slaughtered and Chaos reigns.

What's not to like?

What did we do to deserve this?

Or rather, what did those above us think they were doing?