The wannabe despot is a coward. Before he acts he needs to feel the environment has been well prepared before he makes the next move. The title of this series comes from the line endlessly repeated by the Lawrence Olivier character as he tortured the one portrayed by Dustin Hoffman in Marathon Man.
https://youtu.be/avNraWT8CSI
Well, in our world there are many wannabe despots. So for the remainder of this series I will be using the pronouns they or them unless some particular fool dares raise his head above the rest. (There will undoubtedly rise a Stalin or Mao somewhere down the road who will eliminate all potential rivals. But in the foreseeable future any who dares stand up almost certainly will be cut down by the agents of the rest.)
Yesterday, in Daniel Greenfield’s The End of Debate, he brought to light a collaboration among world leaders to agree en masse what is and is not mis- or dis- information.
He did not say it, but to me the clear objective of the UN meeting was for the international charlatans to find safety in numbers. One after the other speaker sought to feel comfortable that the others would not denounce them should they encounter the need to censor, persecute, or imprison anyone back home who dared debate the underlying “facts” supporting an unpopular decision.
Being old and still having a good memory of obscure happenings that resonate with current events may be one reason I should publish more often. I commented to Greenfield:
The way each speaker invoked the word disinformation is reminiscent of a National Press Club luncheon circa 1988-1992. It was [I heard it] broadcast on NPR. That day the keyword repeated was not disinformation. It was draconian. Each speaker, presumably members of the press and its academy, spoke of the need for the American public to experience draconian rule.
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