"Stabbed in the back" theories

[struggle4progress]

Folk, who think they're winning when they're losing, are dangerous

We've seen them before

During the Great War, much of which was fought in France, the Kaiser told the Germans (until the end) that they were winning

They weren't winning, of course: they were losing, and it would only be a matter of time until their war effort collapsed

But the diehards never believed the Kaiser had lied to them; instead, they came up with elaborate conspiracy theories about how "the Jews" and "the Communists" had "stabbed them in the back"

These idiotic theories were quite resilient and affected German politics for years afterwards

During the Vietnam War, the US government repeatedly told Americans that they were winning the war

America wasn't winning, of course: the generals knew it, and all the insiders knew it, and it would only be a matter of time until the war effort collapsed

But the diehards never could believe their government had lied to them; instead, they came up with elaborate conspiracy theories about how "the liberals" and "the media" had "stabbed them in the back"

And these idiotic theories were also quite resilient and affected US politics for years afterwards

Be ready for a similar narrative among the deluded wahackadoodles who expected Romney to win: they will never believe any of their heroes lied to them -- they will be constructing new "stabbed in the back" theories to explain their loss of the election

[libdem4life]

1. Good comparison. Fortunately, we won this one without "conventional weapons"

[heaven05]

2. ten four

on that.

[dchill]

3. Given those facts, it would seem that false hope...

Is a dangerous thing to have, or to disseminate. Let's be cleat, though, the Romney camp had caught the fever, too. Blame belongs to the FoxNews coterie, and the "razor tight" MSM.

[Bucky]

4. Ha ha. Republican loss of their election leads to Republican loss of their....

rhymes-with-election.

[Mme. Defarge]

5. K&R!

Important insight into psychology at work here.

[Wellstone ruled]

6. George Orwell's 1984

rinse and repeat.

[RepublicansRZombies]

7. oh, they are already there

Limbaugh: 'Chris Christie is a Fat Lying Bastard' LOL

[GeorgeGist]

8. Let the back stabbing begin!

[bvar22]

9. The Hippies and the War Protestors ALSO...

...knew we weren't winning in VietNam.

They are still demonized and blamed today,
even by some Democrats,
even by some DUers.

[Danascot]

10. So why is this a problem?

As long as the GOP continues to delude themselves, they'll continue to lose elections.

[fleabiscuit]

12. IMHO, because deluded individuals are dangerous.

...

[Flatulo]

14. I propose we round up and detain the 47% of Americans who supported Mitt.

Because, you know, they were deluded.

And deluded people are dangerous.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

22. One big problem & symptom of other problems is the 3 or 4 times higher death threats against Obama.

[veganlush]

11. way too many

commas makes it hard to read

[struggle4progress]

13. there,s' no,thin,,g fugg,in,,, wr,,,ong, wit,h ,m,y, co,mma's

[freshwest]

15. Here, I fixed it for ya:

THAR,S NO,THIN,,G FUGG,IN,,, WR,,,ONG, WIT,H ,M,Y, CO,MMAS

See? All better.

[struggle4progress]

16. fixed it? you done removed all my catastrophes!

[freshwest]

18. There is no such things as a CATastrophy. Only non-kitteh-catastrophes. So there!

Fearless Feline Chauvinist, here.

Sorrender now, while you still HAVE a behind!

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

25. The two commas in the first sentence, while not incorrect, are quite unnecessary. Every other one of

your commas here seems standard usage to me, though nowadays some of them would commonly be eliminated. I tend to favor the older, more comma rich, style--obviously. But then I, as opposed to many, also give a fuck about an Oxford comma:

Your frequent use of dashes and colons is unusual, but I like that, too.

What I find amusing is that veganlush, commenting on you perceived overuse of commas, did not mention your complete lack of sentence-ending punctuation marks. I think that's due to your helpful use of white space to isolate the thoughts.

Also, I can't help but to suspect that veganlush is a punctuation anarchist.

This meta language ramble brought to you, most of whom probably don't give fuck about any of it, by a former English major who neither knows nor follows all of the language rules.

As for the ideas you presented, I fear that you are correct.This loss did not release the baggers from the bubble. I think we need to work hard to stop others from being lured in. Our campaign must not end now--message, message, message.

[veganlush]

26. not an anarchist

it's just that when reading something with too many commas the flow of thought becomes distracted. I find myself noticing the interruptions when I'm trying to glean the point of the piece. I'm certainly no expert on punctuation or any other part of the written language. I apologize, especially if I got it wrong. Just cranky sometimes, you know, old age.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

31. I was joking, of course, but the commas are meant to clarify the written message, and, if used

correctly, can do just that. Imagine if when people spoke they never paused for a breath. The comma is the strategically placed breath.

I think it's better to err on the side of using them, because, for many people, the commas and other punctuation help organize the the parts of the sentence into meaningful segments. Easier for people like you to decide to just ignore them than for those who find them helpful to figure out where to insert the punctuation marks.

So, if they distract you, try just disregarding them. Just roll right over them. I think it'll work for you, but, of course, I could be wrong. Lots of commas for you to practice on in this here post of mine, so give it a try!

[zentrum]

17. The more they think they're winning the safer..

...I feel. Their complete loss of reality makes them less dangerous than if they realized their peril and changed their stripes and got cleverer. Frankly, that is what they are going to do. I actually expect them to start dressing like stereotypical Hollywood style Mexicans at any moment.

But I think this sense of them having lost everything is way premature. They are going to give Obama hell in the next four years. They are going to start working through the Republican Governors who made gains, and who, like Scott Walker will further exhaust, impoverish and distract workers so that it's harder for us to progress by 2014--the next election cycle.

They count on the Governors to be destroying employment rates so that the House can look like it's trying and that the problem is O.

[DryHump]

19. My current theory is blind hatred...

literally: hatred that blinds the Repubs, et al, to FACTS.

[99th_Monkey]

20. Teabaggers have been lied to & manipulated for profit by RW media hucksters

as repeatedly pointed out so elequently by David Frum, to the chagrin
of several Righties present:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021783208

[japple]

21. Just got a big huge laugh from a facebook posting.

An acquaintance and fellow Georgian just moved to France. She and I were acquainted through animal rescue efforts in Georgia. She is bemoaning the election results and the fact that she and her husband will no longer have social security in their old age and are going to have to start saving their pennies, are possibly looking to another home country, possibly Costa Rica. The cut/pasted response below is from a another animal rescue colleague who lives in Florida.

Cut & pasted: "some interesting news is developing, you may not have to leave the USA to escape. It appears Louisiana is preparing to seceed from the Union of the USA. Texas is expected to follow. I've only seen bits and pieces, when I get a credible source I'll keep you posted."

As another Georgian bemoaned.."sometimes I feel...like I been tied to the whippin' post..."

[Diclotican]

24. japple

japple

They are starting to be rather loud now aren't them, talking about armed rebellion, to seede from the US and all that?.. They have been talking about it for years and year already, but after Obama got re-elected it have started to get over board with an angry sound that I have yet to discover when some says they want to seede from the country...

I hope it is just loud words - but I fear that the next 4 years could be dangerous for the President itself, and for the United States of America.. It exist many who really believe the end of the world have coming to US because of the election of Obama and the turn he might want to do with US... And they have used words for what they feel for Obama, that they have had on the back burners for a while... Now the words are rather explosive - and the hatred for liberals - and for anything that not represent their view is rather scary to behold... I got into a discussing about what conservatives really was the other day - and the fellow I discussed with on a debate place, more or less exploded as I calmly explained what real, old fashioned conservatism was about.. (I'm not sure what it means in US, as I fear the whole conservative as a idea is destroyed by the neo-cons long time ago) And the tirade of what he say, was more or less the same as Limbaugh, and the rest of the US AM hate radio had been spewing for a long time...

Diclotican

[smirkymonkey]

28. Wait, so she moved to France???

[japple]

32. Yes, her husband's employer sent them. They have rented a huge old house

in the French Alps, within walking distance of fine bakeries, and quaint local shops. Too bad that she still listens to Neil Boortz via internet and is so afraid that this fiscal cliff thing is going to totally ruin the world for her children. They moved several months ago.

[Diclotican]

23. struggle4progress

struggle4progress

I Suspect we have to be carefully, both here abroad, but also in the US, the conservatives really got into a surprise when Obama got re-elected - and they are angry - really, really angry about it...

The stab in the back theory, affected german politics all until 1945, when the germans discovered how deceived they had been, from the government who had deceived them on a grand stage from 1918, when Germany lost the war - and the Kaiser had to leave the country for exile in the Netherlands (hi died in 1941, rather quiet, and Hitler was not willing to even give him any symbolic gratitude)

In 1918, and in the years following it, it was the social-democrats (who had to govern after Wilhelm 2 of Imperial Germany, and most of the old regime collapsed in november 1918) communist - liberals, and off course the jews who got the blame for the fact that Germany under World War lost the war - but fact is that Germany overstretch - and lost the war already in early 1917 - Von Hindenburg (who also was the last german president before Hitler got into power in 1933 as chancellor, he was taken the presidency after Hindenburg died in 1934) clearly stated for the Chief of Staffs in the grand palace of the emperors - in the same room Das Kaiser had explained for the politicians, and the military Establishment in 1913-1914, the importance of going to war when it was time to do it.. That Germany had lost the war - the resources was empty, and it was just the will of the people alone who gave hope on any peace on reasonable deals.. He also gave the advice to make peace with the west allied before it was to late.. But then in the same time, the Imperial Russia broke down - first in February 1917, and then again in October 1917, when the Bolsheviks got into power, by outrun the Menshevichs who for a time had the power - between February 1917 and October... The new government in Russia, under Lenin and Trotsky was just ready to say ok to everything the germans decided, just to make peace for a shattered country - who also had the beginning of a civil war on their hands - Lenin's slogans Bread and Peace won in the end a peace - with a price off course - but it was a price, the russians had to have, to make peace at one front - it was to many fronts to fight on in Russia as it was.. The winter of 1917, in Germany was one of the worst in the 20th century - for the most part people survived on potato's and cabbage, and even the soldiers on the front, discovered that the war was not exactly going their way, as the allied forces, even after the collapse of Imperial Russia and the peace treaty - started to put the germans out of their trenches - by the sheer numbers in their forces. The United States had finally deiced to get into the war on the allied sides - and the war turned in the derivative way for the allied forces - even though the germans did fight as best as they could - and the german soldiers was indeed good soldiers - but it could not win against that numbers the allied forces could give them.. (EVEN if it cost millions of soldiers on the front for all allied forces)

Anyway - the 20 or so years between the world wars - was given lot of rooms to the idea that the germans for some reason had been stabbed in the back by the home front - not the soldiers and the generals, but by the politicians, who had stabbed the generals in the back when they was not been given the resources they wanted - and needed to make victory possible.. Even when soldiers coming back from the front could tell about how things really was, most people believed that Germany was victorious - they had after all been that in all wars since 1815, when german Blucher had been instrumental in breaking the back on Napoleon... Who had been a menace for germans - and for the conservatives in most of europe since the 1790s.. For many germans, it was important to give some fault, for the facts that Germany lost the war - and had to pay a sizable sum of money to the victors - and also lost a lot of lands, to other nations - Suddenly some millions of germans lost connections to "the reich" and had to accept be in another nation, something they resented into the end.. Poland, a country who the germans, specially the conservatives was not willing to accept as a sole nation for years - was created by dividing a large part of the then- west-preussen - with Danzig as the most important port to the sea - even thought most who lived in the city was germans - and where East Preussen - the now enclave of Kalinigrad war german - and had no direct link between the two german spaces.. Poland was also one of the first nations, who the germans tried their best to crush the idea of national hood - and where the "natives" at best should be treated as second, or 3th class people - not given education and just be used as manual labors for the germans after the war... After all, they was not real humans.. Just something like it..

I just hope, and pray that it can be solved, and the conservatives in the US are not going the same road as the conservatives in Germany did - full of resentment, hatefully to the end - and hellbent of getting even with the other parties, and to punish anyone who had getting in their cross air... The hate who I experience on some internet sites today, and have since Obama got elected again is rather scary. They really se to be over the top angry about it all.. In fact, they want to take a part of the US, out of the union, and made it into one heaven for the conservatives... And they parrots to the sentence what Limbaugh and Beck and the others persons of the right is telling them.. They have a hate for the voters, who elected Obama as the President I have yet to experience.. Even here in Norway they spew their outright hatred for everything related to the election - and specially to the fact, they LOST. They can't just phantom the fact, they lost... to a black man, and the "dam liberals"..

Diclotican





And tragically, it was in the last

[Sognefjord]

34. Good Information.

We have to learn from history. It is hard for social classes who have always ruled to accept defeat.

[Diclotican]

35. Sognefjord

Sognefjord

True - social classes who have ruled for a long time tend to take defeat badly when they occur... And sometimes they want revenge.. As the conservatives in Germany did... The "old guard" who had benefited from Imperial Germany was up to the end of world war two supporters of a larger germany - and it was more than buildings and factories who was in ruins in 1945 as the allied forces occupied Germany... It was a whole mindset of thoughts that got shot to ruins as Germany was loosing the war..

And even though some of the old guard survived even the world war two, they was NEVER in any position of the same power as they was before - they was political speaking totally in ruins when the war ended, and the germans discovered for them self, that what they was told, was a lie.. It was a devastated population who in 1945 had to discover to how much they had been told a lie.. And what horrible thing was being doing in their name... Even today more than 70 year after the war - world war two, is something most germans has a troublesome mind to.. The german soldiers WAS and IS second to non - in some way they was better than most of the other forces out there - but the crimes who was acted upon by the german soldiers is for some to horrible to phantom even today..

We have absolutely to learn from history - and I just hope we can do it in time, to not let the same forces who destroyed most of Europe 70 year ago can be kept in check.. Even though I doubt they can, as they have the habit on being able to slip true the cracks in any walls we might reject to keep them inside..

By the way, you are not of Norwegian decent? - as Sognefjorden is a fjord in Norway - a beautifully fjord too.. One of Norway's many treasures to be sure

Diclotican

[Honeycombe8]

27. I don't recall being told we were winning Vietnam. It was all over the news...

that we were NOT winning. That was the first war where pictures of our soldiers came into our living rooms, and we saw firsthand the horror of war.

A free press doesn't guarantee anything, since they can be fooled, like the public. But it's also true that they usu. ferret out the truth and are pretty good at presenting at the least opposite stories. For example, you could find on TV stories about how there were no WMDs in Iraq, before we invaded. If you were looking for them, and ifyou believed them.

[RobertEarl]

29. Say what?

You remember being told that the Vietnam war was a losing proposition? When? No, we were told we were winning. That America was the greatest and that we would win.

And as for WMD the few and far between reports of no WMD in Iraq were like needles in haystacks. Face it, in both cases the media lied to you.

[Honeycombe8]

33. I know what I saw on TV. I KNEW we were not winning. Everyone knew. That's how I remember it.

As for WMDs...you remember that news interview Rice gave where she showed an example of some uraniam metal cylinder, saying that could be used for WMD, and she explained how, etc.?

Well, I saw that interview. AND I also saw an interview at about that time that explained why she was wrong and spouting misinformation. That metal gizmo could in fact not have been used how she said, etc.

[Diclotican]

36. Honeycombe8

Honeycombe8

Long before Ms Rice was telling her lies about WMD in Iraq - and long before Collin Powell made a fool about himself telling the Security Council in UN the same story about WMDs I believed it to be a big fat lie - and I got into hard weather when I got into discussing with some of the pro-wars in a debate forum I frequented then (it closed down after 22 of july 2011) The tubes you is refereeing to - was never intended to be make into anything that could be used in a nuclear program - it was indeed artillery tubes - who could be used as turrets to new cannons - the fantasy Ms Rice was telling was just that, a fantasy.. They had not the strength to be used to make anything like nuclear weapons... And the Yellow cake case was just another lie as Iraq never bought it - it was just a hoax.. And by the way, United States of America stole the tree metric tonnes of uranium the Iraq had, and have had the whole time since the bombing of the Iraqi Nuclear reactor in 1981. You remember the one who the US pushed for being build - and the Israelis bombed to a ruin in 1981 just before it was going online - and more than possible be used to make a real nuclear weapons for the then Saddam Hussein regime... In 2003, after more then 13 year of sanctions, the Iraqis was in no economical chap to build a nuclear bomb - and have more or less disbanded it - but made a potemkim village, to show off for the regime how smart they was - and was putting the money into swiss bank accounts - and fled the country when the war started..

I was right, the ones who wanted war with Iraq was wrong, even though they never admitted to it - most of them just disappeared after a while...

[Honeycombe8]

37. Yes, those are the things I remember. I just especially remember the metal tubes.

I think I remember that so well because it was so alarming that Rice had given a special interview saying something completely wrong. Not just a little wrong. Flat wrong. (I choose to believe she was fooled; she didn't seem like the lyin' kind to me...just stupid.)

So there were news accounts out there, showing the WMD story was fishy, at best. But it's also true that those stories were fewer and you were less likely to run across them.

I don't remember when I came to believe the WMD story was false. I started out believing it. But gradually over time, I came to know they'd lied to us and to Congress. Clark (I think that's his name) wrote a book. Stories on TV pointing out lack of evidence. Inspectors not finding anything in Iraq. A U.K. story was big....the admin. said they got intel from the UK, but the UK intel was printed, and it was not what our admin said.

All these things came together, and I came to believe the story that 9/11 was an excuse for Cheney, Rumsfeld, & Wolfowitz, to invade Iraq.

I was a teen during vietnam. I recall then, too, coming to a realization that we shouldn't be there, that things were not going well, that a LOT of our young men were getting injured & killed. It was a combination of rock and folk music, free thinkers on TV, films of the war, etc. (to the extent a teen notices these things).

[Diclotican]

38. Honeycombe8

Honeycombe8

I have to admit - until GWB got elected in 2000 (dubious at best) I believed US to be a voice of reason in a rather troublesome world... But I do have a rather great "radar" when it come to lies... And I was tough never to let others made a decision for me, better to get the facts straight for yourself, rather han just shew what others told you to be the truth.. And I doesn't got the WMD stuff to be true - as I tried to plow true the facts as I was finding them... (I doesn't discovered DU before 2003 or something like that) So I had to just try to understand the truth as I found it... It was not easy as the misinformation from many places was rather great... I found the WMD stuff to just not compute.. A country who was more or less demilitarized by the late 1990s, before the Inspectors was thrown out of Iraq, courtesy of the CIA who used their spies to do anything else than get the facts on Iraq's WMD weapons the country was more or less in no shape to really hide their WMD.. And after 1998 it was at best dubious that Iraq should have been able to rebuild their WMD capacity - as the country had been one of the most Draconian sanctions ever to be experienced by a modern nation... They doesn't even had pencils to write in the school books - because it could have "dual-use" why should them have the capacity to also make WMD... It just doesn't compute for me... And even though the US Administration under Bush jr, was trying to tell that they had evidences, who they wanted to share - no evidence ever given to the UN, or to nations who the US for some reason trusted - was given away evidences that Iraq indeed was in breach of their obligations as after the seas fire in 1991.. In fact, most of their weapons possibility was destroyed - and even I could look at pictures from Iraq, and look for myself that old russian equipment was not enough to make Iraq a danger to the world.. It might was big enough to keep their own population under strict control - but nothing that was able to get Iraq go on a rampage again.. If a war was planned, the generals in iraq was indeed blind and deaf...

The UN inspectors who tried to decide if Iraq had WMDs, or that the country was in breach of their obligations after 1991 was never really given any chance to do their job.. Even as they was trying to get to the bottom of things - CIA and the then administration was hiding over 100 installation they believed to be full of factories who made WMDs.. Even as the inspectors was traveling to Iraq - the leader of the corps Hans Blix (A swede) was told by the Vice President Cheney - that He for one, would do anything to make the inspectors fail - and that he better watch his back... Mr Blix is a great diplomat - but I'm not sure what he was feeling when he was told by the US Vice president, that the chances of US not going to war against Iraq was very, very slim... The UN inspectors in Iraq never discovered the WMD the US believed to be there - rather they discovered a country who was devastated by the sanctions, and a country who was not even able to give medical help to their own... The Iraqi regime had by 2002-30 devolved to a regime where everyone was for them selfs. corruption was rampant and millions and millions of dollars, who should have been going to the needy one, was funneled to international banks all over the world - the old regime know they was living on a time scale - and specially the ones with power was absolutely sure they wanted to be able to have a comfortable life, even after Saddam Hussein.. Many bought houses, and had full bank accounts in Switzerland in France - and other comfortable places in the Middle East.. The Emirates was a favorite place for many of them - even when they officially was on Saddam's side in a potential big war in the middle east...

I understood, for a reason already early one that the Iraq war, and specially the connection between 9/11 2001 and the story behind WMDs to be a big lie - Long before the US was sending troops to Iraq, by my own discoveries - and BBC world service, who was critical on their airing for, and against the war against Iraq - they had the famous "curvball" dissected - and as the host at Panorama discovered - it was more questionings than answers there.. The man is by the way still alive, living in southern Germany - under the custody of the german police - and he is scared to hell, because he have been given a few warnings about what will become of him, if the old guards ever got their hands on him.. The iraqi secret police of old, had the habit of really making their victims have a lot of pain - then some pain, and in the end, end up dead.. He have even been on german TV, to complain that he was not given the life he was promised by the CIA over his telling of factories with WMD.. And the now rather infamous tellings about mobile gas laboratories, who was ready to make as much poisons than needed... The trucks was later discovered - in Kurdish Iraq, and had to been digged out of the ground - and off course no WMD was discovered - and in fact, it had been a LONG time since anything like chemical weapons had been on them if ever.. The trucks was later destroyed - in a "mishap" the US occupying forces told...

Clark, the old chief of the anti-terrorism organization inside the Establishment, was pretty clear about how dubious it all was And was in his book, rather clear about how He believed Iraq not to have WMDs - even if he also was unsure about it.. He wanted the UN inspectors to get more time to get the informations - time neither Cheney, Rumsfeld or Wolfowitz was willing to give him, or any others... They WANTED the war regardless of the dubious of the evidences to go to war - and they was able to make it too...

But it should be said - many others, over the whole world was against the War - and Mr Rumsfeld was given a rather cold shower by the german minister, who outright told him, that he was lying when he tried to make the case for war against Iraq in Germany.. Who in 2000-2003 still had some reservations put on them, when it come to sent soldiers in war - it goes back to the constitution of 1949, and the experiences germans had after loosing world war two.. The americans, under Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and other, never got it, why the germans was so against going to war... Mr Rumsfelds was leaving rather fast after the shower he got - and he was leaving Germany faster than he come in - to a more friendly place in UK, where Blair was shumming up to the americans, as they was twins.. He and Bush was the best of friends - and Blair was making a fool of himself - a fool that never was willing to admit, that he was wrong, even when he had many chances to do so... And Blair was going into history as one of the last popular Prime Minister in the US all together - Even though he got elected as one of the most popular Prime Ministers in modern UK History.. And I liked Blair much - before he got into bed with the neo-cons and the Bush administration...

I was not born before after Vietnam ended - so I can not say so much about it - other than the war was a horrible mistake - and that the generals, and the people in the know, already in 1967-68 admitted the war to have been lost - and that the best way had to just leave the country, and let nature take its tour in South Vietnam.. Even LBJ was against the war - but not able to just pull the plug on the war, and get the soldiers home.. He needed just "One decisive victory" to be able to get "the boys home".. He never got that decisive victory - and the war ended first in 1975 at the cost of 3 million Vietnamese civilians and soldiers - and more than 58.000 dead american soldiers.. And most of the area in turmoils it is just getting out of now - more than 40 year after the war ended..


For some reason or another I never trusted Rice, even though I believe she is a smart woman - and not easy fooled.. It is something that I got even true the TV screen, she is an arrogant woman, who will go a long way to get what she want, regardless of what become of the others, that she have to walk on top off.. I sometimes wonder, if the Ghost of past is visiting her - and she feel the ones she walk on top of, their graves... I hope that sometimes her own guilt is waking her up in the nighs - and she look at the Ghost of the horrible things she was doing in Iraq.. And I suspect the others might have the same feeling sometimes, when they wake up in the night, and look at ten of thousands of ghosts who is asking if it was worth it... Some, like Bush jr, I suspect is driking them to silence, just to be able to sleep true the night..

Diclotican

[Sirveri]

30. They're already claiming that it's 'voter fraud'

The dead are voting and what not. Even in Ohio and Florida, where it makes ZERO sense.