Posted by
Daniel Crandall on Wednesday, May 14, 2008 1:09:54 AM
The thing about the Big Lie is that it needs bits and pieces
of fact in order to be convincing. You can clothe all kinds of lunacy in the
Big Lie if you sprinkle enough facts into the mix. With enough facts you can
get all kinds of otherwise reasonably people to believe anything.
Case in point: Cory Doctorow, his YA book Little Brother
and ‘the-government-is-out-to-get-you’ Big Lie. Here is a bit of the
Introduction to Little Brother, which he has made available for all to read:
In the Soviet Union,
communications tools were being used to bring information and revolution to the farthest flung corners of the
largest authoritarian state the Earth had ever seen.
But 17 years later, things are very
different. The computers I love are being coopted, used to spy on us, control
us, snitch on us. The National Security Agency has illegally wiretapped the entire
USA
and gotten away with it. Car rental companies and mass transit and traffic
authorities are watching where we go, sending us automated tickets, finking us
out to busybodies, cops and bad guys who gain illicit access to their
databases. The Transport Security Administration maintains a "no fly"
list of people who'd never been convicted of any crime, but who are nevertheless
considered too dangerous to fly. The list's contents are secret. The rule that
makes it enforceable is secret. The criteria for being added to the list are
secret. It has four year olds on it. And US senators. And decorated veterans
actual war heroes.
This is a near perfect example of the Big Lie, with enough
facts to help people disregard its lunacy.
As to the facts, Doctorow tosses in:
Ø
The NSA has “wiretapped” telephone conversations
in America
Ø
Some State Law Enforcement agencies use closed
circuit TV to monitor public activity
Ø
Some State Law Enforcement agencies use CCTV and
camera technology to identify criminals via face recognition software and to catch traffic law violators: speeders, red light
runners, etc.
Ø
The TSA does have a “No Fly” list
However, when you examine what wrapped around these facts you
see nothing but the paranoid ravings of some pseudo-intellectual and wanna-be high-tech anarchist.
A verifiable nut-root who refuses to believe that there are people in this
world willing to strap plastic explosive to themselves, walk on a bus, cry “Allahu
Akhbar!” and blow every man, woman and child on that bus into tiny bits and
pieces.
And what is truly amusing is that the ravings in the paragraph
above are so easily blown apart in the final few sentences. Doctorow describes “No
Fly” list’s contents as “secret”. He then goes on to describe just who is on
this list; a list that includes 4 year old children U.S. Senators, and American
military veterans, “actual heroes”.
Uh huh.
I guess the list’s contents are secret to everyone except
Cory Doctorow.
It would be funny if it wasn’t so sad, and if so many people
didn’t believe ‘the-government-is-out-to-get-you’ Big Lie; people who run major
American city’s public libraries and people in charge of major American
universities. But these people do believe it, which makes it very likely that
your co-workers and neighbors believe it as well.
If Sen. B. Hussein Obama become POTUS on January 20, 2009,
what will nut-root, paranoid, loones like Doctorow have to write about? Hmmmm ….?