Name: ‘Lies, Damned Lies and Strategic Lies’
Uploaded: 2023-11-19T16:52:57+00:00
Duration: 23 min 29 s
Description: You might not have known it but, should you be foolish enough to vote for a Labour government at the next election, then you won’t be allowed to travel more than 15 minutes from your home, you’ll have

6 months ago

News news uknews worldnews reganelite byline bylinetimes lies misinformation media misdirection

You might not have known it but, should you be foolish enough to vote for a Labour government at the next election, then you won’t be allowed to travel more than 15 minutes from your home, you’ll have to sort your rubbish out into seven different recycling bins, and you’ll have to pay a special tax on meat. Well actually you won’t – none of these are true but they are examples of a form of spin, dubbed ‘strategic lies’, a technique which is being increasingly mobilised by mainly right-wing spin doctors and politicians. Accusations that politicians lie are far from new, but the intensity of such accusations has increased in recent years – and strategic lies are one reason why. An early incarnation came in 2011 when Donald Trump, at the time theoretically supporting the Democrats, claimed to have “proof” that President Barack Obama had not been born in the United States (making him ineligible to occupy the White House). It was the start of the so-called “birther” controversy. Trump went as far as to say that he was sending a team of private investigators to Hawaii to learn the truth and promised to donate $5 million to charity if anyone could convince him that Obama was born on US soil. There is no record of any such team arriving in Hawaii, nor of Trump donating $5 million to charity following the publication of Obama’s birth certiﬁcate. Over the next three years, Trump continued to raise the issue despite the lie being comprehensively rebutted. He kept repeating it not because he expected people to believe it but, as a strategic lie, it kept the issue of Obama’s ‘otherness’ near the top of the mainstream news agenda. It’s no coincidence that a similar controversy was mounted against Vice President Kamala Harris shortly after she was nominated as Joe Biden’s running mate in 2020. The inauguration of the British version came with the EU Referendum. “We send Brussels £350 million a week. Let’s spend it on the NHS instead” was painted on the side of several campaign buses; the backdrop to almost every Brexiter interview.

https://bylinetimes.com/2023/11/17/lies-damned-lies-and-strategic-lies/

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