by Gene Howington, Guest Blogger
“Darkness isn’t the opposite of light, it is simply its absence.” – Terry Pratchett
As we’ve previously discussed in the Propaganda Series, The Sound of Silence, propaganda is not always language or images. Sometimes it is the lack of words. It is just as important to “listen to what is not said” as it is to “listen to what is said”. Sometimes though, propagandists try to time travel. They employ a tactic in an attempt to change the present by attempting to change the past. I say “attempt” for reasons that will be clear soon enough.
When a propagandist tries to pull off this particular trick, they don’t need a fancy machine or a black hole or a magic potion as is the staple trope of science fiction and fantasy time travel. They need nothing more complicated than a pen or a typewriter. In the present, a word processor and some basic HTML coding skills will serve that purpose. Maybe Photoshop or GIMP. When a propagandist tries to change the present by changing the past, they don’t call it time travel. No. They don’t call it anything, because they really hope you don’t notice what they are doing. Silence will work often, but they are not above a bit of misdirection. Well executed propaganda does, after all, have much in common with stage magic.
When we citizens and media consumers catch their slight of hand, we don’t call it time travel either. We call it historical revisionism. Just this week, the Obama Administration was caught red-handed doing precisely that in relation to the Edward Snowden case.
First, let us consider what exactly is historical revisionism. Is the term itself value loaded language? Is it always a bad thing? Is it always propaganda? The term in common usage certainly has a connotative meaning that is not the same as its denotative meaning. As with the word “propaganda“, the connotative meaning is usually pejorative and implies lies, falsehoods and distortions of past events. Also like the word “propaganda”, the term “historical revisionism” has a larger denotative meaning that may or may not be value loaded.
At one level, historical revisionism is simply a scholarly endeavor to rewrite history based on new research or theories that either modify or contradict earlier historical writings. There is nothing wrong with that. Historical revisionism in that context performs a valuable function in the study of history although it is usually hotly challenged within academia as history is an often soft social science where the status quo holds a lot of sway. That challenging environment is also not a bad process by connotation as the process itself of claim and counterclaim often results in a refinement of both theory and the understanding of new evidence in context as well as eliminating false assertions and whole cloth fabrications from being incorporated into our understanding of history as fact. Even so, the study of history faces certain challenges in addition to access to new data. There is (what I find to be most interesting) the challenge that new information from other fields of science present. Genetics, paleoclimatology, paleontology, archaeology, anthropology, linguistics, chemistry . . . even astronomy – all can, do and have changed our understanding of history. There is also some psychological and intellectual challenges to the study of history that can impact historical revisionism. In fact, there are two logical fallacies that historians often fall prey to: the eponymous Historian’s fallacy – when one assumes that decision makers of the past viewed events from the same perspective and having the same information as those subsequently analyzing the decision – and presentism – where present-day ideas, such as moral standards, are projected into the past. Historians also have to contend with the context of the society in which they live. Contemporaneously popular ideology and culture may skew historical revisionism as can political considerations like nationalism. However, as useful as historical revisionism as an academic endeavor can be, it has a dark side and that dark side can most often be seen in how contemporaneous ideology, culture and politics can make history a lie about the past designed to serve the present.
This kind of historical revisionism is what most think of when they use the term as a pejorative. There is a special word for this kind of manifestly bad historical revisionism – negationism. Derived from the French term négationnisme, which means Holocaust denial, the basic idea applies to more than just Holocaust denial, but to making anything a “never was”. This is basic denial as a propaganda strategy/tactic. Negationism also includes the propaganda strategy/tactics of deception, distortion, relativism and trivialization, very often executed to varying degrees as part of the same campaign. The Nazis engaged in wholesale historical revisionism in the form of book burning, altering history and science texts to provide examples of “Aryan superiority”, distorting their history and the history of the Jews and Roma to provide relativistic rationales for their persecution and to trivialize the true scale and horrific deeds done in the campaign of genocide they called “The Final Solution”. This suite of tactics is not unique to the Germans. The Chinese did the same thing during the Cultural Revolution. The Japanese did (and still do) teach revisionist history about the events leading to World War II. The Soviets made historical revisionism into a propaganda art form. In America, we teach grade school and high school kids a sanitized version of American history that does a great disservice to the truths of the effective genocidal campaigns against the Native American peoples.
Clearly, historical revisionism is a value loaded term and, while it can be a good thing for the academic pursuit of history, it can be as a political practice a very dangerous very damaging form of propaganda.
In 2008, Obama had a website that detailed his vision for reform. Until very recently, this website was linked to on the White House official website and provided a valuable tool for comparing Obama’s promises to his performance. According to the Sunlight Foundation, that website in that form could last be viewed on June 8, 2013. Remember that date. It’s about to be relevant. That link to Obama’s agenda and promises is no longer on the White House website and the Change.gov of today is this non-comment of a splash page with a link to http://change.gov/content/home that returns a blank page reading :
Sorry, File Not Found: 404
Invalid URL /content/home
All of the website’s pages are now and have only recently become inaccessible from the site. What was the Obama Administration so interested in making disappear? What needed to be never was? Perhaps they wanted to remove all record of Obama’s campaign promise to strengthen protections for whistleblowers. In case you don’t recall, his promise, once found in the Agenda/Ethics section of Change.gov, went like this:
Protect Whistleblowers: Often the best source of information about waste, fraud, and abuse in government is an existing government employee committed to public integrity and willing to speak out. Such acts of courage and patriotism, which can sometimes save lives and often save taxpayer dollars, should be encouraged rather than stifled. We need to empower federal employees as watchdogs of wrongdoing and partners in performance. Barack Obama will strengthen whistleblower laws to protect federal workers who expose waste, fraud, and abuse of authority in government. Obama will ensure that federal agencies expedite the process for reviewing whistleblower claims and whistleblowers have full access to courts and due process.”
June 8, 2013 was two days after the first revelations were made about the NSA’s phone surveillance program by the then unrevealed Edward Snowden.
Apparently the Obama Administration and their flunkies have no idea how technology really works, but you can’t be held accountable for a promise you made if you (try to) erase all record of it, can you? That’s the whole point of making something never was. Unfortunately for them and their propagandist historical revisionist tactic but fortunately for actual history, memory in the digital age is persistent. The original home page for Change.gov can be seen here and the original content of the Agenda/Ethics page (quoted above) can be seen here.
As noted by Luke Johnson at the Huffington Post, “Prior to the Snowden leaks but after Pfc. Bradley Manning gave classified information to WikiLeaks, the Obama administration launched the Insider Threat program to combat leaks, in part by asking coworkers to keep a close eye on their fellow employees. The program also ordered more protections for those who use proper channels, but four national security whistleblowers have said that they became targets of Justice Department investigations after bringing concerns to the Department of Defense Inspector General.”
I think historical revisionism as a political propaganda methodology is in many ways worse than a simple lie.
Was this an attempt at historical revisionism in the most pejorative sense?
Is there another explanation that defies the timeline of removal?
Could there be other promises made they wish to “never was” in addition to the promised protection for whistleblowers?
What do you think?
Source(s): Huffington Post, Wikipedia, Change.gov, The Wayback Machine Web Archive (1, 2), Sunlight Foundation, http://www.mcclatchydc.com, Firedoglake
The Propaganda Series;
Propaganda 105: How to Spot a Liar
Propaganda 104 Supplemental: The Streisand Effect and the Political Question
Propaganda 104 Supplemental: The Sound of Silence
Propaganda 104: Magica Verba Est Scientia Et Ars Es
Propaganda 103: The Word Changes, The Word Remains The Same
Propaganda 102 Supplemental: Get ‘Em Young
Propaganda 102 Supplemental: Holly Would “Zero Dark Thirty”
Propaganda 102: Holly Would and the Power of Images
Propaganda 101 Supplemental: Child’s Play
Propaganda 101 Supplemental: Build It And They Will Come (Around)
Propaganda 101: What You Need to Know and Why or . . .
Related articles of interest;
Mythology and the New Feudalism by Mike Spindell
How about Some Government Propaganda for the People Paid for by the People Being Propagandized? by Elaine Magliaro
Is Freedom of the Press Dead? by Lawrence E. Rafferty
~submitted by Gene Howington, Guest Blogger
When I was a dog kid we did not have high horse words like Whistleblower with a capital W. No, if someone told on someone else then they were a “snitch”, a “rat”, a “fink”. The rat word could be a verb. He “ratted” me out.
And this is what the igPays are doing to Sgt. Manning. They demean him. They tortured him. When the guards take his blankets, his clothes, even his underwear, at night and turn down the temperature, they whisper threw the door: FINK. They were known to call him Ratso Risso.
The same thing will happen t Snowden if the igPays get their hands on Snowden.
I have to use Pig Latin on some of my words to get by WordPress.
Gene H,
To your point:
The Wayback Machine can often be used to see where the propaganda is going, as you did with the disappearance of some web pages.
Another interesting event of that nature, which was on a Department of Energy website, was also removed.
But the Wayback Machine had archived the page, which among other things, said:
(The Peak of The Oil Lies – 2). They took it off because it was too revealing, said too much, and spoke volumes about both foreign and domestic policy.
It revealed that our life as a nation is like our life as a human: we gotta have blood to live.
“Without oil we die” is a bit too much for general consumption.
Following that lead (“Without oil we die”) one comes to some history that confirms, as you said:
There is an anachronism that caught my eye which brings this home.
I looked around the web, including this blog, and saw over and over again the “MIC” or “MIIC” used to describe core aspects of our country.
Oil is never mentioned in that type of anachronism … the lifeblood … is not mentioned!
It’s that old “what they don’t say” propaganda you mentioned.
Consider one aspect of that subject matter we are not told in that sanitized history you mentioned:
(The Universal Smedley – 2). U.S. foreign policy, as well as domestic policy for that matter, has been about oil for a century … left out of the history books used to indoctrinate us.
Oil should be in that type of anachronism: such as MOMCOM (ibid).
Leaving out oil is leaving the truth out of that type of anachronism.
Perhaps one day soon we should move on to the next level and discuss Oil-Qaeda while we are at it.
I see they have changed the links you provided already….(Shhh someone’s listening….)
“Was this an attempt at historical revisionism in the most pejorative sense?
Is there another explanation that defies the timeline of removal?
Could there be other promises made they wish to “never was” in addition to the promised protection for whistleblowers?
What do you think?
Yes. No.Yes.
Excellent post. But I fear you are preaching to the choir. With the major news media (including Fox) on Mr. O’s side the majority will never realize what is happening. The major news casters that make their $ Millions will not turn on any administration for fear of loosing their cozy relationship. I have no doubt that should a Hitler or Stalin be running our country, NBC, CBC, ABC, CNN, MSNBC, and Fox would be right their on their coattails echoing the party line of the day.
And a toast with Victory Gin, to you, Gene.
“It appeared that there had even been demonstrations to thank Big Brother for raising the chocolate ration to twenty grams a week. And only yesterday, [Winston Smith] reflected, it had been announced that the ration was to be reduced to twenty grams a week. Was it possible that they could swallow that, after only twenty-four hours? Yes, they swallowed it.” — George Orwell, 1984
When Americans can’t even remember what they thought they knew twenty-four hours ago, it would seem a safe bet for Big Brother to assume that they couldn’t come close to recalling what they thought he had said to them five years ago.
“The past not only changed, but changed continuously. …”
Well done Gene. The “Ignore the man behind the curtain” tactic will not work in the Internet age. At least if we keep repeating the truth.
OS, you gotta love Grace Slick and the Jefferson Airplane!
One of the “classical” revisionist tales is Michael Parenti’s “The Assassination Of Julius Caesar.”
It is a good read as it exposes the dichotomy between Gibbon’s classic texts — which defines basic consensus of Roman history — and another possible interpretation of a small, but critical, moment in western history.
In both, the Gracchi land reforms were defeated — which leads to Parenti’s thesis and the fundamental motivation of Julius Caesar in returning from Germania and his crossing of the Rubicon.
History is unfortunately post-interpretation at its base, filtered through the needs of cultural validity so as to justify any current cultural standing.
There are facts that cannot be disputed in any historical venue, but the telling of said is most generally propaganda.
I see the White House and the DoD have been less than forthcoming about endless war too. Last spring, Obama made a speech saying the U.S. is at war with, “Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and their associated forces.” However, follow up questions since then regarding exactly who the “associated forces” might be, the Department of Defense has told reporters they cannot release that information because it’s a secret.
Let me get this straight. The President of the United States says we are at war with somebody or something, but they cannot tell us who it is? Have I got that right? We are at war, but naming the enemy is a state secret?
Grace Slick was prophetic. We have fallen into the rabbit hole.
Good point, Mike. How much can this guy get away with!?
Travelling Limey,
He gets away with as much as his four predecessors and they’ve all done much harm.
OS,
Luntz is merely a whore using another title, but the appelation fits.
Mark,
Been drinking mezcal all evening and I’m not in shape to read it tonight. However, the first two have been superb and I have no doubt this will follow suit. Publish it, I can’t wait.
Gene,
Propaganda: a subject close to my heart. It pays well too. I just discovered a story about the right wing Propagandist-in-Chief, Dr. Frank Luntz. I think I am in the wrong business. Just a few minutes ago, I discovered a news story, with pictures, of his humble abode. The photos are a slide show, so you have to wait for them to scroll. I like money as well as the next person, but like the song title by Meat Loaf says, “I Won’t Do That.” I have my limits.
Frank’s house and his museum quality collectables at the link.
http://www.lamag.com/lastyle/lalookbook/2013/06/13/all-the-presidents-man
Gene,
In a sense this is the last straw regarding Obama. I see it this way because up to this point it would be reasonable (though untrue) to defend the actions of his administration as possibly the result of a different viewpoint on national security, which though falacious was done with misguided “good intent”. By this act of “historical revisionism” coming from an Administration still in power we see an active propaganda function as oppressive in intent as satired in Animal farm.
It reminds of a seen from a Woody Allen movie where his wife finds him in bed with his mistress, who gets dressed hurriedly and leaves right in front of his wife’s eyes. Woody all this time keeps telling his wife she’s imagined everything. In the end withe the mistress gone the wife just stares confusedly at the camera. Fade out.
We are like that wife, sold a bunch of lies to elect him and now being told the promises were never made.
Mark,
I will be glad to look at it on the morrow. I am fading fast and about to turn in. I can barely write a sentence and get both a verb and subject in it, much less read critically as an editor. Ever get so tired your fingers won’t cooperate on the keyboard?
Wowie! Thanks for bringing this up & recording the facts. BO has gradually morphed from a seemingly good guy to the worst president one could have!
Thanks, Mark. I’m glad you liked it.
I took a look at that draft and e-mailed a couple of suggestions. I hope they’re helpful and flattered you asked. 😀
Gene H:
Here’s the one I’ve been waiting for. Great topic and tour de force as usual. This is one to bookmark!
BTW if you or OS or any of the other weekend bloggers get a chance I’ve got an unfinished draft of Installment 3 of the American Jury series in the blog hopper. I’d appreciate any critique any of you would care to share on this one or either of the other two. I’m trying to be concise but its not as easy as the rest of you make it seem.
Well, there’s always the Wayback Machine.
Excellent….. Nunc pro tunc…. I guess we’re not as transparent as we were told Obama is or was going to be…. Scrubbing web pages….. Wonderful…. Who’d thought…. I guess the King George’s would be very pleased….. Obama is finishing up what Bush started….and got Nixon tossed out of office…. Again, excellent article…. I can’t wait to see what Jill has to say…..