Lord Ponsonby: London lies in every war

Wikipedia:

Lord Arthur Augustus William Harry Ponsonby (16 February 1871 – 23 March 1946) was a British politician, writer, and social activist; 1st Baron Ponsonby of Shulbrede.

While researching for the major part of my book Solutrea, Arise, about Britain’s ruling class and the power of psychopaths in our world, I came across an account by a German of her growing doubts about the Holocaust stories that rained down on the already militarily defeated German people in 1945-46, especially in press coverage of the outrageous Nuremberg War Crimes Trials — which even John Kennedy denounced, most courageously, in his excellent book Profiles in Courage.

In the article, the German woman mentions Lord Ponsonby as a British lord (of Norman descent, of course) who had said that every government lies to start wars and especially to continue them once the body bags and funerals begin en masse. And then guilt trips based on lies can be used to keep a conquered people psychologically down.

White Americans are told the four lies that we 1) exterminated the Indians (actually, disease such as the common cold killed them and the Hawaiians off, because they had no immunity to the white man’s germs), 2) Indians were the rightful owners of the land of North America (actually the Solutrean whites were here first, by 10,000 years, and the Indians were invaders from Asia who genocided our white kinfolk); 3) we Whites deliberately started the black slave trade (actually, Queen Elizabeth I of England started it using sephardic jews — and when the 13 american colonies were founded, the monarchs forced it on them against their resistance); 4) we white males oppressed women (actually, women once in power in politics or business have shown over and over that they are not morally superior to men in any way whatsoever). But if a tiny minority wishes to conquer a large people, and then KEEP THEM DOWN, you must lie to make them feel guilty. And to conquer a race, you must make the race feel criminal. To castrate men, you must tell them that they are a wicked gender. Voilà the Anglo-British treatment of defeated Germany after 1945 — endless torrents of guilt-inducing lies to make the Germans feel like a race of criminals, so that unlike after WWI, when the Germans voted for Hitler to free themselves, after WWII the Germans submitted to their fate under a cloud of false guilt. In the below, taken from Wikipedia, Lord Ponsonby admits that lying was [or, as Tony Blair proved, still is] British government policy — and that lies always would be part of British policy, because wars, conquest and enslaving of one’s own people and of other nations requires lies, hate and guilt.

Falsehood in Wartime (1928)

Full title: Falsehood in Wartime: Propaganda Lies of the First World War

• When war is declared, truth is the first casualty.
  • This famous statement is similar to one attributed to Hiram Johnson: “The first casualty when war comes is truth.” said to have been declared in 1917 or 1918, and also to one by Samuel Johnson: “Among the calamities of war may be jointly numbered the diminution of the love of truth, by the falsehoods which interest dictates and credulity encourages.” from The Idler (1758)

[edit] Introduction

• The object of this volume is not to cast fresh blame on authorities and individuals, nor is it to expose one nation more than another to accusations of deceit.
  • First lines of the introduction.

• Falsehood is a recognized and extremely useful weapon in warfare, and every country uses it quite deliberately to deceive its own people, to attract neutrals, and to mislead the enemy. The ignorant and innocent masses in each country are unaware at the time that they are being misled, and when it is all over only here and there are the falsehoods discovered and exposed. As it is all past history — and the desired effect has been produced by the stories and statements — no one troubles to investigate the facts and establish the truth.

• Lying, as we all know, does not take place only in war-time. Man, it has been said, is not “a veridical animal,” but his habit of lying is not nearly so extraordinary as his amazing readiness to believe. It is, indeed, because of human credulity that lies flourish. But in war-time the authoritative organization of lying is not sufficiently recognized. The deception of whole peoples is not a matter which can be lightly regarded. A useful purpose can therefore be served in the interval of so-called peace by a warning which people can examine with dispassionate calm, that the authorities in each country do, and indeed must, resort to this practice in order, first, to justify themselves by depicting the enemy as an undiluted criminal; and secondly, to inflame popular passion sufficiently to secure recruits for the continuance of the struggle. They cannot afford to tell the truth. In some cases it must be admitted that at the moment they do not know what the truth is.

• People must never be allowed to become despondent; so victories must be exaggerated and defeats, if not concealed, at any rate minimized, and the stimulus of indignation , horror, and hatred must be assiduously and continuously pumped into the public mind by means of “propaganda.”

• The use of the weapon of falsehood is more necessary in a country where military conscription is not the law of the land than in countries where the manhood of the nation is automatically drafted into the Army, Navy, or Air Service. The public can be worked up emotionally by sham ideals. A sort of collective hysteria spreads and rises until finally it gets the better of sober people and reputable newspapers.

• A Government which has decided on embarking on the hazardous and terrible enterprise of war must at the outset present a one-sided case in justification of its action, and cannot afford to admit in any particular whatever the smallest degree of right or reason on the part of the people it has made up its mind to fight. Facts must be distorted, relevant circumstances concealed, and a picture presented which by its crude colouring will persuade the ignorant people that their Government is blameless, their cause is righteous, and that the indisputable wickedness of the enemy has been proved beyond question. A moment’s reflection would tell any reasonable person that such obvious bias cannot possibly represent the truth. But the moment’s reflection is not allowed; lies are circulated with great rapidity. The unthinking mass accept them and by their excitement sway the rest. The amount of rubbish and humbug that pass under the name of patriotism in war-time in all countries is sufficient to make decent people blush when they are subsequently disillusioned.

• At the outset the solemn asseverations of monarchs and leading statesmen in each nation that they did not want war must be placed on a par with the declarations of men who pour paraffin [like gasoline] about a house knowing they are continually striking matches and yet assert they do not want a conflagration. This form of self-deception, which involved the deception of others, is fundamentally dishonest.

• War being established as a recognized institution to be resorted to when Governments quarrel, the people are more or less prepared. They quite willingly delude themselves in order to justify their own actions. [JdN: Two different French revisionists, Bardèche in the 1940s, and Reynouard in the last decade, have pointed out that those who choose to continue to believe in the Holocaust lie even after its absurdity has been proven have their own selfish emotional reasons for doing so, among them 1) to justify the war crimes of their own country against the German nation (“Dresden was bad, but look what the GERMANS did!”) and 2) to feel self-righteous and morally superior, a very potent semi-religious mania and power trip. Bardèche opined that any GI who after 1945 walked through a bombed-out Germany would be EAGER to believe in the Holocaust — to defend the annihilation of Germany’s civilians that his nation had committed.] They are anxious to find an excuse for displaying their patriotism, or they are disposed to seize the opportunity for the excitement and new life of adventure which war opens out to them. So there is a sort of national wink, everyone goes forward, and the individual, in his turn, takes up lying as a patriotic duty. In the low standard of morality which prevails in war-time, such a practice appears almost innocent.

• In calm retrospect we can appreciate better the disastrous effects of the poison of falsehood, whether officially, semi-officially, or privately manufactured. It has been rightly said that the injection of the poison of hatred into men’s minds by means of falsehood is a greater evil in war-time than the actual loss of life. The defilement of the human soul is worse than the destruction of the human body. A fuller realization of this is essential.
• =============Eisenhower’s starvation death camps for surrendered German soldiers
• Dwight Eisenhower, described (jokingly?) in his West Point yearbook as a Swedish jew, ordered all German soldiers declassified as “POWs” and reclassified as “disarmed enemy personnel” (DEPs) and then, using this fictitious new category, denied the Red Cross to the right to visit them, claiming “they are no longer soldiers, and the REd Cross can only visit soldiers”! He prevented the Red Cross from inspecting the camps to see if the soldiers were being humanely treated and blocked all food packages to the starving, even ordering GIs to shoot German villagers who tried to throw food over the barbed-wire fences.
• Canadian author James Bacque’s book Other Losses proves that one million surrendered Germans were DELIBERATELY starved to death (while living out in the open for MONTHS with no tents in northern Germany!) by the clear and direct military order of Dwight Eisenhower. I knew an American jew, David Edovitz, who basically confessed (with shame) that he was part of it when I knew him in 2002 in Winthrop, Massachusetts. Here is a first-hand account by a German: http://www.read-all-about-it.org/archive_english/POW/in_a_US_death_camp.html Now, an American’s reaction on reading this can go only one of two ways: hatred at the truth and the truthteller, because the truth hurts, and inflicts justified shame on Americans; or among the decent minority this Eisenhower death camp truth triggers sorrow, repentance and a destre to apologize to those abused Germans if they are still alive, and to make amends to their country for all the crimes the US government ordered and GIs committed. As Bardèche and Reynouard have pointed out, most people who have committed crimes — or who wants to feel self-righteous and all “Greatest Generation-y,” — want to justify their government’s war crimes and thus their choice to obey criminal orders. This recalls what Goethe wrote two hundred years ago: “Das ist der Fluch der bösen Tat, dass sie fortwährend Böses muss erzeugen.” [“This is the curse of the evil deed, that it continuously produces more evil.”]
• ==========================

• Another effect of the continual appearance of false and biased statement and the absorption of the lie atmosphere is that deeds of real valour, heroism, and physical endurance and genuine cases of inevitable torture and suffering are contaminated and desecrated; the wonderful comradeship of the battlefield becomes almost polluted. Lying tongues cannot speak of deeds of sacrifice to show their beauty or value. So it is that the praise bestowed on heroism by Government and Press always jars, more especially when, as is generally the case with the latter, it is accompanied by cheap and vulgar sentimentality. That is why one instinctively wishes the real heroes to remain unrecognized, so that their record may not be smirched by cynical tongues and pens so well versed in falsehood.

• When war reaches such dimensions as to involve the whole nation, and when the people at its conclusion find they have gained nothing but only observe widespread calamity around them, they are inclined to become more sceptical and desire to investigate the foundations of the arguments which inspired their patriotism, inflamed their passions, and prepared them to offer the supreme sacrifice. They are curious to know why the ostensible objects for which they fought have none of them been attained, more especially if they are the victors.

• When the generation that has known war is still alive, it is well that they should be given chapter and verse with regard to some of the best-known cries, catchwords, and exhortations by which they were so greatly influenced. As a warning, therefore, this collection is made. It constitutes only the exposure of a few samples. To cover the whole ground would be impossible.

• There is the concealment of truth, which has to be resorted to so as to prevent anything to the credit of the enemy reaching the public. A war correspondent who mentioned some chivalrous act that a German had done to an Englishman during an action received a rebuking telegram from his employer: “Don’t want to hear about any good Germans”; and Sir Philip Gibbs, in Realities of War, says: “At the close of the day the Germans acted with chivalry, which I was not allowed to tell at the time.”

• In Vienna an enterprising firm supplied atrocity photographs with blanks for the headings so that they might be used for propaganda purposes by either side.

• Atrocity lies were the most popular of all, especially in this country and America; no war can be without them. Slander of the enemy is esteemed a patriotic duty. An English soldier wrote (The Times, September 15, 1914): “The stories in our papers are only exceptions. There are people like them in every army.” But at the earliest possible moment stories of the maltreatment of prisoners have to be circulated deliberately in order to prevent surrenders. This is done, of course, on both sides. Whereas naturally each side tries to treat its prisoners as well as possible so as to attract others. The repetition of a single instance of cruelty and its exaggeration can be distorted into a prevailing habit on the part of the enemy.

• Contempt for the enemy, if illustrated, can prove to be an unwise form of falsehood. There was a time when German soldiers were popularly represented cringing, with their arms in the air and crying “Kamerad,” until it occurred to Press and propaganda authorities that people were asking why, if this was the sort of material we were fighting against, had we not wiped them off the field in a few weeks.

• A good deal depends on the quality of the lie. You must have intellectual lies for intellectual people and crude lies for popular consumption, but if your popular lies are too blatant and your more intellectual section are shocked and see through them, they may (and indeed they did) begin to be suspicious as to whether they were not being hoodwinked too. Nevertheless, the inmates of colleges are just as credulous as the inmates of the slums.

• The narrowest patriotism could be made to appear noble, the foulest accusations could be represented as an indignant outburst of humanitarianism, and the meanest and most vindictive aims falsely disguised as idealism. Everything was legitimate which could make the soldiers go on fighting.

• War is fought in this fog of falsehood, a great deal of it undiscovered and accepted as truth. The fog arises from fear and is fed by panic. Any attempt to doubt or deny even the most fantastic story has to be condemned at once as unpatriotic, if not traitorous. This allows a free field for the rapid spread of lies. If they were only used to deceive the enemy in the game of war it would not be worth troubling about. But, as the purpose of most of them is to fan indignation and induce the flower of the country’s youth to be ready to make the supreme sacrifice, it becomes a serious matter. Exposure, therefore, may be useful, even when the struggle is over, in order to show up the fraud, hypocrisy, and humbug on which all war rests, and the blatant and vulgar devices which have been used for so long to prevent the poor ignorant people from realizing the true meaning of war.

• It must be admitted that many people were conscious and willing dupes. But many more were unconscious and were sincere in their patriotic zeal. Finding now that elaborately and carefully staged deceptions were practised on them, they feel a resentment which has not only served to open their eyes but may induce them to make their children keep their eyes open when next the bugle sounds.

• Between nations, where the consequences are vital, where the destiny of countries and provinces hangs in the balance, the lives and fortunes of millions are affected and civilization itself is menaced, the most upright men honestly believe that there is no depth of duplicity to which they may not legitimately stoop. They have got to do it. The thing cannot go on without the help of lies. This is no plea that lies should not be used in war-time, but a demonstration of how lies must be used in war-time. If the truth were told from the outset, there would be no reason and no will for war. Anyone declaring the truth: “Whether you are right or wrong, whether you win or lose, in no circumstances can war help you or your country,” would find himself in gaol very quickly. In war-time, failure to lie is negligence, the doubting of a lie a misdemeanour, the declaration of the truth a crime.

• When the people of one country understand how the people in another country are duped, like themselves, in war-time, they will be more disposed to sympathize with them as victims than condemn them as criminal, because they will understand that their crime only consisted in obedience to the dictates of authority and acceptance of what their Government and Press represented to them as the truth.

• There is nothing sensational in the way of revelations contained in these pages. All the cases mentioned are well known to those who were in authority, less well known to those primarily affected, and unknown, unfortunately, to the millions who fell. Although only a small part of the vast field of falsehood is covered, it may suffice to show how the unsuspecting innocence of the masses in all countries was ruthlessly and systematically exploited.

• There are some who object to war because of its immorality, there are some who shrink from the arbitrament of arms because of its increased cruelty and barbarity; there are a growing number who protest against this method, at the outset known to be unsuccessful, of attempting to settle
• international disputes because of its imbecility and futility. But there is not a living soul in any country who does not deeply resent having his passions roused, his indignation inflamed, his patriotism exploited, and his highest ideals desecrated by concealment, subterfuge, fraud, falsehood, trickery, and deliberate lying on the part of those in whom he is taught to repose confidence and to whom he is enjoined to pay respect.

• None of the heroes prepared for suffering and sacrifice, none of the common herd ready for service and obedience, will be inclined to listen to the call of their country once they discover the polluted sources from whence that call proceeds and recognize the monstrous finger of falsehood which beckons them to the battlefield.

==========CONCLUSION We must remember our guilt in what Roosevetl and Eisenhower did and ordered and we obeyed in WWII, because we had a huge national hero, the aviator colonel Charles Lindbergh, who appealed to us on coast-to-coast radio for two years — as the leading figure in the America First anti-war movement –to NOT listen to Roosevelt, the jews and the British government and join WWII. And in 1941 Hitler and his Germans were battling communism on the eastern front, the same communist enmies who had murdeerd 40 million Russians and who would later be killing OUR guys in Korea and Vietnam BECAUSE WE DESTROYED GERMANY by obeying the warmongers Roosevelt and Eisenhower. When Lindbergh spoke out on SEPTEMBER 11, 1941 in Des Moines, Iowa (read his fair and balanced speech here: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/lindbergh/filmmore/reference/primary/desmoinesspeech.html), to denounce these three groups, the entire America First committee, his OWN committee, cravenly, cowardly, sickeningly denounced him for uttering the truth by saying the word “jew.” Thus we see the karma of an entire nation — when men who KNEW perfectly well that this magnificent hero was COURAGEOUS and was RIGHT about jewish power in America instead turned publicly on their friend — to kiss the enemy jew’s blood-dripping feet. Charles Lindbergh, wherever your soul is today, I as an American APOLOGIZE to you. What will happen if another Lindbergh arises? That will be the final test for this nation.