Bolshoi Is Back: The People Of The Lie

A lot of commentators, even some who otherwise have criticisms of them, have praised the Occupy Wall Street movement for the (apparently hugely impressive to some minds) tactic of calling themselves “the 99%”.

Or, to put it another way, for lying.

Great lie!, they say. Their baldfaced lying is very strategically shrewd!, say all the ‘progressives’. You have to hand it to them for all the lying. Great idea to just come out and lie like that! You will be hard-pressed to find a newspaper whose Sunday edition editorials don’t contain effusive praise of the inherent genius represented by OWS’s clever lying.

I understand this praise full well. ‘Progressives’, after all, do love a good lie. What could be more noble than to lie about who you are and what you represent in the interest of the Greater Good? What I don’t understand is why no one (besides me) has pointed out the obvious fact that this “the 99%” lie isn’t original in the slightest. It traces back to Lenin & co. back when they decided to call themselves ‘Bolsheviks’ (implying ‘greater’ or majority) as against the Kerensky supporters who were supposedly ‘Mensheviks’ (‘lesser’/minority). This is the same exact type of lie, for the exact same sorts of craven reasons, that impresses exactly the same sorts of minds. They can’t even be original in their lying.

Which is not to say that this sort of lying can’t or won’t pay off. Lying has a long history of paying off in political disputes. Certain political factions are built almost entirely about lying about who they are, and what they want. The current occupant of the White House would be nowhere without it. And so it’s no surprise that these factions are well-represented at OWS. What is slightly more surprising is that they don’t seem to have thought of any new tricks in over ninety years.

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