Slippery

 “So when they say ‘How can Nazification exist if we’re Jewish?’ In my opinion, Hitler also had Jewish origins, so it doesn’t mean absolutely anything. For some time we have heard from the Jewish people that the biggest antisemites were Jewish." If you were wondering how the Russian government was selling their invasion of Ukraine, this statement from their foreign minister might give you a flavor. Go ahead and stack that up next to these facts: President Zelensky of Ukraine is Jewish. He lost his family in the Holocaust. 

Over here in the ostensibly United States, we have this thing called "The Big Lie." A great portion of Americans believe that the democratic election of 2020 was "rigged." Rigged in such a way that in spite of the prevailing audits and numbers and all the ways that votes can be counted, pillowmakers and other desperate types continue to cling to this alternative reality. The one with "alternative facts," an idea pushed by the U.S. Counselor to the President back in 2017. This was not the first time such a suggestion was made about these slippery things we are asked to take, well, as fact. 

Which brings me back around to the Russian foreign minister who chose to phrase his version of history with the introduction, "In my opinion." Hitler's origins are now a subjective thing, and we can expect more of this as we become more and more familiar with this multiverse of madness. The one in which windmills cause cancer and three plus three equals seventeen. I suppose it's a good thing to be kept on our collective toes. We should not take things for granted. The very earth on which we all find ourselves periodically standing could be a whole lot flatter than we had learned in school, and we certainly don't want to make anyone who believes that traveling too far to the east or west will send one plummeting off into the abyss feel bad about themselves or their beliefs. 

If, for example, you feel consumed by the notion that Hitler was a Jew and brought the Holocaust on his own people in order to rationalize some brutal dictator's whim of an invasion, then make something up. Lie. Joseph Goebbels, who was by most historical accounts the chief propaganda officer for Hitler's Third Reich. Also known as "Nazis." It was Goebbels who said, “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it." 

Or at least that's what people have said. In my opinion, Goebbels was a dangerous character and his example is not one we should be following into this new century. Is it a fact? Oh, I wish it was.