Propaganda

Here are some quotes I picked out from this article:

"Mighty little force is needed to control a man whose mind has been hoodwinked; contrariwise, no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything—you can't conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."
—Robert A. Heinlein, If This Goes On, 1940

"One of the most horrible features of war is that all the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting."
—George Orwell, Homage to Catalonia, 1938

"Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one."
—Charles Mackay, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, 1841

Did you ever stop and think about how much energy, money, etc., humans invest in deception? It seems like such a waste. Not that all lies are bad ("You look fine!", "It's not that noticeable ...", "Of course I didn't forget!"). But the nature of lies is impermanence, because they can never stand up to the truth. All lies are like what the song says *we* are, dust in the wind. Once exposed to the light, they must fall away, though anything of substance they may have been propping up comes crashing down, potentially causing some real damage.

Truth is what's left after all lies are pierced. It is the only real thing in the Universe, and ultimately the only thing of any value. But here on Earth we haven't reached "the Ultimate" yet, so Truth often plays the role of the ugly stepsister, or even the skunk at the picnic.

Lately I've been under the impression, probably a false one (but there's a truth behind that falsity ...) that a lot of energy has been directed at me, personally, to believe in a bullshit stack of lies to divert me from what I *should* be doing, whatever that is. Like I said, I'm probably deluded in that belief, but I can clearly see this is happening to the American people in general.

I can't stand to watch television anymore. It seems that everything in the "news" is an irrelevant distraction or an out-and-out lie. Where do we go to get the truth?

One of the bloggers I follow, Les Visible, says we should meditate. I think this is an excellent idea, but it's not for wussies. So many of our false comforts are based on lies. We all will feel pretty naked and cold when these are stripped from us. But I can tell you that as a nation, the United States has some pretty stark truths it must face in the immediate future. I also get the sense that the better we can deal with our own personal truths, the better we will be able to deal with these more collective truths and their effects.

[See also: awakeninthedream.com]