May 24, 2003
Watching CBS’s miniseries on Hitler, The Rise of Evil, I was even more frightened by the Germany-US parallel regarding the ordinary citizen’s susceptibility to propaganda than I was by the parallel between the machinations and political maneuverings of Bush and Hitler.
Given the ethical weaknesses in human nature, there always will be immoral and amoral individuals who rise to power because they are talented manipulators and deceivers. So, given that fact, how are we ordinary politically powerless citizens supposed to figure out when the tail is wagging the dog? Or more accurately, what will it take for all of those patriotic support-the-president Americans to accept the fact that we are being duped, over and over again, by Bush’s propaganda machine?
The U.S.-staged toppling of Saddam’s statue got plenty of mainstream publicity. Now the deception of Jessica Lynch fantasy rescue is finally coming to light. How can anyone doubt that these are just the tips of the iceberg? How much more of what the U.S. has orchestrated – using 9/11 as the excuse – has been scripted and acted out for the sole purpose of trying to fool Americans into believing that Bush’s might makes right?
It’s no longer hard for me to understand how the German people allowed themselves to be duped, manipulated, suckered, and victimized by carefully and creatively crafted propaganda. I see so many of my fellow Americans being led like sheep to the same kind of soul-less slaughter of will.
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Old Comments (1)
Kate S. on 02 Jun 2003
Yes, it's very frightening, this duping of America. I also better understand now how the Holocaust was allowed to happen in Germany by the masses suffering from the same type of nationalistic patriotism celebrated in the same unswerving blindness as our own current day neighbors and citizens.
We are being asked now many of the same questions the Germans were asking themselves back then, and we are giving the same blind-eye, head-in-the-sand answers, proving: Humanity doesn't remember history very well and seems doomed to repeat it (death camp proposal in Guantanamo Bay, for example.)