Quotable quotes: answers from dark sources
November 2, 2008 by Miki Saxon
Two questions
Why, when people don’t want war, do they go along; what secret ingredients do their ‘leaders’ use to convert them from nay-sayers to supporters?
More and more, people all over the world are being lied to by their ‘leaders’; why do people follow?
Two answers
“Naturally the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.” –Hermann Goering
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.” –Joseph Goebbels
A half a century and we (the human race) still seem to be in the same place.
Your comments—priceless
BTW, “teach” and “taught,” like “communicate” and “communicated,” are transitive verbs mascarading for an intransitive event. Carelessness, en masse.
People “follow” because they are gullible. Your mother lied to you, your friends lie to you, the media lie to you, your minister lied to you. Figuring out what (or whom) to believe is hard work. Gullible people avoid the hard work –which these days would probably be most people.
If I tell you there is a better way to live at work, I would be lying unless you made it happen. We’ve got the saddle on thr wrong horse.
Hi Lee, “Better” by whose definition? Yes, they would have to implement the ‘better’ themselves, but even after they did the work would it really be better?
Last year, in a post about the fluidity of ethical values, I said, “Universally, murder has always been considered bad, but what constitutes murder is ever changing.”
So it’s not only lies, but differences in MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™).
“Gullible people avoid the hard work”, but so do lazy people. Are all lazy people gullible? And if we add ideologues—those who don’t allow facts to get in the way of their opinions and beliefs—we’ve included the entire population:)