Yesterday Middle Son brought some fliers home from school. One featured the iconic image of Che Guevara which has been so enduring over the years and the other the clenched "black power" fist made popular by such luminaries as Huey Newton in the 60's. (He reported a third flier featured a likeness of Michael Moore but didn't bring it home.) The fliers called on all "Progressives" to come to a meeting to fight off the nefarious recruiters who were apparently coming to the school to induce vulnerable poor children to join the military. There is so much wrong with this that it is hard to know where to start. (For example, even NPR admitted a week ago that recent recruits have been above average in socio-economic class and educational achievement compared to the overall population.) The idea that these most privileged children, primarily middle class and upper middle class, who live in a bucolic suburb north of New York City, living lives of ease and material bounty never before experienced by mere mortals, would object to recruiters for the major force standing between them and those who would like nothing better than to enslave or kill them, creates a profound discontinuity.
The children who posted these fliers apparently believe that we are fighting an immoral, illegal war, based on lies, that the military sneakily induces poor children to join under false pretenses as cannon fodder for the rich plutocrats who run the country; they believe they are protecting the helpless poor from being exploited by the war machine. They are awash in virtuous indignation. The fact that this is a truly reactionary position is irrelevant; what is more interesting is how these young minds have been damaged by the propaganda of the media, aided and abetted by the dominant New York political party's liberal ideologists; needless to say, the media/Democrat conflation in New York is, if anything, more out of touch with reality than in most places. It is possible that some of these children know that Che Guevara was a mass murdering psychopath, but I suspect for most, their only knowledge of his exploits is from puerile Hollywood efforts and the white washing of history that has been a staple of the left leaning media since the 60's.
Gagdad Bob somewhat metaphorically describes what happens to young minds which are raised on lies and half truths:
In order to grow, the mind requires truth. Similarly, a culture or nation that is deprived of truth will literally become spiritually ill. The mind, although it is not a physical entity, nevertheless has a function, just like any other organ. Your heart functions to pump blood. Your lungs function to exchange oxygen and carbon dioxide with the environment. And the mind functions to metabolize truth so that it may grow.
A mind nourished on lies will still grow, but it will grow in a monstrous way analogous to a tumor. Rather than being a unity, it will be an agglomeration. It will be riven by contradiction, and there will be no true synthesis of its elements. Indeed, this is one of the reasons why it is so difficult to argue with a leftist. Such an individual will freely believe all kinds of mutually contradictory things, such as "our soldiers are engaged in a genocidal war based on lies, and I support the troops," or "President Bush lied about WMD, and President Clinton was telling the truth about them," or "we should have prevented North Korea from obtaining nukes, and Saddam was not a threat to obtain them." At the same time, the leftist will unconsciously "attack" the connecting links in your own psyche, giving you the subjective experience of what it must be like to be them.
As the saying goes, read the whole thing. His post goes on to do a nice job eviscerating one of the leading lights of liberal thought in this country, the New York Times' own Tom Friedman. I long ago stopped reading most of the Times columnists, now mercifully hidden from view behind the walls of Times Select, but it is good to remind yourself from time to time of how incoherent these smart people can be.
Truth is, one hopes, eventually bound to be stronger than lies, but the portents are mixed. Pamela at Atlas Shrugs attended a talk by Oriana Fallaci on Monday night:
Oriana Fallaci - frail, tiny hit that podium running. She looked up at us and said "you are my comrade in arms. Our opponents are leftists. Conservative are too genteel. You are warriors and warriors can not get tired."
"The secret of happiness is freedom, the secret of freedom is courage". In describing despotism, Fallaci said the despot ignores the body and attacks the soul. Because it is the soul the despot wants to put in chains. The despot wants to put the soul in shackles. "You are free not to think. Think as I do".
The Truth Inspires Fear".
"Europe overflows with the witch hunts.... hits any one going against Islam. It overflows the with New Inquisition. Trying to muzzle. Oh yes, like your Ward Churchills, your Noam Chomskys, your Louis Farrakhans and your Michael Moore's etc. TRAITORS! against which all antidotes seem to fail. Combined Neo nazi islamo fascism" [Atlas note: Fallaci spit these names out with such repulsion and utter contempt........riveting]
Not all of the enemies of truth are so obvious and overt as Ward Churchill. Strategy Page lists 22 subtle and not-so-subtle ways in which the enemies of reason distort the truth. Everyone should print out this post, The Most Successful Propaganda Techniques, and display it prominently where young people can see it. Perhaps the most common of the techniques in use by big media is this one:
# 21. Withholding Information. Is it the same as lying? Some in the media might not want to answer that question.
Unfortunately, the left still holds sway in too many places of influence and their PC-lies foul the mental landscape. No Pasaran reminds us that today is the birthday of one of the great speakers of truth of the century just passed:
Is That Winston Speaking of the Iraq War of 2003?
If you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a small chance of survival. There may even be a worse case: you may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.
Today is the birthday of Winston Churchill, the British Statesman, Soldier, and Author (1874-1965)
He has many more memorable quotes on his site. The last he mentions is particularly apt:
Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened.
Western civilization could certainly use another Winston Churchill right about now.
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