Propaganda And Terror

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Fear and terror are the hallmarks of tyrannical totalitarian regimes the world over. Just like Hitler admired Stalin for the way he used fear and terror to keep people in line, we now have a president who openly admires authoritarian tyrants all over the world who use fear and terror to keep their populations under control. Propaganda and terror are opposite sides of the same coin.
It was recognized early and has frequently been asserted that in totalitarian countries propaganda and terror present two sides of the same coin.

Propaganda is indeed part and parcel of " psychological warfare"; but terror is more. Terror continues to be used by totalitarian regimes even when its psychological aims are achieved: its real horror is that it reigns over a completely subdued population. . . Propaganda in other words, is one, and possibly the most important, instrument of totalitarianism for dealing with the non-totalitarian world: terror, on the contrary, is the very essence of its form of government. . . The similarities between this kind of terror and plain gangsterism are too obvious to be pointed out. . . More specific in totalitarian propaganda, however, than direct threats and crimes against individuals is the use of indirect, veiled, and menacing hints against all who will not heed its teachings and, later, mass murder perpetrated on "guilty" and "innocent" alike.

Terror is the realization of the law of movement; its chief aim is to make it possible for the force of nature or of history to race freely through mankind unhindered by any spontaneous human action.

Hannah Arendt, The Origins Of Totalitarianism, 1949

Re: Propaganda And Terror

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I took a class once that was one whole quarter-term on just Hannah Arendt. One of the best classes I ever took.
Trump puts the banality in “the banality of evil” (a phrase for which Arendt was criticized...banal evil, how dare you?).
I’m not afraid of Trump. He’s a joke. He is nowhere near the level of Hitler or Stalin. Idi Amin, maybe.

I still believe that Trump is too lightweight to usher in authoritarianism on his own under current conditions (although that could change if conditions change). The damage he’s doing —has done— is that he’s torn down norms of behavior and undermined the Republic so that in the future someone much much worse can come in and take us all the way into the darkness, willingly.
Trump is not the Antichrist; Trump is the Antichrist’s valet plumping up the pillows for his Master’s grand entrance. :evil:
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Re: Propaganda And Terror

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When you look up the "Fellowship" and Douglas Coe in DC that little group is a whos who of US leaders for decades. They would meet and discuss the techniques of the worst dictators of the 20th century

the fascination with them was developing a fanatical devotion to themselves.

Re: Propaganda And Terror

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HuckleberryFun wrote: Sun Oct 14, 2018 3:38 pm I took a class once that was one whole quarter-term on just Hannah Arendt. One of the best classes I ever took.
Trump puts the banality in “the banality of evil” (a phrase for which Arendt was criticized...banal evil, how dare you?).
I’m not afraid of Trump. He’s a joke. He is nowhere near the level of Hitler or Stalin. Idi Amin, maybe.

I still believe that Trump is too lightweight to usher in authoritarianism on his own under current conditions (although that could change if conditions change). The damage he’s doing —has done— is that he’s torn down norms of behavior and undermined the Republic so that in the future someone much much worse can come in and take us all the way into the darkness, willingly.
Trump is not the Antichrist; Trump is the Antichrist’s valet plumping up the pillows for his Master’s grand entrance. :evil:
Humpty Trumpty is nowhere near the level of Hitler or Stalin only because he is constrained by 235 years of constitutional law and precedent. The constitution still acts as guardrails keeping a wannabe like Trumpty in line. His use of propaganda (the media is the enemy of the people) and terror (separating families at the border) in regard to legitimate refuges seeking asylum shows him to be a wannabe totalitarian.

Re: Propaganda And Terror

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eelj wrote: Sun Oct 14, 2018 3:49 pm When you look up the "Fellowship" and Douglas Coe in DC that little group is a whos who of US leaders for decades. They would meet and discuss the techniques of the worst dictators of the 20th century

the fascination with them was developing a fanatical devotion to themselves.
Wow! I never knew anything of this.
During the 1960s, the Family forged relationships between the U.S. government and some of the most oppressive regimes in the world, arranging prayer networks in the U.S. Congress for the likes of General Costa e Silva, dictator of Brazil; General Suharto, dictator of Indonesia; and General Park Chung Hee, dictator of South Korea. "The Fellowship's reach into governments around the world," observes David Kuo, a former special assistant to the president in Bush's first term, "is almost impossible to overstate or even grasp."
https://www.npr.org/templates/story/sto ... =120746516

Re: Propaganda And Terror

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harriss wrote: Sun Oct 14, 2018 8:27 pm
eelj wrote: Sun Oct 14, 2018 3:49 pm When you look up the "Fellowship" and Douglas Coe in DC that little group is a whos who of US leaders for decades. They would meet and discuss the techniques of the worst dictators of the 20th century

the fascination with them was developing a fanatical devotion to themselves.
Wow! I never knew anything of this.
During the 1960s, the Family forged relationships between the U.S. government and some of the most oppressive regimes in the world, arranging prayer networks in the U.S. Congress for the likes of General Costa e Silva, dictator of Brazil; General Suharto, dictator of Indonesia; and General Park Chung Hee, dictator of South Korea. "The Fellowship's reach into governments around the world," observes David Kuo, a former special assistant to the president in Bush's first term, "is almost impossible to overstate or even grasp."
https://www.npr.org/templates/story/sto ... =120746516
The shadow theocracy, as the rightwing Evangelicals were running scared with tales of Clinton and the secret Illuminati running everything.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.-Huxley
"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." ~ Louis Brandeis,

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