Propaganda - Then and Now

I am listening to The Big Broadcast on NPR. Wonderful 3 hours of a time that never existed. The particular hour block is broadcasting contemporary news accounts of the bombing of Pearl Harbor and a dramatized account of your FBI at work protecting US (USA and you and me) against foreign spy's and those other types who hate America. They use words like "Jap" and go after the enemies of America. These patriots go on about how these foreign agents of alien aggressors are so devotional to their supreme leaders they cannot think for themselves. They talk about "Axis aliens", "spy rings", "internal security", "constant vigil". This happened over 60 years ago and all I can think about is how this same demagoguery was used after the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks. We look at these messages of extreme "us against them" as short-sighted, racist, and without much basis. But when we are faced with a foreign entity our overt xenophobia exudes from our well-fed, pampered bodies. We shrink from any critical thought and immediately say, "how could they? What did we do? Bomb them. Kill them! Make them suffer."

The first thing I said after hearing about the attacks was, "how was this going to be used to justify an attack against someone else?" I was called calloused, but really I was prescient. I do not align myself with a particular protest group or ethic. I do not support war, I did not like Bush's policies. But I tried not to talk down to someone who did support it. I tried to see their point and make my own where I was comfortable. Because I am not comfortable shoving my views down someone else's throat. That by their not agreeing with me, they were uninformed idiots who were living in a fantasy world and deluding themselves. Why such figurative language? Because that is how these same people, these people I ACTUALLY AGREE with, make me feel when I do not agree with them all the time, or to the extent that they want. There are a lot of people who are so fragile and egomaniacal that they cannot stand if someone does not prop them, and stroke them, and justify them. Ignore those people. Laugh at those people. They are not funny, or special, or smart. They are weak, controlling, and they are not your friends. Do not buy the crap they are selling. If you can avoid those people, your life will be a lot smoother. And if you can avoid being that person, you will like yourself.