[KeyWest]

A thoughtful article.

[William McKinley]

It is going to get worse, not better. About 30% of this country has succumbed completely to propaganda. They no longer think clearly, and they can't be snapped out of it.

And they believe to their souls that it is everyone else who is blind to the truth and the victim of propaganda.

[Fury]

Good article. I've given up talking with folks who oppose the war/can't stand GW/etc at work concerning these matters. It's not worth it, we are never going to agree on the issues and I got sick of hearing after 5 minutes into a discussion that GW is a druggie and/or a drunk and/or GW is doing "his Daddy's work", blah, blah, blah.

It makes them mad when I won't engage them in a discussion on these topics.

[William McKinley]

Case in point, this article.

Do you have any doubt at all, that what will happen with this is that the people like Michael Moore and Justin Raimondo and so on will claim that it was a lie, that it is just government propaganda? Do you have any doubt at all that a significant amount of the population, such as those who frequent Indymedia, DU, LF, LP, Natall etc will instantly believe that it is just a lie? Is there any way to deny the fact that there literally is no way to persuade them otherwise, since any proof they will immediately say is a lie?

And the whole time, they will be smugly thinking to themselves "no matter what the truth is, they are going to believe the lies the government puts out".

This problem is not going to go away any time soon, especially if people try to avoid the problem by just not talking about things. The propagandists can't be given quarter. They can't have their crap accepted as a reaonable way of thinking. They must be confronted and actively scorned.

[jpl]

Fussell says this is the first time he can think of that the United Nations has proven utterly ineffective to prevent war. “My generation, and I’m almost 80 now, experienced the foundation of the U.N., and experienced some of the naïve joy that came over us at that time. We were finally going to end wars. Everybody thought that. The fact that that concept has been thoroughly shot down by events over the last months distresses people more than they can express.”

This paragraph here strikes right to the heart of what most of this is really all about. A large number of people (especially middle-aged and older) have seen their core philosophy come unglued right before their very eyes in the last year and a half. The heart of the problem is that, right from the beginning, this philosophy was rooted in naivete, wishful thinking, and a profound misunderstanding of human nature itself. Life's most important lessons are often a shock to the system, and one has a basic choice: either learn from it, or sink into the abyss of cognitive dissonance, which in the end leads to rage and impotence.

[Doug Loss]

You see, Liberalism is their religion. When you try to debate them, you think you're engaging in a political discussion, but to them you're questioning the tenets of their faith. And it is faith, not a position reached through logical and rational thought but one accepted completely without (or even against the evidence of) factual support.

[catpuppy]

Historian Paul Fussell ... a man of the left ... says this is the first time he can think of that the United Nations has proven utterly ineffective to prevent war.

Dear "Historian" Fussell. A few words for you: Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan (the Soviet version), Iraq, Afghanistan again, and a hundred other places.

“My generation ... experienced the foundation of the U.N., and experienced some of the naïve joy that came over us at that time. We were finally going to end wars. Everybody thought that."

Everybody? EVERYBODY?Mr. Fussell, are you nuts?

[VOA]

Stephen Pollard, writing in the Times of London, says a number of his friendships have
broken up because he supports war to disarm Saddam Hussein and his friends don’t.

Mr. Pollard, Prime Minister Blair, Jack Straw and the rest of your resolute Brits...
you have no idea how many NEW friends you've made since 9-11.

[sonserae]

ping!

[Tallguy]

Fussell says this is the first time he can think of that the United Nations has proven utterly ineffective to prevent war.

This guy is a historian?!

[FITZ]

If you have to have liberals for friends, it's better to stay completely off the topic of politics. To liberals everything is only about what makes them feel good. Logic and truth don't really play. If I have to talk to a liberal, I keep the conversation on topics like weather.

[bassmaner]

This is a really sad commentary on today's state of affairs.

On another thread yesterday, I posted this paraphrase of the famous quote by Pastor Niemoller ("First they came for the Jews," etc.)

*******************

First they came for the Romanovs and I did not speak out because I was not a Romanov. Then they came for the kulaks, and I did not speak out because I wasn't a kulak. Then they came for anyone they wanted, just to fill a quota. I got passed over, so I didn't speak out. Then they sent their agents to the West to infiltrate the academy and the entertainment establishment, and rot it out from within. I believed the lie that it was Joe McCarthy, not Joe Stalin, who was the real enemy. Now my country's in mortal danger from attacks by medieval religious fanatics, and Joe Stalin's 5th columnists are allying with them and spewing their hatred for my country fifty years after his death, and I wonder why.

*******************

One of the favorite tag lines of the Left, "the personal is political", is apparently the driving force behind all this rancor. We have let ourselves be poisoned by that philosophy, so much so that we cannot tell right from wrong, and what is absolutely good and what is absolutely evil. Until we rid ourselves of the Leftist cancer first inflicted upon us by the agents of the Evil Empire that collapsed upon itself 12 years ago by the weight of its own contradictions, we are doomed. Moral relativism will be our downfall.