Our Daily Hate

The post yesterday asked you to sit down and spend an hour with Chris Hedges. This is asking a lot, an hour is not cheap in this world and Hedges can make one sad.

But I hope you did it. Anyway, aside from the fact that one comes away feeling betrayed by this country's leaders, pretty much all of them, I think there were two very important lessons for me.

1. Propaganda is our daily discourse. This may not be "news" to anyone but the sheer Truth of this must often be disregarded to live the lives we're offered. All that we do seems party to this mode of discourse. It would benefit all of us to try to learn more about it AS discourse so that we can stand outside of it. Primarily it is language or perhaps "messaging" crafted to elicit emotional responses. That is easy to understand, right? But see how easily we are persuaded in all walks of life by our emotions? Even our vaunted sense of Irony seems to offer no protection.

2. All beings should be allowed to strive for life without conscious murderous interference.

Unfortunately, too often the first works very hard to insert itself into the second.

So, propaganda is our daily bread. Why must we eat?

You, yes, you--you are first. Understand that the ridiculous media war about who called who a Nazi first and who has the "right" to use those crimes and that evil as comparison points is simply more propaganda.

Here's all we really need to know. People in power do not care for "subjects". There is no benevolent sovereign but only a tyrannous despot regardless of political affiliation or country.

Power and Greed are always our bedrock motivation when seeking to "lead" others. We MUST see this and ask questions constantly about motivations.

Also, before we blame Goebbels for the "big lie" and so call out propagandists as Nazi's "like Goebbels" let's be sure we understand from whom Goebbels learned his craft. Homegrown, Edward Bernays.

Why are we killing people? Why do we allow our government to kill people? Why don't we care? There is no justification: there are reasons but these are not justifications.