If the state loses its grip over your mind, it loses the very key to its survival. —Lew Rockwell
Tag: Propaganda
We are approaching the brink; already a universal spiritual demise is upon us; a physical one is about to flare up and engulf us and our children, while we continue to smile sheepishly and babble: “But what can we do to stop it? We haven’t the strength.” We have so hopelessly ceded our humanity that for the modest handouts of today we are ready to surrender up all principles, our soul, all the labors of our ancestors, all the prospects of our descendants—anything to avoid disrupting our meager existence.
When violence bursts onto the peaceful human condition, its face is flush with self-assurance, it displays on its banner and proclaims: “I am Violence! Make way, step aside, I will crush you!” But violence ages swiftly, a few years pass—and it is no longer sure of itself. To prop itself up, to appear decent, it will without fail call forth its ally—Lies. For violence has nothing to cover itself with but lies, and lies can only persist through violence. And it is not every day and not on every shoulder that violence brings down its heavy hand: It demands of us only a submission to lies, a daily participation in deceit—and this suffices as our fealty.
And therein we find, neglected by us, the simplest, the most accessible key to our liberation: a personal nonparticipation in lies! Even if all is covered by lies, even if all is under their rule, let us resist in the smallest way: Let their rule hold not through me!
—Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
The truth will not be an easy path. Perhaps, but it is the easiest among those that lie before us. Not an easy choice for the body, but the only one for the soul. No, not an easy path, but then we already have among us people, who have for years lived by the truth. And so: We need not be the first to set out on this path, Ours is but to join! The more of us set out together, the thicker our ranks, the easier and shorter will this path be for us all! If we become thousands—they will not cope, they will be unable to touch us. If we will grow to tens of thousands—we will not recognize our country! —Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Even if all is covered by lies, even if all is under their rule let us resist in the smallest way: a personal non-participation in lies! —Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
The intelligencia in the media can decide what to emphasize, what to downplay and what to ignore entirely when it comes to race. These may be individual choices, rather than a conspiracy, but individual choices growing out of a common vision of the world can produce results all too similar to what is produced by centralized censorship or propaganda. —Thomas Sowell
The rules are simple: they lie to us, we know they’re lying, they know we know they’re lying, but they keep lying to us, and we keep pretending to believe them. —from the memoir of a young girl who grew up in the Soviet Union
Even if somehow waging violent coups and regime change wars across the planet could guarantee freedom for those people, it would necessarily come at the expense of those whose lives and liberty our government is actually sworn to protect: ours. —Scott Horton
The terrifying thing is the less likely someone is to point Ukraine on the map the more likely it is that they want their country to go to war. They have no idea of any of the history. They look at it from a cartoonish worldview. —Lauren Southern, “Your Welcome” with Michael Malice #198
It isn’t a coincidence that governments everywhere want to educate children. If the government’s propaganda can take root as children grow up, those kids will be no threat to the state apparatus — they’ll fasten the chains to their own ankles. —Lew Rockwell
The United States’ Foreign Policy is the Midas Touch but in reverse. Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Ukraine, the list goes on… —John Mearsheimer, University of Chicago