Friday, August 5, 2011

Propaganda needs to be fought with critical questions from open minds

Reading the words of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, in Nomad,  about the culture of propaganda against Jews that is an integral part of the education, both formal and informal, of all Muslim children, one is struck by the success of the cultural campaign of bigotry, hatred and racism.
It reduces the Jews to mere fragments of people, individually and collectively, and even borrows from the propaganda of the Third Reich to accomplish its goals.
Of course, the truth is one important victim in this propaganda campaign, as it must be in all propaganda wars. Muslims simply do not question what they are taught, having been taught the same simple black and white "truths" from birth....Jews are the enemy, and Islam is under attack by Jews....all of it unmitigated lies!
Similarly, the Tea Party would have us believe their propaganda that Obama is not a real American, that the Democrats are purposefully destroying capitalism, and destroying America, with more taxes and more spending. These are lies; the Tea Party knows they are lies; and yet, repeated often enough, they start to carry their own weight.
Just as Ms Ali recommends a new Enlightenment to open the minds of Muslims around the world, it is time for the American people to open their minds to the full and complicated truth that reducing Democrats to demons, along with their president, is merely to shout the emptiness of their own minds, not to mention their unwillingness to ask the tough questions that would open up much more interesting adn complicated reality than the one they are selling for their own narrow political ends.

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