The perfection of propaganda

I watched with some dismay the sheer speed and audacity of the assault on the Confederate Flag, which has flown continuously for some long period of time after the Civil War, even if it may have been banned in the immediate aftermath.  One week or less.  That’s all it took to largely flush down the memory hole an emblem of State sovereignty, and the duty to rebel against oppressors (edit: it is worth noting in this regard that at least 95% of the several hundred thousand people killed fighting for the Confederacy neither owned slaves, nor had any reasonable prospect of it.  They were fighting for their homes, and the PRINCIPLE of self determination. In this, I regard them as right, even if no one but Obama–who recently got a provision removed from the TPP disallowing trade with nations where slavery is still practice–can defend it.  Hell, even he can’t: he just did it, and correctly assumed it would go unreported by the complicit media.)

I should comment in that regard that nobody is calling for a return to slavery, reinstitution of Jim Crow, or anything but the right to say FUCK YOU to anybody you like when you find them offensive.  THAT is what the Left deems most offensive.  They want that right reserved solely for them and theirs, for their tribe.

But what I wanted to say is that human psychology is such that it cannot long tolerate two viewpoints; it does not deal well with internal contradictions.  And there is a profound contradiction between the images we are presented with regard to Obama, and his actual behavior.  He was supposed to be post-racial, tolerant, fair, charismatic, high-minded, and just.

His actual record has been one of nearly continual mendacity.  Everything he touches and says is permeated with falsehood.  The Stimulus was a lie.  Obamacare was a lie.  Syria was a lie.  Benghazi was a lie.  Fast and Furious was a lie.  The IRS scandal was a lie.  Literally, and I literally mean literally, damn near every policy he has proposed or implemented has partaken in untruth and/or the holding back of important information.

Who can reconcile that with a vote for him?  Who can defend that?  Nobody, at least nobody intelligent and serious, at least not in my view.

We have all known people who we initially formed one image of, but later found out things that caused us to question that image.  We may have found them very friendly, kind, tolerant–all the good things.  Then, maybe, we one day see Jared getting put in a police car in handcuffs.  May happen, may not, but it’s not looking good.

You cannot remain neutral.  You either have to mourn the loss of your idealized image, to realize it was an illusion all along; or you have to double down, to simply plug on refusing to listen to anyone or anything that contradicts your cherished image.  This, of course, is what all the minions, all the willing accomplices to tragedy and horror, of the Communists and Fascists did and do.

That is where we are at.  Astonishingly, Obama retains something like a 40% approval rating, despite having presided over the worst recovery since the Great Depression, and having spent the past 6 years lying about everything and taking responsibility for nothing.  How is this possible?  Simple: people sticking their fingers in their ears and saying “neener, neener, neener”.

Such people can be depended on to do and say anything the propagandist chooses, because they lack the spine to tell the truth, to themselves or others.  And the more they do this, the more reliable–the more lost to common humanity–they become.