There is no middle ground. None. Dehumanize anyone who holds a different viewpoint, and then make your opponent or anyone who disagrees with you seem as filthy, evil, and depraved as you possibly can. Then pitch this image to the masses, distilled down into a few slogans and sound-bytes. Repeat these slogans and sound-bytes often enough, so that it’s akin to mass hypnosis. Maybe draw up some big posters and banners… When the movement grows big enough, make a flag! Continue to seed and sow those images into the mass consciousness, and then further paint anyone who agrees with you as noble, strong, righteous, and tell them that God is on their side.
This is how crusades, genocides, and world wars are begun.
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{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Frustrating that it works this way, isn’t it? I know there’s a powerful wave of knowledge on how to live together peacefully out there, which to me, is the more the “god-like” approach. So why the resistance to peace?
I’ve never understood war.
Having been a soldier and a medic, I’ve seen and participated in both sides. I will say that if one wants to live in peace, one must also be prepared to wage war to defend that peace, because there are people in the world that run around like rabid dogs, who will do what they can to destroy what others have built.
It comes down to a very basic notion: In school, I was a late bloomer and always the smallish, too skinny kid. (I’m definitely not that way anymore! LOL!) But back then, I fought constantly. I had to. Sure, I could run away and refuse to fight. I tried that. It only exacerbated things. Finally, one day, I turned around and smashed the bully in the mouth, and then I kept on hitting him until he was on the ground and bleeding. The next bully, I did the same thing. I kept on, with each bully, until finally, I was allowed to live my life in peace. I never started a fight, but always made sure that I won. It’s as basic and as raw as this, but on a larger scale and for higher stakes in blood and lives.
My post was more about the extremist tone of modern dialogue in the mass media. Left wing, right wing… Keep that house divided because the mass media has ratings to build, newspapers to sell, hysteria to peddle, and fear to beat people over the head with. Global warming, swine flu, bird flu, West Nile, The War Against Terror (otherwise known as The TWAT), and all the other garbage that the media dishes out. We live from fear to fear to fear… Health scares, collapse of Social Security, overpopulation and looming famine… Anyone remember the impending ice age that was forecast in the 70’s? Pfffft…. Whatever…
The single biggest and easiest way I’ve found to alleviate stress and create peace, is to turn the damn TV off. I did it four years ago, and haven’t turned it on since.
I’ve never understood the appeal of extremism either. For someone like me, who would be the last person to tell someone how to live/act/behave/believe/etc., I can’t watch conservative talk show hosts, media who drum up a story where there is none, and political ads. I’m just not that gullible and therefore, not easy prey for them.
Ditto. Once you see through the fabrications, the manipulations, and the machinations, (Hey! Sounds like a song!) you become a very dangerous person. People ask me what my politics are. I’m a Disaffected Centrist. No one knows what to do with me… I’m like the kid in the crowd yelling, “The king is naked!!” Hahahaha…