Five Brothers and a War

Modern Contextual Parallel

Modern elections have come to the point where candidates knowingly lie, and where voters willingly accept the lies in the guise of pulling a nation out of its real or perceived doldrums. While monumental in its differences, the American election in 2008 depicted Barack Obama as near mythical figure who could pull the United States out of it economic decline—a decline which, unlike post-World War I Germany, only began during the 2008 presidential campaign, in December 2007. The point is not to compare Obama with Hitler, nor in fact to politicize, or to excuse what the Germans did during their Nazi period. Rather, it is to contextualize. The point is to show that people are gullible. People either believe or want to believe that potential leaders will bring them into prosperity. That Germans believed the misery they had endured from the beginning of World War I could be ended by a charismatic strongman is not far-fetched. The Germans were masters of propaganda, and within the context of perception becoming reality, completely dominated the information given to the populace. Through this process, a nation in understandable misery turned into a nation consumed by irrational nationalism. In this regard, Joseph Goebbels was a genius—a psychopathic genius. Among his (in)famous quotations in this regard are: • “It would not be impossible to prove with sufficient repetition and a psychological understanding of the people concerned that a square is in fact a circle. They are mere words, and words can be molded until they clothe ideas and disguise.” • “Faith moves mountains, but only knowledge moves them to the right place...” • “The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly - it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over.” • “If the day should ever come when we must go, if some day we are compelled to leave the scene of history, we will slam the door so hard that the universe will shake and mankind will stand back in stupefaction..” • “Man only honors what he conquers or defends.” • “Man is and remains an animal. Here a beast of prey, there a house pet, but always an animal.” • “Success is the important thing. Propaganda is not a matter for average minds, but rather a matter for practitioners. It is not supposed to be lovely or theoretically correct. I do not care if I give wonderful, aesthetically elegant speeches, or speak so that women cry. The point of a political speech is to persuade people of what we think right. I speak differently in the provinces than I do in Berlin, and when I speak in Bayreuth, I say different things than I say in

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Five Brothers and a War

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