The Oil Drum

Their reward is a united people armed with humanity's shining Excalibur.  To unsheathe this magic blade, such visionary leaders must first win over the populace with the primal fairy tale, which invariably contains two ingredients;

1.) A Monster-preferably one who speaks an alien tongue, prays to heathen gods, wears peculiar clothing, and/or has different-colored skin.
2.) A Miracle-earned only by sacrifice, but culminating in triumph for the home team and a nasty end for the Monster.

This tired old routine has worked its magic with astonishing regularity since the dawn of history, and no one with fully functioning DNA seems wholly immune to the lure of it.  Its genetic nature shines through the grisly statistics that follow every major conflict, especially those that incorporate genocidal slaughter."
~Reg Morrison, 1999 "The Spirit in the Gene, Humanity's Proud Illusion and the Laws of Nature"

Of course the godless heathens in Russia are scary Mr. CEO because you spent much of your life being propagandized that they were the enemy.  It's not much of a leap because the decision has been cleverly made for you whether or not to believe Russia would bomb its own citizens and that we would not.  Now the propaganda machine has a new face for the "monster" because the old one no longer fills the bill.  What better "monster" to replace international communism than international terrorism?  Oh my will we ever be safe?  The only reason you can not fathom that your own tribe stoops to that level itself is because you are genetically wired not to think that way.  Don't worry that is the way propaganda is suppose to work.  It preys upon your "primitive brain" while your cortex is filled with pleasures.  You need not burden yourself with this.  All that is required of you is to grab a flag support your tribe at all costs...

"In reality very little was known about the proles. It was not necessary to know much. So long as they continued to work and breed, their other activities were without importance. Left to themselves, like cattle turned loose upon the plains of Argentina, they had reverted to a style of life that appeared to be natural to them, a sort of ancestral pattern. They were born, they grew up in the gutters, they went to work at twelve, they passed through a brief blossoming-period of beauty and sexual desire, they married at twenty, they were middle-aged at thirty, they died, for the most part, at sixty. Heavy physical work, the care of home and children, petty quarrels with neighbours, films, football, beer, and above all, gambling, filled up the horizon of their minds. To keep them in control was not difficult. A few agents of the Thought Police moved always among them, spreading false rumours and marking down and eliminating the few individuals who were judged capable of becoming dangerous; but no attempt was made to indoctrinate them with the ideology of the Party. It was not desirable that the proles should have strong political feelings. All that was required of them was a primitive patriotism which could be appealed to whenever it was necessary to make them accept longer working-hours or shorter rations. And even when they became discontented, as they sometimes did, their discontent led nowhere, because being without general ideas, they could only focus it on petty specific grievances. The larger evils invariably escaped their notice."

Missing You,
==AC