Also, excellent quote. I’ve long said I think we need to introduce media literacy classes (along with financial planning) at the middle school level, now you’ve got me thinking that some deconstruction of propaganda would also be time well spent. There’s plenty of source material provided by our own “leaders.”

But any way we do it, we need to get a lot more people to start applying some critical thinking skills so when they hear bullshit like “nothing has changed” and “we value the Constitution,” they’ll recognize it for the naked power grab that it is — and punish the fuckers for trying.

I was also taught about some events nearly 200 years later, this county was again facing a horrible enemy, an enemy that was extremely powerful, and perhaps capable of eventually conquering the world. This time the newly elected President Roosevelt gave a speech where he said “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself” It certainly sounds good, the sort of thing you don’t really even have to think about and you want to applaud, but what does it really mean? It should be clear now what it means, that when people are fearful they are much more likely to do things, and make decisions that will turn out to be catastrophic mistakes. Obviously, this ties in with what Mr. Henry, and Mr. Franklin thought, that you can’t let fear guide your decisions.

These are things I LEARNED in grade school, and I know that the vast majority of students in this country are TOLD these facts, but I’m afraid far too many fail to REALLY LEARN them, REALLY UNDERSTAND them, clearly many of our elected* politicians(they don’t qualify as leaders) don’t understand these things.

It’s also worth noting what one of the Nazi leaders had to say about getting a large group of people to accept horrible things they don’t really want. Here is that quote

“Of course the people don’t want war. But after all, it’s the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it’s always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it’s a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger.”

– Herman Goering at the Nuremberg trials

Frankly it becomes brutally obvious why some of our politicians are so against education, they know that if people were just a little smarter they’d understand what kind of mistakes they’re making.