One of the most horrible features of war is that all the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting.
I have certain rules I live by; my first rule: I don’t believe anything the government tells me… nothing, zero, no, and I don’t take very seriously, the media or the press in this country, who in the case of the Persian Gulf war were nothing more than unpaid employees of the Department of Defence, and who most of the time, most of the time functioned as kind of an unofficial public relations agency for the United States government. So I don’t listen to them, I don’t really believe in my country and I gotta tell you folks, I don’t get all choked up about yellow ribbons and American flags. I consider them to be symbols and I leave symbols to the symbol-minded.
Why is propaganda so much more successful when it stirs up hatred than when it tries to stir up friendly feeling?
The billions shift from side to side
And the wars go on with brainwashed pride.