by Pierre Tristam

CounterPunch

10/12/04

'The diffusion of ideas is propaganda, whether fascist, communist, or democratic,' the great historian Jacques Barzun wrote many years ago. 'The democratic hope has always been to raise the standard of gullibility, to sharpen judgment, to confront opposite propagandas.' The Republican success has been to lower the standard of gullibility, to muddle judgment in the bullying language of fear, to make confronting propaganda seem like an assault on patriotism. Democracy has suffered. It is suffering, and it needs rescuing. The greatest mockery is that this is the party claiming to be spreading democracy abroad and protecting it at home. There may not be absolute truths. But there are absolute crocks, and this is one of them...

http://www.counterpunch.org/freeman10122004.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp