Friday, 3 October 2008

Yes, what do we believe?  Almost all information passed out is propaganda, after all, because propaganda is nothing more, or less, than selective knowledge; and how can pure and complete knowledge be transmitted, even if all were known and we could agree to its truth and veracity?

Today I have read two accounts of the "financial disaster" with which we are being faced, and the Duke of Alba's treatment of the insurrection in the Netherlands.  The parallel was striking.  What people believed was what they wanted to believe - what they were preprogrammed to believe.

It is the same with voters; what they believe is what they want to believe.  And what is that?  Whatever they perceive serves them best.  Unfortunately (for them and for all of us) what they perceive is almost always very short sighted, and selfish.  What might be best in the long run is almost always inundated by what they want NOW, and for themselves.  We vote our pocket books?  Oh yes.  And blindly, I might add.  The suffering comes later - too late, of course, to change the outlook of the election - it is always so. 

It used to be said jokingly, too soon we get old and too late we get smart.  That assumes we ever get smart; many don't, and we all suffer in the long run for what they perceive are their interests in the short run.