America is currently engaged in an existential war for survival against powerful forces and the 92% of the world population that wishes to wipe out the first world generally and America specifically. Currently this war is not “hot,” meaning it’s not being fought with armies wielding military weapons of violence. And may we all wish that it never achieves that level.Instead, we are engaged in a “soft” existential war for survival, in which the chess pieces are being moved into position, ...
America is currently engaged in an existential war for survival against powerful forces and the 92% of the world population that wishes to wipe out the first world generally and America specifically.
Currently this war is not “hot,” meaning it’s not being fought with armies wielding military weapons of violence. And may we all wish that it never achieves that level.
Instead, we are engaged in a “soft” existential war for survival, in which the chess pieces are being moved into position, often using subterfuge, and ALWAYS accompanied by powerful and sophisticated propaganda wielded by our enemies.
America was once a master of such propaganda, especially during our American Revolutionary War for independence. In fact, today, is the anniversary of the January 10, 1776 publication of the essay “Common Sense” by American propagandist Thomas Paine, which argued powerfully for America to split from the British monarch and establish a free Republic.
What I’d like to cover today, however, is a different Thomas Paine essay that better illustrates the vital importance of propaganda to the good guys winning—his publication of “The American Crisis” published at the end of that same year, on December 19, 1776.
That December the peoples who would form America were in desperate straits, having experienced much military failure in their battles with Britain, the most powerful military force on the planet at the time, and General George Washington’s troops were dwindling in both numbers and morale.
Paine’s “American Crisis” was so powerful a piece of pro-American propaganda, however, that Washington immediately had it read aloud to his suffering troops—and just days later these same soldiers would cross the frozen Delaware on Christmas night and slay Hessian mercenaries employed by the British in their sleep. That victorious Battle of Trenton would be followed by another resounding victory a few days later in the Battle of Princeton, completely turning the tide of the revolution in America’s favor.
America could use a bit of Thomas Paine today, as we face our own existential travails against the tens of millions of aliens invading our shores, looting our treasury, degrading our culture, and striving to obliterate our first-world existence from the face of the globe.
Let’s talk about the nature and vital importance of propaganda, and read through Paine’s “American Crisis,” in celebration of this great American’s passion and genius for the emerging republic of the United States.
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