‘Propagandization’
Dear Editor:
RE: ‘Cleavage between us,’ April 16.
Voltaire once penned, “Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer boils it down to a conflict of one’s moral integrity. Gad Saad refers to it as a “mind virus.”
I personally see it as the results of a prolonged and highly effective propaganda campaign. Unlike David Courtney, I grew up with CBC as a staple in our household. I woke up on Saturday mornings to Voice of the Pioneer. Did chores at night to As it Happens with Barbara Frum, and others.
Weekday mornings included Morningside with Peter Gzowski. We consumed The Royal Canadian Air Farce and never missed a Dave and Morley episode by Stuart McLean. Starting in 2003, I started noticing a much darker form of CBC. Not long after that, I permanently turned off our national broadcaster.
Sadly, it is very easy to read the effects of our national propaganda machine on others.
Courtney’s anti-Trump rhetoric can be quoted almost word for word from any mainstream media. Has he considered that prior to Iran invasion by the U.S., Iran executed about 32,000 of its own citizens?
Like Canada, Venezuela is a resource rich country, and if managed properly, its citizens would be among the richest and with the highest standard of living in the world, yet, they were literally starving to death under the previous regime.
Has he considered the abhorrently dismal standard of living the Cuban population has had to endure since the early 1960s? Gaza’s complexities cannot be touched in the space allowed. Has he considered the authoritarian commonality between the regimes he mentioned?
Courtney used the term polarization. I think propagandization would be a more appropriate term to employ. We all want the same things, which can be summed up as “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
Unfortunately, we have created legislation that allows us to do unto our future generations that which we don’t want to properly deal with now.
Wayne Baker,
Wellington North