The Four Pillars Of Totalitarianism

Here they are, from Fred Reed:

The genius of America’s totalitarian system of government is that it is not totally total, and sometimes not very totalitarian at all. It is just total enough. Truly total government – “Your papers, citizen,” stop-and-frisk, permission needed to travel from city to city – might spark revolt. By contrast, a sufficiency of totalitarianism, but not an excess, keeps the populace in adequate torpidity. Thus done astutely, totalitarianism is hardly noticed.

The founder of this philosophy was that rascal, Abe Lincoln. As we have all heard in what has become almost a cliche, he said, “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.” He wisely did not add, “… but you can fool enough of the people enough of the time.”

Lincoln’s Principle of Sufficiency is the First Pillar of Practical Totalitarianism. The Second Pillar is reliance on the private sector for effectuation. This gives the government plausible deniability. For example, Google has all your email for decades back, this is annoying but not truly alarming. If the federal government (openly) collected emails, conservatives would shriek about … totalitarianism. But Google isn’t the government - is it?

The Third pillar: A press not too noticeably controlled, with enough apparent difference of opinion to simulate savage debate of ideas – without touching on any important ones. For example, Rachel Maddow rattles that Trump is a Russian agent while Rush Limbaugh, the Rachel Maddow of the Right, demurs furiously. This allows people to be excited and engaged without endangering either Wall Street or the military budget.

Hermetic control of information isn’t needed, and would be noticed. Most people get most of their news from the lobotomy box. Anything that doesn’t appear on the flickering screen doesn’t exist for most, and these are enough. It is thus possible to suppress information not by suppressing it, but by ignoring it.

********

Here we come to the Fourth Pillar of Sufficient Totalitarianism: Repetition, repetition, repetition. In Mein Kampf (now removed from Amazon) Adolf said that propaganda should not be entrusted to intellectuals. They are, he said, easily bored, like sophisticated ideas, and constantly want to change the message.

Instead, he said, keep it simple enough for the masses to understand, and say it over and over and over, and they will come to believe it. More precisely, enough will come to believe it. The rest don’t matter. This is much cheaper than kicking in doors at three a.m. and doesn’t arouse potentially dangerous resentment ...

You can read the rest @
https://www.unz.com/freed/a-bicephalous-monoparty-ahd-the-four-pillars/

And here is the latest application:

COVID-19, COVID-19, COVID-19, SOCIAL DISTANCING, SOCIAL DISTANCING, SOCIAL DISTANCING, STAY HOME, STAY HOME, STAY HOME, WE'RE IN THIS TOGETHER, WE'RE IN THIS TOGETHER, WE'RE IN THIS TOGETHER, VACCINE, VACCINE, VACCINE

Get the picture?