"Terrorism" as Propaganda

Terrorism as Propaganda

P. Schultz

January 20, 2012

            “”’Terrorism’ is a brilliant propaganda word, a grim corroboration of Montaigne’s warning that ‘Nothing is so firmly believed as that which we least know.’ It blinds even as it appears to illuminate. It energizes leaders, bureaucracies, and the media, and it cows critics. Who, after all, is for terrorists? The very notion is rife with ugliness; innocents murdered, body parts in the marketplace, the burning twin towers. Even more than ‘Communism,’ ‘terrorism’ is a label that simplifies. Panic lurks beneath. The dread is no longer of an insidious penetration but of chaos and pathological acts committed by barbarians. Communism was at least a corruption of the good, a cynical manipulation of Enlightenment ideals. Terrorism is the perversion of humanity itself.”

From  Ideal Illusions: How the U.S. Government Co-opted Human Rights, by James Peck, p. 230.

            This book is well worth the read.