ON ABC TV’s Q&A program this week, Lawrence Krauss referred to a quote from Nazi leader Hermann Goering on how using fear, whether in a democracy or a dictatorship, will enable you to make people do what you want them to do.
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He said he had seen “story after story” about how he should be scared by terrorism despite very few people having actually been threatened by it in Australia.
“(It was) Hermann Goering who said: ‘democracy, dictatorship, doesn’t matter, you want to make people do what you want them to do - make them afraid.’ And I find this attitude that’s happening here of getting people afraid of terrorism, so afraid that you can’t even talk about it on TV, I find that terrifying,” Krauss said.
This is the excerpt from Goering who was interviewed in his Nuremberg cell in 1946:
“Naturally, the common people don’t want war … that is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a parliament or a Communist dictatorship … all you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.”
Goering knew what he was talking about. The Nazis were very skilled at manipulating the German public.
A public, we must remember, that was not some intellectual backwater, but was highly educated and cultured, and was responsible for providing the world with some of the finest artists, scientists, theologians and philosophers.
Using the fear of being attacked as a tactic for political advantage is not playing with fire, but rather with nuclear weapons.
It should be exposed for what it is and condemned at every opportunity.
We ignore the lessons of history at our peril.
Andrew Catsaras
South Moruya Head