The 1949 book, Prophets of Deceit, A Study in the Techniques of the American Agitator, by Leo Lowenthal and Norbert Guterman, was written to explain how an aspiring dictator "molds already existing prejudices and tendencies into overt doctrines and ultimately into overt action." The authors intended to not "merely to describe prejudice but to explain it in order to help in its eradication." An admirable goal, but the book could also be used as a manual for indoctrinating members into a mass cult of hatred. Take a look at this list of four "grievances" that totalitarian dictators use to highjack the minds of the susceptible:
1. ECONOMIC GRIEVANCES. The agitator roams freely over every area of economic life. He may begin anywhere at all. Too much help is being extended to foreign nations. "If we have any money to offer for nothing, or to loan, or to give away, we had better give it to our own first. Of course, that is old fashioned."
Not only are foreigners taking our money, they also threaten our jobs. "People born in America have to commit suicide because they have nothing to eat while refugees get their jobs."
Behind such injustices stand "The International Bankers, who devised and control our money system, [and] are guilty of giving us unsound money."
Such situations constitute a danger to the American way of life, for "what is more likely to follow many years of Nudeal communistic confiscatory taxation, wool-less, metal-less, auto-less regimentation and planned scarcities than our finally becoming stripped by necessity to Nudism?"
2. POLITICAL GRIEVANCES. International commitments by the United States government jeopardize political liberties. "Like Russia, the United States is suffering from the scourge of internationalism." The American people are warned: "Be not duped by the internationalists who dwell amongst us."
Of course it is only reasonable that "treaties and agreements . . . shall be reached with other nations, but . . . we want no world court and no world congress made up of a few Orientals and a few Russians and a few Europeans and a few British . . . to make laws for us to obey. . .
From within, this country is threatened by radicalism, which prepares strikes that are "dress rehearsals for a forthcoming general strike that is meant to paralyze the Nation. . . ."
We face both the danger of a "Soviet America . . . where . . . an Aus- trian-born Felix Frankfurter presides over an unending 'Moscow trial.' ." and the rule of "tyrannical bureaucrats" who if they "could have their way completely" would institute a "dictatorship in America as merciless as anything on earth."
3. CULTURAL GRIEVANCES. The agitator is greatly disturbed because the media of public information are in the hands of enemies of the nation. "...the Hollywood motion picture industry is being exploited by Russian Jewish Communists determined to inject their materialistic propaganda into the fresh young minds of our children. . ." Hollywood is "largely dominated by aliens who have appropriated to their own use the inventions and discoveries of native citizens and who now specialize in speculation, indecency and foreign propaganda."
"The American press will never be free" until control "is removed from racial, religious and economic pressure groups."
4. MORAL GRIEVANCES. The enemies of the agitator are notoriously lax in morals: they engage in luxury consumption, they are a "crowd of Marxists, refugees, left-wing internationalists who enjoy the cream of the country and want the rest of us to go on milkless, butterless, cheeseless days while they guzzle champagne." And what is most galling of all is that "we gentiles are suckers." For "while we were praying they had their hands in our pockets."
Sound familiar?
Image: Michael Vadon/Flickr. Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)
(Thanks, Marina!)
