Now I live in the States but I'm getting a bit worried about the horrible propaganda being put out. The current focus I've seen is in bunching dictators all together as if they are all the same. For instance:

Lenin was the initiator of the central drama — the tragedy — of our era, the rise of totalitarian states. A bookish man with a scholar's habits and a general's tactical instincts, Lenin introduced to the 20th century the practice of taking an all-embracing ideology and imposing it on an entire society rapidly and mercilessly; he created a regime that erased politics, erased historical memory, erased opposition. In his short career in power, from 1917 until his death in 1924, Lenin created a model not merely for his successor, Stalin, but for Mao, for Hitler, for Pol Pot. -Time 100

I've also seen quotes by Rumsfeld and Bush lumping Stalin, Lenin, Hitler and many others in with the likes of Hussein. This seems like a very petty tool to brainwash people who don't know much about history. I don't know anyone who has the slightest grasp of history that would say Pol Pot has much in relation to Lenin.

I think this is the right forum as it is about historical matters and all this is historical in nature. So, hope I'm right.

Don't worry. In this forum you can read very strange stories about "dictators", which are seen as enemies of USA - even if they have been put to power by CIA / USA itself. In this forum there is so called "kinetic virus" which is informin us all the time. The best was that Saddam was mentioned to be communist and a terrible dictator - everybody knows that CIA hired Saddam to destroy communism from Iraq and put him to power.

In USA there is a long history of fight for "hearts & minds" which is in English called propaganda. People keep repeating any kind of evil words even if they don't know what do they mean - communist, socialist, leftist, islamist, terrorist, saddamist, etc. Such terms sound as terrible as for Europeans neocons, hawks, republicans, patriots, etc.

Now we celebrate the death of A. Pinochet, who was one of the most typical American puppets hired by the CIA. He only killed few million people including the legal and democratic president, but for USA democracy is only a tool for power. If there is a democracy in a country, it is wrong kind and the president should be killed - if there is no democracy, it should be brought in the form of a military dictator. So it goes.

Welcome to USPOL!

Perhaps "horrible propaganda" is a bit over-dramatized...

Historically there is no two leaders in history that could be lumped as "the same", however their style, and more so the result of their leadership can be compared.
Of course the result of saddam's leadership is nowhere near as bad as mentioned, however it just might be fair enough to say that his murdering over 250,000 people is like Hitler and Stalin.

And by the way - if you stick around - it won't take long to know who to ignore...unfortunately their are zealots everywhere....and USPOL is no exception

"See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda."

George W. Bush
May 24, 2005
In a speech delivered at Greece Athena Middle and High School
Athena Performing Arts Center
Greece, New York

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"The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither breaks my leg, nor picks my pocket."

Thomas Jefferson