Propaganda is to a democracy what violence is to a dictatorship.
Interpretation
Propaganda undermines democracy in a similar way that violence undermines a dictatorship.
This quote by William Blum highlights the insidious nature of propaganda in democratic societies, suggesting that just as violence is a tool of oppression in a dictatorship, propaganda serves to manipulate and control public perception and thought in a democracy. Both are mechanisms of power that serve to distort reality and suppress true understanding among the populace.
In practice
In a political debate, one might say, 'As William Blum observed, propaganda is to a democracy what violence is to a dictatorship.'
We don't stop talking about how the world might be better just because we have no chance of making it to Prime Minister. We are all politicians. We are all artists. In an open society everything the mind and hands can achieve is our birthright. It is up to us to claim it.
If you don't take a Sabbath, something is wrong. You're doing too much, you're being too much in charge. You've got to quit, one day a week, and just watch what God is doing when you're not doing anything.
A man is never the same for long. He is continually changing. He seldom remains the same even for half an hour.
Our notion of an optimist is a man who knowing that each year was worse than the preceding, thinks next year will be better. And a pessimist is a man who knows the next year can't be worse than the last one.
In our society it is murder, psychologically, to deprive a man of a job or an income. You are in substance saying to that man that he has no right to exist. You are in a real way depriving him of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, denying in his case the very creed of his society.
Language is the house of the truth of Being.
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