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56bf74f
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Before mass leaders seize the power to fit reality to their lies, their propaganda is marked by its extreme contempt for facts as such, for in their opinion fact depends entirely on the power of man who can fabricate it.
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adolf-hitler
big-lie
donald-trump
fascism
post-factual
post-truth
propaganda
reality-control
totalitarianism
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Hannah Arendt |
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6abd487
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When I was a schoolboy in England, the old bound volumes of Kipling in the library had gilt swastikas embossed on their covers. The symbol's 'hooks' were left-handed, as opposed to the right-handed ones of the Nazi , but for a boy growing up after 1945 the shock of encountering the emblem at all was a memorable one. I later learned that in the mid-1930s Kipling had caused this 'signature' to be removed from all his future editions. Having initially sympathized with some of the early European fascist movements, he wanted to express his repudiation of Hitlerism (or 'the Hun,' as he would perhaps have preferred to say), and wanted no part in tainting the ancient Indian rune by association. In its origin it is a Hindu and Jainas symbol for light, and well worth rescuing.
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1945
adolf-hitler
england
europe
fascism
fascism-in-europe
hinduism
nazis
rudyard-kipling
school
swastikas
symbols
world-war-ii
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Christopher Hitchens |
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e24bd1c
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It can certainly be misleading to take the attributes of a movement, or the anxieties and contradictions of a moment, and to personalize or 'objectify' them in the figure of one individual. Yet ordinary discourse would be unfeasible without the use of portmanteau terms--like 'Stalinism,' say--just as the most scrupulous insistence on historical forces will often have to concede to the sheer personality of a Napoleon or a Hitler. I thought then, and I think now, that Osama bin Laden was a near-flawless personification of the mentality of a real force: the force of Islamic jihad. And I also thought, and think now, that this force absolutely deserves to be called evil, and that the recent decapitation of its most notorious demagogue and organizer is to be welcomed without reserve. Osama bin Laden's writings and actions constitute a direct negation of human liberty, and vent an undisguised hatred and contempt for life itself.
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adolf-hitler
cults-of-personality
death-of-osama-bin-laden
evil
history
islam
islamism
jihad
liberty
napoleon
osama-bin-laden
religion
september-11-attacks
stalinism
terrorism
theocracy
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Christopher Hitchens |