“It’s easier to fool people
than to convince them that
they have been fooled.”
-Mark Twain
In George Orwell’s classic dystopian novel, 1984, the story’s protagonist, Winston Smith, works for a powerful agency known as the Ministry of Truth, which is responsible for overseeing the ruling party’s propaganda. The hero disapproves of the ministry’s expectations, but as the story’s perpetual war continues, he rewrites history in order to satisfy the ruling party’s demands. “The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears,” Orwell wrote.
“It was their final, most essential command.”
When the party tells voters not to believe their lying eyes, using a combination of shameless dishonesty, partisan coordination, and relentless repetition, the rhetorical strategy is predicated on the idea that they can safely get away with it. And so far, they have. During the 2024 presidential debate, GOP nominee Donald Trump claimed that in Springfield, OH, Haitian immigrants were "eating the dog's, eating the cats, eating the pets of the people who live there."
This was fact-checked in real-time by the moderator, but 69% of all Republicans believed the lie.
In 1967, political theorist Hannah Arendt condemned the practice of “organized lying,” explaining that it erodes political systems from within. The integrity of the truth, she wrote, “is the ground on which we stand and the sky that stretches above us.”
It “erodes political systems” because when the citizens believe the lies, there is nothing left on which to base governance, because the general public has no real information to discern policy or evaluate those who represent them. Apathy and cynicism creeps into people's consciousness, and they are rendered helpless, and thus easily manipulable by authoritarianism/fascism.
Indeed the "The Third Reich" utilized the political propaganda technique famously known as "The big lie" (German: große Lüge), a gross distortion or misrepresentation of the truth. The German expression was first used by Adolf Hitler in his book Mein Kampf (1925) to describe how people could be induced to believe so colossal a lie because they would not believe that someone "could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously.”
Flash back to Germany a century ago. Instead of blaming the Haitian immigrants for eating people's pets, Hitler claimed that the technique had been used by Jews to blame Germany's loss in World War I on German general Erich Ludendorff, who was a prominent nationalist political leader in the Weimar Republic. According to historian Jeffrey Herf, the Nazis used the idea of the original big lie to turn sentiment against Jews and justify the Holocaust. A century later, in 2025, 47 is going to use big lie about immigrants to deport millions of brown people - the 21st century Jews.
Click here to view a 23-minute video on the subject of immigration/mass deportation.
In the India, mother earth is personified by demigoddess Bhūmi भुमि
In the ancient scripture Padma Purāṇa, she says:
"I can bear the weight of many heavy things, like mountains,
but I cannot bear the weight of even one liar.”
This song was sung by the Lokota (plains) tribe:
“The Earth is our mother, we must take care of her
The Earth is our mother, we must take care of her
Heyana, hoyana, heyan-yan (2x)”
We also must take care of her inhabitants when they are suffering. We are all children of the earth, created in the image of what the Lokota call Wakȟáŋ Tȟáŋka - the Great Spirit.
When the first settlers went to America, they said, “This land belongs to God; therefore we have a right to live here.” Now the settlers claim America belongs to them. Native Americans didn't even have that concept. They knew that the land belonged to Wakȟáŋ Tȟáŋka.
Flash forward to the present day - in 2025, they are going to tear apart the families of millions of immigrants and deport them. This is cruel and inhumane. They cannot restrict God’s property from being occupied by God’s sons, who are all created in His image, even if they are of a different color. This leads us to an important question about how our elected officials are representing us. Will we dehumanize the “other,” those who are not like us, or will we embrace the image of God (imago Dei in Latin) in the equal humanity of all people, of all humankind? This is not just a theological question but a very practical one. That is why our spirituality is at stake here, far more than just politics.
If you are concerned about the proposed policies of the incoming administration, and would like some clarity, please join our Facebook group Coexist Kirtan Center, and be notified of our morning daily zoom discussion group starting every morning at 7:30 am for 40 minutes. We will discuss current events, not on the basis of partisan politics, but from a transcendental viewpoint - “śāstra-cakṣusā” (through the light of ancient wisdom literature).
Click here for an illustrative slide-show video narration of this post.
