"Call Him A Liar, and Cure It"

I'm not saying this kind of thing is happening in the United States now (outside of the Department of the Treasury) but I am saying we ought to be able to recognize bald-faced propaganda when we see it.

From "God's Smuggler":

East Germany was just then going through a devastating food shortage. The enterprising German farmer had not taken at all kindly to the collective idea; he had quit the land in such large numbers that that fall there had been no one to harvest the crops. The government had pressed production of mechanical harvesters, accompanied by a massive propaganda campaign. There was going to be plenty of bread because socialism was superior to the enterprise of individual farmers.

There was only one trouble. To ebe harvested by machine, the wheat had to be dry; a couple of days more sunshine were required than for hand reaping. And of course that year it rained. It rained every day, right at the time of the harvest.

And then suddenly, all over the country, posters appears carrying this little verse:

Ohne Gott and Sonnen schein

Holen Wir Die Ernte ein.

Without God and without sun

we will get the harvest done.

I could see that this slogan had really shaken the people. It was a brazen duel between the new regime and God Himself. The rains continued, and the harvest did not get in. Overnight as suddenly as they had appeared, the posters vanished -- except for the sodden few that you could still see clinging to the lamp posts.

The government did what only the government would try: It denied the food shortage. There was bread aplenty. To say anything contrary to that was the lie.

So. Whose lies do you believe?

And who is the better liar?

Is it the bellowing one over there,

trousers gouting with fire?

Or the fellow, trousers aflame,

Screaming from atop the turret -

Surely he's much more easy to blame

Call him a liar, and cure it.