Why propaganda trumps truth Excerpts from an article of Paul Craig Roberts  In 'Mein Kampf', Adolf Hitler explained the believability of the 'Big Lie' as compared to the 'Small lie': - "In the simplicity of their minds, people more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have such impudence. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and continue to think that there may be some other explanation ."
- People are emotionally wedded to the beliefs planted by the propaganda and find it a wrenching experience to free themselves. It is more comfortable, instead, to denounce the truth-tellers than the liars whom the truth-tellers expose. The psychology of belief retention even when those beliefs are wrong is a pillar of social cohesion and stability. The staying power of the 'Big Lie' is the barrier through which the 9/11 'Truth Movement'
is finding it difficult to break. The assertion that the 9/11 'Truth Movement' consists of conspiracy theorists and crackpots is obviously untrue. The leaders of the movement are highly qualified professionals, such as demolition experts, physicists, structural architects, engineers, pilots, and former high officials in the government. Unlike their critics parroting the government’s line, they know what they are talking about. Another problem that the 9/11 'Truth Movement' faces is that few people have the education to follow the technical and scientific aspects. The side that they believe tells them one thing; the side that they don’t believe tells them another. Most people have no basis to judge the relative merits of the arguments.
People believe that the government that lies to them about everything else tells them the truth about 9/11. How can this be? This question does not cause them to rethink their belief in the government’s 9/11 story. Instead, they get angry.
The problem faced by truth is the emotional needs of people. With 9/11 many Americans feel that they must believe their government so that they don’t feel like they are being unsupportive or unpatriotic, and they are very fearful of being called
'terrorist sympathizers'. Naive people think that if the US government’s explanation of 9/11 was wrong, physicists and engineers would all speak up. Some have. However, for most physicists and engineers this would be an act of suicide. Physicists owe their careers to government grants, and their departments are critically dependent on government funding. A physicist who speaks up essentially ends his university career. If he is a tenured professor, to appease Washington the university would buy out his tenure. An engineering firm that spoke out would never again be awarded a government contract. In addition, its patriotic, flag-waving customers would regard the firm as a terrorist apologist and cease to do business with it.
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