As a teacher seasoned by years of studying history and upholding the integrity of language, I beseech all who read this to confront a grave truth:
For at least eight decades, a pernicious propaganda has infiltrated our media, schools, and entertainment, crafted to deceive and destabilize society. I am of the older generation, hardly a boomer. They are youngsters, and I am of the previous generation.
Until we acknowledge this, we remain blind to the true adversaries of our civilization.
History, when studied with diligence, offers clarity. So let us look to history to open our eyes.
In 1944, amidst the tumult of the Second World War, Arthur Calwell, Australia’s Minister for Information, voiced exasperation with newspapers that defied wartime censorship. Tasked with shaping public discourse and overseeing propaganda, he spoke with unvarnished candour: the freedom of the press, as practised by powerful magnates, extended only to the views they permitted.
“There is no such thing as freedom of the press, except for those who own and control the newspapers of Australia.”
Calwell was no mere critic of power; he wielded it. A prominent figure in the Australian Labor Party, which he later led from 1960 to 1967, he became Minister for Information after the 1943 election and, under Prime Minister Ben Chifley in 1945, Minister for Immigration. In this role he expanded Australia’s post-war immigration programme, welcoming migrants from over thirty European nations: Italians, Greeks, Dutch, Belgians, Spaniards, and West Germans among them.
While staunchly upholding the White Australia policy, he cautioned against campaigns of racial or religious intolerance, warning that such divisiveness bred “discord and bitterness, harmful at home and abroad.”
Consider now a more troubling echo from history. Reflect on these words:
“…it is a small, rootless international clique that turns people against one another, that does not want them to have peace…”
They could easily be mistaken for a modern lament by a contemporary leader decrying global division. Yet they belong to Adolf Hitler, spoken around eighty years ago. The shock of that recognition reveals the enduring power of manipulative narratives, wielded by those who thrive on discord.
That these words were spoken by one of history’s most destructive tyrants should remind us that manipulative rhetoric can cloak itself in the language of peace, while serving ends of hatred and destruction.
Mark Twain’s wisdom rings true:
“How easy it is to make people believe a lie, and how hard it is to undo that work again!”
The discomfort of a shattered worldview often deters us from seeking truth, lulling many into compliant delusion, unwilling to challenge the prevailing orthodoxy.
We face a paradox in our time: questions deemed too perilous for open discourse are suppressed, yet moral depravity is flaunted, even celebrated. Should this not stir us to inquiry? Why is base content freely promoted while earnest examination of history and truth is silenced?
General George S. Patton, writing to his wife after the Second World War, foresaw the consequences of such manipulation:
“I will probably be in the headlines before you get this, as the press is trying to quote me as being more interested in restoring order in Germany than in catching Nazis. I can’t tell them the truth: unless we restore Germany, we will ensure that communism takes America.” (The Patton Papers, 1940–1945, p. 554).
Patton’s fear, that failing to rebuild Germany would invite communism’s spread to the West, proved prophetic in its logic. The moral and cultural decay we witness today is not accidental but the result of calculated agendas designed to erode the foundations of virtuous societies.
History offers stark warnings. Rome’s fall was hastened by corruption and decadence. Germany’s Weimar Republic, before its collapse, permitted radical experiments such as Das Dritte Geschlecht (“The Third Sex”) and early surgical sex changes, developments that fractured social cohesion. Then, as now, confusion was weaponized against the people.
The playbook remains unchanged. Liberalism, when divorced from principle, becomes a vehicle for chaos. We are urged to forsake moral convictions under the banners of “progress” and “tolerance.” Yet tolerance is demanded only for what is corrupt, while virtue is scorned as backward or oppressive. Thus society is coerced into embracing wickedness as normal and rejecting decency as unnatural.
As an educator, I implore you: study history with discernment. Scrutinize the narratives peddled by those who profit from division. Test them against the lessons of the past. Cling to truth, morality, and virtue, for these alone stand against the tide of manipulation. If we ignore history’s patterns, we risk stumbling blindly into the same abyss that consumed empires before us.
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