From An OOP Book

although it came out in 2004, it's out of print

On 7/29/20 10:01 AM:

Great! But what's an OOP book?

On Jul 29, 2020, at 7:30 AM wrote:

How To Be a Successful Tyrant

by Larken Rose

"Almost all oppression via propaganda is based upon /scaring /people,

and then presenting a false choice where the people can chose either

to do what /you /want them to do, or face some unknown (often purely

fictional) horror. This is _not_ the method of the common thug, which

can be summarized as '/do this or I will hurt you/.' A successful

modern tyrant never presents /himself/ as the thing to be afraid of,

as doing so would obviously create resentment and hatred in the

peasantry, and that leads to resistance.

"Every '/Thing To Be Feared/' (or 'TTBF') with which you terrorize

your peasants must be presented as some separate, 'outside' evil that

only /you /can save them from. You must present the simple choice

between /obedience to you/ and the threat of some unpleasant

happening -- which does not appear to be of your doing and which you

pretend to lament the existence of. In short, you must deceive and

scare the citizens into /voluntarily /giving up their freedom.

'/The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion./'

[Edmund Burke]

"A simple example would be making up a plague of some sort, assuring

the people that millions are doomed to die, and then claiming that

giving /you /a lot of money and control is the only hope of averting

disaster. Or perhaps, instead of making up a disease, you can pick a

real disease, grossly exaggerating the risk it poses to the peasants,

whipping them into a frenzy and then present /yourself /as their only

hope for salvation (which, of course, will require giving you much

wealth and power). Recent history gives many examples to build upon,

such as AIDS, anthrax, 'mad cow' disease, etc... Even the common flu

[edit: SARS-CV-2, a/k/a "Covid 19 disease"] can be used to spread

alarm and panic in the peasantry.

"Conveniently, peasants love promises of protection, but don't

usually require much explanation of /how /you intend to protect them.

If you say that giving you ten billion dollars will enable you to

'fight against AIDS,' they will give it to you, without even a vague

notion of exactly /how /doing so might accomplish anything. They

don't want a rationale, substantive explanation of a real 'solution';

they merely want someone to say the problem is being fixed, or at

least being 'addressed' (whatever that means)." pp. 19-20.