Ezra Taft Benson Quotes
False thinking and false ideologies, dressed in the most pleasing forms, quietly - almost without our knowing it - seek to reduce our moral defenses and to captivate our minds. They entice with bright promises of security, cradle-to-grave guarantees of many kinds.
Benson, Ezra Taft. The Teachings of Ezra Taft Benson. Bookcraft, 1988, p. 403.
What is amazing about this quotation is that it shows the naivety of one of the most sophisticated politicians in the country. He and many politicians were really surprised that commercial consumer marketing techniques would work so well. He and many others thought that the issue of marketing political candidates was something that should be debated. Meanwhile, all the pragmatic politicians of both political parties jumped on the commercial marketing bandwagon, but the Republicans tended to master and execute the techniques more skillfully.
Most CIA Directors have not had this extreme attitude, but because Casey did, journalists, members of Congress, other government officials and even Presidents have often distrusted the CIA and their personnel more than was necessarily warranted.
Surprising to most people who know of President Theodore Roosevelt’s general liberal views, his 4th son was an ultraconservative who founded and joined racist, anti-Semitic, right wing organizations, and to the distress of many in the family and without lent his name to many of the most extreme right wing causes and organizations.
This was Moyers paraphrase if Chomsky’s position to which Chomsky agreed.
The Ayatollah reverses logic. Iranian feminists protest not because America tells them to but because Iran is terribly discriminatory and cruel to women. Students are dissatisfied because they have been trained as professionals and the government policies do not encourage the kind of economic growth that would be able to employ them.
Ironically, most religious fundamentalists would agree with this statement. Where they differ is that they have diametrically different notions of what are the false ideas and false teachings. Religious leaders have warned about the dangers of heresy for centuries, but the notion that religious, fundamentalist teaching, can be harmful is a relatively modern notion of the last 3 centuries. Some scientists now see the problem as one of the reasons America is not producing enough scientists. There are very few world class scientists in the last century who were religious fundamentalists of any kind. And the more fundamentalist a person’s upbringing, the less likely he or she will be to become a modern scientist and see science as a positive force. .A typical modern
Many studies have shown that most of us believe that commercial, political, and ideological advertising techniques are effective on most people but they do not feel that they are personally influenced much.
Ezra Taft Benson was an American farmer, government official, and religious leader who served as the 15th United States Secretary of Agriculture during both presidential terms of Dwight D. Eisenhower and as the 13th president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) from 1985 until his death in 1994.
