Bärbel Bohley Quotes: The Shocking Warning About Stasi Tactics Today!

"“To suppress a rebellion, it is not necessary to act violently. Methods like Hitler's are outdated. It suffices to create such a strong collective conditioning that the very thought of rebellion no longer arises in people's minds. The ideal would be to shape people from birth and restrict their innate biological abilities. Afterwards, one would continue with conditioning and strictly reduce education to the acquisition of professional skills. An uneducated person has a limited horizon, and the more their thinking is confined to mediocre aspirations, the less capable they are of rebelling. We must ensure that access to science becomes increasingly difficult and elitist, that a divide forms between people and science, and that information for the general public contains no subversive content. Above all, no philosophy. Here too, we must use the power of persuasion, not open violence. On television, large-scale entertainment programs are broadcast that appeal exclusively to feelings or instincts. The mind will be occupied with the useless and playful. They can distract their minds from thinking through constant chatter and music. We will place sexuality at the very top of a person's interest list. There is no better social tranquilizer. In general, we will do this so that the serious part of existence is eliminated, everything valuable is ridiculed, and frivolity is constantly supported, so that public euphoria becomes the measure of human happiness and a model of freedom. In this way, conditioning leads to such integration that our only fear is being excluded from the system and thus losing access to the conditions necessary for happiness. The mass person thus formed must be treated as what he is: like a cow, and one must care for him like a herd. Everything that leads to the apathy of his clear mind is a public good, and everything that could awaken this good must be mocked, suppressed, and fought. Any doctrine questioning the system must be branded as subversive and terrorist. And those who support it will then be treated as terrorists.”" Günther Anders

"There are, after all, two ways of exercising power, so to speak. One is the old way, the one we all know: oppression. We saw that under Stalinism and the like. And then, here in the West, I’ve come to know another form that I hadn’t really thought about before. That is seduction. Seduction is something truly insidious. Because at least you can defend yourself against paternalism and tyranny. Then you remain a subject. It may crush you; it may kill you. You may have to spend your whole life under terrible conditions. But you remain a subject. You can say: “I am, here I stand, I cannot do otherwise.” Someone who has been seduced stands there and has no idea where they are. They protect their seducers. “Oh, then we can’t take our next vacation on a cruise ship after all. And how are we supposed to manage now that gas keeps getting more expensive?”—that’s how the demands of the seduced person come across. And someone like that will, of course, always contribute to maintaining the system of seduction. And that’s why turning people into the seduced is a much surer way of securing power than oppressing them. The Church, by the way, knew this all along." Gerald Hüther