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Wordfact Power of suggestion Karl Menninger, an imminent psychiatrist, has argued that in some cases, wordfact can even be fatal. The every word "cancer" may well kill some patients who would not have succumbed so quickly to the malignancy from which they suffer. African witch doctors have long been aware of the power of wordfact, and many otherwise healthy men and women have sickened and died of the power of their belief in the witch doctor's curse. James Fennimore Cooper painted a picture of the American "West" that, although very inaccurate, survives as the predominant image most people have of Indians. Also, many times when a person diagnosed as manic depressive, schizophrenic, or paranoid, the label sticks even though the patient shows signs of a need to be reclassified. People often accept wordfact over all observable evidence. Example: Friday is Friday only because we say it is. August 26 is August 26 only because we say it is. In 1752, the British government decided to adjust the calendar so that it would reflect astronomical reality more closely. To accomplish this it was announced that September 2 would become September 14 that year and all, the days in between would be skipped over. The British people were in an uproar over this decree; letters poured into Parliament that the change was an outrage, since it would deprive everyone of twelve days of his life! Prime Minister Indira Ghandi of India jailed political opponents and silenced political opponents and silenced all opposition in India "in the interest of democracy." <:#231,9360><:f200,BArial,0,0,0> It was also in the "interest of democracy" that the Shah of Iran established military rule in his country. Yasir Arafat stated that the terrorist PLO "does not want to destroy any people," adding, "It is precisely because we have been advocating coexistence that we have shed so much blood." A U.S. Army lieutenant in Vietnam said, "We had to destroy the village in order to save it." In an interview with David Frost, Richard Nixon said that unconstitutional actions by the president were justified "if undertaken for the purpose of preserving the Constitution." History itself is continually being rewritten by wordfact. The American Bicentennial was responsible for a reinterpretation of the American Revolution. Commenting on George Washington's defeat at White Plains, New York, on October 28, 1776, the cochairman of the Bicentennial Committee of the White Plains said, "Yes, we got thrown off the hill, but we stood our ground." The government of the Soviet Union was notorious for rewriting the history books whenever someone fell from grace or was purged. One who had been a good revolutionary suddenly disappeared or was recast as an enemy of the people. George Orwell dealt very effectively with this notion in Animal Farm and 1984. Also, observe the O.J. Simpson case, in which the defense tried to cast one of the police detectives as a racist in order to "prove" that Simpson was framed, despite a mountain of evidence to the contrary |
