The 1949 book, Prophets of Deceit, A Study in the Techniques of the American Agitator, by Leo Lowenthal and Norbert Guterman, was written to explain how an aspiring dictator "molds already existing prejudices and tendencies into overt doctrines and ultimately into overt action." The authors intended to not "merely to describe prejudice but to explain it in order to help in its eradication." An admirable goal, but the book could also be used as a manual for indoctrinating members into a mass cult of hatred. Take a look at this list of four "grievances" that totalitarian dictators use to highjack the minds of the susceptible:
1. ECONOMIC GRIEVANCES. The agitator roams freely over every area of economic life. He may begin anywhere at all. Too much help is being extended to foreign nations. "If we have any money to offer for nothing, or to loan, or to give away, we had better give it to our own first. Of course, that is old fashioned."
Not only are foreigners taking our money, they also threaten our jobs. "People born in America have to commit suicide because they have nothing to eat while refugees get their jobs."
Behind such injustices stand "The International Bankers, who devised and control our money system, [and] are guilty of giving us unsound money."
Such situations constitute a danger to the American way of life, for "what is more likely to follow many years of Nudeal communistic confiscatory taxation, wool-less, metal-less, auto-less regimentation and planned scarcities than our finally becoming stripped by necessity to Nudism?"
