2. Official histories at very least usually leave out a good deal of information necessary to a clear understanding of the larger picture. The portion left out usually has to do with the real causes of events, especially about those who gained financially and their role in determining the events.

3. Regarding historical contra-orthodoxy, the open minded patriotic individual will reserve judgment and will read. The brainwashed apathetic individual will lazily dismiss out of hand anything which challenges the official version of history with which he feels so comfortable, and will glibly proclaim himself to be "skeptical."

4. Both the manipulation of events and the rewriting of history are most easily accomplished during the chaos of war and immediately afterwards, and is usually done at these times. This is called "dis-information" and is every bit as important to wining a war as battle strategies. Other motives include concealing the actions of one's own nation or allies, and the fabrication of blame in order to justify the forced surrender of territory or sometimes the extortion of "reparation" payments from the defeated enemy. The most important reason of course, is to rationalize the creation of economic sanctions which will pave the way for financing the next war.

5. There are two main ways that collectivist governments create dis-information. One is to promote lies by cleverly mixing little known, but easily verifiable, truth with the lies. The other is to discredit truth which has already been leaked, by mixing it with easily provable lies. This latter way can be done by seeking interviews with, or sponsoring publications of, lunatic individuals, who it is known will present the truth frantically, and well mixed with other often bizarre, ridiculous, or absurdly irrelevant information. This may later be treated as though it were very typical of the opposing viewpoints in the particular area and calmly dismissed by "reputable" sources in a very sympathetic and patronizing tone.

6. An historical myth needn't be an outright fabrication, but may simply involve huge exaggerations augmented by many small component myths which are outright fabrications. There are certain kinds of historical myths which trigger such emotionalism that any factual challenge to them among otherwise open minded people, will almost always touch off an immediate angry reaction of phony not-wanting-to-know type "skepticism," accompanied by a knee-jerk, kill-the-messenger type slandering of those who dare to question. Such myths, even a few years after they are created, can become almost like religions in terms of dogmatic adherence and, like religions, will generate statues, memorials, study programs, agenda oriented "conscious raising" seminars, and "interpretive" museums. Exploiting elements will often shout down people who question aspects or components of sacred social myths accusing them of wholesale denial motivated by bigotry.

7. True history, especially economic history, does not lie, although collectivist "historians" almost always do. Collectivist governments invariably create or greatly increase, in the longer term, virtually all of the problems which they appear to be trying to solve in the near term. It is only the time lag between cause and effect, plus general ignorance about how things work, which makes this unclear to the public.

8. The governments of collectivist societies are absolutely no different from gangsters even in the way they charge "protection" money and fight among themselves, except that they seem to have greater legitimacy because of better public relations, courtesy of cooperating news media. The leaders almost always proclaim themselves to be men of the "people" and will sometimes dress the part, but behind closed doors will usually live in opulent splendor.

9. It has been said that it is only the victors in a war who write the history or hold trials afterwards. Usually government will officially attribute all kinds of atrocities to the vanquished enemy in order to draw attention away from their own or their allies' atrocities. Often there is a clever mixture of truth with lies - generally falsifications about numbers, methods, motives, and responsibility. Usually the victors are just as bad as the losers, or worse. Sometimes "evidence" is planted or constructed. Witnesses are paid, threatened, tortured, or killed. Occasionally the normal rules of evidence, such as cross examination by defense council, are abridged so that the witnesses will not be "traumatized." By what? Why should trauma occur, unless we are pre-supposing guilt? "Trials" of this sort are merely shows to give an appearance of being very fair and civilized, indeed even chivalrous, to a "barbaric" enemy.

10. Those who seek their historical information only from sources representing the winning side of a war commit intellectual and moral suicide in so doing. If you want accurate knowledge about any particular group, you must consult as sources, some members of the group itself, some "neutral" individuals outside the group, and some mortal enemies of the group, but not just one of these, no matter how unlikely the sources may seem to be as avenues of truth.

11. Some have developed an unusual strategy for dealing with popular writings which have legitimately criticized them and are past copyright. They simply publish fancy deluxe editions of these works, editing out any truth which will not help their goal of appearing to be historically blameless. These volumes are then sold at bargain prices. In this manner, the truth about their historical misdeeds is slowly erased from human memory.

12. Via the popular media we are always hearing about new historical "revelations." Often these are just facts that have become so widely known that they can no longer be officially denied without destroying government credibility to the point where the people will begin to question other things.

13. The collectivist, unable to truthfully or logically refute Libertarian arguments, will slanderously try to "analyze" why the Libertarian is so "mean spirited." Individuals who warn about the unsound practices of collectivist governments will usually be labeled "doomsayers" by the non committal purveyors of "cautious optimism." It has been said that "a pessimist is just a well informed optimist." When you have the facts, emotional postures such as pessimism or optimism are superfluous and completely unnecessary.

14. Historical truth is often obscured by the false redefinition of popular terms.

15. During the inevitable economic upheavals which occur under collectivist governments, those who have been thoughtful enough to invest in emergency supplies necessary for daily life are labeled "hoarders" and are blamed for "shortages." In this way government can more easily conceal their own blame, mobilize the rabble, and seem to justify mandatory "sharing" imposed by force. One can avoid becoming a victim of this false influence by being well prepared and keeping it a well guarded secret.

16. Collectivist opinion manipulators will quickly attempt to discredit those who speak the truth by "beating them to the punch" with exaggeration. This is done by publicizing that the truth teller is declaring a far greater divergence from official histories than he is actually doing - a divergence so great that we will know instinctively that it could not be true. This is done by using loose, overtly imprecise, but deeply suggestive language which would be easy to defend later as merely being "careless reporting" rather than deliberate slander or treason. By this trick, the truth teller finds himself on the defensive before he can even tell his story and, by popular gut reaction, is then more easily dismissed as a "malcontent," a "hater," an "extremist," an "agitator," or a "whacko."

17. Historically great individuals, being rather bold people in general, tend also to be bold relative to the open expression of personal eccentricity. Such people will also often be very tolerant of the eccentricities of others. In a world of "mediocretins," greatness is itself an eccentricity. Notice that commentators who approve of a great individual will brag up personal eccentricities as endearing foibles. When the great individual is in the enemy camp however, commentators will treat every minor eccentricity as a bizarre deviance from the norm, every spontaneous gesture of human naturalness as a calculated hypocrisy.

18. Those seeking to cover up the past will even hold public opinion poles to see what percent of the population have begun to question a popular myth. Instead of any kind of detailed inquiry about whether people question certain particulars of the myth such as numbers, methods, motives, or responsibility, the pole takers will force an all-or-nothing, yes-or-no, choice. This of course, creates the illusion of almost total popular adherence. All of this is logically fallacious to begin with, since consensus belief is not a valid determiner of the actuality of events. The one exception to this might be in the particular case of a pole taken among a large number of eye witnesses.

19. To be able to see and understand the future effects of ongoing events requires possessing a deep understanding of the complexities not only of what is current, but of what is past. This may become much more difficult in the near future. It is fast becoming possible with computer imaging to produce totally realistic "news" footage showing people doing things they never did and saying things they never said. Even with a pre-warning that "what you are about to see is a dramatization" of what someone believes or "remembers" actually happened, the deep subconscious believability that this imagery engenders, effectively constitutes excessive persuasion relative to anything that is merely speculation. Often in dramatizations, the legally required pre-warnings will be flashed quickly on the screen in very small print for all the eagle-eyed speed readers in the audience who happen to be tuned in at the very beginning of the show. Defenders of this will speak of "valuable air time wasted on generally understood standard disclaimers." Years later however, it may be impossible to remember what one has virtually seen and what one has actually seen.

20. It has been said that to speak primarily about the evil past behavior of a particular group, without also speaking about their virtues, is bigotry. This is true, but a corollary must be added here. If the past evil behavior of the particular group has been almost completely concealed, especially by slandering other groups, then it is most certainly not bigotry to speak primarily about it. This is especially true when the evil behavior is still occurring and the group who have concealed the behavior have left no stone unturned in their efforts to endlessly remind everyone else of their virtues.

21. The manipulation of societies through dis-information increased the minute that men learned to write. We find vast discrepancies between many early scriptural writings and the objective concurrent chronicles of credible secular historians. The scriptural versions often reflect ergot-induced delusion coupled with a long term agenda in trying to make the writers' own people seem historically blameless. The more numerous secular accounts of course, usually show the normal balance between innocence and guilt.

22. The equivalent of the old secular historians today are the modern contra-orthodox historians whose voices are always drowned by collectivist propaganda. In many quarters today however, the truth about the past is being told, but not on the television news or through other collectivist media. In the years to come many lies will be swept away. Those who have opposed the truth will be remembered later. Some, who have been terribly maligned will be, if not fully exonerated as they deserve to be, at least partially understood in terms of their higher ideals. Many who have been wrongfully praised will at last be seen for what they really were and their true allegiances more generally understood.