Special to L. Neil Smith’s The Libertarian Enterprise

As even high-school composition students will tell you, the most important character in any script is the Dastardly Villain. Without one, the script fails and the show flops.

None the less, this appears to be one area where Uncle Sam is cutting the budget. Either that or he's hiring teen scripters with comic-book-hero aspirations. Or it could be these scripts are written for folks with the sophistication of the average voter.

To begin with, it seems Uncle likes to reuse old scripts. "Scary Muslims" for example. And lately his scripters have been attempting to resurrect the "Scary Russian" meme from the latter half of the 20th Century, now starring Vladimir Putin instead of Stalin or Khrushchev.

And of course, the International Community's in on it. No, I'm not invoking another Conspiracy Theory. As Prof. Chomsky points out, Uncle Sam's version of "International Community" includes only those countries he can intimidate and/or bribe into going along with him, is tiny, shrinking, and only marginally International. But, none the less, doesn't that meme sound great?

In case you aren't up on the rules for scripting, in creating a villain, dastardly or otherwise, the first step is "demonization," which is just what it sounds like. This ploy is also used by the U.S. "Justice" System.

While they don't like to talk about it in public, every once in awhile the process gets attention anyway. Sometimes even an insider will inadvertantly "drop the D bomb." Like this for example - - -

"Well Jim, it is very important in a democracy that you have the support of the people. One of the reasons why [U.S. President] George Bush [Sr.] had to demonize [Iraq's President] Saddam Hussein was to get the support of the people, and [U.S. President] Bill Clinton has done the same thing, Vice President Gore has done the same thing with respect to [Serbian President] Milosevic." --Raymond Tanter, Fmr. Natl. Security Council Staffer, WATCH IT!, 2 Apr 1999, ~11:56:45 AM EST

And, apparently this works. While we average voters were worried about WMD Saddam didn't have, Saddam was, instead, seriously absorbed in writing a novel.

Because the machine is good at keeping us in the dark, missing knowledge is the rule, not the exception. For example, did you know that despite the Korean "War," the Vietnam "War," the Afghanistan "War," and the two Iraq "Wars," etc. the United States (Government) hasn't been legally at war since September 12, 1945, when the Japanese surrendered to Allied Commander Louis Mountbatten in Singapore, ending World War II?

You didn't? That's likely the result of chronic use of the Goebbels Gambit, "Don't tell them then it will not exist," named for chief NAZI "information officer," Joseph Paul Goebbels.

So it's clear: Whatever your opinion of his scripters, Uncle's pretty effective at keeping us in the dark using the Goebbels Gambit, fake news, and other ploys.

Thus, in "getting" demonized Saddam -- and Melosovich, Gadaffi, etc. -- your scripters studiously ignore that you completely destroy the infrastructure, kill, maim, un-house and displace hundreds of thousands -- if not millions -- of the innocent men, women and children the script swears you're saving. Perfect Goebbels!

This is of course, completely acceptable. As Uncle learned in Vietnam, destroying villages to save them can be easily sold to The International Community and, apparently, to most Americans, at least for awhile. The practice has even been up-sized from villiages to destroying mid-sized cities like Fallujah and sometimes even large cities like Belgrade, Yugoslavia. Not to mention -- in addition to North Korea, Vietnam and Iraq -- whole countries like Libya, Afghanistan, and now Syria etc.

So, when the U.S. scripters -- and their M.S.M. propaganda bull-horns -- start demonizing your leaders, whether you like them or not, you might want to stock up on food and water. And make sure your vehicle -- if you have one -- is gassed up. And be sure you have really good friends out in the country-side somewhere, well away from population centers.

Given this chronic behavior, it's no surprise that Uncle Sam is regularly cast as a Dastardly Villain himself -- everything from "The Colossus of the North" (by most of South America) to "The Great Satan" (by Iran, etc.)

And, naturally, there's blow-back.

It's also worth noting that with the invention of ISIS, while "dastardly" is still essential, "villain" (singlar) is now optional.

Now maybe I'm being too harsh on Uncle's scripting teams, but I hope not. Otherwise, something much more ominous, dangerous, and really stupid is indicated. Maybe they're not knowingly creating and/or resurrecting Dastardly Villains, maybe they actually believe their own fake news and other lies.

Because, particularly when trying to script the Russian Bear as your essential villain -- and poking him repeatedly in the nose with a sharp stick -- you should at very least remember he's a nuclear bear.

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L. Reichard White [send him mail] taught physics, designed and built a house, ran for Nevada State Senate, served two terms on the Libertarian National Committee, managed a theater company, etc. For the next few decades, he supported his writing habit by beating casinos at their own games. His hobby, though, is explaining things he wishes someone had explained to him. You can find a few of his other explanations listed here.

This article appears in a slightly different form at Lew Rockwell dot com