The American public has an insatiable appetite for the pornography of violence. In the virtual realm of the imagination, television, video games, and films entertain us daily with images of carnage, sadism, murder, and dramas in which the good guys visit bloody justice on the bad guys. In the real world of politics, we have accepted the necessity of preemptive war and the slaughter of thousands in pursuit of our goals of defeating terrorism and creating democracy in the Middle East and beyond. What is the source of this terrible fascination with violence and how can we see through the propaganda?