[enrg]

Found this the other day.

Comments?

[Chad Fairbanks]

American propaganda, however, is much cleverer.

Yeah, it's cool being cleverer, ain't it? ;0)

[HumanaeVitae]

"Now, most libertarians or otherwise thoughtful people will react with dismay when told that most of their fellow human beings react so unthinkingly to sock-you-in-the-gut emotional propaganda. Unfortunately, most people are not capable of really thinking things out."

Nota bene, libertarians. Nota bene...

[Libertarianize the GOP]

bump

[gcruse]

The pioneers of advertising—a truly loathsome bunch—learned early on that
people would respond to purely emotional appeals.

They learned from the masters: government.  WWI was the first
to use propaganda massively as part of the war effort.  The
method of appealing to emotion more likely had its genesis
in the hellfire and damnation preaching found in nineteenth
century churches.

Once you realize that advertising is lies,
you are on your way to surviving in this culture.

[DentsRun]

A great piece which unfortunately is going to make a lot of people here have to change their underwear.

[toenail]

"Comments?"

Once more, let me recommend John Taylor Gatto's The Underground History of American Education, linked on my profile page. Best $30 you'll ever spend. Eight chapters are online.

[Richard Kimball]

This is a wonderful propaganda piece. Notice that the author spends half the article demonizing Hitler, then immediately goes into demonizing Roosevelt as being evil for going to war with Hitler.

The best propaganda mixes truth with the lies, and he does this very well. I've got a flag on my truck. Interestingly enough, nobody told me to put it there, nobody forced me to put it there and nobody better try to take it off there. I put it there for one reason. You screw with one of us, you screw with all of us. As a Cowboys fan, I even found myself rooting for the Giants for a weekend.

The concept of Bush "whipping" us into a war frenzy is absurd. I STILL want to send two sidewinders into the dome of the rock and then see how many of those lizards we can take out when they slither out from under their rocks.

Those SOB's attacked us on our soil. This moron would sit there trying to "understand" them until they shoved a nuke up his *ss and hit the detonator. I don't want to understand them. I want them to understand that on September 11, 2001, they made the worst mistake they could have made.

I'd be thoroughly ashamed that this guy is from Texas, except I have no shame left, knowing Ma Richards and LBJ are also from here.

[Captainpaintball]

The REAL masters of propaganda are liberal democrats and the mainstream media. They make Hitler look like an amateur.

[mercy]

Well, it was an interesting piece on propaganda. However I fail, as did the author, to make the connection seemingly impplied of some government agency or figure and our going to war with the Islamists of the ME.

Methinks this entire article is slight of tounge. It seems quite clear to me that a majority of the American people are disappointed in our governments foot dragging and waffling as regards our enemies ... rather than being hoodwinked into action not natural to their desires.

Joe sixpack really wants to nuke Mecca. Or at least take over the oil fields and allow the house of Saud to return to their camel humping heritage. If GWB nuked Bahgdad the true emotions of most of us would be most sucinctly described as .... relieved and gratified.

These are common sense realities. Just the facts, mam. If anyone is slinging propaganda it is the mind control spewed by the left, ceaslessly augering for the 'do nothing' approach.

GWB may think he needs to sway us to his way of thinking but the reality is that we are way ahead of him wondering why he is so god damned slow.

[Selara]

Well, if you are going to do something....do it right. For all the things to love or hate about the USA...I thank God almost every day that He let me be born here.

[tet68]

History run through a mangle.
Haven't laughed so much in years.

[foreverfree]

bump

[NormsRevenge]

This American expatriate, with the memorable name of Ernst "Putzi" Hanfstängl, told the Führer how Americans could be whipped up into a frenzy through blaring music, group cheers, and chants against the enemy. Hitler, genius of evil as he was, immediately saw the value in this form of propaganda and incorporated it into his own rise to power.

"Putzi" never met Bud Selig, unfortunately.. But it sounds like Pete Rozelle went to his Untermensch Summer Camp as a kid.

[Revolting cat!]

But hardly anyone really believed the stuff. The result, after many decades of suffering, was the eventual collapse of the old order once The Great Leader expired, whether his name was Brezhnev, Mao, or Tito.

American propaganda, however, is much cleverer. American propaganda, they patiently explained, relies entirely on emotional appeals. It doesn’t depend on a rational theory that can be disproved: it appeals to things no one can object to.

I stopped reading a paragraph or two after this piece of nonsense. Communism fell because nobody "believed the stuff"? Oh, I see now. Then the author goes on to compare state sponsored and developed systematic propaganda machinery to mere advertising, PR, sound bites and various random attempts at influencing public opinion. Either he himself doesn't see the distinction or thinks his readers won't!

If his quotes are authentic, the author's alleged refugee informants did believe the stuff, whether they'll admit it, know it or not. They believed what the Soviet propaganda wanted them to believe, that the truth they were hearing on Radio Free Europe, BBC or wherever, was propaganda too. The Communists long ago stopped hoping that their subjects would believe their BS, they themselves didn't believe it. What they then proceeded to do was attempt to instill in the populace cynicism and fatalism and in a large measure succeeded. This is what I heard many times from the escapees from the worker's paradise: "there is no difference between Pravda and Radio Free Europe!"

[ChadGore]

Re:" . . on the phony grounds of the War on Terrorism . . "

Where exactly was this guy when WW4 started on 9/11 ??