The Word
by Gene Howington, Guest Blogger
Originally, I drafted this article with a preface about the story Michael Hastings recently broke on BuzzFeed about an amendment to the latest defense authorization bill that would “legalize the use of propaganda on American audiences.” However, as I worked on it this morning, our very own poet laureate and research librarian extraordinaire Elaine Magliaro cut me off at the pass with her own excellent article on the subject. So instead of repeating the points she makes which illustrate why understanding propaganda is important, I will refer you to her post “How about Some Government Propaganda for the People Paid for by the People Being Propagandized?”
Now that the kid gloves have come off regarding the governmental efforts to control your mind by controlling both your information and how you receive it, let’s discuss the nature of propaganda. Now more than ever, it is important to know the basics of how propaganda works. Since words are the basic building block of the English language, we’ll start with asking what is propaganda, look at some general history of the practice, consider the importance of meaning of words, the ideas of connotation and denotation, and the process of selecting “value loaded” words.
What is propaganda? Webster’s defines the word as follows:
propaganda \ˌprä-pə-ˈgan-də, ˌprō-\, n.,
1 capitalized : a congregation of the Roman curia having jurisdiction over missionary territories and related institutions (ed. note: Not relevant, but interesting.)
2: the spreading of ideas, information, or rumor for the purpose of helping or injuring an institution, a cause, or a person
3: ideas, facts, or allegations spread deliberately to further one’s cause or to damage an opposing cause; also : a public action having such an effect
But that’s not exactly what people feel when they hear the word, is it? Why do most people have a negative reaction to the word “propaganda”? After all, by definition, “propaganda” is much like the verb “to persuade” in meaning.
persuade \pər-ˈswād\, v., v.t.,
1: to move by argument, entreaty, or expostulation to a belief, position, or course of action
2: to plead with : urge
Etymologically speaking, the word “propaganda” is fairly new as a political science term. “Propaganda” didn’t come into common use as a political science term until World War I. Even then it was not a pejorative in use like it is today. The word originated (some would say unsurprisingly so) as shorthand referring to the Roman Catholic Church’s Congregatio de Propaganda Fide or the “congregation for propagating the faith”. This committee of cardinals was established in 1622 by Pope Gregory XV to supervise foreign missions. The word “propaganda” is the feminine gerund of the Italian verb “propagando” which in turn is derived from the Latin verb prōpāgō, meaning “to propagate”.
propagate \ˈprä-pə-ˌgāt\, v., v.t.,
3a : to cause to spread out and affect a greater number or greater area : extend b : to foster growing knowledge of, familiarity with, or acceptance of (as an idea or belief) : publicize c : to transmit (as sound or light) through a medium
Clearly the largest distinction between persuasion and propaganda is that propaganda is a form of large scale persuasion. Persuasion isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Changing someone’s mind is a better tactic than violence. Persuasion is at the heart of society’s pillar and replacement for self-help justice and dispute resolution, the adversarial court system. Persuasion is an alternative to coercion.
So what is propaganda? It’s a tool to change people’s minds. Like any tool, it is capable of beneficial use and horrific misuse. This makes understanding how the tool works critical if you want to recognize (and possibly work to prevent) its misuse.
If that is the case the word originally had no pejorative use, then why do most people have an automatic negative reaction to the word “propaganda”? This brings us to the ideas of connotation and denotation. Plainly put, denotation is a direct specific meaning; the literal meaning of a word and nothing more. Connotation is a “something” suggested by a word or thing; an implied meaning. I suggest the negative connotation for the word “propaganda” comes from both the negative denotation built in to the word itself (part of the definition is “for the purpose of helping or injuring” and injury carries the negative notion of harm to self and/or others) and the recent historical use of propaganda to dastardly ends culminating to create an implied negative meaning beyond the definition. The denotation of a word is not the direct province of the propagandist. They have to know what the words actually mean, but that is of limited value to them. The edge of the propagandist’s knife so to speak lies in the connotation of words. More on that topic as we move along. In the 20th Century, we have seen what truly evil injury propaganda is capable of inflicting on a society. To know how we got to today, it is important to have a bit of historical perspective.
Historically, the idea of propaganda has been around as long as there have been society and governments. For example, in ancient Egypt, the Pharaoh Ramses II claimed a great victory over the Hittites in the Battles of Kadesh (possibly the largest chariot battle in history). The two most common forms of Egyptian records of the battles are known as “The Poem” and “The Bulletin”. Both are found carved into multiple sites in Egypt, all built or expanded upon by Ramses II – one of the greatest builders of ancient Egypt. “The Bulletin” is found on seven different temples or monuments and eight total sites have “The Poem”. When you add numerous other references on papyrus and in tangentially related carvings, this makes the Battles of Kadesh one of the best recorded battles of antiquity. The tale told is of an overwhelming victory for Ramses II and Egypt.
There’s only one problem with that depiction.
It is most certainly a lie at worst and an exaggeration at best.
Hittite records, although not as numerous, all tell the tale of a Hittite victory. Archaeological evidence is inconclusive. One of the two parties is lying and possibly both. Most modern historians have come to the conclusion that the battle likely ended in a draw. Given that, why did Ramses II carve his non-existent victory into stone? Propaganda is the answer. Ramses II wanted the reputation as a strong military leader even if the reality wasn’t so glorious. So he fluffed the details and spread the word that “Ramses II Kicks Ass!” Unless you were at the Battles of Kadesh, who were you to argue with a Living God? Then realizing that his chances for immediate military exploits were practically nil, Ramses II did what any respectable Pharaoh would do and a secondary exercise in propaganda: he returned to the building spree he started as a young man. Some would say the greatest building spree in the history of the ancient Egypt. Just like the Romans after him, Ramses knew that impressive buildings were a kind of psychological warfare – non-verbal propaganda geared at projecting the power of the throne to the masses, but more on this at a later date. The focus here is language and the basics of propaganda.
In the beginning, there was the word. Those with the word were limited. If they could not speak directly, they were limited by how many manual physical copies they could get out to the masses and how many of the masses could read. Then came the printing press in the 15th Century. When Guttenberg invented it, one of the early adopters of the technology was the Holy Roman Empire. By the end of the Renaissance, book making was industrialized to the point that printer/binders could produce between three and four thousand pages per day: a hundred fold increase in production compared to the most prolific of scribes. Books and written material went from rare treasures to common items. As knowledge became democratized, the use of printed propaganda grew in unison: public notices, political flyers and proto-newspapers became cheap and abundant.
The 20th Century was in some ways a Golden Age for deploying propaganda. Unlike any previous age, the 20th Century was the age of mass communications. Industrial mass printing of newspapers, radio, television, telephones and the Internet radically changed the way humans communicate. The word became King and the picture became Queen. Even illiteracy wasn’t the barrier it had posed to the ancient world as the spoken word supplemented the written and the truism that “a picture is worth a thousand words” is a truism for a reason. Even physical handicap was less of a barrier to getting the message out as those blind to the printed word and picture and deaf to the spoken word now had the channel of communication created by the 19th Century invention of Braille. As propaganda is large scale persuasion, mass media provided a natural accelerant. What had previously been a candle of propaganda became a bonfire necessarily becoming a political science term in common usage. The 20th Century saw probably the most devastating use of propaganda to date on any population. Propaganda was instrumental to both the Nazi war effort and their social engineering that allowed them to industrially murder six million Jews, Roma, homosexuals and handicapped. Propaganda was key to the crimes of the Khemer Rouge. Mao’s Cultural Revolution. Castro’s rise to power in Cuba. The wrongful, misguided and likely illegal U.S. invasion of Iraq. These are a few of many examples where propaganda has been used to either garner public support for ethically wrong actions by government or obfuscate the truth to aid the guilty from being brought to justice. This point will be addressed further in a later column, but it goes a long way to explaining how a word of neutral value became a word of negative value due to recent history.
We are still left with the word. As far as the word “propaganda” proper, we know what it means. We know where it comes from. We know the goal of propaganda in general. That leaves us with word choice and the idea of “value loaded” word and how it relates to propaganda. What are words loaded with? They are loaded with implication. This is why connotation is the edge of the propagandist’s knife. Word choice is critical. As I noted earlier, the denotation of a word is not the direct province of the propagandist. The edge of the propagandist’s knife so to speak lies in the connotation of words. However, knowing the proper denotation of words – i.e. having a large vocabulary – puts one at a tactical advantage against the propagandist. If one knows the actual meaning of words, it becomes more difficult for the propagandist to use connotation against you.
For example, consider the use of media outlets like NPR that made a public and conscious decision to refrain from reporting on “torture” – a word with extremely negative denotation and connotation – and instead choosing to use the euphemistic language “enhanced interrogation”. Everyone with a conscience thinks torture is a bad thing and torturers are ethically abhorrent people. It’s not only a Federal crime, cruel and unusual punishment is specifically barred by the 8th Amendment of the Constitution. The word choice here is designed to clearly shift public attitudes from “those guys need to be prosecuted as criminals” to “maybe they aren’t so bad after all”. NPR (aided by the Bush Administration no doubt) chose words with a neutral/positive value load compared to the word “torture”. Connotation plays to your emotional response over your rational response. When the word choice becomes more subtle, the damage of connotations can be even more insidious. Compare:
- war – limited police action
- conquest – liberation
- famine – widespread hunger
- pestilence – outbreak
- death – casualties
Be aware and suspicious of word choice, certainly. Especially when dealing with adjectives as they have by their nature a great capacity to carry connotation. However, it is equally important to consider the speaker. When evaluating something you suspect is propaganda, ask these questions:
- Who is the speaker?
- What does the speaker want from me?
- What advantage does the speaker gain from my agreement or lose from my disagreement? And vice-versa?
- Does the speaker represent other interests that may not be obvious?
- Why is the speaker giving this message now?
What is your first line of defense against propaganda?
Be aware of the meaning and choice of words. To that end, work to strengthen your vocabulary. Buy a “Word A Day” calender or download an app for your phone, use a website or download a tickler program for your computer.
Always question the message and the messenger as well as any who may have sent the messenger. Practice reading with emotional detachment and a critical eye to not only what is said, but how it is said and by whom.
Keep in mind that propaganda is a tool. It is inherently neutral. The good or evil is found in the intent of the speaker and their desired actions and/or reactions on your part.
What is your first line of defense against propaganda? You are. And that is my unhidden message to you: Wake up. Civilization calls. The world is what we make it.
The next article in this series will address methodology, strategy and tactics in deploying propaganda.
~submitted by Gene Howington, Guest Blogger
The Propaganda Series;
Propaganda 105: How to Spot a Liar
Propaganda 104 Supplemental: The Streisand Effect and the Political Question
Propaganda 104 Supplemental: The Sound of Silence
Propaganda 104: Magica Verba Est Scientia Et Ars Es
Propaganda 103: The Word Changes, The Word Remains The Same
Propaganda 102 Supplemental: Holly Would “Zero Dark Thirty”
Propaganda 102: Holly Would and the Power of Images
Propaganda 101 Supplemental: Child’s Play
Propaganda 101 Supplemental: Build It And They Will Come (Around)
Related articles of interest;
TalkingBack: You’re qualified to opine on what defines Israel today?
Check back with me later on that, I have to study really hard to be able to answer your important intellectual challenge without disappointing my fans. After all, the fate of the Jews rests in my shaky hands.
Malisha:
Is he an asshole? Or is it just his existence and being. To use a Nazi phrase.
If you dont realize you are an asshole can you be one?
Malisha – any comment on the award-winning eugenicism that dominated the thinking and practice of Arthur Ruppin, one of the major “producers” of Hebrew culture that defines Israel today?
Oh sure, Bron, but in terms of “looking at ourselves and blaming ourselves for our losses,” I don’t think that’s even necessary. We have losses. It is our job as humans to understand our losses if we can and to try to help others who have losses if possible. It’s just that I was what Frank Taafe calls “fed up” and instead of hauling off and killing some “asshole,” I did a little put-down on the web.
Thanks for your words.
Malisha:
I think talkingbacktocspan is most probably a radical, militant Arab/Muslim who hates Jews.
I dont think there is any possibility of having a conversation with him. He might have a good reason to hate Jews, his father may have been killed in the 67 invasion of Israel or maybe his mother was killed in a Jewish air-strike after his father and others fired rockets into Israel from atop her apartment building. Or it is possible his brother was killed when Hizbullah invaded Israel in 2007.
So he may have many reasons to hate Jews, all of them self inflicted. We, as a species, seem to have a hard time looking in the mirror and blaming ourselves for our loses.
@ Idealist — one more thing. How would YOU like me to address TalkingBack?
Story: When Richard Gardner and Arthur Green, two goon psychiatrists who between them proved that no molested child had ever been molested (for big bundles of money) were giving reasons that kids who claimed to have been molested were lying because they said the wrong thing, I wrote some questions for a lawyer to use in taking one of their depositions (I cannot remember which one, now). The shrink said the kid had not been molested because something she said didn’t match what a molested kid would have really said. So the last question in the list was, “If she had really been molested [and you’re allowed to ask expert witnesses hypothetical questions], exactly what WOULD she have said?”
Idealist, you say: “Now I have not followed this argument at all. I don’t have facts to comment in general. I am a consumer, in lack of energy to find other, of the dominant propaganda over the years, ie Western powers. I am personally pre-disposed to the Jews dut to my respect for their cultural contributions, although question their beliefs. And my only bone of contention is their actions re reaching a two-state solution. This as informantion as to my bias. * * * However, I say that psychoanalytical attacks instead of factually based arguments aren’t worth respect. * * * Following GeneH’s argumentation I counter with propostint that using that as a guide, then Albert Einstein was anti-semitic too when he addressed the Knesset and said the establishment of Israel on Zionist grounds was a mistake. Just so is the professor called anti-semitic who had differing views—and to boot he is damned for working at universities in the Arab nations. * * *
OK, let me give you a general response since you haven’t been following the argument, and the argument was on propaganda. I didn’t follow it very much for a while, and then only got interested because of its application in the Zimmerman case, which, as you know, interests me.
Does the Nazi revisionist Jew-blaming propaganda interest me? Only secondarily, only because it applies to other things, and only occasionally.
You come in and point out that you’re “predisposed to the Jews,” for what it’s worth. When you question “our” beliefs, I wonder which ones — of mine — you’re questioning. And where did you get that bone of contention, with regard to my actions in reaching a two-state solution? See what I mean? I was very happy with a two state solution in 1947, but you never checked with me then.
Let me move forward rather quickly here because your issue was with the way I reacted to TalkingBack. Idealist, check the thread. The debate between me and TalkingBack was a bit different in form before his post that read, quite simply and almost eloquently, “Malisha, Eat Shit.”
A few posts down from that he took issue with me for pointing out that there were people who argued their positions by screaming nonsense and then directed those who did not agree with them to eat shit. Then he came back on thread to really let me know how wrong I was about his wonderful debate techniques, and his explicit explanation was that he had not told me to eat shit because I disagreed — no no (and why would any self-respecting debater do something like that, I ask?) — he had done that because I dishonored his parents’ sacrifice which had been necessitated, of course, by the misconduct of the Jews.
Idealist, you can be just as idealistic as you want to be, but three things:
1. Check back on all the threads I have written in. Find me disrespecting someone who takes a position opposite mine — I don’t mean people who jump to their conclusions because they misunderstand me, I mean FIND ME DISRESPECTING SOMEONE WHO TAKES A POSITION OPPOSITE MINE. Check the comment I got somewhere from Lottakatz. Think it over.
2. Consider how utterly bored and irritated our German poster, Leander, is with all this neoNazi crap he has had to put up with all these years trying to debate people who are still sunk in the deep toilet of anti-Semitic claptrap propaganda. AND…
3. Somoene upthread had asked TalkingBack if he actually believed that the Nazis had not killed some 6,000,000 people and he responded, quite a while later, with “yes,” so he identified himself (as Gene H had previously identified him by checking into his own webpage where he had apparently informed us poor anti-good-guy shit-eaters that 9/11 was caused by the Jews) as not only a Nazi apologist (more a PROPOLOGIST) but a revisionist historian. So I stopped checking into his citations and his shitations and whenever I felt like it, I Nazi-bated.
Well that about does it. I hope you also are “predisposed” to the Jews because they’re frank about setting their limits and defining their terms.
Malisha,
Magnificent as usual. But far more attention than I am worth. Some re-newed lessons: !) do not jump into the tail end of arguments which you have not read. 2) do not jump into others arguments at all. 3) don’t clander (?) anyone on one poing, you will get an answer on fifteen others which were not included in your argument (overload tactic by Malisha and GeneH), 4) don’t fuck around with heavyweights, you’re not in that weight class.
BTW, ain’t backing down. Psychological labeling is still piss in my opinion. And that was my whole point.
I’ve known a few shrinks in my life, and am not impressed by them. And why should you amateurs, and by that I include the pros here who do diagnostics by comments posted, get any right to use these labels. You’re “othering” others.
Can you remember the day when “neurotic” was the favorite put-down? Psy-labeling is in the same class as “nigger” baiting. I hate labels. As you said yourself:We are all humans underneath it all. Paraphrase?
And in my world, there are no jews. I asked Lena today who I discovered clumslly is a proud undeclared jewess, why the necessity of labels. She said: it is me, my culture.
Well culture I can understand, and survival by means of ingrown hangnails are fine too. But I have, I realize, no solutions to your problems with this jewbaiter. or to anti-judaism (you are not the only semites in the world).
And my assuming moral leadership of debating righteousness is a laugh of course, which you did not mention, but I will.
Just reacting to psychologica name-calling, was all for me.
As for 1947, how could you agree then, you were two years old maybe. ´But you mean later. But that, I believe was not two-nations. Palestinians were under Jordan then(?)
We’re not here to debate Israel/Palestine problem. I just gave my bonafides as to bias. And I am a jewlover, and an arablover, and a berber lover, and a Rwandesia lover, and a Malilover, and a Thailover…..the list is long.
And I will not abandon any individual for his origin or his stupid and hateful beliefs. I try occasionally to give some insight to them, but not ardently. Their life is up to them to live. So why do you bother with XYZ? You have good but insufficnt reason as I see it.
Anybody does who contests more than five minutes with him/her/it.
Last night all Swedes, note Swedes, became very proud. One of our immigrant children won Semifinal 2 in the Eurovision song contest. She is berber by way of Morroco. You know, St. Augustine was half berber.
So when do we leave tribalism behind us, and I mean ALL of us, not just the arabs or the jews or ?????
Good luck with spending your energies on ranters of all kinds, and sharpening your teeth on Zimmerman is also a waste of time, IMHO.
His temporary public notice has already caused a backlash against Martin. Gets the rednecks out to reniw their registration. And the Feds are only there to keep it within bounds for Obama’s sake. “Don’t risk my vote, dammit.”
But looks like you plan to be part of the knights of the Don Quixote round table. How’s your lance today? Perky?
Actually you don’t deserve this sassing. You gave me an honest answer. Apologies for that. But I never can resist making a joke, not even against myself.
Exit
GeneH dismisses his opponents as nutcases, He does so also with the persons behind the citations used by the primary nut case.
Malisha used the psychological defamation technique also.
Why? One presumption I can imagine is that we are all lazy. Only the nutcase has the energy and drive to collect “from NYC sewers” the “facts”.
Now this is endemic to GeneH, I feel. He is least of all lazy, but he seldom if ever answers a factual argument point, usuallly ignoring them and leading instead with new attacks.
This is the same technique we’ve seen in all political debates by each debater. Never answer the question posed is the technique.
Now I have not followed this argument at all. I don’t have facts to comment in general. I am a consumer, in lack of energy to find other, of the dominant propaganda over the years, ie Western powers. I am personally pre-disposed to the Jews dut to my respect for their cultural contributions, although question their beliefs. And my only bone of contention is their actions re reaching a two-state solution. This as informantion as to my bias.
However, I say that psychoanalytical attacks instead of factually based arguments aren’t worth respect.
Following GeneH’s argumentation I counter with propostint that using that as a guide, then Albert Einstein was anti-semitic too when he addressed the Knesset and said the establishment of Israel on Zionist grounds was a mistake. Just so is the professor called anti-semitic who had differing views—and to boot he is damned for working at universities in the Arab nations.
Absolutely the first case of a professor selling themselves for profit. Why does Obama kiss the cheek of the Saudi king? For profit. So what does that say about Obama and the professor’s integrity.
You both of course have never done such a degrading act. Myself a few times, but kicked shins rather. Just as I am doing now.
Will this gain me? Doubtful.
Characterizing people to be rid of their arguments is an all too easy method. I’ve never seen Chomsky use that. He laboriously pulls out 15 facts, lays them on the table, and there they speak for all to hear. We are not getting Chomsky here, but rather the peremptory dismissal with a snort of contempt.
Now Gene may be right and Malisha may be right. But their writings verge on the purely polemical, defamatory, and ad hominem. And Malisha may be right (for her) in her judgement that arguing with XYZ is worthless and refuses to meet him with contrafacts.
That’s OK for the both of you.
You do as you wish. That’s what is good about the Professors site. But it also allows me to comment and approve or disapprove.
Last I was met by GeneH’s opening phrase: “Looking for trouble….”. Which does not assure me of being met with respect. Oh, yes, he will reply that I don’t earn his respect. Just so. But respect and decorum, and the respect that even the unworthy have on the basis of their being human is still required——in my eyes.
So their actions do nothing for the general debate level here.
When GeneH says that I can go play with the girls, with an obvious implication that I don’t qualify to play with the boys, then I challenged him to stand and declare a confirmation of that. He glides away and will not answer.
He will not confirm that he regards me as not manly enough in his eyes to play with the boys.
Now that does not bother me per se. It is rather the type of argument one could expect from a bully.
BUT, IT ALSO IS DEFAMING WOMEN AS NOT BEING WORTHY of paraticipating in men’s games. And that is one of our major problems in all modern societies, and certainly in America.
Defamation is the last thing I expected to meet on a lawyer site. Of course, lawyers are capable of and do use that technique in their work, and often perhaps. But here in a collegial chamber it seems peculiar. Now all here are not lawyers, but if they are welcome then they are also worthy of respect.
If someone abuses the space and the people here, I’m sure there are other methods than long defamatory counter rants as a way of handling the conflict.
If you sling mud, you emerge as a shining (!) example of a mudslinger, not as a champion of truth.
I did not think that the worst tactics of a courtroom would be found here.
Arthur Ruppin and the Production of the Modern Hebrew Culture in Palestine Etan Bloom, TelAviv University PhD dissertation
QUOTE
Although Ruppin obtained a law degree and had a promising career in the field of law, and although he wrote a doctoral thesis in political economy
(Nationalökonomie),78 his real intellectual curiosity and his first academic success lay in the new interdisciplinary field which become known in the following years as “racial hygiene” (Rassenhygiene) or “eugenics.” One of the main initiators of this paradigm in Germany, as well as of its popular repertoire, was the blond, blue eyed biologist Ernst Haeckel, one of Ruppin’s academic patrons and a central father figure of his weltanschauung, who was depicted by him as a “prächtiger Germanentyp”
(Korolik 1981, 95).79
. . .
Haeckel’s influence on Ruppin cannot be overestimated and we can find traces of it even in his last book (1940) in which he presented Heackel’s thoughts as his own:
. . .
Ruppin’s winning essay Darwinismus und Socialwissenschaft analyzed the
applicability of Darwin’s theory to organizing society and the state and expressed enthusiastic belief in the power of social engineering to elevate man to a new level of morality and freedom. In presenting his euphemistic eugenics program, (which became much harsher later on when he applied it to the Jews), Ruppin acknowledged that he was demanding great sacrifices of human beings, but he believed people (i.e.Germans) would accept them if convinced of the social usefulness of their actions.
Though he acknowledged the sacrifice his bio-medical vision inflicted upon the individual, he supported the state and its crucial function and gave it the decisive right to intervene in the life of the individual, promoting the idea that social welfare and education had to be combined with a program of eugenics, in which invalids and the mentally ill would be discouraged (Ruppin 1903a, 31, 36, 45-46, 64, 91-92, 123; Penslar 1991, 86-87).
“In an age of dwindling belief in the immortality of the soul, the individual
will recognize, in his belonging to the state and his actions for the state, his share in eternity, in the history of the whole of mankind, and must look up to the state with genuine religious fervor. He must approach the state only as a wave in the ocean, which, barely arisen, quickly passes and sinks without a trace into the sea […] so for the peoples of old in honor of gods, so for the individual today may no sacrifice seem too great in honor of the state.”
(Ruppin 1903a, 92, in: Penslar 1991, 86-87).
END QUOTE
Gene H, thanks for your info. I never even check his citations because he gives headlines, people’s assertions, and speeches by nutcases as “proof” of his paranoid theories. If this guy’s speech (whatever it was) proved anything to me, I would have to admit that my “kow-tows to propaganda without considering the source” gene was double recessive. (Did I get that genetic stuff right? I better check with the Eugenics guys.)
Citing an article by a well known antisemitic former English professor at the Universities of Kuwait and Bahrain and general all around douche bag is proof of absolutely nothing other than the adage “garbage in, garbage out”.
http://www.deliberation.info/dystopia-revisited/
QUOTE:
“When asked “What is the most effective military weapon the Israelis have?” The answer has to be “The control of the Western media.”
The domination of the media was decreed at the Zionist conference of 1897.
. . .
The effect of this control dictates to the sluggish Western population which countries they may like and which they must hate.
Seventy-year-old Benjamin Freedman, an American anti-Zionist Jew, declared in a speech presented in 1961, “The Zionists rule these United States as though they were absolute monarchs of this country.”
Freedman declared that in 1916, when Britain was seriously considering a peace offered by Germans, on the basis of a status quo ante, the Zionists seized an opportunity to inform the British War Cabinet that they could still win the war.
They used the same techniques to brainwash the British War Cabinet that they have perfected in the media.
“We will guarantee to bring the United States into this war as your ally. The price you must pay is Palestine after you have won the war and defeated Germany, Austria, Hungary and Turkey.” Britain made that promise in October 1916.
Freedman revealed at that time the United States was totally pro-German; the newspapers…all the mass communication media was controlled by Jews who were pro-German.
When the Zionists saw the possibility of getting Palestine, everything changed overnight. Suddenly the Germans were no good. They were villains (shooting Red Cross nurses and cutting off babies hands. They were Huns.
An insider during this time, and a few years before, Freedman described American President Woodrow Wilson “as incompetent when it came to determining what was going on as a newborn baby.” The same tactics were used in the media. The American people were duped into joining WWI [and WWII] as they were in going into Iraq. . . .”
END QUOTE
TBTCS, something very pleasant just occurred to me. Please be advised that I will never believe you and that in general, your conclusions are so ridiculous that only those people who are very much LIKE YOU will ever believe you, and that survives all your spiteful and absurdly disdainful commentary, and that means no polemics, pissemics, polythemerals, fecobemerals, problumetriciousaries or punkadacious-stenchophonics are going to work. And probably some Jews are going to destroy you! (After which you won’t even get to RIP because my god is bigger than yours.)
You would know, considering where your mind has been spending its time.
Malisha, a summary of your comment> “I will not confront the facts that decidedly non-fringe persons, such as Louis Brandeis, Sam Untermeyer, Rabbi Stephen Wise, Felix & Max Warburg, Fiorello LaGuardia, and a host of others, collaborated to destroy Germany’s economy. Instead, I will use the vast powers of the cobwebs in my mind to do armchair psychoanalysis of the entity who typed that information, and derogate THAT entity, rather than confront some facts that may threaten my comfort level and a narrative I have relied upon to justify monstrous maltreatment of other people.
(PS Malisha, your recitation of ‘history’ has more holes than the NYC sewer system.)
Where’d you get my beer-influenced gut from, TalkingBack? That’s — excuse me — fucking hilarious, and just as analytical and factually accurate as the rest of your blather. YOU told me abut your parents who couldn’t do right by you because they were sucked into the war brought on by the nasty Jews. It didn’t take much to figure you out. You’re not that different from many of the folks who, around 1933, were dealing with their own deprived lives and finding it convenient to conclude they would have been fine were it not for the evil Jews taking everything away from them. I never expected your love or respect and suffer not from continuing to live without it. And I’ll skip telling you what to eat.
Malisha and Gene, You both fail to grasp several important fact patterns, and also fall into a seductive propaganda trap.
Re the latter: you have made my comments ‘all about TalkingbacktoCSpan;’ that is, you engage in ad hominem argument: because you are unwilling or unable to argue with the facts and evidence that TBTCS, you engage in ‘armchair psychoanalysis’ of TBTCS, based on nothing but the image you have created in your (cottony) heads.
You have no idea if TBTCS is male or female,
rich or poor,
powerful or otherwise,
writing from a hasbara center in Tel Aviv, a propaganda station in Tehran, or a community room in a psychiatric ward in Poduka. You simply have no facts, nor have you relied on facts in the ludicrous psychoanalytic profile you have indulged in. You operate in a fact-free environment.
On the other hand, TBTCS has offered facts, links, evidence, and a unifying theory. You, Malisha, stated that you were not interested in facts, you prefer to run on the messages sent to your brain by your beer-influenced gut.
Gene H, what you say about how “THE Jews” view AIPAC’s conduct and so forth brings up a very important point. Israel has a Parliament and in that Parliament, there are plenty of people who stand up and rail against the actions of other bunches of Jews who are doing something that the railers vigorously oppose. Israel will go ahead and bring down a government if enough people get exercised about what some of them are doing wrong. The problem in Nazi Germany was that you didn’t HAVE this any more, starting in 1933 and onward. You didn’t have people who could get up and rail against what Hitler was doing and then sit down and expect to keep living. The whole point was that TalkingBack’s view of the world includes mischaracterizations of both “THE JEWS” [who are just a big satan composed of little pieces, like little bitty jewglobs that only serve to feed the satanic needs of the big THE JEWS] and “the Germans” who, in his worldview, were starved and often murdered by “THE JEWS” so that they finally had to try to defend themselves.
It’s about a three-year-old version of “me-me-me versus BAD-BAD-BAD” and it has the enormous power that a three-year-old temper tantrum can gain if there is no rational control (like good parents) in sight.
Those Jews both in and out of Israel who have been working hard to salvage any chance of peace in the Middle East are often accused of pandering to those persistent enemies of Israel who would settle for nothing less than the complete destruction of the state, the destruction of the Jews per se, and the self-righteous re-anointing of every living and dead anti-Semite who ever tried to destroy “THE JEWS.” Rants and raves like those of TalkinBack naturally make it all the harder for any Jews to win over their coreligionists or landsmen to their more moderate point of view, because guys like him are real, they do exist, and they spout their crap everywhere and very vigorously. Just as he believes that the Jews who tried to bring pressure on the Nazis to stop their anti-Semitic hate-fest were actually declaring war on a harmless, blameless state and starting an unnecessary war for their own purposes, there is plenty of belief that Israel’s leadership now MUST be as right-wing pro-conflict no-compromise as possible or Israel will be dismantled by its satanic enemies. And just as a grain of truth to a factual story (Jews backed a boycott) can lead a paranoid to a crazy conclusion, so a partly true perception (the Arab states still insist upon pushing Israel into the sea) can lead a paranoid leadership to an untenable position.
Malisha,
You bring up a good point in that in order for propaganda to be effective, it must appeal to some basic need or desire. In talkingback’s case, it presents an interesting microcosm of precisely how the Nazis antisemitic propaganda leading up to WWII worked on the German people. Where talkingback needs something to explain his misery and make it not his fault, so did the German consumers of Nazi propaganda. They needed someone to blame for the interwar period and its deprivations. Instead of doing the thinking required to realize it was the combined fault of the Central Powers for starting a war of aggression and the Allied Powers for their draconian demands at Versailles, they readily consumed the per-packaged solution offered by the Nazis that it was really the Jews (a relatively weak social and political minority) that did all that to Germany. Just so, talkingback has done the same thing in his personal life. He would rather believe his life’s misery is caused by someone else (the Jews) rather than accept his own and his parent’s role in making his life miserable. People psychologically want to be the the hero of their own story. If that means projecting responsibility for their own failure upon others, the human mind is far too capable of doing that. Therapists offices around the world are full of people blaming others for their problems instead of accepting responsibility for their own life. That is part and parcel of what makes propaganda so insidious – it preys upon the weaknesses of the human psyche by manipulation of common normative and defensive mechanisms.
Gene H, this is one of the really important issues about propaganda. What TalkingBack believes is, by his own admission, a comfortable belief for him because in his personal life, somehow his needs were not met, including probably his most basic poignant dependency needs. He cannot blame this upon his parents (as perhaps others might) for whatever reason, and he cannot blame this upon himself, and he has come up with the real cause of all his unhappiness: America’s participation in WWII was unnecessary because what happened in WWII was that some nefarious Jews attacked Germany and America, which should have been righteous enough to prevent such an outrage, actually fanned the flames of Jewish anti-German hatred and permitted this international crime to drag the country and his father into the war. It was all done to inflame the world with falsehoods to the point where the UN would create a zionist criminal state which then would complete the international criminal conspiracy, as we see it doing.
This is the only explanation that makes TalkingBack’s life worthwhile.
If this did not happen, exactly as he says it did, for the reasons he says it did, then why would he have borne so much sorrow? No reason. He never deserved it!
So a story that can make someone feel that nothing is their fault, that everything bad or rotten is due to the badness and wickedness and evil of the “other” — very often the Jews but often others, if there are no Jews around to absorb the blows — is a very welcome story to persons of weak character who cannot tolerate the idea that they could have done better for themselves if only…
If only those rotten Jews weren’t destroying Germany, hadn’t stabbed Germany in the back in World War I, hadn’t caused the defeat of the greatest nation on earth by their enemies in World War I, why then…
Everything would have been fine, would have been hunky dorey. All good Germans would have food and jobs and happy lives. The fact that they had entered into (started, perhaps?) a war that involved all of Europe and that the war ended badly for them (called World War I) was not really to be blamed. It was just the Jews, of course.
I remember some bozo who was the leader of some country — I do not have time to search for this but it was within the last 10 years — made an announcement, internationally, that the Jews had basically invented the story of how much they were oppressed and decimated during the 20th century to manipulate people’s minds into accepting the principles of equality and decent treatment for minorities! What a terrible thing to do!
What puzzles me is this: If the Jews declared war on Germany to force the Germans to do bad things to them in order to get whole bunches of them to support Zionism so that Israel could be created and prosper and dominate the world, then why didn’t the Germans do the SMART THING, and PLAY SMART instead of pandering to this nefarious scheme? Why didn’t they simply life all anti-Jewish laws, show the world they had nothing against their Jewish citizens, set up little parks for Jewish children to play in on Saturdays, and hold Jewish orchestral competitions in Munich? That would have really shown the world, disarmed those nasty Yids, and avoided World War II in a quick minute! Man, those Nazis were dumb. They could have changed the course of history if they only gave it a 20-minute think-up. And they could have borrowed all the money to do that good stuff from America!