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;
Wednesday, May 23, 2012 08:32 AM EDT
WH leaks for propaganda film
The administration takes a break from its war on whistleblowers to provide classified information to filmmakers
By Glenn Greenwald
http://www.salon.com/2012/05/23/wh_leaks_for_propaganda_film/singleton/
“I mean only to say here that one can defend Arabs or Muslims without praising Adolph Hitler or other anti-Jewish Christians — and one should take care not to do that.”
A point we can agree on, MM.
There is simply no excuse whatsoever for apologizing for or praising Hitler or the Nazi Party. The acts they took at the concentration and extermination camps and in the ghettos was purely voluntary. They own that evil.
This is not to say Zionists (especially the Likud) are saints. I largely think the animosity of Israel’s neighbors toward Israel is directly traceable to Likud policy. I’m a firm believer that the two state option is the only viable solution that can bring lasting peace (and given the nature of the events that unfolded around the creation of the State of Israel, probably the only solution for what was inevitable conflict from the start).
I really don’t care what Nazi apologist think of me or how they define classy.
I don’t feel any obligation to be civil to Nazi supporters in the slightest.
If that presents a problem for you?
Good.
thanks MM.
I disagree with several of your points, but at least you were civil.
“calling a demon a demon.”
You oughta tune in to a slugfest between Jonathan Kay and Webster Tarpley — http://www.c-spanvideo.org/webstertarpley
I know I know — “Webster Tarpley — what a douche bag; mighta known a Nazi lover would go for someone like Webster . . .” — is that what you’re thinking?
Tarpley’s not my cup o tea, and the 9/11 truther stuff wierds me out, but Jonathan Kay and David Frum made the movement and Tarpley look like paragons of rationality and presence.
Even the people who came to the event to heckle Tarpley ended up chastising Frum and Kay.
talkingbacktocspan,
If you wish to make the point that the Treaty of Versailles imposed great hardships on the German people following WWI and that Adolph Hitler managed to skillfully exploit the deep and bitter resentments that these measures caused among the Germans — especially the impoverished, demobilized Army — then I wish you had made this clear at the beginning of your comments. As George Orwell said in his essay “Propaganda and Demotic Language” (Persuasion, 1944): “propaganda only seems to succeed when it coincides with what people are inclined to do in any case.” Hitler’s propaganda, accordingly, worked well for him during the hard times immediately following WWI and after the onset of the Great Depression in 1929, but not so well during the bubble prosperity of the 1920s when “the lower middle classes, all the millions of shopkeepers and small-salaried folk on whom Hitler had to draw for support shared in the general prosperity” (to quote William L. Shirer from The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich). Certainly the American government recognized this history and pursued a policy of aiding the reconstruction of Germany and Japan after WWII instead of vindictively punishing those defeated countries as the Allies had done to Germany after The Great War. Occasionally, governments do learn from past errors.
None of these legitimate German grievances, however, excuse or justify what Adolph Hitler and the Germans did to the Jews, Gypsies, Russians, and other Eastern European peoples during the twelve year reign of the Third Reich. By the same token, nothing done to the Jews by the Germans in WWII justifies what Zionist Jews and Evangelical American Christians do on a daily basis to Palestinian Arabs and Muslims who had nothing to do with German/Christian persecution of Jews during WWII. Those who wish to spread propaganda in support of their own interests — whether Nazis or Zionists — will typically misuse whatever historical events they can appropriate as long as no one calls them on their fraudulent propaganda and blatant emotional guilt-flogging. One simply has to recognize this and try to deal with it appropriately.
I understand the resentment that many feel when subjected to Zionist/Christian propaganda against Muslims, but one cannot combat that by allowing others to paint one as an apologist for Adolph Hitler — which Zionist/Christian propagandists will do at the drop of a hat, whether justified or otherwise. Glenn Greenwald has written extensively regarding this particular propaganda tactic. See any of his writing on this subject for practical lessons on how to deconstruct and dispose of it. My younger brother the public high school teacher says that whenever a Zionist sympathizer calls him an “anti-semite,” he responds: “On the contrary, I like Arabs.”
I mean only to say here that one can defend Arabs or Muslims without praising Adolph Hitler or other anti-Jewish Christians — and one should take care not to do that.
how classy, gene.
Malisha, Herbert Hoover dedicated 900 pages to considering that question — in a slightly more nuanced way.
Having met with Hitler and Goering, Hoover concluded that Hitler had “three idees fixes: to unify Germany from its fragmentation by the Treaty of Versailles; to expand its physical resources by moving into Russia or the Balkan States . . .not merely from an aggressive ideology but to ensure the food security of Germany’s population; and to destroy the Russian Communist government.”
Hoover reported that Hitler was determined that the German people would never again be “starved into submission.”
The main argument of Hoover’s “Freedom Betrayed” was that Hitler had no desire or intention to enter a war with Western Europe/France/Great Britain; Hitler’s territorial claims were eastward — reclaiming lands sundered from Germany by the Versailles treaty, lands where German minorities dwelt; and claiming agricultural land in Ukraine/Russia.
Hoover advised that neither Britain nor France was economically fit to enter a war, they were not targeted, and they should just remain quiet. Likewise, the USA should stay out of the way and “let those two bastards [Russia and Germany] annihilate themselves.” The outcome, Hoover thought, would have been “peace for a hundred years.”
In Hoover’s assessment, in 1933, Hitler and the German government were NOT threats to the US, or to the West. Yes, it is true that in 1933 Jews were discriminated against in employment and education opportunities, and in 1935 these discriminatory practices were framed into the Nuremberg laws. Despite the “atrocity propaganda” that so many have absorbed uncritically, in 1933 Jews were not subject to ‘pogroms’ or wholesale imprisonment; they lived far safer lives in Nazi Germany in 1933-1940 than Palestinians have lived since 1948.
It is precisely because German Jews did feel safe in Germany, and were not willing to leave and were especially unwilling to migrate to Palestine, where their wealth was desperately needed to save the zionist project from bankruptcy, that zionists deliberately provoked the German people with its series of “declarations of war” and economic boycotts, protest rallies, humiliating mock trials designed to derail US diplomatic relations with Germany, that could have resolved the situation without violence. Zionists deliberately provoked Germany, and deliberately pushed for US involvment in a war in Europe that, as Hoover argued, was the blunder of the century.
Neocons deliberately pushed for US involvment in a war in Iraq, the blunder of a generation.
The Israel lobby is deliberately pushing the US to wage war against Iran, a blunder that will devastate the entire world into an untold future.
Go ahead and call me names if that is the best you can muster.
Millions of people are dead because too many people were too lazy to challenge the propaganda they have been force-fed all their lives.
Was that clear enough for you, Herr Goebbels?
BTW, it’s not demonizing when you call a demon a demon.
It’s accurate.
No, I’ve got plenty of argument. I’m not interested in talking to a Nazi loving douche bag. The next time you get the urge to address me directly, I cordially invite you to go fuck yourself.
in other words, gene, you have no argument.
The survivors of the hundreds of thousands killed in Iraq, the survivors of thousands killed in Palestine, and 73 million Iranians — minus a few assassinated by Mossad, thank you for demonstrating the fine moral values that USA represents.
your blog has demonstrated the truth of the statement, Demonization destroys the ability to think critically.
shano,
Please do not let a forthright examination of propaganda scare you away. Fear feeds on secrecy and ignorance. Dispel those, and fear vanishes, along with the propaganda apparatus that cannot function without this overpowering emotion to exploit. As Umberto Eco has written:
Stick around and help us all “move democracy forward by peaceful means to better the life of our citizens.” We can begin by recognizing and disarming — through deserved ridicule — the propaganda catapults who believe that they can easily subdue us by endlessly repeating the same tired lies until their message — “Buy what we wish to sell you” — sinks in and the difference between truth and falsity no longer matters. If Fascist propaganda doesn’t scare us dirty fucking retard Hippy anti-war Vietnam Veterans, it shouldn’t scare a decent person like you, either.
Talkingback: Give it up. We’re as likely to listen to your apologist revisionist propaganda as CSPAN has been all these years.
The question posed to you, by the way, was misunderstood by you. The question was whether you thought that GETTING RID OF HITLER in 1933 (which was the goal of the protesters) would have been a bad idea!
Think about it. WOULD IT?
Get stuffed, you Nazi loving douche bag.
My purpose is to put Hitler & Nazism in context. Nazism did not emerge out of the blue, and as R H S Stolfi argues compellingly, to merely label Hitler as “evil” and one dimensional is intellectually lazy, a mindless and visceral acceptance of propaganda rather than an objective assessment of the evidence and context.
Nobody “got rid of Hitler” in 1933; your question is meaningless.
As to your question, “So the boycott of Iran is not a good idea either?”
please explain precisely what offense Iran has committed that it should be sanctioned, and by what right the US, the Israel lobby in US, and Israel seek to cause the economic collapse of Iran.
Sanctions are economic warfare; the goal of sanctions on Iran is to so destabilize Iran’s civilian population that they will riot and overthrow their government.
Ed Royce stated this plainly in Sept 2007;
in June 2008, Ephraim Sneh told an AIPAC audience that “Iran’s nukes are not the problem, the regime is the problem. The Iranian people are incapable of changing the regime, so we must impose such harsh sanctions on Iran that its rulers will be forced to worry about how they will feed their 70 million people.”
in Oct 2011 Sen Mark Kirk told a Chicago radio audience, “It is okay to take food out of the mouths of innocent Iranian citizens.”
in Nov 2011 Rep Brad Sherman said, ““Critics [of the sanctions] argued that these measures will hurt the Iranian people. Quite frankly, we need to do just that.”
On Nov 18 2011 Charlie Rose, interviewing Mohammed Javad Larijani, asked him how bad Iran’s economy was; “I understand the people are having a hard time getting food,” Rose said.
in March 2012 Sanam Anderlini told a conference in Washington, DC that her relatives in Iran are suffering; children are unable to get the proper vitamins, and sick people are unable to get medicines that they need; shelves are bare in many place. She said “we Iranian Americans are frightened; you are the voice for 73 million people.”
Nima Shirazi is a far better writer than I; here is his assessment of sanctions on Iran: http://www.wideasleepinamerica.com/2012/03/inhumanity-of-iran-threat-rhetoric.html
The overall points I am trying to make are these:
Blockades have been used by the United States & its allies, in contravention of international norms, for the deliberate purpose of causing the civilian population to suffer and die, (in contravention of UN Sanctions against genocide); that the history of blockades/sanctions objectively understood reveals that in the event the goal of the sanctioners — to destabilize and topple the government — is achieved, a sanctioned/starved population is less likely to be able to form robust democratic political institutions.
I have been trying to demonstrate that such was the case in Germany; we know that was the case in Iraq; we are attempting to do the same thing to Iran.
Sanctions are, and have been, probably since the time of Ramses, an act of war whether formally declared or not, or a prelude to war. In the WWI era Communists spoke of “propaganda of the deed” as a wave of assassinations swept Europe. The United States has devised a means of ‘propagandizing the masses’ — by starving them.
Readers who are unwilling to consider the consequences of the starvation of 800,000 German civilians in 1915-1919 should at least call to mind that Americans deliberately caused the deaths of half a million Iraqi children, and we have our sights set on starving Iranians. It is immoral and illegal.
Gene H, I have to weigh in to thank you for a logical and rigorous dissection of the 65-year-old “self-defense” claim the Nazis tried to sell as they slunk away from the scene of their own destruction. It was all they had.
I must say that Talkingback’s position on this thread is ironic!
The way I see it:
Aggressor marks target and carries on about how bad target is;
Aggressor begins to threaten the ability of target to either live or escape;
Target tries to escape, fight back, or call for help;
Aggressor steps up the program while complaining about the behavior of the target, which Aggressor characterizes as a declaration of war or an attempt to kill Aggressor;
Target steps up defense;
Aggressor kills target, then complains that target made him do it by all that stepped-up resistance/defense/etc.
Hmmmmmmm…reminds me of the Zimmerman/Martin case!
Now perhaps I will better understand my responses to it. Thanks! [green smiley]
talkingbacktocspan:
so what you are saying is that getting rid of Hitler in 1933 was a bad idea?
What kind of crap are you selling?
So the boycott of Iran is not a good idea either? Are you a theocrat, a fascist or a national socialist?
here is one for you:
talkingbacktocspan,
You seem to have mistaken me for someone who takes someone apologizing for Nazis seriously, talkingbacktocspan.
However, the fact that you quote a von Mises publication in defending the Nazis is extremely funny to me. I’ve been saying for a long time that von Mises was an apologist for and promoter of corporatist fascism like the type practiced by Germany and Italy during WWII.
“Which is it; the US govt did or did not use the Creel commission to create WWI propaganda?”
Your question completely ignores the rest of my statement in another fine example of cherry picking. What I said was the CPI wasn’t the first time propaganda had been used by a government to stir up support for a war which contradicted your claim that it was.
“Did Jews declare war on Germany, yes or no?”
No. They declared an economic boycott on Germany, they being Rabbi Wise and the American Jewish Congress. You neglect to mention that this rally calling for an economic boycott was in direct response to Hitler being named Chancellor and was held over the express opposition of the State Department. Considering the antisemitic tide that the Nazis rode to power and the campaign of violence against German Jews, socialists, communists and other Nazi opponents that began in January of 1933 when Hitler took power and that on January 30, 1933 the Nazi regime declared a boycott on all Jewish businesses and products, it is hardly surprising that seven months later Jews might call for a boycott of German goods. However a boycott is not war and there was no Jewish state in 1933. Only states can declare war on other states. You are making a false equivalence. That is a logical fallacy and a form of lie.
“What casus belli supports this declaration of war?”
Moot. It wasn’t war. It was a boycott. That hyperbolic language may have been used is irrelevant. The AJC was not a state.
“What right does a non-state have to impose an existential threat/declare a state of war, on another sovereign state?”
If I ignore your loading the question with your false equivalence to war, a non-state group of people in this country have every right to call for an economic boycott of any damned country or organization they see fit. “Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” – that includes protesting and calling for boycotts. Deal with it.
“According to a Jewish chronicler of the events (Edwin Black), did the German people have reason to perceive the boycott as an ‘existential threat,’ yes or no?”
Do you still beat your wife? Loaded question and not worth addressing other than to note that Germany’s actual economic fear from a AJC boycott was only marginally more threatening than if the Boyscouts of America had boycotted Nazi Germany. The sanctions and embargo of the Allies were in place long before this ever happened and the proper cause of Germany’s economic malaise.
“Were the German people especially vulnerable to the ‘existential threat’ of a boycott, yes or no?”
No. What they were was capable of manipulation that a boycott was an actual threat due to the economic impoverishment they had endured in the intra-war period at the hands of the Allies sanctions. Again, Nazi propaganda at work demonizing “the Other” to justify their actions against Jews and other “undesirables”. The sanctions that caused Germany’s economic pain were caused by the Allied sanctions and blockade. Not the AJC. They were not signatories to the Treaty of Versailles.
There is no excuse for that the Nazis did.
None.
They took conditions that were admittedly harsh and blamed them on the Jews when it was the Allies who were responsible for Germany’s inability to economically recover after WWI. It’s called scapegoating and the Nazis did it to consolidate their local power base by giving them a focus for the free floating anger in the German populace and to steal property and create slave labor to fund and fuel their expansionist war of aggression. Anyone who would try to defend the Nazis is simply evil. That does mean you, by the way.
There are a couple of things you should know about me. I know the history leading up to both wars as well as the wars proper. Very well. I also personally know concentration camp survivors. I even had a relative who was part of the liberation force at Dachau. I learned my history not just from books but from people who were actually there. If you were actually in my house spouting this Nazi apologist nonsense of yours, I’d show you to the door and none too gently. Let me speak plainly so there is no misunderstanding. You might accidentally get your ass kicked on the way to curb.
So how about you start talking to your TV again, Herr Goebbels.
I’m not interested in anything you’re selling.
follow the evidence, Gene, not your emotions.
Banner headlines in international newspapers, placed after a conference of Jewish representatives from at least half a dozen countries, followed by protest marches in New York City over which the mayor presided, followed on shortly by rallies at Madison Square Garden, several internationally broadcast radio addresses (by Sam Untermyer), and at least two mock trials of the German state does not seem like “cherry picking.”
Perhaps it presents a body of evidence hitherto unknown, but the evidence is now readily accessible — see Erick Larson, “In the Garden of Beasts;” and below,
Richard Hawkins, “Samuel Untermyer: Hitler’s Bitterest Foe,” —
“What we are proposing and have already gone far toward doing, is
to prosecute a purely defensive economic boycott that will
undermine the Hitler regime and bring the German people to their
senses by destroying their export trade on which their very
existence depends.” [Untermyer WABC radio address from NYC, Aug 6 1933]
you wrote: “A non-existent state declared war on them!””
exhibit 1 http www dot jewsagainstzionism dot com slash zionism slash jewishwar.cfm
Did Jews declare war on Germany, yes or no?
What casus belli supports this declaration of war?
What right does a non-state have to impose an existential threat/declare a state of war, on another sovereign state?
According to a Jewish chronicler of the events (Edwin Black), did the German people have reason to perceive the boycott as an ‘existential threat,’ yes or no?
exhibit 2 http www dot jewishvirtuallibrary dot org/jsource/Holocaust/Black dot html
“The anti-Hitler protest movement culminated in a gigantic rally at Madison Square Garden on March 27, 1933, organized by Rabbi Wise and the American Jewish Congress. More than 55,000 protesters crammed into the Garden and surrounding streets. Simultaneous rallies were held in 70 other metropolitan areas in the U.S. and in Europe. Radio hookups broadcast the New York event to hundreds of cities throughout the world.
The boycott unnerved the Nazis, who believed that Jews wielded supernatural international economic power. They knew that in the past Jews had used boycotts effectively against Russian Czar Nicholas II to combat his persecution of Jews, and automaker Henry Ford to halt his anti-Semitic campaign. Whether or not this new boycott actually possessed the punishing power to crush the Reich economy was irrelevant; what mattered was that Germany perceived the Jewish-led boycott as the greatest threat to its survival–and reacted accordingly.
Relentless in exploiting the Nazis’ vulnerability, Rabbi Wise and the other boycott leaders were determined to form one cohesive international movement under the banner “Starve Germany into submission this winter.”
(the same point — that Germans had good reason to fear the crippling effectiveness of a boycott imposed by Jews — is elaborated in Edwin Black’s book, “The Transfer Agreement.”)
3. Were the German people especially vulnerable to the ‘existential threat’ of a boycott, yes or no?
exhibit 3.British Government reports on actions to impose a blockade; results of blockade:
http www dot nationalarchives dot gov dot uk/pathways/firstworldwar/spotlights/blockade dot htm
exhibit 4. The Politics of Hunger: Allied Blockade of Germany, 1915-1919 by C. Paul Vincent, Ohio University Press.
Emblematic study of the Allied blockade on Germany, including an argument supporting the thesis that malnourishment suffered by young children at the time of the blockade resulted in permanent physical and neurological deficits. Children who were ~6 years old during blockade were ~18 years old when Hitler came to power. The argument is that an entire cohort of young people were neurologically deficient, due to sustained malnourishment.
The very least conclusion a rational person might reach is that starving a population is more likely to produce a chaotic and unstable outcome than a ‘democratic’ outcome. In a climate in which increasingly severe sanctions are being imposed on Iran, it is essential that decision makers consider past evidence of imposed starvation to predict the likely outcome of deliberately destabilising a population.
exhibit 5. http libcom dot org/files/blockade%20Germany_0 dot pdf
Academic study of the social and political impact of blockade on ability of Germany to form political institutions (among other things)
“The Allied blockade policy against Germany continued after the signing of the armistice in November 1918. It had already contributed greatly to the reduction of the supplies of food from all sources of the Central Powers by over 50 per cent in the final year of the war. Its impact increased population loss and spread death and disease, as famine encroached upon the civilian populations of Central Europe. . . .From the end of the shooting war, which had
claimed three million military lives in Central Europe to the conclusion of
the state of hostilities, the continued food blockade brought about a quarter of a million additional deaths among the civilian population of Germany,within its post-1919 boundaries.”
Gene wrote both this: “Gene H. 1, May 22, 2012 at 12:56 pm
“But Gene failed to mention how zionists used propaganda, and he failed to mention the Creel Commission/CPI, the first instance in history of the use of propaganda by a government to generate war fervor. This is a stunning oversight. ”
I failed to mention it because it isn’t true”
[. . .]
and this:
“.The Creel Commission operated in WWI from April 13, 1917 to August 21, 1919.”
Which is it; the US govt did or did not use the Creel commission to create WWI propaganda?