Oh! Now I understand...
When I heard segments of the Republican National Convention--especially the speeches of Zell Miller and Dick Cheney and the Ronald-Reagan-Saved-My-Life testimonials--they made me wonder "why are they talking like that?" Miller was extremely repetitive; Cheney was much more measured and careful than usual and didn't swear at other senators under his breath; the testimonials seemed silly--of course Reagan himself had little to do personally with various people "getting ahead." He just happened to be president.
So I didn't get it at first. But then I stumbled across a helpful historical document that I thought I should share with you. It helped me make sense of the whole thing.
Guidelines for Propaganda
To introduce propaganda, we begin with the most important passages from our Fuhrer Adolf Hitler's book Mein Kampf. In Chapter 6 titled "War Propaganda," he writes: "Propaganda is a means and must be evaluated as such, from the standpoint of the goal." "It has always to speak only to the masses." "The task of propaganda lies not in the scientific training of the individual, rather in drawing the attention of the masses to certain facts, events, necessities, etc...." "It is wrong to want to give propaganda the multi-sidedness of scientific instruction." "...Effective propaganda must limit its points of a few and these points must be repeated until even the last member of the audience understands what is meant by them." "It must limit itself to a few themes and repeat them incessantly." "Each change must never affect the content of propaganda, rather must always draw the same conclusions." The Fuhrer wrote these words as a judgment about war propaganda, and they are even more true today than they were then. The only difference today for us National Socialists is that we are not propagandizing lies and untruths as England did during the War, rather we are preaching freedom and prosperity, socialism and patriotism to our confused people. Our struggle and our propaganda have one supreme principle: to take truth and only truth as the foundation of our propaganda.
Source: Propaganda Abteilung, Propaganda (Munich: Reichs-Parteileitung der N.S.D.A.P., 1927).
posted by e at 1:03 AM
3 Comments:
Yeah. I was beyond non-plussed. I was minused.
Zell Miller made a mystifying comment that went something like: "How dare the Democrats dishonor our boys in Iraq and Afghanistan by trying to tear down our Commander and Chief in a time of war?"
Um, like, run an campaign? I suppose they should just concede, or at least offer to put off the election -- and maybe the constitution -- indefinitely until Bush's 'War on Terr' has been won?
I dunno. The whole thing definitely didn't appeal to me.
The fact remains, though, that Kerry/Edwards are both rabidly pro-abortion, which makes them as apalling and disgusting as Bush/Cheney who are rabidly anti-life in so many other spheres.
I think it sucks.
if we're going to get really post-modern about it (and I'm not suggesting we should), then the language framed by the powerful is--at least in a sense--the lingua franca. in other words, we all will speak the language of the powerful eventually because they have power and we don't.
i'm not sure i buy that argument, but i do think it's interesting that the nazis hit upon the same idea and used it with devastating effectiveness throughout the 1930s and 40s. we think that because there is not blatant racism in america today that we're not subject to the same "might makes right" propaganda.
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