Propaganda Techniques of German Fascism (1942)

[mogster]

Propaganda Techniques of German Fascism - Modern English Readings (1942)

Anonymous

"WHAT is truly vicious," observed The New York Times in an editorial, September 1, 1937, "is not propaganda but a monopoly of it." This monopoly is seen most clearly in totalitarian states where all channels of communication are controlled by the government. The extent to which the propaganda machinery of a country has been brought under the control of one organization or a group of related organizations is a useful measure of the degree to which absolutism dominates it, of the extent to which democracy has been eliminated.

(...)
The power of propaganda increases as its control becomes more centralized, as the trend to monopoly increases. In democratic countries this takes place when competing propagandists resolve their differences and agree upon one propaganda. This maneuver can be seen in amalgamations or agreements within political, economic, educational, and religious groups.

(...)

Name Calling

"Name Calling" is a device to make us form a judgment without examining the evidence on which it should be based. Here the propagandist appeals to our hate and fear.

Glittering Generalities

"Glittering Generalities" is a device by which the propagandist identifies his program with virtue by use of "virtue words." Here he appeals to our emotions of love, generosity, and brotherhood.

Transfer

"Transfer" is a device by which the propagandist carries over the authority, sanction, and prestige of something we respect and revere to something he would have us accept.
(...)
Something approaching deification of Chancellor Hitler is an outstanding example of this device. Nazi propagandists seek to establish him as a quasi-divinity and to transfer to him the religious feelings of the German people; then to transfer from him the "divine" sanction of the policies, practices, beliefs, and hatreds which he espouses.

Testimonial

The "Testimonial" is a device to make us accept anything from a patent medicine or a cigarette to a program of national policy.
(...)
From the fact that "the Führer knows the goal and knows the direction," it follows that his is the supreme testimonial. No authority and no judgment which does not follow from or accord with his can be right. No specialist knows better than he, no recommendation can be better than his. He can deny even the authority of science.

Plain Folks

"Plain Folks" is a device used by politicians, labor leaders, business men, and even by ministers and educators to win our confidence by appearing to be people like ourselves—"just plain folks among the neighbors."
(...)
At the same time that the Führer is canonized, an attempt is made to transform him into a "man of the people." In this, the propagandists are greatly assisted by his habits; for he affects ordinary clothes, wears no medals other than his simple Iron Cross, eats plain food and that sparingly, and leads a quiet, secluded life. He is pictured as a man of the people meeting plain Folks in their ordinary walks of life, enjoying with them their simple work and pleasures.
But as previously indicated, Hitler wields an almost hypnotic power over an audience as he rushes excitedly through a speech. The simplest peasant and the most untutored servant girl feel that he is talking directly to them.

Card Stacking

"Card Stacking" is a device in which the propagandist employs all the arts of deception to win our support for himself, his group, nation, race, policy, practice, belief, or ideal. He stacks the cards against the truth. He uses under-emphasis and over-emphasis to dodge issues and evade facts.
(...)
The misrepresentation of facts works in two ways. On the one hand there is a rigorously enforced censorship, backed by an elaborate spy system and the constant threat of concentration camps. By this means the régime can suppress facts, prevent discussion and expression of discontent and opposition. This largely accounts for the fact that many visitors on returning from Germany report that they heard no expression of discontent. On the other hand the régime has freedom to give publicity to falsehoods.

(...)

The Reichstag fire(34) on February 27, 1933, one week before the last free election in the Weimar Republic, affords an example of effective Card Stacking. The records of the trial following the fire establish clearly that the firing was planned and executed with finesse, that Communists were immediately accused of the act, that preparations had been made for the arrest of Communists before the fire-calls had been sounded, and that the evidence submitted by the National Socialists against the accused Communists did not stand in court. But none of the significant facts behind the fire was submitted, although foreign observers were convinced that both the National Socialists and the court knew what they were. The falsity of the charge that the Communists burned the Reichstag buildings was never told the German people.

Band Wagon

The "Band Wagon" is a device to make us follow the crowd, to accept the propagandist's program en masse. Here his theme is: "Everybody's doing it." His techniques range from those of medicine show to dramatic spectacle.

(...)

One of the great unifying principles adopted by the National Socialists is that of hate. Among the passages deleted from the English version of Mein Kampf, Hitler has written:(39)

"Hate is more lasting than dislike, and the thrusting power for the mightiest upheavals on this earth has at all times come less from scientific recognition than from a fanaticism that fills the souls of the masses and in a forward-driving hysteria" (vorwärtsjagenden Hysterie).

In accordance with this principle Jews, communists, liberals, and democrats, became objects of hatred and scapegoats which could be made to suffer for the people's distress. Unity is further encouraged by patriotic demonstrations, Typical in these are gigantic crowds of people, massed ranks of uniformed troops, bands playing patriotic and martial airs, voices declaiming from a hundred mechanical mouths, ecstatic marchers carrying flickering torches, their resinous smoke blending into the darkness, flags and swastikas everywhere.

http://www.maebrussell.com/Articles%20and%20Notes/German%20Propaganda.html

---------------------------

Excerpts from a 1942 article, seeing the nazism fresh as it happened.
Aren't there a lot of these techniques in use today? Isn't there a divinized, yet 'folksy' figure, good at connecting to the plain and simple people, that today makes out as president of the US?

I hope to get away with exceeding the quoting rules as this is old material from 1942.

[mike_c]

1. K&R-- fascism and its corporate propagandist tools are alive and well...

...in Amerika.

[Karenina]

2. Aided by technology in warp drive!

K&R

[mogster]

4. Yeah, but also good old mouthwork

Look at this quote:

A Canadian friend who has heard Hitler speak many times expresses succinctly the power of the Leader's eloquence or demagogy, whatever you may call it.

"I could listen to Hitler talk for an hour on one side of a subject," he says, "and then if he turned around and for the next hour directly contradicted everything he had previously said, I would follow him and believe him. That is what I think of Hitler's persuasive powers! If he can get me that way, how much more can he get the German audiences?
"This evening Hitler . . . swayed that audience as I have never seen any audience swayed before or since. He did not mention Hindenburg by name, but one of his perorations went something like this:
" 'Certain parties are contending for the right to guide the destinies of the German people. Certain leaders . . . one of them is eighty-six; the other is forty-three. Which do you think is likely to survive to guide the destinies of our race?'
". . . He could play with that audience just as he wished. As I looked down at the sea of faces from the platform, the 30,000 in the auditorium seemed to be subjects of mass hypnotism."
-------------

We see Bush as critical thinking people see him, but fail to see or (mis)underestimate his quality as a folksy, yet divine, speaker.
His supposed dumbness is a weapon, a two-edged weapon, because it 'helps' simple people to like him and at the same time deflects our attention from the more serious agenda behind, which we subscribe to his dumbness.

[SlavesandBulldozers]

5. exactly.

his stupidity is marketed as a strength, and lapped up by the stupid.

Which is why when you read his quotes to believers, they laugh right along with the stupidity.

It's like the fucking twilight zone to the critical thinker.

[me b zola]

22. "certain parties" "certain leaders"

We hear that exact same strawman speaking today as the voice of the gop. :scared:

[cosmicdot]

41. "You Have To Keep Repeating Things To Catapult The Propaganda"

spoken by The Decider

[Selatius]

3. Our fascism is more sophisticated

Our corporatists (aka fascists) are more subtle. Instead of having the news media run by the state; it's run by the corporations instead. This is done to shield against charges of authoritarianism. How could one say we live in an authoritarian super-state if the sources of news are not controlled by the government? How could one level that claim if there are still elections and opposition parties (in our case, party) in power?

By having the facade of democracy in place, it is easier to convince people they are free when they are living in the shadow of authoritarianism.

Everything else aside, the basic formula is the same: A merger of state and corporate power. People are chattel here.

[TheCentepedeShoes]

6. K & R

This sounds all too familiar of late. Thanks:hi:

[Joanne98]

7. Wow! Ann Coulter is really old!

[madmusic]

25. So is O'Liely!

[glitch]

8. Good reminder. Everybody should remember these techniques so they

can spot them. Once they do they'll see them in use all over the place. Very simplisticly and blatantly too. Kind of depressing, but also empowering.

[ms liberty]

9. Excellent find - Thanks for posting! K&R n/t

[redacted]

10. Topic explored IN DETAIL in the new documentary "Terrorstorm"

which everyone on DU should watch ASAP. Get it free at Google Video. It's excellent.

There's a fascinating sequence in which a British shopgirl says she thinks it's OK for us "to give up some of our freedom in exchange for liberty." Doublespeak parroted back 100 percent, just like the Blair government wants.

[IChing]

11. Well done, nominated

Steve Biko

"The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor
is the mind of the oppressed."

[tuvor]

12. Not limited only to fascist propaganda.

This post flashed me back to my high school media studies course when we focused on advertising techniques.

[Heywood J]

34. You're not the only one...

It's also interesting how fascism was basically selling a product, and how political candidates are sold.

[sofa king]

13. Newt G's glittering generalities and name-calling words

http://www.propagandacritic.com/articles/examples.newtglitter.html

http://www.propagandacritic.com/articles/examples.newtnamecall.html

The ironic part to me is that now that the Gingrich revolution has borne its mephitic, poisonous fruit, I find that the Republican party espouses many if not most of Gingrich's name-calling words, and probably always did. Sadly, most of these words now also can be applied to America as a whole. Check 'em:

* "Compassion" is not enough.
* Anti-(issue) flag, family, child, jobs
* Betray
* Coercion
* Collapse
* Consequences
* Corruption
* Crisis
* Decay
* Deeper
* Destroy
* Destructive
* Devour
* Endanger
* Failure
* Greed
* Hypocrisy
* Ideological
* Impose
* Incompetent
* Insecure
* Liberal
* Lie
* Limit(s)
* Pathetic
* Permissive attitude
* Radical
* Self-serving
* Sensationalists
* Shallow
* Sick
* They/them
* Threaten
* Traitors
* Unionized bureaucracy
* Urgent
* Waste

[seemslikeadream]

14. "Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Fuhrer, ein Volk"

One People, one Empire, one Leader, one People



One Hope, One people, One country, One leader.
One Hope, One people, One country, One destiny.

Stand up be brave my people we're here to stay, for a thousand years.
An oath you've spoken, can never be broken, you'll pay, in blood and tears
Never tire, never doubt, never falter, never slacken, Just believe in me.
Stand up, shout loud, stand proud, in what we will we will achieve.

One Hope, One people, One country, One leader will set you free
One Hope, One people, One country, One destiny for a thousand years

Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Furher, Ein Volk,
Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Furher, Ein Volk,
Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Furher, Ein Volk,
Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Furher, Ein Volk.

It's not enough just to say you love your country, its not enough.
It's not enough to get down on your knees and pray, it's just not enough.

The price is high, the price you have to pay is your freedom, surrender yourselves.
Mothers send me your blue-eyed blonde-haired boys and let me see them, blue-eyed blonde-haired boys.

One Hope, One people, One country, One leader will set you free.
One Hope, One people, One country, One destiny for a thousand years.

Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Furher, Ein Volk,
Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Furher, Ein Volk,
Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Furher, Ein Volk,
Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Furher, Ein Volk,
Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Furher, Ein Volk,
Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Furher, Ein Volk,
Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Furher, Ein Volk,
Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Furher, Ein Volk.

One Hope, One people, One country, One leader will set you free
One Hope, One people, One country, One destiny for a thousand years.

Stand up be brave my people we're here to stay, for a thousand years.

The New Road to Serfdom
http://www.crisispapers.org/guests/serfdom.htm

[rosesaylavee]

15. Very interesting as it does sound like what we have today...

How can we get the media back? How are we going to do that? We need independent news sources to come into prominence soon or it will be too late. Watched a program from UK this morning - the speaker was talking about the corporate media there. I hadn't considered that it was anything other than a USA problem... what can we do?

[Beetwasher]

19. The Internet Is Becoming The Pre-Eminent Source of Information

Thankfully. People are starting to get their information directly now, and that's a good thing. I say, fuck the traditional media, we will be and are going around them. For the most part the TM is a lost cause-not totally, and that's not to say we should give up trying to reform what we can, we should continue to do so, but MORE energy should go into protecting the internet and the free flow of and direct access to the information it provides because the gov't is now starting to do their best to try and control the internet. That is why their efforts to do so must be stopped w/ as much energy as we can muster.

And that, my friend, is why DU is so important! We ARE the NEW media and in a very real way, we may in fact be a part of (at least) the solution to the bigger problem of these not-so-nascent-anymore neo-facists.

[DoYouEverWonder]

28. This is the one thing they didn't plan for

I don't think they could even imagine that 1000's of people would be willing to collect and disseminate information for free in real time all around the world.

If it wasn't for the Internet I am willing to bet that the US would be a military state at this point. That was BushCo's ultimate plan.

[Beetwasher]

37. It Certainly Makes Their "Job" More Difficult

Whether or not we'd be a military state already, I couldn't really guess. In many ways the technology has also sped up THEIR abilitiy to do what they want. :shrug: Who knows?

[DoYouEverWonder]

38. They tried to pull it off during Katrina

but too many people were screaming about what was going down for them to get away with it. If this had happened 10-20 years earlier it would have been another story entirely. Instead of launching a rescue and relief mission, Bush launched a military response. The M$M was working overtime to convince us that hoards of dangerous refugees were heading our way. Fortunately, we were able to counter balance their lies and to prevent them from fully implementing their plans.

[nolabels]

50. I mostly only get my information from the INTERNETS nowadays

It is just so way ahead of everything else.

[me b zola]

24. I don't know the answer

Years ago such an unpopular PM would have been given a vote of no-confidence in the UK, yet Blair continues to hold on to power.

Fox news has invaded Canada, and subsequently they have elected a neo-con bush* boot-licker as PM. Now they are talking about replacing universal health care with privatized health care.

This is part of the global domination espoused by PNAC. While their more outragious foriegn policies (war of aggression on Iraq, weapons sales to other ME countries, etc..) get all of the attention, they are quietly going about changing the political landscape of other western countries with their corporate domination world view. Upthread SLaD has it right--global serfdom is their goal. Taking over the media, as they did here, is a tool to acheive their goal.

[Heywood J]

36. Ahem

Fox news has invaded Canada, and subsequently they have elected a neo-con bush* boot-licker as PM. Now they are talking about replacing universal health care with privatized health care.

The number of people I know who subscribe to Fox specifically is negligible. Actually, the broadcasts have come over the air from border affiliates since the network's inception. Unless you're going to claim that we've been infiltrated all this time and didn't even know it, I can't say Fox is responsible for Harper in any way. Nor has the rest of the media tilted anywhere near the media in the US. The Toronto Sun is the only paper I can think of that might even be construed as pro-Bush. It's quite fashionable here to bash the moron.

The reason Harper's there is pretty much that he wasn't Paul Martin. We switched out one crooked, incompetent thief for someone whose only virtue was that he hadn't yet had a chance to do that himself. He's not there because anyone really wanted to be more like Bush.

In the meantime, no one has seriously proposed eliminating social medicine, other than a few Albertans. Outside that province, it's a sacred cow and I can't imagine anyone would dare touch it for fear of electoral suicide.

[me b zola]

46. "It can't happen here"

Uh-huh. Do you think that bush* appeared out of a vaccuum? The neo-cons have been laying their ground work for 50 years or so. Every incremental change that they made went virtually un-noticed or at least was under-appreciated for their detrimental effects that they would have on our constitutional democracy.

There are several DUers whose journals I recommend to understand the history of how we have gotten to where we are. Begin with Octafish, his journal will lead you to other sources of information. Understanding how it happened here could help you to recognize rw/corporate shifts in your neck of the woods. Most Canadians may say that Harper wasn't chosen because he was a bush* boot-licker, but isn't it strange that that's what you ended up with? All I can say is that it creeps up on you.

[redacted]

40. What program was that and where can we find it? Link please?

[rosesaylavee]

42. Here is the link to the UK program and the orig thread...

http://www.brasscheck.com/videos/oil/oil1.html

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x1980509

The video is long but worth watching all the way thru.

[redacted]

44. GREAT! Thank you rosesaylavee!

You Rock! :headbang: :headbang: :headbang:

[rosesaylavee]

45. I thought that was one of the most

interesting videos I have found here on DU. Glad you liked it too.

[JohnyCanuck]

16. Brainwashing America

Brainwashing America by Dr. Norman Livergood (a former dept. head at the US Army War College)

The puppet Bush regime is using new, aggressive forms of brainwashing to change the very way Americans think and feel.

This is the psychological dimension of the demonic cabal's general onslaught against American workers, just as the "war on terrorism" is the military dimension and corporate crime and tax cuts for the rich comprise the economic dimension.

We are living under the beginning stages of a military dictatorship in precisely the same way that 1930s Germans suffered under the Nazi regime.

As in the case of Nazi Germany, state-sponsored propaganda (brainwashing) is a vital part of the Bush regime's strategy.


New propaganda slogans are being overtly and subliminally implanted by Bush and his gang through their speeches and actions:

* Dissent is treason

* Constitutional liberties are less important than security

* The "war on terrorism" excuses any attack on civil liberties

* The Bush administration has the right and the duty to bring about "regime change" in any nation it chooses

http://www.hermes-press.com/brainwash1.htm

[Cleita]

17. Excellent post!

Now with your permission we need to mail copies of this to all news outlets, news anchors and reporters, as well as the executives of these corporate outlets.

Here's a link that outlines who owns what in the media:

http://la.indymedia.org/news/2003/04/47530.php

The link is from 2003 so some of is dated, but I think it's still helpful.

[Beetwasher]

18. I've Done A Fair Amount Of Research on Propoganda Techniques

More specifically on Nazi propoganda, and I remember reading this article before (actually numerous times). It's a terrific piece and the parallels are frightening and stunning! Of course, this was back in college so it's been a while since I've read it, but it has stayed w/ me ever since. Back when I was doing my research (early 90's), this country was quite a different place and the parallels were much, much less pronounced. Now it is alarming.

I'm glad you found this and posted it! I remember it well and it's very poignant.

[Sapphocrat]

20. Ironic you should post this today, as I just ran across this again:

I shall give a propagandist reason for starting the war, never mind whether it will be plausible or not. The victor will not be asked afterwards whether he told the truth or not. In starting and waging a war it is not right that matters, but victory!

— Adolf Hitler, today (August 26), 1939


Excellent OP -- K, R, & bookmarked.

[Swamp Rat]

21. Is it fascism yet?

[txaslftist]

23. Moslems aren't fit to be Americans....

...That's something I heard on the G Gordon Liddy radio show. I was stunned, because it was transparently similar to what the German propaganda guys said about the Jews. The exact "question" posed by Liddy was, "Can a person be a good muslim and also a good american?" His conclusion and that of his bevy of bootlicking callers was "no". The muslim, it was reasoned, had to be loyal to the Khoran, and therefore couldn't be loyal to the USA's priniciples.

It was exactly what the Germans said about the Jews, except substitute Moslem for Jew and Torah/Talmud for Khoran.

This post is exactly what is going on. It is fascist race baiting based on Nazi principles.

Wake up America.

[SoCalDem]

26. These people do not grasp a fundamental of immigration

Once someone is here, they are unlikely to leave..and they ae free to continue to hold ties to their former homeland.. This is what freaks racists out..

As long as a group of immigrants "looks american" and loses their accent, they are embraced...but if they have an accent or "look foreign", they will NEVER be fully accepted as Americans, except in times of peace & plenty..

As soon as there is any strife, they immediately become the scapegoats :(

[wiley]

33. Muslims. I don't think there are any Black Moslems anymore.

This is all from the old Bush family playbook.

[bleever]

27. Excellent post.

Fascinating and frightening, to see the similarity between the tactics described and those currently being used.

[stepnw1f]

29. Excellent Post (nt)

[bobthedrummer]

30. Today we have perception management in the context of strategic

influence (the programs of the closed OSP continued) from a unitary executive whose inner circle are universal fascists.

Here's a archived thread from January about how reality is ignored by the decider's administration.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x71919#top

[havocmom]

31. And all taught by Newt to neocons entering politics

Anybody with access to old copies of New Yorker Magazine would learn a lot about the neocons from a bio of Newt that journal did. Think it was fall of 94 or 95.

Newt teaches the Nazi propaganda methods. He does it well. NEVER forget Newt brought a lot of this down on America with his efforts. He is rearing his ugly head again. Watch for him.

[niallmac]

32. Why can't the DNC edumacate the masses about this?

Spend enough money so some light bulbs go off in the heads of
the misguided blue collar republicans. If you're a blue collar
republican your Someone Against the People.
A SAP.

[Hubert Flottz]

35. Ivy Lee and Hitler...

Ivy Lee's work included meeting with Hitler himself, and foreshadows the subsequent growth of a literal dictators' lobby in Washington.

http://www.prwatch.org/prwissues/1996Q4/ewen.html

WHO IS IVY LEE?

??????????????????

The Ludlow Massacre and the Birth of Company Unions
By Stephen Millies, in Workers World,
26 January, 1995

"God gave me my money."

snip...


SPIN DOCTOR TO THE RESCUE

The Mine Workers' strike against Colorado Fuel and Iron was crushed. But Rockefeller's son--John D. Rockefeller Jr.--knew that slicker and more effective methods--were needed to maintain the rule of the capitalist class.

Ivy Lee, one of the founders of public relations, became a member of the Rockefeller stable.

Lee put out bulletins claiming that the two women and 11 children died because of an overturned stove, not because of the Colorado militia's gunfire.

Upton Sinclair, author of "The Jungle," called this well-paid hack "Poison Ivy." Poet Carl Sandburg said Lee was "below the level of the hired gunman." MORE

http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45b/030.html

Propaganda: Then and Now

snip...

Goebbels, the mastermind of the Nazi propaganda machine was said to have read the publications of the Institute for Propaganda Analysis and carefully studied the techniques used by Madison Avenue.

http://www.swans.com/library/art7/ga120.html

[wiley]

39. Control equals Power equals Republican Corruption

It's all about all media feeding the interests of corporations, and itself. The first response to 9/11 was about the disruption of consumerism and commerce. It's still about dependence on oil and maintenance of the "business class" as the power brokers in this country, and in other countries as well. This is what Capitalism without integrity, honesty or restraint looks like. When the core principles of a business are superceded by the dictate to make money by any means necessary, including through the control and manipulation of local governments and their interests, you can't blame blue collar (whatever that means today) workers.

If you're talking about people who really have no control over what happens in their lives because a business interest with money will trump their ability to self determination, then striking a very conservative, religion based or justified stance is the only control that many people have over any aspect of their lives. It's a stop-gap measure adopted by many Americans for different reasons, primarily to create the belief that there is a space they can call their own. Tragic when out of the blue the effects of the ruling class policies leave their children dead from lack of access to health care or fighting in a war based on securing more revenue for the ruling class.

Other Americans have such total disgust and distrust of the ability of government to create and maintain a level playing field on which they can exercise their first amendment rights that they form other groups which they believe will allow them to do so without government interference (or with its' help if they can vote them in). Wealthy Republicans have been brilliant at creating fictitious government mandated plots that would force people to accept laws that are contrary to their basic beliefs or core values. They espouse lowest common denominator beliefs consistent with the notions of Christianity or conservative Judaism or American traditions, for example. So it becomes a moral imperative for the non-ruling class to fight for their values or even just traditions, while the Republican ruling class controls and manipulates the resources of the country to continue to profit and control decisions - not to benefit the people or the country.

The Rovian,Nazi-like techniques are used to ensure that people can't think their way through the fact that their leaders are corrupt, shameless, power hungry people who really could not care less about a few thousand deaths here and there to maintain this system of control. The media is complicit (and a source of revenue) and functions to marginalize or suppress those who would argue that the freedom and love of country that is stated by the Republicans is anything but Democracy.

[savemefromdumbya]

43. Goebbels used to lock in theatre-goers so they could see his propaganda

Fox isn't quite there yet?

[The Gunslinger]

47. this administration is 7 for 7

[mogster]

48. Oi, thanks for the votes everybody!

I went away yesterday, so I didn't follow up on this thread.
Thanks again, it's important to see the previous instances of organized lies to decipher what happens today.

Some notes on the most important quote:
"WHAT is truly vicious," observed The New York Times in an editorial, September 1, 1937, "is not propaganda but a monopoly of it."

And I would add; "The way it is refined and turned into a science, without limitations or consideration."

To be honest, several of the techniques are in daily use by all politicians, not only neo-cons. And the article author shrewdly saw the connection between ordinary commercials and propaganda in his referrance to the 'testimonial for cigs or a patent medicine'.

It is the monopoly of propaganda that makes it dangerous, not necessary all the items or methods used. Presidents have been seen as - and connected with - plain and simple folks before, and yet turned out to be perfect democrats.

It is the intent to deceive people in combination with the audacity to lie so big that nobody dares question the lie, and at the same time intimidate or ridicule (or right out kill/imprison) the people trying to get an alternative view of events across, that makes the propaganda evil and dangerous.

[nolabels]

49. These are the threads to bookmark so one can read them over and over

Thank you for posting it :hi:

[mogster]

52. Thanks, nolabels

:hi:

Look at these two quotes from different types of media, from May 2004:

BBC:
"We need to work out for ourselves what matters and what is just spin, public relations or chaff.
It is the BBC's job to look at news with a fresh pair of eyes - and not to be driven by the agendas and interests of newspapers, pressure groups, political parties or governments."

A 'journalist' at National Review:
"At home, give helpful stories to friendly journalists and sympathetic news outlets. Many of us in the commentariat want Operation Iraqi Freedom to succeed. We do not share the satisfaction that too many liberal journalists seem to take in seeing America mired in Iraq. And yet, rather than help us make arguments that, more or less, would advance administration policies, we beg for facts and figures that never materialize or find exclusives handed to the New York Times and other organizations that aim carefully before kicking each tooth down the administration's collective throat. Team Bush has potential friends in the press corps, yet it has done little in four years to cultivate them."

I collected these in my diary at the time, but didn't keep the links. It tells a lot about what media have become.

[nolabels]

53. Propaganda is fun in many ways

Flipping it over and figuring out what they are trying to hide just tells so much of what they are really about.

If one is willing to let go of all the things they have been told and just use common logic things start looking so much more obvious.


Mission: Defraud,Desecrate,Derail, Destroy,Defame,Degrade,Defile,Depress
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=1777432

You've been indoctrinated into a Psychological Civil War
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=606496

Of these 23 Brainwashing & Mind Control Techniques
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=1788527

[Hubert Flottz]

51. Mein Kampf

Volume One - A Reckoning
Chapter VI: War Propaganda

snip...

The function of propaganda does not lie in the scientific training of the individual, but in calling the masses' attention to certain facts, processes, necessities, etc., whose significance is thus for the first time placed within their field of vision.

The whole art consists in doing this so skillfully that everyone will be convinced that the fact is real, the process necessary, the necessity correct, etc. But since propaganda is not and cannot be the necessity in itself, since its function, like the poster, consists in attracting the attention of the crowd, and not in educating those who are already educated or who are striving after education and knowledge, its effect for the most part must be aimed at the emotions and only to a very limited degree at the so-called intellect.

All propaganda must be popular and its intellectual level must be adjusted to the most limited intelligence among those it is addressed to. Consequently, the greater the mass it is intended to reach, the lower its purely intellectual level will have to be. But if, as in propaganda for sticking out a war, the aim is to influence a whole people, we must avoid excessive intellectual demands on our public, and too much caution cannot be exerted in this direction.

The more modest its intellectual ballast, the more exclusively it takes into consideration the emotions of the masses, the more effective it will be. And this is the best proof of the soundness or unsoundness of a propaganda campaign, and not success in pleasing a few scholars or young aesthetes. More...

http://www.hitler.org/writings/Mein_Kampf/mkv1ch06.html

Hitler knew all about the power of propaganda very early on. This book, in hindsight, is Chilling, but I wonder how people looked at this twisted man's ideas, before the world saw what they would lead to?

[bobthedrummer]

54. There are "war games" in the vicinity of Iran that began this month.

Meanwhile the UN is still gathering a force to go into Lebanon.

Instead of hearing about them we've got Mr. Karr, an ABC perception management job on 9/11 and the Clinton administration, Katrina, and other distractions.

Iran "war games"
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=WES20060826&articleId=3076

Russia, China and their regional allies "war games"
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=CHO20060824&articleId=3056

Using the fascist techniques of propaganda in the 21st century is selective and often involves silence, omission and distraction.

"War games"...

[bobthedrummer]

55. kick

[omega minimo]

56. Shades of Ronald Reagan

[myrna minx]

57. Excellent. n/t

[bobthedrummer]

58. kick