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Propaganda

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Discussion, analysis and deconstruction of propaganda, spin, public relations, marketing, disinformation and psyops: its use and abuse and you.

Website: http://www.propagandacritic.com/
Location: Earth
Members: 88
Latest Activity: Nov 6, 2012

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Postcards from the Ministry of Truth

PROPAGANDA

prop⋅a⋅gan⋅da [prop-uh-gan-duh] /ˌprɒpəˈgændə/ –noun; 1. information, ideas, or rumors deliberately spread widely to help or harm a person, group, movement, institution, nation, etc. 2. the deliberate spreading of such information, rumors, etc. 3. the particular doctrines or principles propagated by an organization or movement. 4. Roman Catholic Church. a. a committee of cardinals, established in 1622 by Pope Gregory XV, having supervision over foreign missions and the training of priests for these missions. b. a school (College of Propaganda) established by Pope Urban VIII for the education of priests for foreign missions. 5. Archaic. an organization or movement for the spreading of propaganda. Origin: 1710–20; < NL, short for congregātiō dē propāgandā fidē congregation for propagating the faith; propāgandā, abl. sing. fem. gerundive of propāgāre

“See in my line of work, you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda.” -- George W. Bush to students in Rochester New York on May 24, 2005

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.” -- Joseph Goebels

“He who controls the present, controls the past. He who controls the past, controls the future.” -- George Orwell

"Propaganda does not deceive people; it merely helps them to deceive themselves." -- Eric Hoffer

"Terrorism is in good part an effective government propaganda; it serves to deflect attention from governmental abuse toward a mostly imagined, highly dangerous outside enemy." -- Mark Poster

"The orchestration of press, radio and television to create a continuous, lasting and total environment renders the influence of propaganda virtually unnoticed precisely because it creates a constant environment." -- Jacques Ellul

"Why is propaganda so much more successful when it stirs up hatred than when it tries to stir up friendly feeling?" -- Bertrand Russell

[For the reality challenged, the last two posters are parody]

Propaganda Tools

Bullfighter: The rumors were true. Bullshit now has a number. And you now have the power to calculate it, using the freeware** originally produced by Deloitte Consulting but now distributed as a standalone product.
A neat plugin for MS Office that analyses theistic, corporate and political rhetoric for bullshit.

SpinSpotter: A relatively new browser extension for IE 7 and Firefox. Sort of like StumbleUpon in theory - rests entirely on a user community feeding back spin and disinformation to the SpinSpotter database, then scanning your web content for correlations. May develop into a useful tool. Or maybe it won't. Only one way to find out.

Propaganda Online Resources

Fact Check: A site that monitors the factual accuracy of things said by U.S. politicians (thanks cj the cynic)

Snopes: Not just an urban legend archive - its a valuable resource for all manner of information abuse. If you read something and it smells funny, this is a good place to start.

Center for Media and Democracy: [about][SourceWatch][FrontGroups]

Iron Chariots - Counter-apologetics: Logical Fallacies Reference [IronChariots.org][Wikipedia]

Discussion Forum

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Comment by Фелч Гроган on February 24, 2009 at 11:01pm: Dallas, that deserves a topic in its own right.

Comment by Dallas the Phallus on February 24, 2009 at 12:34pm: An Eye For An Eye

What if the ads you're watching are watching you back? A company called Quividi designs software that allows advertisers to guess your age and gender using tiny cameras inserted into billboards and video displays. Quividi's chief scientific officer Paolo Prandoni explains how the ads work.

Comment by Shlarg on February 24, 2009 at 10:09am: Agreed.

Comment by Фелч Гроган on February 23, 2009 at 6:53pm: Shlarg, before you posit disproportionate reality abuse to the right, you'd do well to consider PETA, Greenpeace, Andrea Dworkin, Catharine MacKinnon, Louis Farrakhan etc. etc.

This is a filthy art and it has more to do with basic human nature than political affiliation.

Comment by Фелч Гроган on February 23, 2009 at 6:40pm: Hi folks,

Rather than clutter up the wall with graphics, please post them here -

Political / Military

Theistic

Marketing

I have copied what's below over.

Comment by Dallas the Phallus on February 23, 2009 at 10:29am: Shlarg, I think both sides are prone to propaganda and exaggeration, but the right is much more shameless, and less founded in reality.

Comment by Shlarg on February 23, 2009 at 10:12am: Right wing conservative radio talk shows are propaganda in my opinion. Left wing radio talk shows may be also. Don't know. We get none of those here in SW Ohio.
How about FOX and MSNBC?

Comment by cj the cynic on February 23, 2009 at 10:00am

Comment by Фелч Гроган on February 23, 2009 at 9:48am: Welcome folks. Propaganda gets nowhere near the attention it should, and it affects us rather a lot more than most other people.

Hail Satan ! Pass the late term abortion pate...