From theory, action.

"… well being, happiness, work that is well paid and satisfying, and the enjoyment of all types of advantages for those who live in the Marxist paradise. … reality is, nevertheless, very different. … the shortages in the production of goods and the low material and spiritual level of [society], the situation of women and children is dramatic and frankly tragic. … Russian women are to carry out tasks that are extraordinarily hard for them, ones which no civilized country makes people of their sex perform. … don’t worry about women’s lower [than men’s] physical resistance … [women are made to work in] highway [construction] or heavy work on the trains or preparing the fields for cultivation. … women’s physical makeup is not made for these tasks. … [women] have to leave their homes for many hours, leaving their children with other people or with State functionaries. … [Communist women cannot] dedicate themselves to the care and education of their children, who are taught to inform and spy on their parents. Do the women of this country want this paradise for themselves and their families?"

—

Anti-Communist propaganda used by the CIA in the 1964 Chilean election, which saw Allende narrowly defeated for Presidency by the Democratic Christian candidate Frei Montalva.

Quotes taken from:

Power, M. (2008) The Engendering of Anticommunism and Fear in Chile’s 1964 Presidential Election. Diplomatic History, 32(5), pp.931–953.

5 notes

Posted at 5:19 PM - January 19, 2013.

[women] [communism] [anti-communism] [propaganda]

(Source: steve616)

30 notes

Posted at 3:53 PM - May 23, 2012. source.

[propaganda] [Superman] [Red Son]

¡Viva la revolución!: Olympics torch relay keeps Hitler's Nazi flame burning

marxistromanticist:

The Olympic torch 70-day relay across Britain is being heralded as a moment for celebration.

The International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge said the relay will “promote peace and to make our world a better place”.

There’s just one problem with that—the modern torch relay was invented as a Nazi propaganda tool.

A flame was lit during the ancient Greek Olympics—but it didn’t move.The idea of a relay was dreamed up for the infamous 1936 Berlin Olympics.

Adolf Hitler wanted to link his Nazi Reich with ancient Greece. Alongside propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels, Hitler thought a bit of classical mythology was exactly what was needed.

They saw the 1936 Olympics as a way of spreading their racist message. And few aspects of the games achieved that better than the torch relay.

Torches and flames had a strong link to Nazi ideology. Footage from the relay was a key part of Leni Riefenstahl’s Nazi propaganda documentary Olympia.

The torch made its way to Germany through Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Hungary, Austria and Czechoslovakia to Berlin. Before long Hitler’s troops made the same journey in reverse.

Still, these days the Olympic torch relay is just a bit of fun, right? Not for Simon Moore, who was slapped with an “Olympics Asbo” after protesting to defend Leyton Marsh in east London from Olympics-related construction.

He’ll be forced to keep a close eye on where the torch is going—because he’s been banned from standing within 100 yards of its entire route.

Finally, you may remember the £250 million glass-roofed entrance hall to MPs’ parliamentary offices. You know, the one with indoor fig trees rented at our expense for a new bargain price of £18,500 a year.

It’s about to get a new addition—a huge screen for MPs to watch the Olympics on.
Five Olympic facts

The Olympics will cost an estimated £11 billion—more than the Tories’ latest cut to the welfare budget
£500 million has gone on the stadium alone. Even the rubbish London 2012 logo cost £400,000
Tickets for the best seats at the opening ceremony cost £2,012
A pain-inducing “sound cannon” is being deployed as part of the security operation
The site will include the world’s biggest ever McDonald’s. Will the athletes be eating there?

(Source: eatthebourgouisie)

8 notes

Posted at 12:43 PM - May 22, 2012. source.

[1936] [2012] [austerity] [berlin] [london] [nazi] [olympics] [propaganda] [torch] [capitalism]

malinkibear:

Don’t mind me, just being an awesome poster

40 notes

Posted at 3:52 PM - April 01, 2012. source.

[I have this on my wall] [propaganda] [soviet] [bolshevik]

“Either Death to Capitalism or Death Under the Heels of Capitalism”

- Deni, Viktor

If any Russian speakers want to double check the translation on that … click through is a link to the source.

30 notes

Posted at 4:24 AM - March 29, 2012.

[capitalism] [socialism] [communism] [propaganda] [workers] [politics]

Lest We Forget

johnnydib:

November 11 is remembrance day, remembering the war to end all wars, in which a third of all casualties were civilians. It was followed after 30 years by a war in which a half of all casualties were civilians. 20 years later Vietnam 75%+ of casualties are civilians. Vietnam is just one of many of the “cold war” era conflicts, that saw similar proportions of non-combatants dying and getting injured. In the 21st century we had more than 1 war in which 90%+ of casualties were civilian. November 11 is not the day we celebrate winning World War I. It is the day we contemplate its atrocities, and vow not to repeat them. If we celebrate anything it is the “civilizing” effect the war had on us, we celebrate the Vienna Convention which states that the forcible transfer of populations and the targeting of civilians during armed conflicts are crimes of war. What irony it is, that war had to be legislated and regulated, to in fact attain previously unimaginable ugliness. Is it irony? Or is legislation the modern equivalent of religious commandments; righteous words on justice that serve the victim as an anesthetic but doesn’t cure her wounds?

I’ve always had a problem with remembrance day for a few reasons, and it always seems to be the most consistent point in time where I start arguments. So lets get this one out the way early, and I’m not saying this because I disagree with what johnnydib put but because I guess this is an opportunity to also start a discourse on the matter and establish the playing field early.

I think for anyone who follows my blog it won’t come as a surprise that I have a great distaste for imperialist wars, not least for the “rich man’s wars, poor man’s blood” dichotomy which is ever present.

I also sort of feel it’s a massive cop out. At least in the UK there’s this attitude of wearing the poppy, and through the act of wearing the poppy for the week(s) surrounding November 11th, you’re suddenly actively showing respect. You’ve given your bit of money to charity and now you can partake in displaying what a good, considerate, empathic citizen you are that cares about our troops/doesn’t like the brutality of violence. You’ve taken this act for a day each your and your conscience is salved through this act!

Tony Blair wore the poppy at the appropriate times.

Tony Blair sent our troops to kill and be killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Tony Blair can, with all due respect, go fuck himself.

The greatest atrocity of Remembrance Day isn’t the “rich man’s war, poor man’s blood”, nor the blinding nationalism/patriotism that’s inherent in military parades as such. The greatest atrocity of Remembrance Day is exactly that. Remembrance Day. Is it fuck, have Remembrance Year. Every year. Don’t remember the loss and the tragedy for one day of your year. Remember it every day. If people took Remembrance Day seriously we wouldn’t be stuck in neoimperialist wars in the middle east and north africa. People who think that acting like an elitist shit about anyone who isn’t wearing a poppy, somehow not as good a citizen, is acceptable behaviour can go remove their fingernails with pliers.

Also in reference to the question: fuck the legislation as if that means anything. Power politics shows the truth: the US, Britain, Israel, whoever else attack civilians (or take action they know will effect civilians but doesn’t care enough to prevent). Without an organisation to enforce it adequately then the club that holds hegemonic military power (NATO, primarily) will do whatever they want and the legislation exists only so they can turn to it and say “but no, look how good we are we have rules about this shit.” Global politics is interstate anarchy, and might is right.

2 notes

Posted at 3:31 AM - November 05, 2011.

[ponderings] [remembrance day] [uk] [propaganda] [capitalism] [imperialism] [submission]

"It is the often covert nature of the industry and its activities that gives it a great deal of its power. Without knowing who is spinning what messages, where and how, the public is denied a full understanding of how modern political economy functions, and without transparency there can be no true democracy."

—

Chris Grimshaw - A Tour of the United Kingdom’s Public Relations Industry, a chapter in the book Thinker, Faker, Spinner, Spy: Corporate PR and the Assault on Democracy.

Grimshaw is referring to the public relations industry. If you watch the documentary I just posted (here) one of the interesting points is that the term “public relations” was invented by Edward Bernays as a response to the term “propaganda” being used so heavily to refer to Nazi propagandising. Before that time there was no distinction made between overt, direct, state propaganda and what we’d now call public relations. Arguably, there still isn’t and we should recognise the term public relations to be, in itself, a form of the propagandising which the practise promotes.

1 note

Posted at 1:04 PM - October 28, 2011.

[propaganda] [quotes]

Century of the Self part 1 of 4.

This really interesting first part of the documentary focusses around Freud’s development of psychoanalysis and it’s application, primarily by Edward Bernays, in the US to the development of consumerist culture as a way to control the wants and desires of the masses. Most interesting is the way in which big business created a counter-campaign, against Roosevelt’s driven political participation for the citizen, to make synonymic the concepts of successful business, democracy and US-exceptionalism. Undoubtedly the effects of this hyper-constructive propaganda campaign is something which can still be felt today (lolTea Party?).

8 notes

Posted at 12:57 PM - October 28, 2011.

[videos] [freud] [capitalism] [propaganda] [hegemony] [century of the self]

Orwell wrote an introduction to Animal Farm criticising censorship in the UK press. Oddly enough, it never made it into the final print version. This link is to that.

THE FREEDOM OF THE PRESS

This book was first thought of, so far as the central idea goes, in 1937, but was not written down until about the end of 1943. By the time when it came to be written it was obvious that there would be great difficulty in getting it published (in spite of the present book shortage which ensures that anything describable as a book will ‘sell’), and in the event it was refused by four publishers. Only one of these had any ideological motive. Two had been publishing anti-Russian books for years, and the other had no noticeable political colour. One publisher actually started by accepting the book, but after making the preliminary arrangements he decided to consult the Ministry of Information, who appear to have warned him, or at any rate strongly advised him, against publishing it. Here is an extract from his letter:

I mentioned the reaction I had had from an important official in the Ministry of Information with regard to Animal Farm. I must confess that this expression of opinion has given me seriously to think … I can see now that it might be regarded as something which it was highly ill-advised to publish at the present time. If the fable were addressed generally to dictators and dictatorships at large then publication would be all right, but the fable does follow, as I see now, so completely the progress of the Russian Soviets and their two dictators, that it can apply only to Russia, to the exclusion of the other dictatorships. Another thing: it would be less offensive if the predominant caste in the fable were not pigs. [It is not quite clear whether this suggested modification is Mr … ‘s own idea, or originated with the Ministry of Information; but it seems to have the official ring about it - Orwell’s Note] I think the choice of pigs as the ruling caste will no doubt give offence to many people, and particularly to anyone who is a bit touchy, as undoubtedly the Russians are.
This kind of thing is not a good symptom. Obviously it is not desirable that a government department should have any power of censorship (except security censorship, which no one objects to in war time) over books which are not officially sponsored. But the chief danger to freedom of thought and speech at this moment is not the direct interference of the MOI or any official body. If publishers and editors exert themselves to keep certain topics out of print, it is not because they are frightened of prosecution but because they are frightened of public opinion. In this country intellectual cowardice is the worst enemy a writer or journalist has to face, and that fact does not seem to me to have had the discussion it deserves.

Page with the full text here.

32 notes

Posted at 10:48 AM - October 14, 2011.

[orwell] [quotes] [hegemony] [uk] [press] [media] [propaganda] [censorship]