THE P-WORD

I've just been directed for the umpteenth time to Dr Kelton Rhoads's "Propaganda Tactics and F9/11" with an umpteenth "He's a professor you know" written in awe comment. So I thought I'd just give this poster a taste of my forthcoming site (chapter "The Propaganda Issue" in part "The Disparaging of the Message"), with matching thoughts about in which respect the authority argument was to be held in my opinion :

Who cares about what a professor has to say if he's an ass, or more often a scumbag taking advantage of his position like Kopel. F u ck professors. The thought matters, not the title.

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My stance in a nutshell is the following :

Moore does propaganda... like everybody else. But some propagandas are bigger than others. And the P-word has been vilified by those with an interest in it. Should we claim for our side a word slanted by political biases and the traumas from history ? I would say NOT.


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Now, if you're interested in further investigation :
F9/11 is not propaganda because propaganda is :


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1) a false problem made up by the media to disparage and discredit one single specific movie, as explained in this article :


Michael Moore Versus Authority: The Media's Dual 'Propaganda' Thresholds


July 2 2004
Counterbias.com
Robert Furs


Even a Google News search on this particular date for the simple, wide-ranging search term “propaganda” brings up a grouping of Fahrenheit 9/11 articles as the first result!

The disturbing thing about this is not the mere fact that Moore’s work is being labeled as propaganda, because, by definition, it is. According to the American Heritage Dictionary:

prop·a·gan·da

The systematic propagation of a doctrine or cause or of information reflecting the views and interests of those advocating such a doctrine or cause.

Material disseminated by the advocates or opponents of a doctrine or cause: wartime propaganda.

So, labeling Moore’s work as such is not what is bothersome. The problem is the double standard the media applies to the different disseminators of propaganda. When the government is involved in definite propaganda propagation, as they are on most occasions to be sure, the P-word is rarely, if ever, used by the mainstream media.

If far-off, third-world nations are the subject of report, the North American media is safe with using the word “propaganda” in the context of dictatorships and totalitarianism—but propaganda in the western world, such as that so often seen and heard during the Iraq War and election cycle, for example, will never be labeled with the P-tag.

Did you catch the example in the second definition--“wartime propaganda”? How much wartime (9/11, Iraq, Al-Qaeda, Saddam, “they hate our freedom”, “war on terror”, “he gassed his own people”, etcetera) propaganda have we endured? A large portion of our lives consist of soaking up propaganda, whether it be from the television, the newspaper, the internet, our mothers, teachers, or buddies—if someone’s trying to influence your opinion and takes determined effort in doing it, they’re peddling propaganda, as far as the definition goes.

And nobody does it better than the US Government, which has elevated the practice to an art form. Unfortunately, their propaganda is not covered as such by the media. Only when someone steps up to challenge the power of a governing authority does the media step in to drop the ‘p-bomb’.

“Propaganda”, they say. Michael Moore is peddling Stalin’s evil, straight to a child near you! Yet when Dick Cheney is telling you that Saddam is trying to acquire nuclear weapons, or Colin Powell is showing you tubes full of Saddam’s non-existent anthrax, or Dick Morris is telling you that the terrorists want Kerry, they’re pushing propaganda. When you read the New York Post or watch Fox News, you’re viewing propaganda. When you read a press release, or a news report regurgitating something a government official said, you’re reading propaganda.

A lot of what the government does on a daily basis, according to the American Heritage Dictionary, is propaganda. As is the case with politically motivated activists dedicated to a cause. The same goes for politicians, bloggers, lobbyists, doctors and even columnists such as your humble writer. Any outspoken group or individual with a cause is guilty of dabbling in the Big P.

By telling you about the use of the word “propaganda” and how it is unjustly and unevenly used against enemies of the government—like Michael Moore—I am engaging in the dissemination of propaganda.

But don’t expect it to be termed as such quite yet.

For what I write has no chance of helping undermine a government’s re-election chances, as Fahrenheit 9/11 does. When MSNBC and the New York Post refer to this article as “propaganda”, then I know that what I write is having an effect on the citizenry’s view of the Bush administration.

Now, I’m off to read about why the War In Iraq is going magnificently and why America must stay the course, because the terrorists hate our freedoms and want to kill my family and will do so if America doesn’t elect Bush and dramatically increase military spending so we can shoot every living terrorist in the head for the sake of liberty.

Who needs propaganda, after all?



http://www.counterbias.com/066.html


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2) a true and undecidable issue insofar as "Propaganda" is a word with a history, connotations and not one but TWO antithetic definitions, a right-wing one and a left-wing one.

If you go through an extensive search to explore the meaning of the word "propaganda", you’ll see that, even on the elementary level of the dictionary, and unlike the word "documentary", it doesn’t go without saying at all.

Roughly, the both ends of the spectrum are “Material disseminated by the advocates or opponents of a doctrine or cause" - Bartleby and “Publicity to promote something: information or publicity put out by an organization or government to spread and promote a policy, idea, doctrine, or cause” - Encarta. The first definition makes no difference between Minitrue and a guy from a tiny little organization who insists on giving you his horribly printed flyers as you’re on your way to see your girl. The second one suggests that only a crushing machine in the hands of the powers that be can deserve such a name.

Then some dictionaries define the word in a very pejorative way (without stating “pej”), like Wordsmyth : “information, allegations, or opinions that are deliberately and methodically disseminated to promote or attack a particular doctrine, movement, nation, or the like. » or Cambridge “information or ideas, which are often false, that an organization prints or broadcasts to make people agree with what it is saying”, whereas the two above remain neutral in that respect.


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Moore’s master in agit-prop, Saul Alinsky, advocated propaganda, claimed he was a propagandist and was proud of it. Some left-wingers defended “F9/11” on that stance. It’s not my position. First because it isn’t Moore’s (he said he didn’t want to be called a propagandist because it was a vile word), second because I happen to agree with him on that one : Karl Rove has given propaganda a bad name, so why use this word when “counter-propaganda” defines Moore’s work so much better.


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Here are, IMO, the basic elements of any reflection on how Moore’s works pertain to propaganda. And the rest is hot air, freakin' professor or not and pundit or not.


(And I'm right cuz I'm a professor).