Propaganda

I often get into the swing of things in the comments section of other people's blogs or even my own on occasions and so I'm on record as hoping to work for a benevolent propaganda department as an almost perfect role.

I think I'd be highly productive at squeezing out quality commercials that hopefully induce Daily Mail readers into spasms of apoplexy before settling into a semi perma-state of rising panic, that luckily facilitates constructive change such as cycling and erm leaving the car behind at home for something more pedestrian(sic).

No small miracle I might add, as Daily Mail readers are not known for their social obligations prowess, but fear is a reasoning they grasp beautifully. Feer and sneers I guess.

So if you're a lurker and find this propaganda line of thinking not so tedious, I'm happy to point you to this post where it first emerged as a rough, and I think mildly innebriated line of thinking that was in the heat of the clearly-not-over-war in Iraq. I don't mind reminding you, it was considered treasonous not so long back in U.S. media space to question even the smallest details of any Presidential decision and I've since noticed that our US cousins never say anything about politics publicly.

Nothing at all; and I wonder if it's because of the Patriot Act and the fear of an opinion coming back to haunt them in later life. Sad if so. Free speech is what made the US special.

Yes Dark days indeed.  But anyway, over the years I've tightened the propaganda thinking  to make it a bit more focused, and chipped in to the comments over here, some recent incursions into the topic via Adliterate comments here (the author of which might need to pay credit to John Grant for the economic car crash line I used in this paper but which John  originally came up with in a BBC radio interview), over at Chroma very briefly,  and then on to some of my own posts including this one that uses a propaganda poster as the key visual, a mention here and how the thinking formed in a post I contributed to over here - Context being important and all that.

However what sparked this post was a comment from Pat who I worked with in Beijing. Pat linked to an ad that is pure propaganda - 21st century Island State, Asian propaganda. It's very good too. It's powerful, and it's got me thinking a lot about the topic again because I see this as so much less pernicious than say advertising for flying which is sucking the Earth's resources only to facilitate the business cycle's step change in frequency up another level. Faster, faster, faster...

What do you think? Welcome truths or unwanted Nanny State feelings management? Incidentally this post has been lurking in the drafts folder, and only made it to the blog as Rob has gone and posted about the commercial over here. If you're from Singapore I want to know what you think. I really do. So does Rob.