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Controlling the Message. Media Manipulation and Other Tricks and Tips for the Bourgeoning Totalitarian. The Secret?. Propaganda, Propaganda, Propaganda Blanket your message EVERYWHERE. Make everyone think that everyone else agrees with you. # saysomethingstupid. Before the Internet.
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Controlling the Message Media Manipulation and Other Tricks and Tips for the Bourgeoning Totalitarian
The Secret? • Propaganda, Propaganda, Propaganda • Blanket your message EVERYWHERE. • Make everyone think that everyone else agrees with you. • #saysomethingstupid
Before the Internet 1920 poster Vrangel a White Army general in the Russian Civil War is next on line.
Before the Internet 1919 Death to capital or death under the heel of capitalism.
Before the Internet 1920s Long live the 3rd Communist International from a red October to a world revolution.
Before the Internet 1930’s For the Industrial Plan For completing a five year plan in only four Against religion.
Before the Internet 1930s poster Communist Youth to tractors Into the shock troops of the spring harvest
Before the Internet 1931 Come to us on the collective farm comrade.
Before the Internet 1930s Komsomol Communist Youth is the shock brigade of the five year plan.
Before the Internet 1920The organization of consumer cooperatives strengthens the Red Army.
Before the Internet 1921 Proletarians of all countries unite.
Before the Internet Comrade Lenin Cleanses the Earth of Filth by Viktor Deni.
Before the Internet Long live the socialist revolution.
Before the Internet 1918 Russian citizens turning in their rifles, handguns and even swords as a communist soldier looms over them with the words, “Comrades, turn in your weapons”.
With the Internet • Hashtag “Activism”? • Does it work? • Does it just invite satire/scorn? • Comrade, one must use all tools at your disposal.
Correcting History • Sometimes History is just wrong. • Never let the History stop the revolution! • Images & Text courtesy of: • http://www.tc.umn.edu/~hick0088/classes/csci_2101/false.html
Correcting History • The Soviet Union • The most common examples of photograph alteration and falsification come from communist Russia. Unwanted persons, so-called "enemies of the people" were not only killed, but also removed from photographs where their presence was unwanted. • Photographs were altered with the intent of changing the past. • Leon Trotsky was a close friend of Lenin, and shared his idealistic ideas about the communist state. In the following photographs he can be seen together with Lenin.
Correcting History • The Soviet Union • The historical reason for this alteration is that Stalin eventually began to see Trotsky as a threat and labeled him an "enemy of the people". • After he was deported from the Soviet Union in 1929, Trotsky criticized Stalin's leadership, arguing that the dictatorship Stalin exercised was based on his own interests, rather than those of the people. This contributed substantially to Trotsky's removal from photographs and history.
Correcting History • The Soviet Union • Nikolai Yezhov, chief of the Soviet secret police, suffered a fate similar to that of Trotsky. • For some time he was close to Stalin, staging the infamous Moscow frame-trials, where innocent people were forced to confess crimes against Stalin and the Soviet Union, and were consequently executed.
Correcting History • The Soviet Union • These examples illustrate how alteration of images can change history. • Unwanted persons are removed from photographs and are thus also removed from history. • Their connections to other historical persons(in this case Lenin and Stalin) are literally erased. • Fortunately we have access to the original photographs, but who is to say that what we deem to be originals really are authentic? • After all, if we had not known about the original photographs, we would have naturally assumed that the falsifications were authentic.
Correcting History • Communist China • Don’t think this stuff is just for our Russian friends, Comrades! • The Chinese can do it too!
Correcting History Mao Tse-tung Removes Po Ku, 1936
Correcting History • Nazi Germany • What?!? The Nazis did this? • What do you think NAZI means?!? • National Socialist German Workers' Party • Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei • Is it any different than the Russians? • Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
Correcting History Hitler Removes Joseph Goebbels, 1937
Similarities? • What about the book we are reading right now? • What examples can you think of that match this?
Similarities? • Thinking about the posters, our book, and your life what similarities do you see there? • If you recognize it, are you as susceptible?
With the Internet • Keeping the previous examples in mind, it is almost shocking to see companies advertising the same services that the Soviet Union used to recreate and change history. Companies provide the service of removing unwanted persons from photographs. • Want to find a way to keep great pictures, without those people you would rather forget? Why not have us digitally remove those unwanted items from your photographs?
The Small Things are Important • Cuban artist jailed without trial for painting pigs 'Raul' and 'Fidel' awaits release... • A Cuban artist who was sent to jail without trial for painting the words 'Raul‘ and 'Fidel' on a pair of pigs could be released in the coming weeks. • In December 2014 graffiti artist Danilo Maldonado - who goes by the name El Sexto (The Sixth) - was planning to release the pigs in central Havana as part of a protest against the Socialist regime of the Castro brothers. • However, he was stopped en route to Central Park by police and thrown into prison without trial for “disrespecting the leaders of the revolution”. • He has been there for the past eight months. • Last week Amnesty International named him as Cuba's only prisoner of conscience and demanded his release, according to the Times. • Carolina Jiménez, Amnesty’s Americas deputy director, said: “To jail an artist for painting a name on a pig is ludicrous.” • His imprisonment comes as theUS prepares to normalize ties with Cuba.
Watch out for Historians! • They like to corrupt the minds of children away from loving you!
All kidding aside… • Removing a person from a picture is very self-deceptive. • It is equivalent to lying to oneself about the past, and constructing fake pictures to "prove" a lie. • When it comes to governments using this technique to shape public opinion or to increase their power, what comes to mind is corruption and why they are doing it. • Not the same as cropping because you want a close-up. • The original is not destroyed, nor is the intent to replace all original copies, theoretically.
And Those Sharp Things? • Sparta (Doric Greek: Σπάρτα; Attic Greek: Σπάρτη) or Lacedaemon (Λακεδαίμων) • Spartans – weapons • Helots – no weapons • 1:7 ratio
And Those Boom-Boom Things? • Before the Civil War ended, State “Slave Codes” prohibited slaves from owning guns. • After President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, and after the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution abolishing slavery was adopted, and the Civil War ended in 1865, States persisted in prohibiting blacks, now freemen, from owning guns under laws renamed “Black Codes.”
The Lesson of the Spartans • μολὼν λαβέ (MOLON LABE) • ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ, meaning "come and take", is a classical expression of defiance. • When the Persian armies demanded that the Greeks surrender their weapons at the Battle of Thermopylae, King Leonidas I responded with this phrase. • It is an exemplary use of a “laconic” phrase.
The Lesson of the Spartans • For the Spartans (Lakedaimons) it was obvious: • Free men have weapons to defend and protect themselves and their country. • Slaves do not.
The Lesson of the Spartans • Calling the Second Amendment "obsolete," the Communist Party USA announced through its publication that it supports Obama's attempt to limit the right to keep and bear arms, Jim Hoft of the Gateway Pundit reported Thursday. • According to the People's World, the CPUSA mouthpiece, "the ability to live free from the fear or threat of gun violence is a fundamental democratic right" that it says supersedes what it called "any so-called personal gun rights allegedly contained in the Second Amendment."
Think back to our book. • Similarities? • Differences? • Agree/Disagree?
