Of Tin-Horn Tyrants
And sycophantic media moguls
Welcome back, boys and girls and non-binaries, to Uncle B’s GeezerMedia 101 seminar! Let’s discuss how we warp minds, create fear and squelch opposition, so our Glorious Message can ring out unsullied to the eagerly awaiting masses!
Our topic today is our Patron Saint Joseph Goebbels, and how we are resurrecting his Perspicuous Principles of Propaganda, advancing our cause and beliefs throughout the world. Can I get an AMEN!
Maybe it’s because I have a degree in mass media, or I worked for years for the major networks, or because I’ve studied Leni Riefenstahl’s films frame-by-frame, but I am getting some serious Goebbelvibes these days.
Slogans like “Diversity, Equity, Inclusion” reek of "Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer”. Campaign tag lines like Hope, Change and Joy are dripping with Goebbel’s simple, clear and emotive methods, repeated to the point of nausea. Goebbels understood mass media, and he pioneered its use as a mass brainwashing tool.
I should note an obvious marketing technique at this point: Kamala Harris’ cackle is seen as a negative in focus groups, kind of like the Joker in Batman, so you take the negative feature and make it a virtue with the slogan “Joy!” Viola! Spin Job 101. Consider that a bonus fun fact.
Back to the topic at hand. Let’s summarize Goebbels’ innovations and see if we can’t find analogies in our current media environment. Here are the primary features of his propaganda machine:
Control of Media:
Goebbels sought to control every aspect of media, including newspapers, radio, films, theatre, and literature. The Party ensured that all forms of communication were used to promote their ideology and suppress dissenting voices. Any opposition was heavily censored, and the media was saturated with Party messages.
Radios were especially important. The Volksempfänger, a cheap and widely available radio, was distributed across the country to ensure that the public could listen to Party broadcasts, including the Leader's speeches and Party-approved entertainment.
Use of Mass Rallies and Spectacles:
Massive rallies like the annual Nuremberg Rallies were central to Party propaganda. These grand, theatrical displays, with carefully choreographed parades, symbols, and speeches, created a sense of unity and invincibility around the regime. The rallies were broadcast nationwide, enhancing their impact.
Film was used to mythologize Party leaders, with Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will (1935) being one of the most famous examples. This documentary glorified the Leader and the movement, portraying them as unstoppable forces.
Scapegoating and Dehumanization:
The propaganda relentlessly targeted groups that the Party considered enemies, particularly Jews, Communists, Roma (gypsies), homosexuals, and others. The dehumanization of these groups through films like Der Ewige Jude (The Eternal Jew) (1940) and constant references to them as parasites or enemies of the state fueled widespread fear and distrust.
Party propaganda portrayed these groups as threats to the Aryan race, which was glorified as the supreme race. This created a common enemy, uniting the population under the Party banner.
Simplified Messages and Repetition:
One of Goebbels' famous principles was that propaganda should be simple and repetitive. Complex or intellectual engagements were seen as less effective. Instead, Goebbels pushed for emotionally charged slogans and messages that would be easy to remember and difficult to refute.
Party propaganda was built around strong visual symbols, such as the swastika, and slogans that emphasized nationalism, often repeated until they became ingrained in the public’s consciousness.
Goebbels understood the power of fear, repetition, and emotional appeals. By constantly creating a narrative of external and internal threats, he instilled fear in the population, making them more reliant on the regime for security, by triggering the instinctive threat response of “circling the wagons” in the masses.
The Party controlled all media and cultural outlets, ensuring that only the Party viewpoint was ever presented. Opposition voices were systematically silenced, creating a media landscape with no alternatives to the Party narrative.
The propaganda machine effectively exploited and amplified existing racial and ethnic prejudices. It resonated with historical stereotypes and fears, making it easier to accept the Party portrayal of targeted groups.
The Leader’s public persona was elevated to almost mythical status through propaganda. Goebbels made sure that the Leader was seen as the savior, a charismatic and invincible leader who would restore the country’s former glory. His speeches and appearances were staged to maximize emotional impact and build loyalty.
In today’s world, we see fear triggers everywhere, distribution of free phones and apps, constant repetition of messages, and the use of every medium from Broadway musicals to social media and TeeVee shows. Through agendas like DEI and ESG, they are trying to usurp existing cultural mythology, recreate it in their image, and wrap themselves in it.
The use of anti-white/anti-colonial messaging is essentially the same racial/ethnic scapegoating used by Goebbels. The constant focus on a single group as the cause of all social and political ills is no different in effect than the constant dehumanization of Jews and Japanese in World War 2.
We see careful image manipulation, in particular with Harris being kept away from sit-down interviews to create a mythos around her. The Harris campaign is a remarkable effort to create a legend whole cloth using burlap. They are using every marketing and PR tool available to manufacture a character in record time, with nothing but race, ethnicity and gender as the raw materials, in much the same way Goebbels did with his straw man.
Mass immigration, while having multiple goals, is primarily a fear tactic to cause the masses to look to “leaders” for security and solutions. This is an intriguing attempt to ignore existing laws to create a problem, in order to get the masses to turn to the Party for help by creating more laws — a massive exercise in circular reasoning.
Keep in mind, when Goebbels created all this, TeeVee and radio, and even movies were still new technologies. No one had ever weaponized them in such a manner. The masses were much more vulnerable and gullible back then, than they are now, though we are still susceptible to psychological manipulation using symbols, slogans and prejudices.
It wasn’t just Goebbels, either. The modern Hollywood machine was built on its power to sway and unify audiences around pro-government ideological themes and messages. Disney in particular became the modern myth-maker to the regime, though certainly Warner Bros. and Columbia studios played their roles, beginning with the films of the Great Depression and into World War 2.
Classics like Casablanca (1942) were thinly veiled morality plays, showing America as a gruff, street smart rogue with a heart of gold, working in a tenuous relationship with the French Resistance (we’ll always have Paris), against a bloated and evil mastermind.
Once you see the machinations, it’s hard to unsee them. When you look at modern remakes of classic film and TeeVee, dripping with The Message, you realize that this is just Goebbels resurrected. It’s a propaganda machine, working to re-task tried-and-true methods to a slightly different but no less devious purpose.
The one Great Hope we have is that modern audiences are more jaded, if not sophisticated.
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Today’s great cultural learning is the classic To Have and Have Not (1944), directed by Howard Hawks, and written by Earnest Hemingway and William Faulkner, starring the legendary Bogie and Bacall. Widely considered the “sequel” to Casablanca, the theme of the American rogue with a heart of gold helping the wounded French Resistance evade a bloated and evil mastermind, is re-imagined. You do know how to (dog) whistle, don’t you?
Tuning out on the Far Side:
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Did Goebbels ever read Bernays?
But I am an American rogue with a heart of gold. I was Bogie in Belem.
As for fear...Hahahahahaha! I got the shit scared out of me so many times in the Amazon that I lost my fear of fear. Fear became a constant companion. I quit taking fear seriously.
It's like someone exploding a balloon next to you. At first you jump, but after the fourth or fifth balloon explosion, you hardly notice it.