What Qualifies as Propaganda?
So, there I was standing in line at Walmart the other day. I picked up a reprint of Time’s 2004 pictorial issue all about D-Day, self described as a “reissue of the 2004 Time Classic.” And, I know, this is such a little thing, but it just adds to the bigger picture of how astonishingly liberally bent 95% of mainstream media is. So I’m flipping through the pages and I land on this one big, glossy picture of a factory in New Orleans that manufactured landing boats for the D-Day invasion. In that picture you see the workers busily assembling the landing boats with a oversized banner hanging above them that says, “The guy who relaxes is helping the axis” [see right]. Now that all seems logical to me. Don’t slack off, cause the Nazis are taking over the world, right? But the 2004 caption by the Time magazine writers says, “ON THE DOUBLE: Urged on by a propaganda poster, workers in one of the Higgins’ seven factories in New Orleans churn out his landing boats.” Propaganda? Prop-a-gan-da?? At first I was mad. Then I was confused. Maybe I got the definition of propaganda wrong. So I looked it up! Propaganda according to my MacBook Pro dictionary dashboard widget means, “cheifly derogatory information; esp. of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view.” Am I missing something here? How is this poster propaganda at all?! It’s not! Nazis were evil! Americans were out to save the world! And yeah, if you relax, you were indirectly helping the Axis. I see no propaganda here. Well, what can I say Time Magazine writers… way to call the kettle black.
