Poor Leonard's Almanack:
Quotations and Original Thoughts

On Propaganda

LEONARD ROY FRANK / Street Spirit* 1sep2007

Detail from Great Orator, 1944 by Irving Norman. Graphite and color pencil on paper, 12 x 22 1/8 inches. Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH. Purchased through the Julia L. Whittier Fund.

This is the fifth in a series of six related columns. "On Knowledge," "On Education," "On Learning," and "On Teaching" have appeared in previous issues of Street Spirit.

This issue's "On Propaganda" will be followed next month by the last column in the series, titled "On Mind Manipulation."

1. Most people want to feel that issues are simple rather than complex, want to have their prejudices confirmed, want to feel that they "belong" with the implication that others do not, and need to pinpoint an enemy to blame for their frustrations. This being the case, the propagandist is likely to find that his suggestions have fallen on fertile soil so long as he delivers his message with an eye to the existing attitudes and intellectual level of his audience.

   J. A. C. BROWN (British psychiatrist), Techniques of Persuasion: From Propaganda to Brainwashing. 1963

2. See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda.

GEORGE W. BUSH, ad-lib remark during a speech in the town of Greece (New York), 24 May 2005. Remarks, "ln forty plus public appearances this year alone, the President has talked about defeating Al Qaeda in Iraq.... At this week's speech [24 July] at the air base in Charleston, South Carolina, he invoked Al Qaeda more than 90 times." BILL MOYERS (broad-cast journalist), slightly modified, Bill Moyers Journal, PBS-TV, 28 July 2007

3. In a democratic system of thought control... [it is] necessary to take over the entire spectrum of opinion, the entire spectrum of discussion, so that nothing can be thinkable apart from the party line, not just that it be obeyed, but that you can't even think anything else. The state propaganda is not expressed; it's rather implicit; it's presupposed. It provides the framework for discussion among people who are... admitted into mainstream discussion.

NOAM CHOMSKY (linguist, philosopher and political activist), "1984: Orwell's and Ours," Thoreau Quarterly, Winter-Spring, 1984

4. Every new idea will... be troublesome to [the individual's] entire being. He will defend himself against it because it threat-ens to destroy his certainties. He thus actually comes to hate everything opposed to what propaganda has made him acquire. Propaganda has created in him a system of opinions and tendencies which may not be subjected to criticism....      Incidentally, this refusal to listen to new ideas usually takes on an ironic aspect: the man who has been successfully subjected to a vigorous propaganda will declare that all new ideas are propaganda.

JACQUES ELLUL (French philosopher and theologian), Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes, 1962, translated by Konrad KeIlen and Jean Learner, 1965

5. Propaganda must be based on a credible kernel of truth to be effective.

JACQUES ELLUL, paraphrased by Claude Steiner, "New Weird Order" (editorial), Propaganda Review, no. 7, 1991

6. From one day to another, another nation is made out to be utterly depraved and fiendish, while one's own nation stands for everything that is good and noble. Every action of the enemy is judged by one standard — every action of oneself by another. Even good deeds by the enemy are considered a sign of particular devilishness, meant to deceive us and the world, while our bad deeds are necessary and justified by our noble goals which they serve.

ERICH FROMM (German-born U.S. psychoanalyst), The Art of Loving, 1956

7. [The management of demand] provides, in the aggregate, a relentless propaganda on behalf of goods in general. From early morning until late at night, people are informed of the services rendered by goods — of their profound indispensability. Every feature and facet of every product having been studied for selling points, these are then described with talent, gravity and an aspect of profound concern as the source of health, happiness, social achievement, or improved community standing. Even minor qualities of unimportant commodities are enlarged upon with a solemnity which would not be unbecoming in an announcement of the combined return of Christ, and all the apostles.

JOHN KENNETH GALBRAITH (Canadian-born U.S. economist and ambassador), The New Industrial State, 1967

8. If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent,-for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.

JOSEPH GOEBBELS (German "Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda," 1897-1945), quoted in Joel Bleifuss, "Strangers to the Truth," In These Times, 24 March 2006

9. People don't want to go to war.... But, after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a parliament or a communist dictatorship.... Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to greater danger. It works the same way in any country.

HERMANN GOERING (German political and military leader), interview during the Nuremberg trials, 1946, quoted in Jason Epstein, "Mystery in the Heartland," New York Review of Books, 7 October 2004

10. [President George W. Bush and his administration] devise their policies with as much secrecy as possible, and in close cooperation with the most powerful special interests that have a monetary stake in what happens. In each case, the public interest is not only ignored, but actively undermined. In each case, they devote considerable attention to a clever strategy of deception that appears designed to prevent the American people from discerning what it is they are actually doing. Indeed, they often use Orwellian language to disguise their true purposes. For example, a policy that opens national forests to destructive logging of old-growth trees is labeled "Healthy Forest Initiative." A policy that vastly increases the amount of pollution that can be dumped into the air is called the "Clear Skies Initiative."

AL GORE, Beacon Theater speech, New York City, 14 January 2004

11. Propaganda, as inverted patriotism, draws nourishment from the sins of the enemy. If there are no sins, invent them! The aim is to make the enemy appear so great a monster that he forfeits the rights of a human being.

SIR IAN HAMILTON (British general), The Soul and Body of an Army, 1921

12. The propaganda arm of the American Dream machine, Hollywood.

MOLLY HASKELL (writer and critic), "The Big Lie," From Reverence to Rape: The Treatment of Women in the Movies, 2nd ed., 1987 (1974)

13. If we really knew war, what war does to minds and bodies, it would be harder to wage. This is why the essence of war, which is death and suffering, is so carefully hidden from public view. We are not allowed to see dead bodies, at least of our own soldiers; nor do we see the wounds that forever mark lives, the wounds that leave faces and bodies horribly disfigured by burns or shrapnel or poison. War is made palatable. It is sanitized. We are allowed to taste war's perverse thrill, but usually spared from seeing its consequences. The wounded and the dead are swiftly carted offstage. The maimed are carefully hidden in the wings while the band plays a majestic march.

CHRIS HEDGES (Journalist and writer), "Evidence of Things Not Seen," Nation, 24 May 2004

14. Propaganda, n. Their lies. 
    Public information, n. Our lies.

EDWARD S. HERMAN (economist), quoted in Art Spiegelman and Bob Schneider, editors, Whole Grains: A Book of Quotations, 1973

15. The mass media are not a solid monolith on all issues. Where the powerful are in disagreement, there will be a certain diversity of tactical judgments on how to attain generally shared aims, reflected in media debate. But views that challenge fundamental premises or suggest that the observed modes of exercise of state power are based on systemic factors will be excluded from the mass media even when elite controversy over tactics rages fiercely.

EDWARD S. HERMAN and NOAM CHOMSKY, preface to Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media, 1988

16. The "societal purpose" of the media is to inculcate and defend the economic, social, and political agenda of privileged groups that dominate the domestic society and the state. The media serve this purpose in many ways: through selection of topics, distribution of concerns, framing of issues, filtering of information, emphasis and tone, and by keeping debate within the bounds of acceptable premises.

EDWARD S. HERMAN and NOAM CHOMSKY, Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media, 1988

17. How a report is framed, which facts it contains and emphasizes and which it ignores, and in what context, are as important to shaping opinion as the bare facts themselves.

MARK HERTSGAARD (journalist and writer), "How Reagan Seduced Us: Inside the President's Propaganda Factory," Village Voice (New York City), 25 September 1984

18. In today's modern electronic society, what matters is the topic of conversation, not the content.... The messages that penetrate and pierce the static and actually land in people's consciousness are the ones that get repeated over and over. That's why a single bad story [becomes important] only if it has the potential to turn into a continuing story.

MARK HERTSGAARD, quoted in Sara Frankel, "Reaganizing the Media," San Francisco Examiner, 6 November 1988

19. The press either killed [our enemies] with silence or mutilated their speeches in such a way that any coherence... was twisted or entirely lost.... What the various gentlemen said was quite unimportant; the important thing was what people read about them.

ADOLF HITLER, Mein Kampf 1924, translated by Ralph Manheim, 1943. Hitler wrote Mein Kampf while in prison for instigating a failed coup in 1923.

20. The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly and with unflagging attention. It must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over.

ADOLF HITLER, Mein Kampf 1924

21. In view of the primitive simplicity of their minds, [the masses] more easily fall victim to a big lie than to a little one.

ADOLF HITLER, Mein Kampf 1924

22. People have an entirely mistaken notion of what propaganda is. Open influencing of the masses is only one side of it.... But the real problem is to get hold of prominent people, and whole sets.

ADOLF HITLER, table talk, 1932-1934, quoted in Hermann Rauschning, The Voice of Destruction, 1940

23. The results at which I have to aim are only to be attained by systematic corruption of the possessing and governing classes. Business advantages, erotic satisfactions, and ambition, that is to say, the will to power, are the three stops in our propaganda organ.

ADOLF HITLER, table talk, 1932-1934, quoted in Hermann Rauschning, The Voice of Destruction, 1940

24. By the skillful and sustained use of propaganda, one can make a people see even heaven as hell or an extremely wretched life as paradise.

ADOLF HITLER, quoted in Cyril Falls, Ordeal by Battle, 1943

25. Propaganda... serves more to justify ourselves than to convince others; and the more reason we have to feel guilty, the more fervent our propaganda.

ERIC HOFFER (San Francisco longshoreman and philosopher), The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements, 1951

26. The real persuaders are our appetites, our fears and above all our vanity. The skillful propagandist stirs and coaches these internal persuaders.

ERIC HOFFER, The Passionate State of Mind: And Other Aphorisms, 1954

27. Dictatorial propaganda demands obedience and even considerable financial and other sacrifices; but by way of compensation it assures the individual that, as a member of a chosen nation, race, or class, he is superior to all other individuals in the world; it dissipates his sense of personal inferiority by investing him with the vicarious glory of the community; it gives him reasons for thinking well of himself; it provides him with enemies whom he may blame for his own short-comings and upon whom he may vent his latent brutality and love of bullying.

ALDOUS HUXLEY (English writer), "Writers and Readers," The Olive Tree and Other Essays, 1936

28. Certain educators... disapproved of the teaching of propaganda analysis on the grounds that it would make adolescents unduly cynical. Nor was it welcomed by the military authorities, who were afraid that recruits might start to analyze the utterances of drill sergeants. And then there were the clergymen and the advertisers. The clergy-men were against propaganda analysis as tending to undermine belief and diminish churchgoing; the advertisers objected on the grounds that it might undermine brand loyalty and reduce sales.

ALDOUS HUXLEY, on the Institute for Propaganda Analysis which was founded in the United States in 1937 and folded in 1941, "Education for Freedom," Brave New World Revisited, 1958

29. A really efficient totalitarian state would be one in which the all-powerful executive of political bosses and their army of managers control a population of slaves who do not have to be coerced because they love their servitude. To make them love it is the task assigned, in present-day totalitarian states, to ministries of propaganda, newspaper editors and schoolteachers.

ALDOUS HUXLEY, forward (1946) to Brave New World, 1932

30. The popular philosophy... is now molded by the writers of advertising copy, whose one idea is to persuade everybody to be as extroverted and uninhibitedly greedy as possible, since of course it is only the possessive, the restless, the distracted, who spend money on the things that advertisers want to sell.

ALDOUS HUXLEY, The Perennial Philosophy, 1946

31. If you are trying to persuade people to join with you, there are three general methods. You can coerce them with threats, convince them by pointing out their own interests, or entice them by appealing to their ideals.

WALTER ISAACSON (editor and writer), "A Declaration of Mutual Dependence," New York Times, 4 July 2004

32. By actions which compel general attention, the new idea seeps into people's minds and wins converts. One such act may, in a few days, make more propaganda than thousands of pamphlets.

PETER KROPOTKIN (Russian anarchist), "The Spirit of Revolt," 1880, Kropotkin's Revolutionary Pamphlets, edited by Roger N. Baldwin, 1927

33. [Bureaucratic propaganda] is calculatedly obscure and unintelligible — qualities that commend it to a public that feels informed in proportion as it is befuddled.

CHRISTOPHER LASCH (historian), The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations, 1979

34. The art of crisis management, now widely acknowledged to be the essence of statecraft, owes its vogue to the merger of politics and spectacle. Propaganda seeks to create in the public a chronic sense of crisis, which in turn justifies the expansion of executive power and the secrecy surrounding it.

CHRISTOPHER LASCH, The Culture of Narcissism, 1979

35. The propaganda of commodities serves a double function. First, it upholds consumption as an alternative to protest or rebellion....
    In the second place, the propaganda of consumption turns alienation itself into a commodity. It addresses itself to the spiritual desolation of modern life and proposes consumption as the cure.

CHRISTOPHER LASCH, The Culture of Narcissism, 1979

36. It is easy to persuade [the people] of a thing, but difficult to keep them in that per-suasion. And so it is necessary to order things so that when they no longer believe, they can be made to believe by force.

MACHIAVELLI (Italian political philosopher), The Prince, 1513, translated by Luigi Ricci, 1903

37. I wouldn't ever say there's censorship in this country. But there's a lot of peer pressure. Because when anybody says anything that's the least bit feather ruffling, everybody just goes nuts. If anybody in this country is forced to undergo a single moment of discomfort, the person who caused it just must go away.

BILL MAHER (comedian and writer), Rebecca Winters Keegan interview, "10 Questions for Bill Maher," Time, 5 June 2006

38. The right to vote belongs only to the people, not to the reactionaries. The combination of these two aspects, democracy for the people and dictatorship over the reactionaries, is the people's democratic dictatorship.

MAO ZEDONG (Chinese military and political leader), "On the People's Democratic Dictatorship," 1948, The Political Thought of Mao Tse-tung, edited by Stuart R. Schram, 1963

39. The educator tries to tell people how to think; the propagandist, what to think. 
    The educator strives to develop individual responsibility; the propagandist, mass effects.... The educator fails unless he achieves an open mind; the propagandist, unless he achieves a closed mind.

EVERETT DEAN MARTIN (psychologist), "Our Invisible Masters," Forum, vol. 81, 1929

40. The first step toward freedom will be a new respect for the symbol, a purification and clarification of language itself, an abstention from unclean slogans and conditioned verbal reflexes. The death of the advertising agency and the propaganda bureau will be one of the surest signs of the birth of a new society.

LEWIS MUMFORD (historian), The Conduct of Life, 1951

41. Political language... is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give the appearance of solidity to pure wind.

GEORGE ORWELL (English writer), "Politics and the English Language," April 1946, The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell, vol. 4, edited by Sonia Orwell and Ian Angus, 1968

42. Propaganda [is] the mobilization of information and arguments with the intent to bring people to a particular viewpoint. In that sense there could be false and deceptive propaganda, and there could be propaganda that has a real educational value. You can after all inform people and mobilize them toward truth.

MICHAEL PARENTI (political scientist and writer), "Propaganda and Class Structure" (inter-view), 16 August 1988, published in David Barsamian, editor, Stenographers to Power, 1992

43. If anyone at all is to have the privilege of lying, the rulers of the State should be the persons; and they, in their dealings either with enemies or with their own citizens, may be allowed to lie for the public good.... If... the ruler catches anybody beside himself lying in the State,... he will punish him for introducing a practice which is equally subversive and destructive of ship or State.

PLATO (Greek philosopher, 427?-347 B.C.), The Republic, translated by Benjamin Jowett, 1894

44. Almost all propaganda is designed to create fear. Heads of governments and their officials know that a frightened people is easier to govern, will forfeit rights it would otherwise defend, is less likely to demand a better life, and will agree to millions and millions being spent on "Defense."

J. B. PRIESTLY (English writer), "The Root Is Fear," Outcries and Asides, 1974

45. The four basic criteria of successful propaganda — it must be seen, under-stood, remembered and acted upon.

TERENCE H. QUALTER (writer), Propaganda and Psychological Warfare, 1962

46. Lying is done with words, and also with silence.

ADRIENNE RICH (poet and writer), "Women and Honor: Some Notes on Lying," 1975, On Lies, Secrets, and Silence: Selected Prose 1966-1978, 1979

47. In each country the propaganda is controlled by the state and is what the state likes. And what the state likes is to have you quite ready to commit murder when you're told to.

BERTRAND RUSSELL (English mathematician and philosopher), Woodrow Wyatt BBC interview, London, Bertrand Russell Speaks His Mind 1960

48. Napalm is a forbidden word and when an American information officer is forced under direct questioning to discuss it, he calls it "soft ordnance." In the press releases and the answers to newsmen's questions, there is never any sense, not even implicit, of people being killed, homes beings destroyed, thousands of refugees fleeing.

SYDNEY H. SCHANBERG (journalist), reporting from Vietnam, "The Saigon Follies," New York Times, 12 November 1972

49. Naturally the master class, through its Parliaments, schools and newspapers, makes the most desperate efforts to pre-vent us from realizing our slavery. From our earliest years we are taught that our country is the land of the free.

GEORGE BERNARD SHAW (Irish playwright), London (BBC and CBS broadcast). 18 June 1935

50. Propaganda that aims to induce major changes is certain to take great amounts of time, resources, patience, and indirection, except in times of revolutionary crisis when old beliefs have been shattered and new ones have not yet been provided.

BRUCE LANNES SMITH, "Propaganda," published in Robert McHenry, editor, The New Encyclopedia Britannica, 15th ed., vol. 26, 1992

51. The corporate media are committed not only to their exorbitant profits, but also to propagandizing the society to accept an economic order based on fundamental injustice.

NORMAN SOLOMON (journalist and writer), "Weapons of Mass Deception," Street Spirit (Oakland), December 2003

52. What is truth? For the multitude, that which it continually reads and hears.... What the Press wills, is true. Its commanders evoke, transform, interchange truths. Three weeks of press-work, and the "truth" is acknowledged by everybody.

OSWALD SPENGLER (German historian), "Philosophy of Politics," The Decline of the West. 1918-1922, translated by Charles F. Atkinson, 1962

53. The word "killing" has been stricken from State Department reports on human rights. [opening sentence]...
            Elliott Abrams, Assistant Secretary for Human Rights, explained the new formats in briefing reporters on the latest report on human rights practices in 163 countries.
            "There are a few differences in the categories this year," Mr. Abrams said. "We found the term `killing' too broad and have substituted the more precise, if more verbose, `unlawful or arbitrary deprivation of LIFE.'"

    UPI, "Rights Survey Stops Using Word 'Killing,'" New York Times, I 1 February 1984

54. Propaganda: dissemination of ideas, information, or rumor for the purpose of helping or injuring an institution, a cause, or a person.

Webster's Third New International Dictionary Of The English Language Unabridged, 1961

55. Propaganda... becomes at last more credible to its disseminators than to its tar-gets.

GARRY WILLS (historian), The Kennedy Imprisonment: A Meditation on Power, 1981

56. How it's said is more important than what is said; who says it is more important than how it's said.
    
    
57. Divert and conquer!
    
    
58. With propaganda, the perception of reality trumps reality every time.
    
    
59. Propaganda is to politics what advertising is to business and what rationalization is to psychology.
    
    
60. People are not told the truth because they wouldn't stand for it.

Frank is the editor of Random House Webster's Quotationary. His "Frankly Quoted" column, distributed freely over the Internet on the first of the month, consists of about 40 quotes and original thoughts, mostly about current events. To get on the "Frankly Quoted" listserve, send lfrank@igc.org your e-mail address.

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