Friday, December 12, 2014

The simplicity of right wing propaganda - a lesson from Goebbels

Profoundly disturbed to receive, via Facebook, something forwarded by a friend from the I am Proud to be British Facebook 'community', which says the overseas aid budget should be used to house homeless ex-servicemen. Now, where to begin: first - there is no either/or here; the overseas aid budget is far in excess of the housing needs they purport to identify; second - it isn't meant to be an intellectual exercise, rather it's an attempt to create fear and hatred of 'them': foreigners, those that differ from me/us. And it isn't meant to assist homeless ex-service personnel one iota. Rather, it's intended to further a blinkered, far-right agenda: stigmatise the scapegoats and frighten the masses: how Goebbels would approve! I prefer Auden's approach, Epitaph on a Tyrant he wrote:
Perfection of a kind, was what he was after, And the poetry he invented was easy to understand; He knew human folly like the back of his hand, And was greatly interested in armies and fleets; When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter, And when he cried the little children died in the streets
By my reckoning, they've reached the easy invention of their themes, and are delighted to experiment with human folly in garnering as many shares, hits and likes as possible. We need to be afraid when they discover armies and fleets - and watch out for those Tories who, anxious to save their skins, suddenly find an accommodation rather easy to swallow, for they will be the first to quake at the jokes made at the expense of the lost, lonely, different or disadvantaged.

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