Many people think that propaganda is obvious, kind of like they think racism is obvious, and without old-style lynching and Klan hoods, there is no racism. They think propaganda is people chanting the same thing day and night, and refusing to hear anything else. They believe that encouraging certain lifestyles is propaganda while other lifestyles are just “the way things are.” Going to Berlin demonstrates that propaganda is simply coercion to believe certain things are true while discrediting others, despite stating that one is open to information.
During my lifetime, Germany was both capitalist and communist, and the Berlin Wall fell when I was in the third grade. This was supposed to be the most wonderful thing in the world because people were purportedly able to earn what they needed to earn to live fulfilling lives. There is a lot of hatred towards the communist past of Germany, and despite the understanding that resources were deliberately denied to communist Germany due to the international Cold War, people were happy when communism ended. However, when considering the rampant inequality that exists at this point and the collapse of the German government, capitalism leads to fascism. Every time. The problem is that when people develop no spine to rein in greedy people, those who are desperate are looking for saviors, any saviors, and they will do whatever they can to get them.
Furthermore, yes, the Holocaust happened and was an objectively bad thing, but how much has genocidal behavior expanded since the Holocaust? There were blood diamonds in Africa, wars have been consistent in the Middle East for oil, and now lithium is an acceptable reason to facilitate a coup. There are so many monuments to the Jewish Holocaust in Berlin, but there are no placards to remind people of anything else Germany facilitated that aided in genocide. After all, Germany helped create and maintain Israel to “make amends” for its behavior after the Jewish Holocaust, causing violence to Palestinians. What sweeping monuments exist that discuss such an action?
Telling people that one way of life is better than another, or that life is easily divided into “good guys” and “bad guys,” is always propaganda. Life is complicated, and the entire planet is being faced with multiple wars because people have been incited to repeat propaganda despite evidence to that contrary. To avoid falling for it, people need to be in more stable conditions, and global inequality and climate change means that stability is a luxury for the wealthy. Consequently, unstable and distressed populations will continue to believe any mass message they are being sent, and everyone else will pay the consequences.
Chasing A Dying Empire 