Natalie Solent

Politics, news, libertarianism, Science Fiction, religion, sewing. You got a problem, bud? I like sewing.

E-mail: nataliesolent-at-aol-dot-com (I assume it's OK to quote senders by name.)

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Monday, May 21, 2007
 
"What he hasn’t done is lie in a corridor all night at the Royal Free watching his severed toe disintegrate in a plastic cup of melted ice. I have." - A Samizdata Quote of the Day.

posted by Natalie at 9:38 AM

Saturday, May 19, 2007
 
Propaganda is a double edged sword.Two blog posts about paradoxes of propaganda caught my interest. First, my Biased-BBC colleague Niall Kilmartin writes:

In WWII, Germany sent films of its army and airforce in action to neutral countries. Their message was clear: see our tanks blasting your neighbours, our planes bombing them – this can be you if you don’t cooperate with us. Thus Germany gained a propaganda victory from its acts. These films were re-shown in British newsreels; you can hear the disdain in the voice of the British announcer saying, “This is what Germany is proud of.” Thus the Nazis' propaganda victory was also their propaganda defeat: they got respect from their ruthlessness and military skill, and they got a lack of respect from the same thing. In those days, British media coverage hid neither the one nor the other.

The Iranian government (it would seem from the BBC’s report, and I can very well believe it for many other reasons as well) are extremely ready, nay eager, that their agents in Iraq arrange the kidnap and torture of the prince (or presumably, of anyone else suitably prominent whom they can hope to capture) and have made such effective and convincing preparations to support this that the MOD are no longer willing to take the risk. That we are so unsure we can protect him in Iraq is a propaganda victory for them, and would have been in WWII. That they are so very ready to do such a thing would have been a propaganda defeat for them in WWII. Will we hear a BBC announcer say that, “This is what the Iranian government is proud of.” ? One may hope.

And Helen Szamuely of EU Referendum writes:
Nyanko Sabuni is Burundi born centre right politician in Sweden and is the Minister for Integration and Gender Equality. She seems to be taking her job very seriously and has launched a fight against honour killings in Sweden.

...

The Muslim "community" or, to be quite precise, its self-appointed spokesmen, have already gone into an attack, accusing her of racism and, no doubt, Islamophobia. Whenever people say that one wonders whether they are listening to themselves. If you oppose a campaign against honour killings because it is racist and anti-Muslim, you are, in effect, admitting that only certain groups indulge in it. Is that really sensible?


Added later: another one, although this time it is a case of unintentional concealment rather than unintentional revelation. In a comment on a Croziervision post, Antoine Clarke writes:
The advantage of subversive propaganda by the MSM is that when a REAL military setback occurs no one notices.

Imagine the Zulu War of 1879: “Quagmire as British troops one advance 1.5 miles a day!” “15 cows seized by insurgents on Natal border!!” “Soldiers DIE OF DISEASE!!!” and then when the first battle of Isandlwana results in annihilation, it gets relegated to the filler columns: “Insurgents capture British weapons.”


posted by Natalie at 11:03 PM

 
Quote of the Day Month Undefined But Embarrassingly Lengthy Period of Time Between Two Blog Posts.
Someone in a position of power has done something inefficient and/or counterproductive? Really? Well I never. Must tell the world.
- Squander Two, when suffering from outrage fatigue.

posted by Natalie at 10:57 PM

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