Vineland

[davemarc]

Andrew and I seem to have a fundamental difference of opinion when it comes
to comparing Nazi Germany with modern America.  He writes, in part,

> These developments in media technology have been used to concentrate
> power in the hands of those who own and/or manage the technology -
> just like the technologies of the industrial revolution which the
> Luddites tried so hard to regulate on a popular basis. Information
> abuse - propaganda - has been central to the healthy development of
> capitalism. What else is advertising (don't tell me advertising is not
> propaganda it merely serves to keep a buying public informed of their
> favoured and best purchasing options - yeah and bears don't shit in
> the woods when there is no one around to hear them fart). Not
> surprising the Nazis get a look in in GR since they were the early
> masters of film propaganda. Not surprising also that US TV is next in
> line in Vineland since it is the most obvious inheritor of this
> particular Nazi tradition. 

Even though he doesn't say "please" when he writes "don't tell me
advertising..." I'll respect Andrew's wish.  My wish is that, if he wishes
to make this kind of argument, he addresses difference as well as
commonality.  Sure, an advertisement for M&D can be said to be the same
thing as "Triumph of the Will," but the difference outweighs the
similarity.  "Triumph of the Will" was much more expensive to produce, for
one thing.  US TV being the "most obvious inheritor of this particular Nazi
tradition"?  The "most obvious"?  I doubt it.  Maoist propaganda--the
statues, the tracts, the ubiquitous television pronouncements, the
controlled film industry, the indoctrination of children (Goebbels said, in
"Triumph of the Will" that winning over the minds and souls of the children
was essential to prolonging the life of the Reich), the overwhelming
suppression of domestic dissent through widespread detention and
murder--seems to blow away US TV (Ellen "comes out" tonight!) in this
respect.  And I wonder if some of our South African participants would like
to critique their government's propagandization in light of that produced
by the Nazis.  There are differences galore at work here, including the
world of difference between "fascist" (a la Nazi propaganda) and
"fascistic" (which, I recognize, can arguably be applied to US
advertising).

davemarc