Water Water Everywhere, Nor Any Drop To Drink.

You may have noticed that the post topic is stolen from Samuel Taylor Coleridge's epic poem "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner". But he can not sue me, for he croaked in 1799.

And some people think the line is "and not a drop to drink". But the line is "water water everywhere, and all the boards did shrink. Water water everywhere, nor any drop to drink". I guess Coleridge did not wand to overuse the word "and". Plus way back in the 1700s people talked funny.

But I am not going to post about water. Or drinking.

Propaganda propaganda everywhere, and all our brains did shrink. Propaganda propaganda everywhere, nor any fact to...what rhymes with shrink and means "read" or "hear"? Darn. And I thought the stolen verse was going to be perfect for this. Oh well, better luck next time.

When did everything become spin and propaganda? Probably back when I was not paying attention. Or maybe before that. Who knows. But it does seem like it is getting worse and worse.

For example, there is a "documentary" set to air on The History Channel or whatever that is going to compare Iraq under Hussein to Germany under Hitler. I find the timing of this program very suspicious. The Bush Administration and supporters have already said that anyone who did not want to go along with the war plans were "creating 1939 all over again". In otherwords, agree with us or else you are appeasing a man who will start a world war. And now that the war is getting to be very unpopular, it needs a good dose of P.R. to revive it.

And yes, there are many things you can compare between Saddam and Hitler. First off, both men wanted to be the sole source of power in their nation. To be the sole source of power and authority, you can not exactly be a nice guy. You have to be an asshole. So why do I think the program is suspicious?

When Hitler re-wrote the German Constitution, the first thing he added was "the will of the Fuhrer is the law of the land". In otherwords, his will was law. Instantly. No debate. No oversight. No courts. No anything. If he decided something, then it was law. Period.

Wow what a despot! It is good to live in a nation that does not have this kind of crap going on! Right?

Except that in some ways, Bush has expressed the exact same view. When he "authorized" things that turned out to be illegal, he acted like he should be above the law. He got upset that people would dare question anything. His henchmen would complain about "activist judges". Nobody was arrested and subjected to torture over going against Bush (at least none that we know of), so a direct comparison can not be made here. But the feeling that Bush thinks his will should be law IS here. After all, he needs the proper tools to fight terror. He has said this.

Yet I doubt that any of this will be in the show. The message will be "had the world stood up sooner, Hitler would have been stopped before anything too horrible could happen". And that message is true. Had Europe and the USA done something BEFORE the invasion of Poland - who knows if WWII would have even started in Europe.

But then again, had the German people said "your will is NOT the law of the land mister!" then he may have never risen to absolute power in the first place.

The propaganda is not only on one side. It seems to be everywhere. Everything is a 30 second sound clip. Everything is shaved down to a simple, very general, concept. So simplified and general that it is either not correct, or taken way out of the context of the original study. On both sides. Just listen to one campaign ad. It does not matter whose it is. It will only be 30 seconds. It will not contain any detail. It will not really say anything with any substance. But if the ad were any longer, people would change the channel.

Does any of this sound familiar? "With us, or against us". Simple and short. A great sound clip. But what if you are with us, you just do not agree totally? What if you are 90% with us, but there is 10% that you do not agree with? Well then - you are NOT with "us", and therefore you are against "us". This is what I am talking about. Propaganda. It is simple and easy to understand. It sounds great on the radio. It could make a great slogan for a poster. But it is over-simplified to the point where it is simply not true.

But I can say it in less than 10 seconds to explain almost anything.

It is almost like America had ADD. If your message takes more than 45 seconds to get across - BORING! People change the channel back to the auto race, the football game, the baseball game, or whatever. Then they spend hours drooling on themselves, watching millionaires play a game or a bunch of cars going around in a circle.

Just like the ADD kid who can not sit still in math class, but can spend the entire weekend playing a single video game non-stop.