We like to think of propaganda as something from world war 2 or the early Cold War era. Thing is it’s still alive and well in the so called modern age. It’s  just a wee bit trickier, not as blatant and has more help from advertising, psychology, sociology and PR firms.

I stumbled across one particular piece lately from a friend posting it on Facebook. It was fairly blatant and made some big assumptions. For starters it purports to be the “Japanese” opinion of the Israel/Palestinian conflict. How one author of dubious nationality (try pinning down this so called Yashiko Sagamori is a task in itself) purports to represent an entire people, country and society’s united opinion baffles me.  However that’s not the point. Its that the Japanese being so far removed from the conflict and according to the article can’t understand how the Palestinians even exist,etc, would have an “unbiased opinion” on the situation there and being perceived as logical would agree (and the reader presumably) with the Zionist extremist (not all Zionists are extremists mind you) opinion. Welcome to propaganda 101. Here it is again done to a nice sound track, really it could be muzak from the elevator.

Well if one is going to throw stones I would bring up a similar argument brought up by the Imperial Japanese government (aka Dai Nippon Teikoku) in that Korea never really existed and was only there to service Japan, etc.  I doubt that the author is Japanese however or even female for that matter. Being female in the geek ridden cyber space though does get you plenty of traction. Too bad many claiming the female gender identity in cyber space don’t actually fit the bill. It goes back to the real start of the modern internet this link cached from 2001!

Now I found this as an answer to the previous video, what the hell is with these songs going along with the vids? Whatever here goes….

This piece of propaganda(called “Palestinians through the eyes of the Japanese”) has been circulating around the toilet bowl of the Internet since about 2002. Notice how I worded that?

Using mental imagery and having an implied association of shit? Lol yeah propaganda is that simple. Anyway before I start to turn this into an attack article on Yashiko (if I ever find out who you really are I will call you out on it) let us (see I’m including you the reader along with my opinion) dispel this particular piece of propaganda. I have no dog in this fight and really outside of a two state solution, in my more darker side moments, I think all countries should be allowed to fly in as many weapons as they want into the area and let the chips fall where they may! Anyway this following video does a really good job of reporting on this situation objectively letting the viewer know their position ahead of time (the two state solution) and gives the facts without the propaganda or opinions.

Looking into some modern day examples of propaganda I found this Listverse article that was interesting but I still think there is even more out there. Looking into modern propaganda I found out that Norman Rockwell considered himself a propagandist for the Saturday Evening Post and their politics. He would later do pieces depicting what he felt was WRONG with America.

“Propaganda, at its core is simply a mode of mass communication aimed at influencing the attitude of a state, community, or even an entire society toward some desired position or cause.”-Michael Owens

Thanks Mike couldn’t have said it better myself! So going back to the original article we can see many of the hallmarks of propaganda in action.