Tag: propaganda

Why to Vote

I hear the same thing each election: “It makes no difference” or “They’re all the same” or “My party/candidate/entire system betrayed me again.” And therefore, one more of my friends doesn’t vote. Most of my friends are somewhere on the left, and I want you to vote.

I share your disappointment. The Democrats have backed down so much in the last 20 years that they’re currently Eisenhower Republicans. It’s dispiriting, and it’s hard to be enthusiastic about most of these candidates.

Please vote. Here’s why.

They’re not all the same, and there is at least one huge difference between the parties.

If you are a woman, or have women in your family, or if you just like women, please vote for the Democratic party candidate. The Republican Party has almost uniformly opposed women’s reproductive rights. Their record on equal pay is just as bad. The Democratic Party defends women’s rights. Which do you want in control of Congress and the governors’ offices?

Despite the depressing similarity of candidates and parties, the rights of half the people are at risk from one side. And no matter how competent or centrist the Republican candidates appear, control of the Senate and House will have the same result for women.

Please hold your nose and vote a straight Democratic ticket tomorrow. It’s important.

health care ain’t wack

I haven’t seen much Government Music Video. The first was the infamous Just Say No anti-drug one in ’85 in which hipsters like Herb Alpert urged us GenXers not to do cocaine. It was possible to see all the way through if impaired in some way.

There were also some examples of AdRoc from the military that I’ve banished from my mind.

Some time in the 1990s, kerebearus was partially responsible for some Government Music Video about nutrition and fitness for a local county here. I have memories of cute sixth graders chanting “NO PROTEIN POWDER! LOUDER!!!”

She refuses to have these digitized. So now we have something that kerebearus would also appreciate. Government Health Care Recruiting Furry Hip-Hop! YO WAASSSUUPPP GOV!

planetdracula are you pumpin’ yo fist in agreement?

Blame to the Exploding Aardvark.

Abu Risha, he dead.

This is a fascinating al-Jazeera news story about the new “U.S.-Friendly” Sunni alliance in Anbar, the now-dead sheikh supposed to have been in charge of the alliance, and the inevitable money and power game behind that show.

Part I riffs on Apocalypse Now in a very heavy-handed way, appropriately so.

Friday, and we’re still in Amman…

Mediocre propaganda video

I just watched about forty minutes of Iraqi “insurgent” propaganda video on Google video.

It’s like all military recruiting films. There are lots of explosions and weapons firing, there are scenes of the defeated enemy, and there is the testimony of happy members of the team. I did learn some things about these guys from the video.

  • Whenever they are mortaring or rocketing their enemies, there is someone whose job it is to yell “Allahu akbar!” every time the mortar or rocket fires off. This is a much, much better job than dropping the shells in the mortar or lighting off the rockets.
  • They aren’t doing too well at shooting down airplanes. There are a few sequences in which they shoot missiles at aircraft, and one in which they appear to hit one, but no crashes. They proudly display a few crashed/shotdown UAVs, which are like big model airplanes and don’t look so good on film.
  • They couldn’t get a lot of guys together for this film. The best they can do for the “masses of our victorious hordes” shot is about seven of them running through the desert and rocks looking like Power Rangers.
  • They aren’t so good at the showmanship. They keep trying to do things like jump on top of a disabled truck and yell victory and pump their fists but they look kind of dorky doing it, and confused, like they’re saying “DO I YELL ALLAHU AKBAR YET OR KEEP WAVING THE HELMET OF THE ENEMY? A LITTLE HELP?”
  • Their music sucks in the same way that military music sucks everywhere.