Dehumanisation and Propaganda

I'm sick of it, and theres an awful lot of it appearing on ATS, which is supposed to be about Denying Ignorance.

There seem to be more and more posters here who have more in common with Joseph Goebbels than anyone else. Their sole mission appears to be to promote a one-sided, disrespectful, dehumanising viewpoint.

Their posts come either from ignorance or hatred. Its almost blind to humanity. Its bigoted vile rubbish and it needs to be checked whereever it spreads.

It reminds me of texts from 1930's Germany that dehumanised the Jews.

I have nothing against factual reporting, that can be traced back to multiple sources.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, thats for sure, but what appears to be happening here almost on a daily basis is one or two posts that seem to promote racial hatred and I thought/hoped that posters to ATS were above that?

And let me make my own views clear. There are scumbags on all sides of an idealogical war, and in the middle are people. Normal people. Those people, regardless of their colour, creed and religious beliefs are not responsible for the actions of the scumbags.

And belonging to a particular colour, race, creed or religion does not automatically tar you with the same brush as scumbags that come from your particular walk of life - because if that was true we'd all be murdering bastards, and quite plainly we aren't.

There is a difference between being overtly politically correct and displaying a respect for your fellow man. At the same time there is a difference between disagreement with a particular issue and plain outright hate for the sake of it.

Ghandi said "be the change you wish to see in the world"

It appears that some people here, rather than wanting a world of tolerance, understanding, knowledge and peace (and denied ignorance) are quite happy to foster the opposite.

Sorry for my ignorance but who is this Joseph Goebbels person?

I will like to know more about who he is and what agenda he is on.

No problem Marg

Joseph Goebbels was a Hitlers Minister of propaganda.

Joseph Goebbels

[edit on 11/0707/07 by neformore]

I think part of the problems is people have a tendency to believe whatever they read posted on the net.

I find many of the comments about Islam that are posted very disturbing in the fact that it doesnt take into account the wide diversity of Islam.

As an American I find some of the things posted about Americans disturbing for the same reason.

I also find that some posters post opinion as fact and also that they dont want answer questions about thier opinions and if you do ask questions you will get insulted and dismissed as ignorant sheeple moonbat wingnut etc pick your insult.

Humans have always demonized thier enemies Take a look at some of the depictions of the Japanese and Germans that took place in WW2. Or some of the depictions of Rosevelt by the Germans during WW2.

Blood libels againt the Jews.

All moslems are terrorists.

All Americans are stupid and fat and want to rule the world.

Conservatives are Nazis.

Liberals are communists who support Al Queda.

If you think American should control its borders your a racist nazi.

During the Crusades Christians ate moslems.

Al Queda serves family thier children baked.

Just a few examples.

Originally posted by neformore
No problem Marg

Joseph Goebbels was a Hitlers Minister of propaganda.

Joseph Goebbels

[edit on 11/0707/07 by neformore]

Thanks, now I see you were you coming from, and actually I agree with you, but remember that one of the most powerful tools of governments is to use propaganda and media to manipulate the minds of its citizens to gain approval before becoming totalitarian.

We are living that now in the pursue of the conquest of the middle east but in modern days so also are more modern the ways to manipulation and centralized control by an autocratic authority like the Bush administration is becoming.

Very well put neformore and I couldn't agree with you more.

I have commented a number of times how the internet is almost the modern equivalent of book burning. It is great if you use it to support your studies and even then you have to dig deep these days, but as the only source it is pants. The most banal and twisted agendas seem to come out top on any search. I have stopped using google altogether and only use metacrawler now and you would be amazed at the difference that makes.

There seems a concerted effort to dehumanise the muslims and the people of the middle east in general, and as you point out we have a wealth of information from the second world war to know how that could turn out. You would think that in this community we would be aware of it more than most, but sadly this does not always seem to be the case.

This is because real truth is hidden from the people, so we feel threatened, disconnected and hostile. We are spiritually very retarded society, but we can remedy that.

When you hate someone, you hate yourself. Still you need to accept hate as something natural and normal in given circumstances. Problem with enlightened is they run away from the dark, becoming half-enlightened.

well, this is the internet, you can't really derive reality from it. someone put it best by saying "on the internet ron paul is a presidential frontrunner and serenity is the greatest sci-fi movie ever made"

I just cheked the tags on this thread.

"Hitler" - yeah, he gets mentioned.

"Hostile" - Thats an interesting one. I would have hoped for thought provoking but I admit I was kind of angry when I wrote the original so there ya go.

Heres the kicker though

"Anti-Christian"

How in the hell is anything written in this thread anti-christian? If anything the thought processes of tolerance and that all people are equal and should be treated equally is the essence of christian thinking adn at the heart of what Jesus Christ is supposed to have taught.

I'm not sure who put it there - I wish the tagging system had a trackback feature. Smacks to me of a cheap shot to try and sour the thread.

there, finally added a tag that's actually descriptive of this thread. i mean honestly, how is someone saying that we demonize groups that we're against anti-christian?

and honestly, christians, why the hell do you have such a persecution complex? you have the largest religon in the world, you, by definition, can't be persecuted.

Do not let the tags get to you, remember that most members in ATS are intelligent enough to understand this thread.

But also we have a few that antagonized anybody for the heck of it just to waste other good members time and effort.

I am glad that the good outnumber the bad.

Anti christian? Huh. Must have been reading a different thread from the one I'm reading. Cheeze...

All adversaries demonize each other, that's just the way it goes. No matter how innocent, no matter how serious, demonetization of the opponent is deeply ingrained in human nature. Arsenal sucks/Man. U. sucks. The Yankees suck (they do)/the Red Sox suck. Arabs are monsters/Israelis are monsters/Americans are monsters. Etc... Etc... it does get a little nauseating before too long.

There are levels of demonetization. The all in good fun such as you might see from sports fans. Then there is the level that is all too common in the world. A group of people are evil personified simply for existing. This is where fanatics dwell...Hitler...Pol Pot...Vlad Teppes...Cotton Mather...etc...we can all name many from history and in the reality of our world today.

What can be done about this? Not a whole lot, except not go there ourselves, and try to keep others from going there as best we can...

Nef, as most wars are allegedly fought for religious purposes, nationality and superiority do you think it would be a good Idea to get rid of these things?

Originally posted by magicmushroom
Nef, as most wars are allegedly fought for religious purposes, nationality and superiority do you think it would be a good Idea to get rid of these things?

I'm no big fan of religion. Theres a bucket load of hypocrisy in it. Its all based on interpretations of someone elses story that has been written after the event. People who live their life via books (be it Koran, Bible, Torah etc) disturb me. If I said I wanted to live my life in accordance with the Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy, or the latest Harry Potter people would say I was nuts, and yet both have a central character who goes about carrying out good deeds and "right" prevails, along with a group of helpers - the only difference between them and the Bible is age as far as I can see. In 1,000 years I wonder how many Dentians and Potterians there will be?

Nationality I can understand. I am fiercely patriotic. Always have been. However as long as no one attacks Britian, as a nation, I see no reason for Britain to attack anyone. Should someone (such as the Nazi's did in WW2) try and attack this nation then the gloves are off and I'd fight it any way I could. Terrorism is - for me at least - a political/criminal matter. I can't figure out how invading two countries can help defeat terrorism. Every innocent killed if Afghanistan or Iraq is likley to breed a future terrorist. People don't enjoy seeing their loved ones killed, even for a supposedly "just" cause.

As for superiority - we're all human. No one is better than anyone else. Some people may be older and wiser, but that still doesn't make them fundamentally better. We all eat, sleep and go to the toilet. We all have our own little inner conflicts and we all want to be loved by someone. We all wonder what happens when we die.