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There is a story of a time when Hitler and Gobbels were watching a Stalin era Soviet Propaganda film. Gobbels and Hitler had a good laugh, not the film itself, but that Stalin did NOT understand Propaganda. Hitler and Gobbels, unlike Stalin, understood propaganda. When Gobbels took over the Movie industry in Germany in 1933, the movie makers made a movie where a young boy died fighting for Hitler and the Nazis. The movie makers showed the movie to Gobbels who hated it and called it a bad propaganda movie (which it was, being a version of what the Soviets were doing at that time).
What Gobbels wanted (and he implemented) was that Movies were to be made like they were in the 1930s. i.e. Boy meets girl, boy and girl are separated by the bad guys, boy and girl overcome the bad guys and become united at the end of the movie. Yes, typical Hollywood type movie. The changes were minor on their face, but effective. Germans and Nazis were always shown in a good light, people who oppose the Nazis (Communists and Jews) were shown in a bad light.
Gobbels had a habit of watching other countries film and commenting on them. For Example it is believe he saw "Casablanca" and called it the best propaganda film ever made. To this day people refuse to believe it was a propaganda film. The main story is the Classic "Boy meets girl, boy and girl are separated by the bad guys, boy and girl overcome the bad guys and become united" theme. On the other hand the messages Hollywood wanted to send out to the people was also driven home in the movie (We all MUST sacrifice to defeat the Germans, a constant sub-theme in the Movie). That what Gobbels wanted in his propaganda movies, a sub-theme of pro-Nazi so that people will see it and slowly incorporate that theme into their own psych.
The key to Gobbels type propaganda (And its modern version marketing) is to convince people to change their views. When movies were being shown people were polled going in and going out, if it was helping the Nazi Agenda what happened in the movie was done again, if it hurt the Nazi Agenda it was never done again. If this sounds like modern marketing, you are correct.
On the other hand Soviet-Stalin type propaganda was NEVER intended to convince anyone to change their views. It was always "We are better then you" type messages. It was NOT to change people's view but to strengthen the views of people already in the "faith" (Stalin era Soviet Propaganda is often called "Church Style propaganda" for a lot of Churches uses it to keep their flock loyal, but NOT to spread the faith. Most Churches do thus type of propaganda as did the Soviet Union under Stalin, its weakness is it is ineffective against "non-Believers" but does strengthen one hold on "Believers".
I go into the above, for Hitler and Gobbels rejected "Church Style Propaganda" for the more effective "Madison Avenue Marketing" means of propaganda. For many years so did the far right, preferring a Madison Avenue style messages that you are better off with the GOP in Control then the Democrats. Why the tea-baggers today? For the same reason the Far Right adopted "Church" propaganda in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, they were losing and needed to strengthen their base. If you have no message you revert to Church Style propaganda to keep your base intact (except for abortion, the Catholic Church and the Mainline Protestants along with the African American Baptist avoid Church style propaganda, they want to spread their message more then retain membership).
Thus the tea-baggers are more a sign that the Right Wing fears further decline and has NOT found out a message to stop the decline. You may ask why did the Left NOT do the same in the 1980s and 1990s? The problem was the left did, emphasizing all the harm the GOP was doing. The problem was the left is always under reported by the media and you heard the same old message, if you attended a meeting, but you did not even hear that outside such meetings (The right wing, having access to radio and television tends to spread its message far and wide, thus you had to look for the left reverting to Church like Propaganda in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, but when things started to turn in the mid 1990s the left was quicker to embrace the net then the right AND with the net able to spread its message via Madison Avenue Style propaganda with the net.
Right now, the right is trying to strengthen its base and waiting till it can change gears and go after Moderates. Thus the turn to Soviet Stalin Era Church Style Propaganda among the right. The Left is using Madison Avenue style propaganda to spread its message among nor only the left but Moderates. Gobbels would have been doing his best to switch the GOP to Madison style messages, but the head of the GOP are now so far right wing they can NOT send such a message. Gobbels would have left the GOP in disgust long before now so Gobbels would be dropping in Jaws as what the tea-baggers are saying, after telling them they will lose unless there change their message.
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