![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Dissection of a fascist propaganda image.
May. 4th, 2012 01:10 amI found this on a conservative friend's Facebook. The image was posted with the text that accompanies.
( Cut due to blood and injury. )
For those who'd rather not look, it is a photograph of a police officer bleeding freely from a serious head injury kneeling on the pavement, struggling to lift his radio to call for help. It is followed by a statement implying the poor man is the victim of "peaceful protestors," although it does not specify who, where, or when. Finally it is accompanied by a quotation by none other than the Big Bad himself, Adolph Hitler.
It really is a chillingly masterful example of propaganda imagery. You have a) an image so horrific and shocking the viewer can easily miss its lack of context. (Was the officer beaten by anti-capitalist rioters or did this happen while trying to stop a bar fight or other act of violence?) b) An incendiary accompanying statement that tells the viewer where to direct their enraged reaction before they begin to question the image's context ("Those PEACEFUL PROTESTORS!") c) A statement that at first seems be a stock argument of the designated villains, followed by d) the shocking twist that it was actually said by history's most notorious villain of all.
The thing I find most disgusting about it is the shameless propagandizing of a real person's real injuries. And that happens all the time: remember the protestor/military veteran who took the teargas canister to the head? But if you have to do it, have the decency to tell the truth: say who he is, where it happened, and why; as much information as you can. Someone who has been hurt deserves that much, no matter which "side" they are on.
( Cut due to blood and injury. )
For those who'd rather not look, it is a photograph of a police officer bleeding freely from a serious head injury kneeling on the pavement, struggling to lift his radio to call for help. It is followed by a statement implying the poor man is the victim of "peaceful protestors," although it does not specify who, where, or when. Finally it is accompanied by a quotation by none other than the Big Bad himself, Adolph Hitler.
It really is a chillingly masterful example of propaganda imagery. You have a) an image so horrific and shocking the viewer can easily miss its lack of context. (Was the officer beaten by anti-capitalist rioters or did this happen while trying to stop a bar fight or other act of violence?) b) An incendiary accompanying statement that tells the viewer where to direct their enraged reaction before they begin to question the image's context ("Those PEACEFUL PROTESTORS!") c) A statement that at first seems be a stock argument of the designated villains, followed by d) the shocking twist that it was actually said by history's most notorious villain of all.
The thing I find most disgusting about it is the shameless propagandizing of a real person's real injuries. And that happens all the time: remember the protestor/military veteran who took the teargas canister to the head? But if you have to do it, have the decency to tell the truth: say who he is, where it happened, and why; as much information as you can. Someone who has been hurt deserves that much, no matter which "side" they are on.
