So, in English recently we have been doing a unit called “power and propaganda”. In that unit, one of the things we have talked about (been lectured to about) is the 2 sides of propaganda. They point to nazi propaganda during ww2 as a blatant example of propaganda being used to galvanise people to commit horrendous acts, but also point towards British propaganda and how it was for a good cause, the argument being that not all propaganda is bad. Now, I take issue with this, not on a personal level, of course I believe allied propaganda was justified and that the nazis should be condemned to history, but when teaching about the intricate topic that is propaganda I think some slight things are being overlooked.

For one thing, the British won the war, history is told by the winners after all, if the Germans had won they probably would have been teaching their kids the exact opposite. In the universe of 1984, people are probably told that the propaganda around them is necessary to unite and stand strong (or something). The implication that there is good propaganda and bad propaganda is to simple, to binary, I think there will always be a need for propaganda, if only to teach, for at the end of the day all it is is presenting a message.

Teaching kids that just because the British were (in today’s mind) morally right, therefore their propaganda was justified is failing to acknowledge that the British DID a win the war, and that that bias exists. I’m not sure what an alternative would be, but starting by acknowledging that the bias is there I think would be a bit better.

Idk, this really only ticked me off once and it’s not really a big problem, it more just connects with a broader discussion around how the victors of a war have all the influence over how they are portrayed.

Been thinking about the discrepancy between the United States campaign season vs most other western democracy’s. The us campaigns last for months and months, candidates spending literally billions on pushing themselves forward. This is in contrast to most of the rest of the world where “election season” really only lasts a few weeks. You going about your life and then it’s like “oh ok I guess there is an election in a few weeks”. The only indicator are maybe some signs around that advertise a candidate.

One potential reason for this could be the age of US elections. Over time they may have simply gotten longer because people realised that if you campaign for longer you’re more likely to get more votes. This makes sense because US democracy is arguably one of not the oldest surviving democracy in the world. On the other hand though, if that were the case then burgeoning democracy’s should have really short campaign times compared to established ones. But this doesn’t hold up either, with places like Spain and Latin American nations current democratic systems being younger than say, France or the UK and yet still having similar campaign lengths. No. I think the problem, if we call it that, is more subtle.

Part of the reason I believe that us election cycles last so much longer than others, is because of the timing of an election. The US is very unique in that presidential elections are held at predictable, consistent times, every 4 years, in November. This means that candidates can time everything out years in advance, planning to the minute when and where parts of the campaign will occur. In contrast, Australia for example, does have a maximum term length, but the prime minister can just call an election whenever they want, leading to unpredictability in the election timing. This means campaigns will hold out until they know when it will occur to begin, which usually only leaves them a few weeks. The reason they wait is because they don’t want to start to early or to late, to late and they give their opponents a leg up, and they don’t want to start early because of the other half of this coin.

In most major democracy’s across the globe, campaign spending is heavily regulated, every cent, dollar, pound or euro that is spent is recorded and monitored, candidates are required to stay within a certain limit, in order to prevent, well, a situation like what is the case in the US. Yet again, America is unique in that there are basically no limits on the amount of money candidates can spend, sure the people who run the election need to know what campaigns are spending their money on, but they don’t limit it. This is the reason I believe US elections are so bloated, drawn out and just take forever. Candidates can spend as much money as they want meaning they don’t have to conserve resources the way other candidates in other democracy’s do, they just gogogo from the moment they can with nothing to stop them.

US elections aren’t longer because the US candidates are smarter than the rest of the world, they are longer, because they can be.

tried something a bit different here, in my head it sorta plays out like a mystery crime thing, not sure it comes across as that tho, anyway I hope you found this interesting and/or laughed because I got something wrong, either way. Bye

Something interesting I’ve been mulling over recently is the idea that instead of a linear left-right political spectrum, its more like a horsesoe. As you get closer to one end you actually get closer to the other and at the very end there is almost nothing differentiating you from the other side other than that small gap. You can see where this line of thinking makes sense when you look at extreme right wing facist governments (eg. Hitler, Mussolini) compared to extreme communist governments (Stalin, North Korea). Despite them being on complete opposite sides of the traditional spectrum, they more or less look the same to an outsider, authoritarian dictator, impoverished citizens, state propaganda and war-mongering. But put onto the horseshoe diogram it makes a whole lot more sense, the horseshoe model accounts for the extreme left/right much more neatly than the common one does.

The idea is by no means perfect but its a good way of highlighting problems with the binary left/right thinking that so much of our media abides by.