At last someone has had the courage to take on the big brother state. How we need an Orwell for our times as the Government- yes, the Government that is supposedly democratically elected- use our money to control our own minds. Comrades Foucault, Bourdieu, Huxley, your voices are needed now more than ever. I am talking of course about public information campaigns- a Pravda for democratic times.
And we are fortunate that one organ of freedom, the Daily Telegraph, has had the courage to take on this propaganda. In the name of supposedly worthy causes like public health, the Government has been hiding its real intent: to convert us on mass to one cause- vote Labour. As courageous Tory MP Grant Shapps points out, these adverts- which even use notorious mind-bending technologies such as the ‘internet’- are thinly veiled attempts to turn us into healthy-living, Labour-voting conformatrons.
I’m not suggesting anything but has anyone heard from Grant Shapps this morning? This is what happens to enemies of the state. But I will not let his warning go unheeded. Brave defenders of liberty, you must shout the truth from every street corner if we are to fight state control of the machinery of information: propaganda is everywhere but we must sift through the sludge of totalitarianism if we are to find a single gold nugget of truth.
Take this ad:
Though I saw it as a hard-hitting anti-smoking ad at the time, the Shapps/ Telegraph mission of glory has opened my eyes. It is actually quite clearly saying: support the Glorious Leader or we’ll set fire to your children….from the inside. How could we have allowed our so-called democracy to be perverted in this way?
And look at the tears on his little face. What greater manipulation could be imagined? This ad taps into to our feelings of loss at the many fallen from the May Day Revolution of 1997. So many brothers and friends were lost in the struggle. How can we fail to mourn their loss? This sentimentalisation is a sophisticated attempt to tranquilise our suffering and secure our devotion. Imagine if the USSR had had such techniques? It might have survived.
Or take this ad:
Now, when you first saw it, you might have thought that this was related to the epidemic of Swine Flu that spread thorough the ‘Republic’ in the twelfth year of the Glorious Epoch. How wrong you were. Firstly, Swine Flu itself was a lie designed to send us into a frenzy of panic and love of the state’s authority. Secondly, what is this ad really saying?
It is nothing less than an attack on freedom and democracy itself: what we call Conservatism. It is enlisting us all in a struggle against the enemies of the state- Comrade Cameron and his fierce Resistance. It is instructing us to catch ‘a Tory,’ then bin ‘a Tory’ , then leave them for dead. This week alone I have had to fish Comrades Hague and Willetts out of roadside skips. Many more of our greatest freedom fighters have been similarly accosted.
So now is the time to say enough is enough. It is time to rise up against the destruction of our basic human devotion to Toryism.
Oh, and I see that the praetorian guard of the state is already engaged in counter propaganda. Some are arguing that this attack on state lies is actually a defensive tactic. We are trying to hide the fact that the Resistance is far better funded than the Central Committee. Outrageous.
They’ve even deployed a supposedly independent magazine to disseminate their mendacity. The New Statesman has claimed that Tories will have double the election war chest of Labour in the coming sham election. Beware of their lies, remain strong, and fight for our noble cause.
January 14th, 2010 at 11:12
What I have been observing is Cameron trying to emulate Obama’s era of responsibility. I see nobody taking obvious responsibility for these powerful messages, becsuse they would like to keep a low profile unlike their campaigns? Bit suspicious that.
1984 was not a great year for the Thatcher government, while we’re on the topic of Orwell, although I know the person I would like to lock up in Room 101, and throw away the key perhaps. Best wishes.
January 14th, 2010 at 11:21
Well a look at the opinion polls shows that these ads are clearly ineffective
January 14th, 2010 at 13:37
So why has spending on government advertising shot up recently? If it was so innocent you would expect it to be broadly flat, given the need to restrain spending, not up 39%.
The (mis)use of government advertising by both political parties while in power is well known. I doubt you would be making light of this if a Tory government was increasing its spending on advertising by £232 million in the run up to an election.