Why STEREOTYPES Are so Dangerous and so Vital...to Propaganda - Rich Hall's The Dirty South

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Edward Bernays was the father of modern propaganda, but Joseph Goebels was the first to truly master it.

Goebbels saw the power of radio and of images and perfected the use of the dehumanizing stereotype into a lethal art.

It's STILL being used and perfected today, although today, our mass media uses somewhat more subtle ways to shape thought and opinion...with equally lethal results.

Mel Gibson is probably the best 'Old School' propagandist around today. In his films, the "enemy," often the English, have no redeeming qualities at all.

His tour de force, "Braveheart," was basically a modern Western, in the modern "Apologist style" of Kevin Costner's "Dances With Wolves," in which the Indians, or in Gibson's case, the Celts were the "noble savages," and there wasn't a Brit on screen with a shred of human decency, or virtue.

The King (Longshanks) was a bloodthirsty, homicidal maniac with a gay son...and not gay in that, "I am who I am," kind of way, no, the King's son's homosexuality was merely a prop the script writers could use to depict him as a Nancy-boy, sissy, coward. Even his wardrobe stood out, as nebulously androgynous, even vaguely transgendered. Slap a feather boa and a pair of stilettos on that character and Kaitlyn Jenner would turn green with envy.

In Costner's "Dances With Wolves," Costner's main character, Sergeant Dunbar, a Civil War veteran, gives up his Western ways after meeting with and greatly admiring a tribe of Plains Indians and their way of life.

The film was lauded for using a mostly native American cast and depicting American Indians as actual, nuanced people, with a deep love of family, a strong sense of community as well as an actual sense of humor.

This being Hollywood, of course, Costner's character, a white guy from back east, quickly becomes a better Plains Indian than any real Plains Indian ever was! Go figure...hokey as that is, it sells popcorn AND, as a happy byproduct for the propagandists, it cements in place the inferior status of the American Indians.

The SAME thing is done more insidiously today with rural stereotypes, that have long been used to allow those with money to laugh comfortably at those without.

Rich Hall's excellent documentary "The Dirty South" (https://youtu.be/x_G2VOBKXxM) explains this dynamic very well.

Over the past few decades, these rural stereotypes have been used by Coastal elites to effectively wage war on traditional ("Red State") America.

The actual elites have an added inside joke to all this.

IF you work for a living, whether you're a High School math teacher, an attorney, a carpenter, an adjunct at a College, a Cop, or an Emergency Room physician, YOU are NOT a member of the "elite." YOU, in fact, are an "urban hillbilly" to the elites, whether you buy into their regional, classist hate, or not.

The true elites don't work. They run things (like media outlets and other enterprises), or live off of investments, or Trust Funds. They very definitely DON'T rely on income from work.

So, getting "urban hillbillies" to hate "rural hillbillies" is an endlessly amusing inside joke to the actual elites.

Since the late 1960s a favorite Hollywood villain has been the traditional American, depicted as a course, crude, corn pone bumpkin, prone to violence, sexism and racism, who's obsessed with religion and, of course...making their own hooch.

Ironically enough, this allows the elites in the media to project their own petty bigotries onto this nebulous "enemy," they depict as prone to jingoistic patriotism and traditional values, like monogamy, hard work, self sufficiency and thrift. If your black, Asian, or Hispanic and prone to those traditional values, then you too are a "rube," worthy of mockery, in the eyes of this elite.

The "urban hillbillies" of every background who buy into this are thus duped into a guilt-ridden angst and a crippling sense of self hate.

This particular propaganda is especially effective. Those "rubes" who are targeted and stereotyped are overwhelmingly poor and without influence - they know they're being targeted but can't do much about it. Those urban "rubes," who buy into the classist hate being packaged and sold by this media, are even worse off, as they're mostly unaware they're even being manipulated.

More recently the "news" portion of this media has joined in the fun. Perhaps the most egregious example was the Covington Catholic HATE HOAX, in which NBC and the Washington Post deliberately misreported a racist attack by a recognized hate group (The Black Hebrew Israelites/BHI) against a group of white, red state schoolchildren, in which a Native American activist (Nathan Phillips) sided with the racists, after being outraged by the schoolchildren drowning out the racist abuse of the BHI, approached the group and drummed in their faces because, as he said, "They NEEDED to hear this!"

This amounted to a fabricated, scripted event for the "newsmedia." The villains HAD TO BE the "rubes" (the white schoolchildren). The BHI had to be left out because they were so unsympathetic, being a widely recognized hate group and all, so the focus was placed on 'poor old' "Tribal Elder," Nathan Phillips.

In their reports, the victimized schoolchildren were presented as the aggressors, bullying a frail, old man.

One of the schoolchildren (Nick Sandmann) has brought suit against the media over this incident and despite a pro government-media judge ruling, "the media is allowed to make MISTAKES," a portion of that lawsuit has been allowed to go forward. (https://www.usatoday.com/…/cov-cath-judge-rules…/2489395001/)

This is the state of the U.S political-media class. The real enemies of America control the media and are embedded in government and are, ironically enough, portraying traditional Americans as "the enemy."
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