Southern Bread Blog

We left off here last time, if you need to catch up.

The last facet of war propaganda is the formation of the official history of the war. This is a crucial function, performed by the state with the help of the press. It is performed by victor and vanquished alike. Both find it necessary to write the official narrative of the war after it’s conclusion, in order to preserve legitimacy, which is the constant pressure of the politician. In this way, every state undertaking needs an official narrative to be pushed into the public mind.

The necessity of the formulation of a post-war narrative is even more true of democratic systems than it is of totalitarian ones. That may sound counter-intuitive, but it’s not. The government of a totalitarian state gets it’s legitimacy through sheer force. Justifications for totalitarian government actions may be given from time to time, but they are never really required. Justification changes nothing in the totalitarian state. On the other hand, the democratic government relies on a prevailing sense of legitimacy to maintain it’s control. Therefore, it must continually justify itself to the enfranchised. The modern democratic process has turned this into an art form – constantly molding legitimacy and justification out of the cacophony of motivations found within the bureaucracy.

You’ve heard it said that the winner writes the history. It’s probably more accurate to say that the one who writes what becomes the accepted history is the winner. This is the nature of propaganda in general, but of war propaganda especially. You see, during the course of a war, the reasons for being involved will always mutate. Short, military “police”-type actions may be the exception, but any war of length will demonstrate this metamorphosis effect almost certainly. Just go back in your mind over recent wars like Iraq, Vietnam, Korea, World War II, etc. Each of these wars had an official pre-war story that they started with. And, during the course of the war, that story began to mutate. By the time they were over, the story of why the war happened had totally changed.

Since WWI and WWII are too obvious, let’s look at a couple of more recent examples:

• Iraq

  The official pre-war narrative of the 2003 invasion of Iraq was to protect the world from Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction(WMD’s). This changed rapidly once no WMD’s were discovered. That narrative was dropped altogether and a new one was picked up: Saddam had links to Al-Queida. This one lasted a while, but the “links” were so tenuous that it made this narrative very cumbersome for public consumption. Finally, the narrative settled on “freeing the Iraqi people.” This is an easy, 30 second sound bite type of message and has remained the popular myth of the Iraq war ever since. It’s the official narrative.

• Vietnam

  The first reason for the U.S. getting involved in Vietnam (around 1950) was as part of a plan to let the French re-colonize Vietnam after WWII. The French had lost Vietnam as a colony to the Japanese during the war, and the former WWII allies helped them re-take it. Over the next few years, as the “cold war” grew, the official reason for escalating U.S. involvement in Vietnam would become “containment” of communism.

  As the conflict intensified over the next decade, the war became increasingly about the United States and Vietnam alone. The earlier reasons for the war faded as Kennedy focused on “winning the hearts and minds” of the Vietnamese.

  By the time Lyndon Johnson escalated to full war, hardly anyone knew what the war was about anymore. What had started as an aid to French imperialism had morphed into a communism blockade strategy, and then to a humanitarian mission and finally to a localized democracy vs. communism struggle.

When it comes to post-war propaganda, what matters isn’t truth, but legitimacy. And, this lines up very well with the day to day functioning of bureaucracy. The job of the bureaucrat is to legitimize the existence of their job. Truth matters very little to the functioning of the state apparatus.

Study results as news headlines should always make you skeptical. They’re usually pushed by a coordinated PR machine. You have to pay for headlines and news packages. News stations don’t just do research, find interesting stories and then decide to report on them. No, when you see a headline, somebody’s getting paid.

In that veign, a ridiculous study hit the news wires recently: To curb childhood obesity, trim 64 excess calories a day says study.

One way to halt soaring childhood obesity rates in countries like the US? Cut 64 excess calories a day, on average, from children’s diets, claim US scientists in a new study published on Tuesday.

While shaving 64 calories may not seem like a lot, researchers from Columbia University state that doing so can make a big impact in reducing obesity rates by 2020 in the nation. Add in a healthy dose of exercise and the combination of reduced calories and enhanced activity could “close the gap” between how many calories young people are consuming and how many they expend, said the researchers.

–NY Daily News

It takes about 5 seconds to understand that this is total bull crap. As soon as I saw the headline I reached over my desk and picked up a bag of salted almonds. There are 64 calories in 10 almonds. There’s also 64 calories in 1 tablespoon of an average salad dressing. So, you’re saying to me that eating 10 almonds a day or 1 extra tablespoon of salad dressing will result in 4 pounds of difference over a decade? That’s a level of fine grained detail that is impossible – even if it were true.

But, it’s not true anyway. Our bodies don’t respond to the calories we force into them by growing. It’s the other way around. Our bodies require a certain amount of energy, and we accommodate that need by eating more or fewer calories. You don’t control a child’s growth by giving and withholding food. Their bodies are driven to grow from the inside. If you don’t give it food you will “stunt” it’s growth, not control it.

The amount of calories you eat is basically irrelevant. It’s what’s in the calories that matters. 2500 calories a day worth of fast food combo meals, sugary sodas and desserts will make most people blow up like a balloon. Conversely, 2564 calories a day worth of meat, dairy and non-starch vegetables will make most people drop weight like a rock. The 64 calories of difference are meaningless.

Simply talking about calories being good or bad without talking about the content of those calories is like talking about art being good or bad when it’s locked in a room with the lights turned off.

I just finished reading the 1928 book Falsehood in War-time by Arthur Ponsonby. The full text is here. The book is a chronicle of allied war propaganda during World War I. It’s a very enlightening read. It’s also short, so you should be able to cruise through it quickly.

I’ve said before that if you don’t understand WWI, you’ll never understand WWII. You will simply repeat popular propaganda with no context for why the players involved did what they did, when they did it. World War I also serves a couple of unique places in military history. It was not only the first truly industrialized war, but it was also the first truly media driven war, in the sense we know that today. This makes it very instructive for understanding how governments sell the wars they want to their citizens.

Propaganda was used extensively on all sides during WWI, and many mistakes were made in it’s formulation and distribution. Many times the atrocity stories were just too outlandish to be believed, and this left the citizenry skeptical that they were being lied to. Other times, stories were believable, yet over-reported, which led to the same effect, or forcing some type of verification to happen. These message control mistakes would ultimately be corrected during World War II, when propaganda reached a sort of epic, golden age.

It’s also very interesting to see how the basic tenets of propaganda really haven’t changed much. We see the same basic constructs in war coverage today. Today we have “unverified” atrocity stories, like Gaddafi supplying Viagra to his troops to encourage rape and Iraqi troops tossing incubator babies on the floor. In World War I this took the form of the “Belgian baby without hands” story, the “Ravaged nurse” story, the “Crucified canadian” story, etc.

One thing never changes: in war, the enemy must be completely de-humanized into a blood-thirsty monster.

Here are some good quotes:

In wartime, failure of a lie is negligence, the doubting of a lie a misdemeanour, the declaration of the truth a crime.

The psychological factor in war is just as important as the military factor. The morale of civilians, as well as of soldiers, must be kept up to the mark. The War Offices, Admiralties, and Air Ministries look after the military side. Departments have to be created to see to the psychological side. People must never be allowed to become despondent; so victories must be exaggerated and defeats, if not concealed, at any rate minimized, and the stimulus of indignation, horror, and hatred must be assiduously and continuously pumped into the public mind by means of “propaganda.”

The use of the weapon of falsehood is more necessary in a country where military conscription is not the law of the land than in countries where the manhood of the nation is automatically drafted into the Army, Navy, or Air Service. The public can be worked up emotionally by sham ideals. A sort of collective hysteria spreads and rises until finally it gets the better of sober people and reputable newspapers.

When war reaches such dimensions as to involve the whole nation, and when the people at its conclusion find they have gained nothing but only observe widespread calamity around them, they are inclined to become more sceptical and desire to investigate the foundations of the arguments which inspired their patriotism, inflamed their passions, and prepared them to offer the supreme sacrifice. They are curious to know why the ostensible objects for which they fought have none of them been attained, more especially if they are the victors.

War is fought in this fog of falsehood, a great deal of it undiscovered and accepted as truth. The fog arises from fear and is fed by panic. Any attempt to doubt or deny even the most fantastic story has to be condemned at once as unpatriotic, if not traitorous. This allows a free field for the rapid spread of lies.

There was no richer field for propaganda than the United States of America in the first years of the war.

Some lies which were little known here seem to have circulated successfully and been swallowed down in America, such as: poisoned sugar-candy dropped by German aeroplanes for children to eat; the outraging of nuns in Belgian convents; the clipping of a chaplain’s ears by Uhlans; and the German deification of Hindenburg by the hymn “Hindenburg ist unser Gott” (someone with insufficient knowledge of, or ear for, German having heard Luther’s hymn ” Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott “). Persecution of Germans and everything German was undertaken with zeal;

What is Christianity? It’s a story that claims to be the true story about the way human history really unfolded. But, unlike a typical history, this story includes God in a personal way. It describes our interactions with God as a person – not a creative force or an idea or a crutch. A real person. This rings true within us. Because, if there is a supreme, supernatural being, He would be a person.

What this true history of us and God describes is surprisingly agnostic on many details. We know precious little specifics about Him. Don’t get me wrong. We do know a lot about His character(the fact that He is loving and just) and the things He has done(historical facts). But, we don’t know many concrete details on His actual person. Again, this rings true to what we would expect. His personality is like ours, even if his form is not.

What does this story ultimately tell us about God, and us? The ultimate truth of the Christian story of history is that God is like us. He is a person. That is so critically important. It is from this fact that all the other things we know about him will flow. We have emotions. So does He. We crave justice. So does He. We want beauty. So does He. We love to create things. So does He. We love each other. So does he.

This story is an honest one, however. If it’s true it would have to be. And, what it tells us is what we all, already know: we are broken inside. There’s something wrong with me. I have this unsettling bent toward selfishness. I sometimes enjoy it when I make someone else feel inferior. Sometimes I cheat. Sometimes I lie just to make myself look better. And on, and on. We know this kernel of darkness is in us. We all feel it. We also know it’s not in God. That’s why we are only like him.

The story goes on, and tells us how God wasn’t going to let us stay broken. He used Himself to fix us. And he did it in a way that again rings true deep within us. He used, not restitution, but forgiveness. He said “I forgive you, Dave. You don’t have to fear Me. I love you and forgive your sinfulness.”

This is the story of Christianity:

1. God is creative, like us, and he created a people like Himself.
2. He created us free, because freedom is beautiful and perfect.
3. In our freedom we choose evil and now we are broken.
4. But, we still long for the liberty and freedom that we lost.
5. God made us free again, through forgiveness.
6. He did it Himself, because He’s the only one that could.
7. He loves what He made: us.

Easter is a celebration of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It was the crescendo of this story. It tells us that God himself had to die in order to give us back our freedom. How wonderfully beautiful.

A great quote from an essay in The Unschooling Unmanual:

I believe that having your time regulated by bells, eating on a schedule, having very little privacy or opportunity for self-determination, having to ask permission to perform bodily functions, and having to think on command, causes nothing but a feeling of fear when you are finally let loose into the world. It does nothing to help you to live a joyful life.

No adult is forced to sit when she wants to run, listen when she wants to sing, draw when she wants to read, or be inside when she wants to be outside. The real lessons that children learn in school do nothing to improve their lives as adults…

–Rue Kream, What About College?

Amazon link to the kindle version of this book.

This was a terriffic book. I found myself, time after time, having to refrain from hilighting passages because I quite literally could have marked up entire pages. It was that good.

What’s the book about? It’s about how war created what we know as the nation state. The modern state with it’s massive bureaucracy and albatrossian tax apparatus was born in war. These aspects were direct results of the need to better orchestrate the numerous wars of post-medieval Europe. And the same goes for social welfare programs. Manifest originally to take care of war veterans, state-run welfare programs always enjoyed their biggest boon during and shortly after war-time.

The structure of the book is simply a chronology of European wars from around 1400 to World War II. The focus then shifts to the United States, starting with the Revolution and going through World War II. There is some mention of more modern wars like Vietnam, but the American state was well established at that point.

Is this an anti-war book? No. But, neither is it pro-war. It is, in my opinion, a very unbiased look at just what role warfare has played in bringing about the kind of government we take for granted today. Government didn’t always look this way. And it was war that created it. He soundly proves that thesis.

Some choice quotes:

A final paradox of war, one that is peculiar to democracies and especially to the American case, is what might be called the Liberal-Conservative Conundrum: liberal and reform-minded political leaders abhor war, but recognize the opportunity it presents for social reform; conservatives revere military institutions and traditions, but are often wary of actual conflict, sensing its potential for revolutionary change. In twentieth-century America, Democratic presidents have gone to war more readily and more often than their Republican counterparts. American political dialogue also reveals the irony of promilitary conservatives railing against Big Government, while forgetting that coercive taxation and bureaucratic organization are the sine qua non of funding and equipping armed forces in the industrial age. Conversely, anti-military liberals embrace the power of the state to accomplish social ends, but are not always mindful of the military origins of that power.

–Bruce Porter, War and the Rise of the State

…the military power required to defend against foreign aggression can easily be turned to internal repression. A government at war is a juggernaut of centralization determined to crush any internal opposition that impedes the mobilization of militarily vital resources. This centralizing tendency of war has made the rise of the state throughout much of history a disaster for human liberty and rights, a triumph of raw power abetted by conditions of large-scale violence.

James Madison stated it succinctly in 1795: Of all the enemies to public liberty, war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the fewÉ. No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.

Victory in civil wars was thus a crucial factor in the formation of centralized states, for only by establishing the unassailable fact of their authority could states assert the internal sovereignty that is characteristic of modern polities.

he observed that in wartime “you can build in two weeks a bureaucracy which would take years to accumulate in peacetime, so you can actually watch the plants grow and proliferate.”

The German lands fell into a nether world of utter depravity where brutality, torture, rape, and even cannibalism became common-place place. Historians once estimated that the Germanic states had lost as much as 33 percent of their urban and 40 percent of their rural populations. Recent studies suggest that the losses were closer to 15 to 20 percent. This still amounts to a loss of nearly 4 million lives, more than in any other European war prior to the twentieth century.

In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the European imperial powers embarked on a feeding frenzy, annexing over 10 million square miles of territory, including most of Africa, and bringing 84 percent of the world’s terrain under European dominion.

The descent of the imperialist powers in Africa into an abyss of limitless violence was made easier by the incapacity of white Europeans to regard black Africans as equal human beings. The lamentable reality is that forty years prior to the Jewish holocaust of World War II, smaller and lesser-known African holocausts inured a generation of European soldiers and mercenaries to genocide, and shaped a European mindset that not only accepted but approved the extermination of Untermenschen (sub humans); the first to be so labeled were black Africans and white Boers.

In modern political systems, the main counterweight to centralized power accumulating indefinitely is civil society: the vast complex of traditional and private institutions such as universities, churches, professional associations, cultural organizations, trade unions, private clubs, and business firms, all of which wield sufficient social influence to resist encroaching state power.

I have to admit that this is a pet peeve of mine ever since hearing RC Sproul rant about it a long time ago. Exclamation marks are for exclamations (Oh! , Wow!, Amazing!) They aren’t for really exciting sentences.

An excellent address by Daniel Quinn containing this gem:

Granted that the schools do a poor job of preparing children for a successful and fulfilling life in our civilization, but what things do they do excellently well? Well, to begin with, they do a superb job of keeping young people out of the job market. Instead of becoming wage-earners at age twelve or fourteen, they remain consumers only–and they consume billions of dollars worth of merchandise, using money that their parents earn. Just imagine what would happen to our economy if overnight the high schools closed their doors. Instead of having fifty million active consumers out there, we would suddenly have fifty million unemployed youth. It would be nothing short of an economic catastrophe.

–Daniel Quinn, Houston Unschoolers Group (Oct. 2000)

But keeping young people off the job market is only half of what the schools do superbly well. By the age of thirteen or fourteen, children in aboriginal societies–tribal societies–have completed what we, from our point of view, would call their “education.” They’re ready to “graduate” and become adults. In these societies, what this means is that their survival value is 100%. All their elders could disappear overnight, and there wouldn’t be chaos, anarchy, and famine among these new adults. They would be able to carry on without a hitch. None of the skills and technologies practiced by their parents would be lost. If they wanted to, they could live quite independently of the tribal structure in which they were reared.

But the last thing we want our children to be able to do is to live independently of our society. We don’t want our graduates to have a survival value of 100%, because this would make them free to opt out of our carefully constructed economic system and do whatever they please. We don’t want them to do whatever they please, we want them to have exactly two choices (assuming they’re not independently wealthy). Get a job or go to college. Either choice is good for us, because we need a constant supply of entry-level workers and we also need doctors, lawyers, physicists, mathematicians, psychologists, geologists, biologists, school teachers, and so on. The citizen’s education accomplishes this almost without fail. Ninety-nine point nine percent of our high school graduates make one of these two choices.

–Daniel Quinn, Houston Unschoolers Group (Oct. 2000)

Read the whole lecture. It’s excellent.