Posted on 02/08/2004 4:23:50 PM PST by sarcasm
This thread is what inspired the rant.
I am an American who has lived and worked overseas for much of my life. Because of my "overseas experience" I dont get much of a chance to come back much, although I do come back to visit my family during Christmas.
This is just one of a thousand threads that shows how much the rest of the world hates the USA. It hurts me to read keep reading these because I believe there is a solution and yet so many can't seem to see it even though it is so very clear from here. I have a different perspective I suppose and I see things from an external viewpoint.
I love my country and I am always willing to share that love with someone new, someone from somewhere else. Whether Im discussing Texas barbeque or Chicago blues I always am proud of where I come from.
There is however another type of American though, the angry American. This is the one who travels overseas and has nothing good to say about America. He organizes with others and tells suspicious foreigners what their itching ears want to hear. He tells them that all their suspicions are correct, all of the world's problems are caused by the United States. They believe him, after all he should know, he is an American.
This is where people like these Islamic rappers come from. They have nothing nice to say because they have never heard anything nice. What they know about America is what they hear from angry Americans and from CNN and MTV.
This rapper's video opens with a story from CNN. Think about it. The message we broadcast to the world is being used against us and there is no counter balance.
There is no pro-america message getting out. There is no message of hope. I can pick a random person off the street where I live and ask them what they think of America. It wont be good.
The "Voice of America" is no longer being heard. The message is no longer getting out. The delivery method of radio broadcasts might have served us good in the past, but they are really no longer effective.
The solution I believe is for our government to set up "cell groups" in foreign countries and deliver the message personally. Too much money is being spent on television and radio. Do you realize that our government is still using shortwave radio?!!
Like everyone else here, I am frustrated, frustrated that my voice is not being heard.
People like these Islamic rappers gobble up every line. They can tell you in fine detail all about how Dick Cheney was once the CEO of Halliburton but they have no idea how many billions in aid the USA gives to Africa.
I was absolutely dumbfounded a while back when they had an interview with Madeline Albright and the interviewer was fawning all over her and asking her what advise she would give to President Bush.
Where is a Frank Capra documentary filmmaker when we need one?
I liked his rant. It wasn't directed at you. He's not accusing you of anything that I can tell. I post rants like this sometimes too. It's just a way of relating experiences. It's good.
Back to my example... There was pro-Nazi propaganda swing music that was used to defeat the morale of allied troops and civilians. It was really insideous because many big band songs were played as instrumentals so once you heard the Nazis' parody that could be the version playing on your mind.
I've only heard excerpts from a few such recordings on a tape that collected odd radio broadcasts.
Here's a book that I just discovered while talking with you about this topic:
Hitler's Airwaves: The Inside Story of Nazi Radio Broadcasting and Propaganda Swing by Rainer E. Lotz (Contributor), Horst J. P. Bergmeier
And the Amazon description:
Editorial ReviewsFrom Kirkus Reviews
The previously untold story of how the Nazi war machine used jazz and swing for propaganda. Independent scholars Bergmeier and Lotz have succeeded in crafting a work that will appeal to both a specialized audience and the general public. Most people know that jazz and swing were immediately banned upon Hitler's ascension to power in 1933. Swing represented the decadent society of America, while jazz threatened the racial purity of the Aryan race. A deep-rooted anti-Semitism underlay these attitudes: Swing was one component of modernism (``the refuse of a rotting society''); and jazz was being used by the Jews to corrupt the Aryan race through ``musical race defilement.'' Music at the home front had to conform to the traditionalist tastes of Hitler and the Nazi elite, but when it came to propaganda aimed at foreign countries, swing and jazz seemed the perfect bait. Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels was always sensitive to the enormous influence of the radio, which he viewed as second only to the press as the ``most effective weapon in our struggle for existence.'' Strictly speaking, the book's title is misleading; only one of the eight chapters deals with jazz and swing radio propaganda. Four chapters offer a historical introduction to the propaganda ministry and the development of radio in Germany after WW I. An additional chapter reviews the well-known rivalry within the Nazi hierarchy over propaganda; and the final two chapters deal with Nazi radio broadcasts over Europe. The authors have made good use of previously unseen documents to reconstruct the Nazi effort to use music as propaganda. The CD accompanying the book includes catchy tunes (such as a jazzy ``Onward Christian Soldiers'' with new, anti-Semitic lyrics) and original radio broadcasts. A fascinating footnote to the history of the Nazi propaganda machine. (40 illustrations, not seen) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.Synopsis
Jazz was banned from German broadcasting as soon as the Nazis came to power in 1933. Yet throughout World War II, American jazz and swing were core components of the Third Reich's propaganda. Jazz classics such as W.C. Handy's famous "St. Louis Blues", their lyrics neatly tampered with, came over the airwaves, alongside the famous "Germany Calling" programmes directed at Britain and allied forces around the world. "Hitler's Airwaves" sets Goebbels' propaganda orchestra, a swing band fronted by the crooner, Karl ("Charlie") Schwedler, within the context of the Reich Ministry for Propaganda. This book-length study of the full extent of the Nazi propaganda effort, it draws on a vast array of material: interviews with contemporaries and treason trail transcripts, the private archive of Roderich Dietze, wartime head of German radio's English-language service, reports of the BBC's monitoring service, recently declassified FBI and M15 files, and documents in the Bonn Foreign Ministry, the Bundesarchiv and the former Berlin Document Centre. Bergmeier and Lotz explore the origins of subversive radio broadcasting, describe the establishment of Goebbels' Propaganda Ministry and the rapid growth of its foreign-language broadcasting division, and provide a detailed anatomy of its organization, operation and personnel. They examine the workings of the so-called "Secret Stations", ostensibly run by opposition groups broadcasting from inside target countries, but actually based in the Berlin Olympic stadium. And they reveal the scam of Radio Arnhem which, for several months in 1944-5, the Germans passed off as a genuine Allied forces programme. Interwoven with the narrative are biographies of key figures and leading foreign expatriates in the service of the Reich, including William Joyce ("Lord Haw Haw"), John Amery (son of a minister in Churchill's war cabinet), Norman Baille Stewart, Midge Gillars ("Axis Sally") and Douglas Chandler. The book is illustrated with diagrams and illustrations, and includes a CD sampler featuring rare tracks of "Charlie and his Orchestra" and other contemporary broadcast material. A comprehensive account of the range, dexterity and ingenuity of Nazi public relations, it should provoke anyone interested in the history of World War II.
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