Modern Propaganda reaches individuals enclosed in the mass and as participants in that mass, yet it also aims at a crowd, but only as a body composed of individuals. Propaganda must be total. The propagandist must utilize all the technical means at his disposal- the press, radio TV, movies, posters, meetings, door to door canvasing, {Internet, e-mail, cell phones, texting Tweeters, Youtube, Internet Radio, TV, Newspapers, Magazine and so forth}- my addition. Modern Propaganda must utilize all these media. There is no propaganda as long as one makes use, in sporadic fashion and at random, of a newspaper article here, a poster or radio program there, organizes a few meetings and lectures, writes a few slogans on the wall. That is not propaganda. Propaganda is a matter of reaching and encircling the whole man and all men. Propaganda tries to surround man by all possible routes, in the realm of feelings as well as ideas, by playing on his will or on his needs, through his conscious and his unconscious, assailing him in both his private and his public-life. It furnishes him with a complete system for explaining the world, and provides immediate incentives to action. We are in the presence of an organized myth that tries to take hold of the entire person. Through the myth it creates, propaganda imposes a complete range of intuitive knowledge, susceptible of only one interpretation, unique and one sided, and precluding any divergence. It stimulates in the individual a feeling of exclusiveness, and produces a biased attitude. Propaganda cannot be satisfied with partial success, for it does not tolerate discussion; by its very nature, it excludes contradiction and discussion.(Jacques Ellul)

I cited this long excerpt from Jacque Ellul to begin to flash-out and understand the going-ons in our society today. The use of media and the now miniaturized technological gadgets,are enabling those who are propagandists to have a field day. Like Ellul says, "propaganda, by its very nature excludes contradiction and discussion. Just by mulling over the issues read online or watched on TV, one feels inundated by a barrage of harangue, mass actions, attitudes, information, discourse bordering on racism and behaviors without a tinge of civility. What we are seeing is heightened and negative vitriol on both the net and TV. It is becoming belligerent and very negative, intolerant and very aggressive. Every night now, the same cast of players, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Lou Dobbs, Michelle Bachman, Congressman Joe wilson and other others, work the waves, the net and all other media outlets, like radio, twitter and the rest to misinform, lie and confuse willing adherents. As Pointed above, these people are playing on the 'needs and will,... and assail him in his private and public life'. It appears like we are now beginning to see what this brouhaha is about from reading Ellul's excerpt. The health care question, the Stimulus Package, and other proposals and efforts are being used to try and discredit the president and various other ways. There's an undercurrent feeling and bubbling race antagonisms about to percolate to the surface or society. The media, as we are using and consuming it, is propelling the negative discourses abound in its memes and within the media ecology, the data sphere and cyber world.

The Way of the Reich

One of the least talked about propagandist was Joseph Goebbels and in this part of the article, we will look at his modus operandi in short to get a sense of how he re-invented and applied the type of propaganda that used the emerging technologies of the day. They used radio, movies, organized rallies and speeches. They adapted their ideology to the Mass media to reach the entire German people. During the second World War the Nationalist Socialist went about their way to justify and explain the war to the German people. Joseph Goebbels was the architect of this propaganda machinery, and he put into play mass media of the press and especially of the radio on as a tool acting upon the morale of the population engaged in war(Henri Michel) Around 1944, the German propaganda apparatus and mass media were speaking as much to the Nazi elite as to the masses. It is amazing to note the the words of Hitler and Goebbels appealed to normal men and women as a 'trumpet blast of freedom', a 'beacon light of faith' in the words of some of the popular slogans. That Goebbels and his operatives had managed to hoodwink the Germans to accept a losing war, says something about his adherents. Goebbels new that he might get some modicum of acceptance if he deluged the German people with great mass media. He knew that there three type of people in Germany-The Nazis who accepted the message and made stronger form the Movies or rallies; then there were the average types , the non-party members or totally opportunistic" party comrades", those who grumbled about shortages, but did their war duty very well; the third type active and passive opponents of the Third Reich. These people worried Goebbels greatly, and his propaganda was not directed at winning them over to nazism, but prevent them from spreading what he called 'poisonous attitudes to the first and second groups mentioned above.

Goebbels went on and treated the jews like they were 'everywhere' and 'nowhere, and according to him, 'the jews were deadly and subversive, they are the tie which binds the demon like enemy coalition together. His war time phrase was: "The Jews are to blame for everything". Anti-Jewish feeling permeated every level of the Nazi propaganda apparatus and mass media, even after the Jews were taken to the east. Around 1943, he stated that the Jews were responsible for German misery and German defeats. Jews as scape-goats and used as excuses does ring familiar in talking about our present state of destabilization taking place today These Nazi architects had a combination of idealism and brutality, of optimism and pessimism, typified by a Nazi world view and propaganda. They used their own confused yet comprehensible alienation to appeal through Nazi symbols to millions, yet they could still talk to one another as normal, logical, objective men. Joseph Goebbels viewed himself as on of the great propagandists in history. After he became Minister of Propaganda he observed: "In itself propaganda does not possess any set of fundamental methods. It has but one goal, and in politics this goal always revolves around one point: the conquest of the masses". To him, as a Berlin propagandist, style was his substance: objectivity had nothing to with truth. Some of the objections that have been hurled around against the sitting President are not true, but are treated as true by those who trumpet them. The objective is not truth, but to conquer the masses and manipulate them to whatever end.

By exploring the propaganda principles as espoused by Goebels as described above, is not to make him a hero or good example as how to do propaganda of any kind. The ways and means he applied help us shed the light as to how the propagandist works today. His journalistic mouth-piece, Der Angriff, a short newspaper and an agitational pamphlet, in it we find out that Goebbels had a clear sense of the brilliance of placards and biting satirical cartoons, and he thought that the more outrageous, he thought, the better. The way they use of the radio, TV, Internet, (rallying the adherents), rallies and demonstration, shed a light on how these are organized and applied as we are witnessing them. The scare tactics, intimidation and rising pulse of race, making Hitler of Obama on Placards, Having Obama as a tribal African decked with feathers and so on, Le Bon, a German elistist during the WWII era after studying crowd motivation wrote: "The substitution of the unconscious action of the crowd for the conscious activity of individuals is one of the principal characteristics of the present age... Men are ruled by ideas, sentiments and customs... crowds display a singularity inferior mentality... The part played by the unconscious in all our acts is immense, and that played by reason very small." Goebbels was a dangerous and sick, but smart individual in terms of how to manipulate the masses and put them into action. It is this active manipulation that this article is interrogating in relation to mass media involved with mass action as we are witnessing today, that we are trying to understand and put into some perspective.

Mass Media, Mass target

The Media targets the individual and mass. The Technological gadgets today are for the masses and the individual in converging and connectivity. The memes runs viral in all technological machines and systems and in them, the propagandists morphs effortlessly and effectively. The packaged viral is coughed in terms that are easy and digestible to everyone. The breakdown of old ways of receiving and sending information have evolved to the point of us being the information conduit and preserver. The nature of the messages in the system are providing the propagandist with mass outreach and connection never seen before in our young techno-life. What this means is that propaganda thrives even more so in that it is not only local in its applications, but creates and duplicates itself in many context and denotation internationally. The information age has become the age of confusion and less information. Every bit of information has its counterpart, for or against it, or neither, which multiplies in even large scale information, that, in the end, the propagandist thrives amid an audience with limited , disjointed and sparse knowledge, talking points, that, whatever the propagandist says, becomes information, no matter how wrong, and incomplete or untrue. The way of processing and disseminating of information has affected a lot of people and children, and our processing and applying the information has changed with the manner and rate at which it's coming at us.

We can look at various examples in our mass media world today. The masses use the Internet and TV to communicate and get information. So that, what happens when the mass of people, the whole globe get connected on the web, we have a melding of ideas, cultures and big business collide. The availability of TV, Internet, Newspapers, Radio, movies, door to door campaigning, speeches, rallies, posters, TV talking heads, news documentaries, cell phones, texting , e-mails, twittering, reading,writing and responding to blogs on comments column, cyber surfing and chatting give the user and the masses an illusion of being technologically advanced, yet inundated with all types of information, that in the final analysis information looses its value, content and context; it becomes regular and tepid and confusing. The glut of memes choking the web now requires the consumer of that information to sort and ferret if not vet the content and context to simplify and analyze. Within the Technological Empire, the feed and the reception have become one. Those who receive the information become the information bearers and disseminators of material that they either believe or reject, do not know of its origin or they do, but become carriers and imbibe it nonetheless responding, in the process to other meme stimuli and prodding, etc.. This has resulted in a very interesting time in the politics and society. The mass media machinery has one interest, reaching the individual as an individual and part of the mass targeted, either manipulating or fleecing them. As Ellul says, it works on trying to reach each one of us in the 'realm of feeling and ideas'. The interest groups opportunistically push their agenda and disseminate their ideas, in the process excluding and contradiction(through abuse and other unseemly conduct and behavior[shouting at the tea parties], out-talking and out-shouting opposition on TV or radio news programs, discussion on talk shows while business business is cashing in. There are many other programs which promote domestic terrorism, racist blogs and video-sites, religious, music sites and so forth. Propagandist operate on many levels and in many guises and covertly and overtly. By doing this, some magnify our fears and unsettle our feelings. This is the climate within which media 'propaganda imposes a complete range of intuitive knowledge,susceptible of only one interpretation, unique and one sided, and precluding any divergence'. The Corporations pour in funds and support, promote,orchestrate and sow dissent and destabailization.

Jacques Ellul furthers this point above thus:

"We have just said that action exactly suited to its ends must be obtained.This leads us to state that if the classic but outmoded view of propaganda consists in defining it as an adherence of man to an orthodoxy, true modern propaganda seeks, on the contrary, to obtain orthopraxy- an action that in itself, and not because of the value judgements of the person, who is acting, leads directly to a goal, which for the individual is not a conscious and intentional objective to be attained, but which is considered such by the propagandist. The propagandist knows what objective should be sought and what action should be accomplished, and he maneuvers the instrument that will secure precisely this action".

Ellul further adds: "This is a particular example of a more general problem: the separation of thought and action in our society. We are living in a time when systematically- though without our wanting it so- action and thought are being separated. In our society, he who thinks can no longer act for himself.; he must act through the agency of others, and in many cases he cannot act at all. He who acts cannot first think out his action, either because of lack of time and the burden of his personal problems, or because society's plan demands that he translate others' thoughts into action". It is instructive what Jacques is saying and we live in a time when the minds has been completely severed from our actions. A lot of people are not thinking or researching issues for themselves; they thrive on hear-say, innuendo and misinformation. Their action of what they do with that information has noting to do with what they thought, themselves. They become a well orchestrated, controlled and contained mass. They belong to the second groups that Goebbels, the opportunistic comrades who complain, but deep on going on and fighting for the wrong reasons. Their behavior,actions and attitudes are based on the lies and confusion that they are sold to by the Multi-Corporations, special interest groups, and other agitators and persons and organizations, that, as said, the glut of information become lessened in its value, content and context, they believe what they have been instructed to 'protest and rally-against'. The propaganda is spun in way it puts people into action and motion. The truth is not an issue, it is the confusion sown to sway men into actions, charge-up and change their attitudes and let them loose on questionable behaviors and raving rants, that do not make any sense nor stand or hold up when facts or truth are presented. This is precisely what is happening today in the ether, net and tube.

Propaganda has created an atmosphere filled with putrid racist talk, signs that depict ugly images of Obama as Hitler; graffiti on the walls giving orders to kill Obama; illegal immigrants under incessant attack, both physically or otherwise. The men in Congress talk like normal people, reasonable, amicable, but they got the ball rolling for this year by being the party of 'no', they want to see the President fail; saying that he is putting us in danger; his health care is dangerous; he apologizes too much to other world leaders and bows down to the Saudi's, he's a commie; he is an Arab; he is an illegal alien and other choice words that need not be furthered in this article. Others proclaimed that Obama is showing us as weak and anyway, he is not an American, but Kenyan and so forth. Technology is used through applying and packaging their messages or memes into the bowels of the connected and converging technologies, which has has put us nearer to a culture and race war. The Empire in a piecemeal way showing the war reluctantly to the masses, and this too, is the one straw that is adding to breaking the camel's back. We need to look deeper into the effects and affects of current technological eco-systems and, their feed and feedback as they are utilized and arrayed against the masses who use them and imbibe their products,content and context, albeit confusing and inane. The spin that is being added to the cyber-tube-radio melange, is creating lies, confusion, agitation and uncertainty- this is not good for democracy, stability and progress. The aim, as Goebbels observed, is to conquer the masses using a deluge off mass media apparatuses and outlets, and in our case, objectivity, too, has nothing to do with the truth.

Propaganda and Democracy

From the moment that propaganda is used to promulgate democratic ideas,it is good.; if it is bad it is only because of its authoritarian content. Such a position is terribly idealistic and neglects the principal condition of the modern world; the primacy of means over ends. But one may say - and this is a matter worthy of reflection - that democracy itself is not a good "propaganda object." Practically all propaganda efforts to promulgate democracy have failed. In fact, one would have to modify the entire concept of democracy considerably to make it a good propaganda object, which at present it is not.

From the moment that democracy uses this instruments (propaganda), propaganda becomes democratic. This thought is not often expressed quite so simply and aggressively, but it is an implicit notion found in most American writers. Nothing can touch democracy; on the contrary, it impresses its character on everything it touches. This prejudice is important for understanding the American democratic mythology and the tentative adoption of this principle by the popular democracies. (Ellul)

Some will say: "Freedom of expression is democracy; to prevent propaganda is to violate democracy. Certainly, but it must be remembered that the freedom of expression of one or two powerful companies that do not express the thoughts of the individual or small groups, but of the capitalist interests or an entire public, does not exactly correspond to what was called freedom of expression a century ago. One must remember, further, that the freedom of expression of one who makes a speech to a limited audience is not the same as that of the speaker who has all the radio sets in the country at his disposal, all the more as the science of propaganda gives to these instruments a shock effect that the non-initiated cannot equal. Rivero demonstrates the immense difference between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in this respect:

"In the nineteenth century,the problem of opinion formation through the expression of thought was essentially a problem of contacts between the state and the individual, and a problem of acquisition of a freedom. But today, thanks to the mass media, the individual find himself outside the battle ... the debate is between the State and powerful groups. ... Freedom to express ideas is no longer at stake in this debate. ... What we have is a mastery and domination by the State or some powerful groups over the whole of the technical media of opinion formation... the individual has no access to them ... he is no longer a participant in this battle for the free expression of ideas: he is the stake. What matters for him is which voice will be permitted to hear and which words will have the power to obsess him..." One has to ask then what freedom of expression still means in a democracy. Even if the state held all the instruments of propaganda and spin, what characterizes democracy is that it permits the expression of different propagandas. The other effect of democratic propaganda is that it is subject to certain values. It is not unfettered but fettered, and it is an instrument not of passion but reason. Therefore, democratic propaganda must be essentially truthful. This can be observed in American propaganda: it is undeniable that American that American information and propaganda are truthful. But that does not seem to be necessarily characteristic of democracy.

Finally, the democratic propagandist or democratic State will often have a bad conscience about using propaganda. The old democratic conscience still gets in the way and burdens him; he has a vague feeling that he is engaged in something illegitimate. Thus, for the propagandist in a democracy to throw himself fully into his task it is necessary that he believes -i.e., that he formulate his own convictions when he makes propaganda. In terms of what has been said above about democratic propaganda, it all adds up to ineffectual propaganda. Precisely to the extent that the propagandist  retains his respect for the individual, he denies himself the very penetration that is the ultimate aim of all propaganda: that of provoking action without prior thought. To the extent that he remains partial, he fails to use the mystique. But that mystique is indispensable for well-made propaganda. Ultimately, even if one tries to maintain confidence and communion between government and the governed, all propaganda and spin ends up as a means by which the prevailing powers manipulate the masses. This schism between the masses and the government is provoked and maintained by all techniques whose practitioners constitute a sort of aristocracy of technicians who make it their business to modify the structures of the state. What the developments over the past several decades show is that the democracies will abandon their precaution, if they have not yet already done so, and their nuances and throw themselves wholeheartedly into effective propaganda action. But such actions will no longer have a special democratic character, but will be in the service of both propaganda and spin as we are witnessing it in today's technological society.