Propaganda, culture and time
How To Spot a Jap, United States Army, 1942 (via)
How long does it take before war propaganda seems absurd? Perhaps it depends on your national or ethnic identity - I’m guessing that both the Japanese and Arabs clued in faster than the average American soldier or civilian.
Update: scored from Metafilter comments, here’s a soldier’s guide to Iraq from the same era as the Japanese one above, and links to hundreds of US government documents of the time. (For some reason I’m particularly taken by 99 Ways to Share the Meat, which includes instructions on how to “spread meat flavor”. Talk about sinister.)
July 16th, 2006 at 11:18 am
Worth reprinting from the document linked c/o Metafilter. Its a breathtaking existential proposition that sounds like something right out of Lawrence of Arabia:
“YOU HAVE been ordered to Iraq (i-RAHK) as part of the world-wide offensive to beat Hitler.
You will enter Iraq both as a soldier and as an individual, because on our side a man can be both a soldier and an individual. That is our strength - if we are smart enough to use it. It can be our weakness if we aren’t. As a soldier your duties are laid out for you. As an individual, it is what you do on your own that counts - and it may count for a lot more than you think.
American success of failure in Iraq may well depend on whether the Iraquis (as the people are called) like American soldiers or not. It may not be quite that simple. But then again it could.”
(Washington DC: Special Service Division, Army Service Forces, United States Army, War and Navy Departments, 1943. p.1).
“But then again it could [be]” - or maybe there isn’t supposed to be a verb or an action in response to this paradox? Today we could rephrase it:
“But yet again (in 2006) it could…”