Cold War Paranoia/Fantasies
This is my latest favorite procrastination tool: Life magazine images hosted by Google Image Search: http://www.life.com/Life/
But to get to the subject of this post: the question as to whether the Cold War was a projection of collective fear or paranoia but also… and at the very same time… if it was an expression of mass desire and fantasy. I found this set of photographs to be somewhat bewildering. The photos depict a town in Wisconsin, U.S.A. that staged a mock Communist invasion in 1950. Judging by the expressions on some of the faces, I think one would have to conclude that such a simulation is driven by fear mixed with desire; fear of the possibility of such an event happening but also the desire to experience it.
I often wonder what the experience of living in the U.S. in the midst of the Cold War was like for its citizens. It must have been very strange indeed.
The Flag Lapel Pin as Pro-War Propaganda
Somehow I stumbled across this website once again and it brought with it a few laughs. I had mentioned the lapel pin and its political symbolism in the U.S. to students taking the propaganda course I am teaching at the moment. It is interesting how the lapel pin came to symbolize ones patriotism (or lack of it if that person… such a Obama… didn’t where it) and it even was used by members of the Conservative Party in Canada in similar ways. Of course, its meaning was forced so that it also came to mean… at that time at least… that the person was supportive of then President Bush’s decision to invade Iraq. (Wow, am I glad that he is gone.)
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