We had a record number of perfect 10 memes – three, to be exact – but this one was definitely the winner. Visual rhetoric so powerful that no words are even required.
Meme of the Week 15
Tag: rhetoric
Mailvox: Why International Opinion Matters
An SGer asks a reasonable question:
Why does Israel care what the international community thinks?
Because the nation is too small and too weak to survive without being provided resources and protection by other nations. Only large nations with abundant natural resources such as China, the USA, and Russia can afford to ignore international opinion without rapidly regressing into a pre-industrial state of starvation. Unfortunately, the current Israeli elite has transformed what was once excellent diplomacy into an abusive parasitism over time, which is short-term advantageous but long-term self-destructive.
The current crisis is almost certainly related to the fact that Benjamin Netanyahu is the Prime Minister of Israel. In the eyes of the world, Israel had a just cause to use force to take its hostages back. But it does not see Israel having just cause to ethnically cleanse Gaza or bomb the civilian population there. Hence the rapid loss of global sympathy, and the concomitant increase of global antipathy.
Here’s a hint: if you’re appealing to the historical examples of Dresden and Nagasaki, you are absolutely going to lose the rhetorical war every single time. Even many Americans regard those wartime acts as inexcusable war crimes, as does most of the planet.
Scott Ritter’s article on his complicated personal history with Israel is, as is often the case with Ritter, somewhat hit or miss – at this point, the current state of South Africa is better seen as an ex post facto justification of apartheid than as a positive example for Israel or anyone else – but he does manage to demonstrate why no world leaders, and even many Israelis, have absolutely no trust in Netanyahu or his leadership in this war.
I didn’t blame Israel as a whole, but rather the individual Israelis involved, first and foremost the man who had taken over from Yitzhak Rabin as the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu.
Netanyahu’s incompetence as a political leader had resulted in him being voted out of office in 1999, replaced by Ehud Barack (who had apparently learned to lie to a degree sufficient to the task of being an Israeli politician). In September 2002, Netanyahu testified before the US Congress about Iraq’s nuclear weapons program. Even though he did so as a private citizen, his status as a former Prime Minister gave his words credibility they did not deserve.
“There is no question whatsoever that Saddam is seeking, is working, is advancing towards the development of nuclear weapons,” Netanyahu said. “Once Saddam has nuclear weapons, the terror network will have nuclear weapons.”
Netanyahu’s statements directly contradicted the findings that my Israeli colleagues and I had reached—findings that were shared by the International Atomic Energy Agency, responsible for overseeing the dismantling of Iraq’s nuclear program—that the Iraqi nuclear program had been eliminated, and that there was no evidence of its reconstitution.
But Netanyahu’s job wasn’t to tell the truth about Iraq’s nuclear program, but rather use the fear generated by the specter of an Iraqi nuclear weapon to justify a war with Iraq that would remove Saddam Husein from power. “If you take out Saddam, Saddam’s regime, I guarantee you that it will have enormous positive reverberations on the region,” Netanyahu told his receptive congressional audience. “And I think that people sitting right next door in Iran, young people, and many others, will say the time of such regimes, of such despots is gone.”
Looking back today, at the horrific consequences of America’s illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq, at an Iranian regime firmly entrenched behind a nuclear program that is not going away, one can clearly see that Benjamin Netanyahu was wrong about everything. But that has been his modus operendi from the start—to exaggerate and lie about threats faced by Israel to justify military action which invariably resulted in disaster.
Now, regardless of what one thinks of Ritter, the fact that Netanhayu’s known modus operandi for more than two decades has been “to exaggerate and lie about threats faced by Israel to justify military action which invariably resulted in disaster” does not leave one with a great deal of confidence in a positive outcome of this recent war between Israel and the organization it helped create, Hamas.
This is Netanyahu’s war, one that he has long sought, and quite possibly one of which it will eventually be learned that he arranged and staged. We may even need to coin a new term for this sort of war, because if it is true that Netanyahu not only permitted, but was involved in encouraging the attacks, “green flag” wouldn’t suffice to describe it. “Puppet flag” would be more accurate.
And as for any objections that it would require a sociopath to contemplate and actually do such a contemptible thing, well, there appears to be considerable evidence that Netanyahu is not only a sociopath, but one whose psyche was deeply affected by the death of his heroic older brother at Entebbe. As the Germans learned to their great detriment, as the Ukrainians are presently learning to theirs, it is very costly to a nation to permit a psychologically-damaged individual to hold the reins of government.
UPDATE: Oh, Sweet Moses. Israeli PR doubles down on the rhetorical retardery.
Nations that have failed to support Israel’s response to the atrocities committed by Hamas on October 7 are on the side of the militant group in the conflict, the Israeli Foreign Ministry has declared. There can be no neutrality regarding the conflict, a ministry spokesman has insisted.
The Rage is Boundless
I don’t mean to elevate the blood pressure of anyone who is reading alternative media, but I fear it has been reliably reported on social media that new Hamas outrages have been discovered.
- Hamas hands Israeli babies bottles but they are actually dynamite sticks painted to look like bottles, and they explode after the babies realize the fuse is lit.
- Hamas paints walls to look like tunnels and then makes Israeli babies drive into the walls thinking it was a road the whole time.
- Hamas puts Israeli babies on see-saws and then drops anvils on the opposite side, launching the Israeli babies into the stratosphere.
There is only one solution to these unconceivable horrors committed by subhuman animals, and that is to send in every single soldier in the US Army and the US Marine Corps to genocide the entire Gaza Strip, West Bank, and the East Bank. Also, Syria, Iran, and southern… what the hell, all of Lebanon too. After which, gold-plated condominiums will be constructed, at US expense, to console the shattered survivors of these unprecedented outrages.
Anything less would be an anti-semitic hate crime. Write your congressman!
UPDATE: The media elites really don’t get it. The lack of self-awareness is astonishing.
Israel has made two major mistakes.
Why Israel is fast losing the public relations war, THE TIMES OF ISRAEL, 1 November 2023
- First, the goals of the war have been poorly articulated.
- It has failed sufficiently to emphasize that an entire army of accomplices stands behind Hamas.
The first point is relevant, the second one is not, but neither explain the global loss of sympathy for the Israelis in the aftermath of the October 7th attacks. The reason Israel is now losing the public relations war is because a) the response is observably and statistically disproportionate, b) the misguided attempt to capitalize on the initial world reaction through argumentum iniuriae has failed due to both a lack of credibility and a complete failure to read the crowd, c) the media narrative contradicts the Ukraine media narrative of the last 20 months, and d) neocon + ADL overreach.
UPDATE: It appears the Israeli propagandists failed to learn the lesson of Sandy Hook, which is this: Americans don’t give a fuck anymore. GenX and the younger generations are not gullible Silents and Boomers. We all know that governments have historically done terrible things in order to get the people to buy into whatever their cause du jour is. So, the elites can fly false flags and slaughter every kindergartener in New Jersey, they can rape every puppy and kitten in Tel Aviv, and it still won’t move us to support them one little bit.
Also, you might not want to run with “dead babies” when you support abortion. Your rhetoric is DOA. I mean, what’s the real problem there, the lack of maternal consent to the murder?
If At First You Don’t Succeed
Fail and fail again.
It looks like we’re about 2-3 weeks away from being told that Hamas has built underground death roller coasters, Hezbollah is unleashing lethal AI rape-bots, and Iran is locking little children into a cage with a sabretooth tiger and a Tyrannosaurus Rex, if current social media is any guide.
Of all the things that never happened, whatever the latest Middle East-related outrage is supposed to be never happened the most.
First, Americans are perfectly aware that the neocons are frightened by the situation in the Middle East and are desperate to get Americans to go and fight Iran for them. Which is what they’ve been doing for the last 18 years, since 2005. That’s not happening, not on a scale that matters, and regardless, not for long. All US military involvement in the Middle East can be reasonably expected to accomplish is to give Russia and China free rein in Europe, Asia, and Africa. Because it’s too late, as evidenced by the events in Ukraine over the last 20 months.
Second, if you want people to care even a little bit about what happens to you or your children, it’s not particularly helpful to be constantly observed chanting “death to the White race”, “Europe must be destroyed”, “Jesus is evil”, all the while systematically undermining the greatest civilization Man has ever known through advocacy of abortion, feminism, mass immigration, miscegenation, and satanic transgender ideology.
Neocon Inc. can invent whatever imaginative atrocities they like. Jon Podhoretz and Ben Shapiro can hurl accusations of hatred of this and anti-of that all they want. Aside from a few gullible Boomers who wouldn’t hesitate to believe that Iran is building a lunar military base using rockets fueled with the blood of Jewish children, no one gives a quantum of a fragment of a damn what they say anymore.
Import X, Become X
You can call the truth whatever you like. You can utilize rhetoric to make people fear to speak the truth. But none of that will ever change the fact that it is the truth.
Students have accused a Cambridge University professor of racism after he tweeted ‘Import the Arab World, become the Arab World’ in response to footage of pro-Palestinian protesters in London.
Dr James Orr, an academic at the Faculty of Divinity, made the comments on a video showing crowds of demonstrators outside the Israeli embassy in Kensington on Monday – two days after Hamas terrorists attacked Israel.
The footage showed protesters waving Palestinian flags and holding banners in Kensington High Street, where the air was thick with smoke from flares. At one moment it panned to men who were praying on the street.
It is racist for a people to wish to remain a people and retain their language, customs, religion, laws, and culture. That’s literally what the neologism “racism” was coined to describe by the US general who articulated it as part of his personal war on the American Indian, and it is what it has always meant despite repeated attempts to move the goalposts as required for the purposes of rhetorical effectiveness.
The only thing that has changed is that people have been deeply indoctrinated to believe that racism is bad, even that it is a sin. The important thing is to understand that it is not possible to a) prefer to preserve your nation, your language, your customs, your laws, and your religion and b) not be racist.
The sooner people stop running in fear from rhetoric, the better.
The correct response to accusations of racism is a simple question: why do you think racism is bad?
When Rhetoric Goes Astray
The mainstream media is really pulling out all the stops in a desperate attempt to whip up public support for a Middle Eastern war. I think the fact that the only demonstrations taking place across the West in response to the coverage of the Hamas incursion and another Israeli bombardment of Gaza are pro-Palestinian has them frightened and confused.
Sickening footage has emerged of the moment murderous Hamas gunmen shot dead an Israeli family’s dog before storming their home, raiding their fridge and setting their home alight amid a campaign of civilian slaughter.
Now, this would have likely been very effective at stirring up American emotions 20 years ago, before police in the US began routinely executing the family pets every time they make a house call and a dog barks at them. I don’t know if the Narrative writers are still all Boomers or what, but regardless, they don’t seem very cognizant of the fact that Clown World has been in control for a few decades now, or that most people have now developed some level of resistance to Clown World’s propaganda and its viral narratives.
The 4Chan Guide to Rhetoric
This is a very good summary of how to meme effectively takes into account everything from Aristotle to GamerGate.
THE ON MEMEWAR GUIDE TO WRITING BETTER PROPAGANDA
THE MOST IMPORTANT RULE: CATCH PEOPLE’S ATTENTION AND HOLD IT BY BEING ENTERTAINING
KNOW YOUR TARGET:
Have a specific target in mind (either a person, or a well-developed stereotype). Know the narratives they use to make sense of the world.
Know what they are likely to find entertaining.
WRITE TO THE NARRATIVE:
Use a message that the target is likely to agree with.
If this is not possible, frame the message that they will disagree with in terms that they are likely to agree with. Ensure it fits enough so that it is not just recognizable, but is considered true without having to think about it. Use vague terms that are likely to have wide appeal, and can be applied to whatever the target has in mind.
BE ENTERTAINING:
Ensure that the propaganda is concise enough to be easily understood and digested.
Follow the setup/payoff model:
Setup: A familiar premise that sets expectations.
Payoff: An unexpected development that subverts the expectation.
The Payoff must be delivered quickly enough to trigger the ‘sudden realization’ that induces humor.
The setup and payoff can be Explicit (A guy walks into a bar) Contextual (your boss farts in a meeting) or Ironic (A towtruck stuck in a ditch)
Use forms and motifs from propaganda that is already successful. This ensures recognizability, which is eye-catching.
It also means there is a high likelihood that the person will find it entertaining.
EMOTIONAL MANIPULATION:
A strong emotion will overwhelm the target’s ability to rationally think through the implications of the message. Any emotion can achieve this. A very funny piece, an enraging piece, or a piece that causes dread or demoralization can be effective. AS LONG AS IT RESONATES WITH THE TARGET’S NARRATIVES.
HAVE A PURPOSE:
The propaganda should work to convey a narrative message. This can be a simple message about a person (or group of people).
IE, Joe Biden or all Democrats are stupid.
This can also be a way to contextualize events or relations.
IE, Joe Biden wants to tax us to death, the Democrats are running up the deficit.
The best messages are short and simple.
Overtime, the cumulative effect of many short messages will change a person’s worldview.
Some of the memes being produced in accordance with this guidance, and utilizing the latest DALL-E AI graphics engine, are very good. One example:
China Signs On
The pagans may not be believers, but they appear to recognize true evil when they see it, and by their adoption of Russia’s rhetoric, it appears they have some idea with whom they’re at war.
Beijing has labeled Washington the “true empire of lies” as it dismissed allegations contained in a new report by the US State Department, which accused China of “global information manipulation.”
“Some in the US may think that they can prevail in the information war as long as they produce enough lies. But the people of the world are not blind,” China’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Saturday. It added that “more and more people in the world” are seeing through America’s “ugly attempt to perpetuate its supremacy” with lies.
The US has a long history of manipulation and disinformation campaigns, the ministry continued, citing a number of examples spanning from the early Cold War period to the present day.
Of course, it’s also possible that the Chinese diplomats just recognize the “empire of lies” as effective anti-Clown World rhetoric with a strong dialectical base and are adopting it on that basis. But while they’ve been at asymetric “unrestricted” war with the USA since 1999, they have not been open about it. Clearly, that is changing.
UPDATE: Interesting. The Chinese Foreign Ministry actually put out a press release dedicated to this one specific issue.
Q: The US Department of State released a report on September 28, claiming that China has invested billions of dollars to spread disinformation globally. It says that China’s “global information manipulation” is not simply a matter of public diplomacy – but a challenge to the integrity of the global information space, and if unchecked, Beijing’s efforts could result in a sharp contraction of global freedom of expression in the future. What is China’s response?
A: The US Department of State report is in itself disinformation as it misrepresents facts and truth. In fact, it is the US that invented the weaponizing of the global information space. The relevant center of the US State Department which concocted the report is engaged in propaganda and infiltration in the name of “global engagement”. It is a source of disinformation and the command center of “perception warfare”. From Operation Mockingbird which bribed and manipulated news media for propaganda purposes in the Cold War era, to a vial of white powder and a staged video of the “White Helmets” cited as evidence to wage wars of aggression in Iraq and Syria earlier this century, and then to the enormous lie made up to smear China’s Xinjiang policy, facts have proven time and again that the US is an “empire of lies” through and through. Even some in the US, such as Senator Rand Paul, acknowledged that the US government is the greatest propagator of disinformation in the history of the world.
Some in the US may think that they can prevail in the information war as long as they produce enough lies. But the people of the world are not blind. No matter how the US tries to pin the label of “disinformation” on other countries, more and more people in the world have already seen through the US’s ugly attempt to perpetuate its supremacy by weaving lies into “emperor’s new clothes” and smearing others.
Remarks on the US State Department’s Report Targeting China, 30 September 2023
Straight Legend
An Arkhaven-related exchange on Twitter.
Now that can only be described with one word: FATALITY!
You can subscribe to THE LEGEND ON COMICS on UATV. Even Fox News is now reporting on his insightful video streams that are available there. Seriously, I listen to his streams while I’m driving; they’re both educational and entertaining and I now know approximately 8,537 times more about the comics industry than I did when Arkhaven started.
Comic book writing veteran Chuck Dixon called out Marvel for undermining and minimizing one of its most popular heroes, the armed vigilante known as the Punisher. According to Dixon, the company is “embarrassed” by the “working class” hero and his appeal within military and police ranks.
The Punisher was a gun-wielding anti-hero created by Marvel Comics in 1974. He is described on Marvel’s website as a “Family man turned crime-fighting vigilante, Frank Castle embodies the persona of the Punisher to avenge personal tragedy and ensure all criminals receive the justice they deserve.”
Dixon, who has been in the comic book industry for decades, particularly in writing comics about The Punisher, has criticized how Marvel has handled the character in recent years. On a recent episode of his podcast, he shared theories to a fan about why Marvel may have grown to dislike one of their most popular characters…
He then suggested the thought process of Marvel leadership, “We’re going to take the Punisher, and we’re going to mangle him, and we’re going to destroy him. We’re going to do what no other entertainment company ever has done. We are going to purposely take one of our intellectual properties and tear it to the ground.”
Former ‘Punisher’ writer claims Marvel ‘hates,’ is ‘embarrassed’ by character who is loved by cops, military, FOX NEWS,
If you’re a fan of The Legend, you may also wish to note that a 60-page print edition of MY SISTER SUPREMA, one of the first comics created for Arktoons, will be available at Arkhaven next week. And about that Black Warrant… one guess how this particular scenario plays out. For Arkhaven and new Legend video updates, subscribe to the new Arkhaven telegram channel.
The Shadow Can Only Mock
“Racist” is what they call you when you aren’t willing to stand by and permit them to destroy your nation, your language, your faith, and your culture without resistance. All the blathering about “hate”, “equality”, “diversity”, and “civil rights” is nothing more than rhetoric intended to emotionally manipulate you into refraining from perpetuating your own kind.
As for the idea that “racism is a sin”, that is pure satanic inversion. Any “sin” invented in 1902 is obviously a fake and man-made one.