Cynical-C Blog

*facepalm*

Considering that most conservative protest signs are misspelled, have poor grammar, and are written in crayon, this effort isn’t half bad. (And no, I don’t think it is racist. It’s intent is clearly to depict Obama as the Joker)

Of course, being douchetastic wingnuts with no foot close to the border of reality, they added the socialism tag at the end which renders whole poster nonsensical since the Joker is an Anarchist which is on the completely opposite side of the political spectrum.

Or did I miss the plot in the comics when Joker decides to terrorize the city until Gotham agrees to take over ownership of Axis chemicals at which point Batman runs for Governor of Alaska and quits half way through his term to prove how good he is at being a point guard in basketball?

From Reuters:

HAVANA (Reuters) – The United States has turned off a news ticker at its diplomatic mission in Havana that long had irritated the Cuban government, the U.S. State Department said on Monday, in another sign of efforts to improve relations with Cuba.

The five-foot-high (1.5-meter) news ticker ran across 25 windows on the outside of the fifth floor of the U.S. diplomatic mission’s building on Havana’s busy seaside Malecon drive. It streamed news, political statements and messages blaming Cuba’s problems on the country’s communist system and socialist economy.

The ticker infuriated Cuban President Fidel Castro when it was turned on by former U.S. President George W. Bush’s administration in 2006. President Raul Castro took over from ailing elder brother Fidel last year.

After the United States launched the ticker, Cuba erected obstructions so it could not be seen and put up anti-U.S. billboards. Cuba took down those billboards earlier this year.

State Department spokesman Ian Kelly told reporters in Washington that the news ticker was turned off in June.

From this Flickr page.

(via Kottke)

Nazi propaganda complete color film from 1936. An outstanding portrait of everyday life in Berlin in this rare, well preserved film, with the magical feeling of the pastel colors of Agfachrome.

From Peacefulrise.com:

Today I happened across a new series of posters on the neighborhood propaganda bulletin boards about etiquette to be observed during the Olympics. Olympics propaganda is not new to Beijing, nor are paternalistic slogans on how to be a “civilized” citizen, but this new series in particular caught my eye because of one poster with a list of rules for how to act around foreigners. Always curious to understand more about Chinese behavior towards us Western folk, I stopped to take a closer look. Most delightful was a list of eight questions Chinese are not to ask us, which if observed, would leave these curious and enthusiastic hosts with essentially nothing with which to make conversation. Following are some translated excerpts along with photos from some of the posters:

(Thanks Tim)

Fox goes from distorting news to distorting pictures.

This morning on Fox & Friends, co-hosts Steve Doocy and Brian Kilmeade called Jacques Steinberg’s June 28 New York Times article on Fox News’s declining ratings a “hit piece,” adding that Steinberg and Times editor Steven Reddicliffe are “attack dogs.” During the segment, Fox aired blatantly distorted photos of Steinberg and Reddicliffe with their teeth yellowed, eyes blackened, and facial features exaggerated:

From EP-TC:

Culled and restored from reviewing hundreds of Eastern newspaper pages and illustrations, this set of 35 images represents what we consider the best late 50s editorial cartoons (Manhua) from China and Indochina. Set during a time of escalating western imperialism, these images react against U.S. military actions in Laos and Vietnam, and represent a unique moment of political commentary.

(via Bibi’s Box)

The crew of the USS Pueblo was captured by North Korea in 1968 and used in propaganda films and photographs but found an interesting way to protest their forced involvement.

The film about the soccer team began with the North Korean team arriving in London and driving through the streets in a bus festooned with flags of the DPRK. As the bus drove down the street one proper English gentlemen complete with derby and umbrella spotted the bus and flipped it off. The man must have been a Korean War vet and he was giving the bus the finger. Whoever was taking the pictures zoomed in on it. A murmur went through the crew, the KORCOMs didn’t know what the finger meant.

This was further demonstrated in the second film in which a US Navy Officer flipped off the cameraman. They left it in. We now had a weapon! Back in our rooms we were elated, this was one more thing we could use to discredit the propaganda we were being forced to grind out. Several crew members expressed caution, but the general attitude was use it. We had been captured, but we never surrendered. Damn the Koreans, full fingers ahead!

The finger became an integral part of our anti-propaganda campaign. Any time a camera appeared, so did the fingers. A concern grew among us that sooner or later the Koreans would notice this and ask questions. It was decided that if the question was raised, the answer was to be that the finger was a gesture known as the Hawaiian Good Luck sign, a variation of the Hang Loose gesture. In late August one of the duty officers asked about the finger and seemed to be accepting of the explanation, but most of us realized that our zeal to ruin their propaganda would come back to haunt us.

Damn Interesting has a great article on the specifics of the incident.

Best Propaganda Film Ever!

In 1942 Charles A. Ridley made a short propaganda film, Lambeth Walk – Nazi Style, which edited existing footage of Hitler and Nazi soldiers (taken from Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will) to make it appear as if they were marching and dancing to “The Lambeth Walk”. The film so enraged Josef Goebbels that he ran out of the screening room kicking chairs and screaming profanities.