Understanding Enemy Propaganda

This blog identifies the marketing messages of advertisements and public relations communications as a form of propaganda. And not a benign set of propaganda, but rather a malicious form of propaganda that is ultimately harmful to its human recipients. This propaganda is an integral part of the ideology of a system that degrades the planet we depend on for sustenance and wears down the people within the system through accelerating wealth inequality. Marketing messages are revealed by their true name - Enemy Propaganda.

Every day we are bombarded by dozens of marketing messages from the mass media, not just in the ads but also thoroughly embedded in the content (such as a car review). This media may include internet, radio, television, billboards, and storefront signage. These messages come in the forms instructional messages and emotional messages, but critically they also serve to normalize consumer capitalism and reduce independent thought by continually painting a picture of the same narrow world view based on rabid commodity consumption. Enemy propaganda intends to influence the future behaviour of the passive recipient. And what behaviour is desired? It is of course the behaviour to spend money, to consume products. This message is extremely important to the consumer capitalist system, because if consumers stop spending money, the entire economic system will collapse.

All commodity production, which is almost without exception harmful to the planet and harmful to the exploited workers, is in the end justified by the sales made to consumers. If consumers do not buy these commodities, then the wage labour and the resource extraction for these commodities will eventually cease. To avoid this situation, consumers are constantly bombarded by messages to continue consuming. Identifying these propaganda messages as enemy propaganda and blocking or replacing them by propaganda that is derived from an ideology that is instead beneficial to people and the planet is a must.