Abbott's use of Nazi propaganda techniques

The Blowfly has been hanging around the Prime Minister this week seeking to understand how our No 1 redhead is thinking.

It has all been rather frantic trying to sell the carbon tax and matching Toxic Tony.

She wont listen to The Blowfly. I have been sending out telepathic signals to her to not even attempt to match him. He simply cant be matched! He is in another dimension.

A dimension where it is okay to tell lies and mistruths and treat human beings just like Joseph Goebbels did for Hitler.

And on that note The Blowfly was happy to see the PM reading the rather illuminating article by Ian Robinson in last Saturday's Fairfax papers. Ian is the president emeritus of the Rationalist society of Australia.

"Taxing the truth:why we must not let Abbott's dogmas lie" is a wonderful little tome on the methods that the Coalition in general, and Abbott in particular, is using to distort the reality of the political debate in Australia.

Although the PM says she is not that interested in the polls, because she has her eyes firmly on the end game, she is neither deaf nor blind.

She can hear the commentators opine that Abbott has the Government with its back to the wall and that he is a certainty to be our next PM.

This has surprised her a little----to say the least!

She thought that the three word slogans were used by Tony simply because that was all he could remember.

She thought that the way he misrepresents her apparent commitment to 'no carbon tax' before the last election was just sour grapes because his offer to build a $1 billion hospital for Andrew Wilkie was not taken up.

But according to the article these tactics are all propaganda strategies enunciated by Hitler in 'Mein Kampf' and used by his trusted assistant Goebbels to manipulate the thinking of the unsuspecting German people.

The PM was so intrigued by this article that she got out her trusty iPad and looked up 'Nazi propaganda' on Wikipedia. This is what she found.

Julia highlighted some of the points she thought were relevant .

"Mein Kampf contains the blueprint of later Nazi propaganda efforts. Assessing his audience, Hitler writes in chapter VI:

"Propaganda must always address itself to the broad masses of the people. (...) All propaganda must be presented in a popular form and must fix its intellectual level so as not to be above the heads of the least intellectual of those to whom it is directed. (...) The art of propaganda consists precisely in being able to awaken the imagination of the public through an appeal to their feelings, in finding the appropriate psychological form that will arrest the attention and appeal to the hearts of the national masses. The broad masses of the people are not made up of diplomats or professors of public jurisprudence nor simply of persons who are able to form reasoned judgment in given cases, but a vacillating crowd of human children who are constantly wavering between one idea and another. (...) The great majority of a nation is so feminine in its character and outlook that its thought and conduct are ruled by sentiment rather than by sober reasoning. This sentiment, however, is not complex, but simple and consistent. It is not highly differentiated, but has only the negative and positive notions of love and hatred, right and wrong, truth and falsehood."^[5]

As to the methods to be employed, he explains:

"Propaganda must not investigate the truth objectively and, in so far as it is favourable to the other side, present it according to the theoretical rules of justice; yet it must present only that aspect of the truth which is favourable to its own side. (...) The receptive powers of the masses are very restricted, and their understanding is feeble. On the other hand, they quickly forget. Such being the case, all effective propaganda must be confined to a few bare essentials and those must be expressed as far as possible in stereotyped formulas. These slogans should be persistently repeated until the very last individual has come to grasp the idea that has been put forward. (...) Every change that is made in the subject of a propagandist message must always emphasize the same conclusion. The leading slogan must of course be illustrated in many ways and from several angles, but in the end one must always return to the assertion of the same formula."

 The entry on Nazi propaganda in Wikipedia is worthy of review by anyone curious about the propaganda methods used by the Nazis. The Blowfly commends it to anyone who is interested in the truth and the foundations for manipulating the thinking of voters.

But back to the PM!

As she absorbed the material on Nazi propaganda methods a serenity seemed to come over her as she realised what Abbott was up to.

At least when you fully understand what your opponents are up to you have a chance of winning.

And so instead of resorting to Goebbels she pondered the words of George Bernard Shaw: "My way of joking is to tell the truth. It's the funniest joke in the world."

And then she put her head back, clasping her iPad to her breast, and pondered the future.

A future where Tony Abbott has to explain to people why the carbon tax did not cause the sky to fall in.

A future where voters realise that the Minerals Resources and Rent tax is one of the few ways that Gina, Twiggy and Clive get to genuinely share their wealth with the people who own the minerals.

A future where the NBN allows Australia to be competitive in a global economy.

A future where Question time is used constructively to ask questions rather than be bastardised with censure motions.

A future where there is a genuine civility in the Parliament.

A future where refugees are welcomed as a building block of our nation.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ! Poor dear! She dozed off while thinking about what this country could be.

What will Abbott do when the sky doesn't fall in? Watch closely.

The Blowfly requests that you stretch your collective imaginations for a while and imagine that you are the carbon tax.

Your moment of birth is about to arrive.

You have been looking forward to that moment for what has seemed like an eternity.

You’ve had a curious conception and gestation.

Initially you were wheeled up to the Australian public by the conservative side of politics by none other than John Howard. But he lost that election and nothing happened.

Nothing! Until Kevin Rudd decided that you would be part of his impact on mankind.

You were looking good at one stage because the Opposition actually collaborated through their leader Malcolm Turnbull to assist with your conception.

They were then talking about an emissions trading scheme but you have to be born before an ETS can get off the ground.

Any way in due course the conservatives did Malcolm over because they decided to confuse the issue by linking it with climate change. And besides many of their constituents are totally tied into fossil fuels and would have to change their economic models if clean energy was preferred.

There is some debate about what you should be called.

Some call you a carbon tax.

Others call you a carbon pricing mechanism.

Some say you are not a tax at all.

You are a bit different to your long lost cousin the GST.

The GST will raise about $48 billion next year and every consumer pays that.

You on then other hand, will only raise about $7 billion next year and only the top 500 polluters or emitters of carbon will pay you.

Even the circumstances of your conception were different.

John Howard announced the GST on national television before telling his party about it. He was the master of unilateral decision-making.

But after the initial heart attack he caused  his Treasurer he fought an election on it to make it ‘legitimate’.

In your case both sides of politics had talked about you and there seemed to be some consensus that you were necessary but………..politics got in the way! As it often does!

Your fertilization occurred as a result of a hung Parliament.

A Prime Minister, intent on forming government, did a deal with the Greens to get you moving. It could’ve been worse! Tony Abbott might’ve paid $1 billion to give Andrew Wilkie his hospital and/or sold his backside to other Independents to get into power. You way you see it is that you saved his backside----and the electorate!

Abbott has been pretty sour about the circumstances of your conception. He says that your mother lied to the Australian people. But she just did what she had to do to secure the support of the Greens.

The Opposition has almost staked its future on you being the cause of all manner of destruction.

Tony Abbott has indicated that your arrival will cause the sky to fall in.

He has also indicated that many industries will be decimated and even whole communities will be wiped out. Whyalla is one such community.

He has been a recurring feature on our television screens for a couple of years visiting businesses that he says will be diabolically affected by you.

You get blamed for increasing electricity prices as well. Even though the increasing prices are mostly due to the need to renew the poles, lines and generators.

Ridiculous questions are also asked in Parliament about your impact. So-called intelligent people such as the shadow Attorney-General George Brandis have even insinuated that you are the cause of the 1900 people losing their jobs at Fairfax.

But next week we will begin to see what you will look like and how you will affect our lives.

Probably, like all children, there will be some sleepless nights for your parents when they first bring you home.

However you will gradually settle down, just like the GST did.

Treasury correctly estimated the impact of the GST on the economy so there is a fair chance they will be right about carbon pricing as well-----despite Tony Abbott and the Opposition spokespeople knowing better.

The big question that remains for you to consider is:

What will the Opposition do when the sky does not fall in?

Tony Abbott has given a ‘blood oath’ that you will be repealed. You suspect that this was just part of his scare campaign and he was using words from his Catholic schooldays to indicate that he was a committed little catechism-learner.

You have also considered how you would be repealed or ‘unborn’ and you wonder how this could possibly happen. The birth canal looks pretty narrow from the inside but when you bend your mind to coming back into the canal from the outside it just does not compute.

Tony Abbott has promised a lot of things with gay abandon and you suspect that this is one of those things.

As well Tony Abbott would need a majority in the Senate to repeal the legislation. He probably would not have this.

He has threatened a double dissolution election but mostly incumbents lose seats at these elections and you are not sure he would want this.

In addition to this the Parliament may go for another 15 months.

Some in the business community may by then be moving to adopt a ‘clean energy future’ and they wont want their incentives taken away from them.

And the voters may be getting used to it as well----just like they did with the GST.

So your birth is going to tell us a lot about the Opposition!

They have purposely set out to put the fear of God into the Australian populace about your birth.

Some of you might remember that over the last 20 or 30 years there have been a number of cases where a charismatic religious cult leader has predicted the end of the world. Their followers have carefully prepared for that event----some even took their own lives!

But the key point is that the cults are no longer around and neither are their leaders. When the end of the world does not occur their credibility is fatally tested.

How will a Rhodes Scholar deal with this one?

Let me speculate about the possibilities:

·      Tony Abbott will say that he was advised incorrectly by a firm of accountants in Perth about the impact

·      He will tell us that the Australian people are a resilient lot who roll with the punches and they have adjusted amazingly well to this big new tax. So much so that they have been able to overcome the deficiencies of a very, very bad government

·      He will say that the world will end on 21 December 2012 and you just wait and see

·      He will be abducted by a strange craft which appears at night regularly over Canberra and be whisked off to a far away galaxy where people appreciate scare tactics and lies

·      He will do what he should’ve done years ago and seek a meeting with George Pell as to whether he might serve mankind better by being a priest

·      He will ring Rupert Murdoch and ask him what to do next. Rupert will tell him that as News Ltd is already a carbon-neutral company he is grateful for the efforts but his new boss is Gina and he should look to her for guidance. Or Alan Jones. Or Andrew Bolt.

·      Resign because he deliberately mis-led the Australian public

Has anyone got any other predictions?