THREAD SEVEN of CALLING OUT PROPAGANDA (numbers 60 to 69) CALLING OUT PROPAGANDA No.60 AIMS OF PROPAGANDA: these are wider than simply manipulating people to agree with you on a particular issue, although this is an important aim. A major aim of propaganda is to encourage those who already agree with you. The Americans call this “playing to one’s base”. It also applies to keeping up morale during a war, for example. Often propaganda aims at mobilising people to take a certain action, like vote for a particular candidate or join the army or protest in a cause. Propaganda can be used to demonise an opponent or to suppress dissent by painting protestors as unpatriotic or otherwise not worth listening to. Repetitive propaganda can be used to normalise phenomenon like the need for food banks or restricting civil liberties. Equally, it can normalise support for a political regime. Propaganda can whip up attachment to abstract concepts like hatred of the “other”, or fear, or it can embed a positive emotion, like hope. Propaganda can make you buy a particular product in the supermarket. It can make you fight and kill and perhaps die for your country. It can make you endure a repressive regime. It can give you hope, even when there are no real grounds for it. Propaganda has immense power.

Netanyahu declared yesterday that what Israel is doing in Gaza "is not genocide, it’s the opposite of genocide” WHAT is the "opposite of genocide"?!? WHATEVER the answer, Israel is not doing it in Gaza Israel IS committing genocide in Gaza

QUESTION for pro-Israel Jews in the UK: Are attacks on your fellow UK Jews as “asajews” or “not really Jews” or “self-hating Jews” or similar, not antisemitic? @BoardofDeputies

I’m also a Jew, Mr Galloway It is painful but we Jews have to face facts The Gaza Genocide is in fact the best evidenced genocide in history Denying it necessitates closing your eyes & ears Denying it may make you feel better but only in the short term - and it is very wrong in itself

Mr Shipman @ShippersUnbound this BELOW is very low from a reputable journalist Genocide is not something to play games with Genocide is defined in the Genocide Convention 1948 Both the genocide of Polish Jews by the Nazis and the ongoing genocide of Palestinians in Gaza by the Israelis are unspeakable abominations

David, by attacking Israel’s war crimes and GENOCIDE, I am upholding fundamental Jewish principles Millions of Jews around the world are as disgusted as I am at the behaviour of Israel’s government We are - obviously - not one bit less Jewish than those Jews who mindlessly & unquestioningly support Israel whatever abominations it commits

John, there is a reason that people insist on the word “genocide” The Gaza Genocide is the best evidenced genocide in history The Genocide Convention 1948 is designed to PREVENT genocides. Once one is identified then governments have a DUTY to use all in their power to stop it

We can win in Holborn & St Pancras But we need your help on the streets to help make history. 💚

👏👏👏

Most of the UK media immediately accepted Israel’s framing that IT ALL started on 7 October It did NOT ALL start on 7 October, of course UK media are not stupid They CHOSE to accept Israel’s self-serving framing UK media coverage has been shameful

It is well worth 15 minutes of your time (10 mins at 1.5 speed) to listen to @PeterBeinart's reflections on NAZA He regrets that Palestinians are deprived of the space to speak their own experience He makes a number of key points This method of killing destroys all Israeli claims about Hamas using human shields. The people doing it the killing by algorithm are exactly the 'liberal', Netanyahu hating Ashkenazis that many apologists cite as enabling to continue to support Israel These supervisors of automated killing are not just cogs in a machine obeying orders. They have agency and are responsible for their own rules actions just as individual participants in the Nazi murdering system were. peterbeinart.substack.com/p/…

Kudos to @ZackPolanski who reaffirmed that he is an anti-Zionist, especially as it was at the right wing, ultra-Zionist Jewish Board of Deputies event. Shows courage & integrity. Worth remembering that Antizionism is a Jewish creation, whereas Zionism was created by Jews & evangelical Christians. Both are ideological positions & should be debated as such.

I saw NAZA yesterday. It's obvious why it's driven Israel insane: It is a film that will change how Americans think not just about the Israeli government, but about Israelis. I talked about it with my colleagues @alexbkane and Natasha Soffer-Roth. jewishcurrents.org/naza-will…

CALLING OUT PROPAGANDA No.67 PROPAGANDA OF THE DEED can take many forms. Consider, for example, the displays of physicality of two politicians: Andy Burnham and Chairman Mao. On 13 September 2026, Andy Burnham, the still new prime minister of the UK, ran in the Great North Run, a half marathon in Newcastle which has become an iconic event in the North-East of England. Burnham, an experienced runner, no doubt would have enjoyed the event. In addition, he would have been pleased to send out a number of useful propaganda messages to the electorate: he is a man-of-the-people, he cares about the North-East (as well as Manchester and the North-West) and that he is a vigorous, dynamic man and leader. On 16 July 1966, 73-year-old Chairman Mao Zedong plunged into the Yangtze along with 5,000 others in the annual swimming event. Mao had been stripped of most of his power following the disaster of his policy of the Great Leap Forward some years before and had been left as a mere figurehead. The swim was designed to spread the message that Mao was still in good health and physical shape and still fit to lead. The swim was stage managed to generate news throughout China and even globally. It inspired posters, songs, films and more. It led to Mao reclaiming power and leading the Cultural Revolution, a period of extraordinary anarchy, mayhem and destruction. According to the South China Morning Post, “[The swim] was probably the most powerful political publicity stunt in Chinese history.”

CALLING OUT PROPAGANDA No.68 DON’T LOOK HERE, LOOK THERE is a form of DISTRACTION propaganda. Here I look at the phrase “carbon footprint”. The phrase “carbon footprint” was invented by an advertising agency working for BP in the early 2000s. According to the overwhelming consensus of climate scientists, the products of BP – and the other fossil fuel giants - are inexorably driving the world to a climate crisis and are an existential threat to human civilisation itself. However, inventing and popularising the idea of a “carbon footprint” worked wonders for BP. It moved the spotlight from the oil & gas companies to individual consumers. The “carbon footprint calculator” got people measuring their own contribution to heating the planet. Of course, there would be no harm if they cut their contribution, but the carbon footprint calculator was designed above all to make people feel guilty: to feel that the crisis is the fault of people like them. This is not true. BP’s propaganda was effective in making individuals feel that the fault of the climate crisis lay with them, whereas the actual villains – making money hand over fist as the planet headed towards disaster – are BP and the other fossil fuel giants.

THREAD SEVEN of CALLING OUT PROPAGANDA (numbers 60 to 69) CALLING OUT PROPAGANDA No.60 AIMS OF PROPAGANDA: these are wider than simply manipulating people to agree with you on a particular issue, although this is an important aim. A major aim of propaganda is to encourage those who already agree with you. The Americans call this “playing to one’s base”. It also applies to keeping up morale during a war, for example. Often propaganda aims at mobilising people to take a certain action, like vote for a particular candidate or join the army or protest in a cause. Propaganda can be used to demonise an opponent or to suppress dissent by painting protestors as unpatriotic or otherwise not worth listening to. Repetitive propaganda can be used to normalise phenomenon like the need for food banks or restricting civil liberties. Equally, it can normalise support for a political regime. Propaganda can whip up attachment to abstract concepts like hatred of the “other”, or fear, or it can embed a positive emotion, like hope. Propaganda can make you buy a particular product in the supermarket. It can make you fight and kill and perhaps die for your country. It can make you endure a repressive regime. It can give you hope, even when there are no real grounds for it. Propaganda has immense power.