Amnesia , Persuasion Techniques - and Lili Marlene (Lilli Marleen)

A side mini-rant.

Amnesia is the persuader's friend, all over the world. Represent what happened in a way to elicit certain emotions, perhaps change words, repeat, associate this with that, and people forget what was before, or the other side of the story.

This, in Cetinje, Montenegro. See Montenegro Road Ways.

Is there any country where critical thinking is encouraged, questions are solicited, to fill in details, or where visual and aural persuasion techniques are taught so people can defend against them? Or are persuasion techniques now used everywhere against them. Whether looking at war criminal posters in Bosnia, or seeing war memorials all over, or hearing political rally speakers and people rev up, or hearing war touted again as an answer, we may be at this point, all of us: we have to educate ourselves.

Look up the persuasion techniques listed from 1937 - now being used, at www.propagandacritic.com; and the great prophet of PR, he who could even "warm up" Calvin Coolidge - Edward Bernays from 1928 or so - see the Museum of Public Relations at http://www.prmuseum.com/bernays/bernays_1928.html,
You, too, can do it. Sell. Regardless. See www.aboutpublicrelations.net/. We deserve what we let happen.

Propaganda on a small scale: Lili Marlene. The torch song associated with World War II, both sides singing, hearing Marlene Dietrich's froggy voice, imagining the lamp post in Berlin.

This started with a protest poem by a German soldier in World War I - 1913 - on the way to the Russian front. See www.jazzprofessional.com/report/Norbert%20Schultze.htm#english. That site says that Ron Simmonds (the jazz trumpet player I think) translated the original from 1913. From the words to Lili, perhaps his girlfriend, and the Marleen maybe a nurse, Lili Marleen came about and herself may be already dead in that song. The waste of War. The blood. Who counts the bodies. Who names them. All from pride and greed. That is 1913. Lili Marleen.

But then, the song morphed into its opposite - a torch song in wartime in World War II, and even a Panzer Division marching song. See Germany Road Ways, Lili Marleen post.

So somehow war is not protested in Lili Marlene. It is just a love song. Go to the Germany Road Ways, Lili Marleen post and you can find the audio of the song, in its many variations, and the poem. Small example, but we can't seem to look at truth for long. War protest, too powerful, So turn it into nostalgia for war.