Five Before Chaos

Someone needs to tell Ahmadinejad that he needs to budget a bit more money for the propaganda department. Or at the very least, stop hiring kids who just learned how to use the clone stamp in Photoshop.

From a diarist over at the Big Evil Orange, from one of the many Twitters coming out of Iran, a photo of a pro-Ahmadinehad rally, with some poorly photoshopped extra crowds:

Jeez, almost makes what Bush did look competent, fer chrissakes.

I haven’t been following the latest developments on Tibet/China relations as much as others (such as Integral Psychosis has), but this latest bit of ridiculousness caught my eye from the Times Online. The IOC is warning athletes that if they display any Tibetan flags, even in their private rooms, they may be expelled from the games, all in the name of “anti-propaganda”. Seriously.

Athletes who display Tibetan flags at Olympic venues — including in their own rooms — could be expelled from this summer’s Games in Beijing under anti-propaganda rules.

Jacques Rogge, the president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), said that competitors were free to express their political views but faced sanctions if they indulged in propaganda…

Unfurling Free Tibet banners or wearing Save Darfur T-shirts at Olympic venues are acts likely to be regarded as a breach of the charter, which was introduced after the American athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos gave the Black Power salute on the podium at the 1968 Games in Mexico City. But there are still many grey areas and concerns among human rights campaigners that athletes’ right to free speech will be curtailed to avoid embarrassing their Chinese hosts.

I’m actually quite surprised at how much coverage the Tibet protests have gotten in the MSM here in the US, which basically tends to ignore non-sexy stories like this. I hope the Tibetans keep it up; the world really is watching, and this can be the start of a crack in the wall. One can only hope.

I don’t do photojouranalistic analysis. That’s best left to people like BAGNews notes. But on the front page of the paper today I saw this AP photo that really bugged me, from the Dipshit-in-Chief’s sooper-dooper secret visit to Iraq:

So many things came to mind. Most certainly these troops were screened, for example. I’m sure the pissed off ones were kept at a distance. You can see a few of these are less than in-awe, such as the woman to Bush’s left, and the man at his 2 o’clock. What the hell is up with these people? Hugging the man who is putting them through hell for no good reason. A hug? It’s like hugging an abusive father or something. I really don’t get it.

The propaganda element in this is quite obvious, of course; it practically beats you over the head.  It evoked a lot of emotions in me, none of them good. For a minute, it even evoked images of Julius Caesar’s final moments in the Senate. That’d be karma, eh?