EOTO: Propaganda

According to the Meriam-Webster dictionary, propaganda has three separate definitions with the first one being, "A congregation of the Roman curia having jurisdiction over missionary territories and related institutions." The second, "The spreading of ideas, information, or rumor for the purpose of helping or injuring an institution, a cause, or a person." And the third, "Ideas, facts, or allegations spread deliberately to further one's cause or to damage an opposing cause." Propaganda today is mainly in reference to political material; however, it started out in a religious context. The Congregatio de propaganda fide (“Congregation for propagating the faith”) was an organization established in 1622 by Pope Gregory XV to further Catholic missionary activity. The word propaganda is from the ablative singular feminine of propogandus, which is the gerundive of the Latin propagare, meaning “to propagate.” The first use of the word propaganda, without the rest of the Latin title, in English was in reference to this Catholic organization. It was not until the beginning of the 19th century that it began to be used as a term denoting ideas or information that are of questionable accuracy as a means of advancing a cause. Since then, we have seen propaganda used for good and for bad, but mainly for bad reasons. One notable example of someone using propaganda for bad reasons is Adolf Hitler. He was able to propagate the entire country of Germany into thinking Jews were bad and then we all know what happened after that. His propaganda was so good that he was able to turn children against their parents and had them turned into the state if they spoke out about what was happening. He created the Hitler Youth (Hitler-Jugend) program that took in young men and showed them Nazi Propaganda for hours and gave them some military training. This was to control the minds of the young and turn them into pawns to do their bidding, which worked because it ended with neighbors turning on neighbors and eventually children turning on parents. This is the type of thing that can be accomplished when you shove propaganda down the throats of children. The same thing happened in china when they went through their cultural revolution. They were fed propaganda that promotes the ideas of the communist party, the population began to split in half and divide amongst the masses, those that opposed were either relocated to poor countryside towns, became political prisoners, or were killed. This is currently happening now, here in the United States, with the teaching of Critical Race Theory that is meant to divide the population by race. CRT teaches kids that they have a predetermined position in society based on the color of their skin, which is simply not true. It is true that some people are going to have more advantages than others, but with hard work and dedication, one can become anything they want in America. That is what I was taught as a kid, now kids are being taught "You can't do this because of your skin color." This is blatant racism that is being taught to children to counter racism and now we are stuck in this weird place as a society where the people calling out the racism are the racists and those that disagree are also racist. So basically, now we have white liberals who hate white conservatives for being racist while also thinking that black people can't achieve anything just because they are black. 

 https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/propaganda