while reading enlisting madison avenue: the marketing approach to earning popular support in theaters of operation (a handbook for ‘shaping’ the opinion of ‘indigenous’ populations in US-occupied countries) via chris c, i came across many failures and few successes. one of the biggest problems in US propaganda efforts is that many ‘shaping’ attempts find their way back to the US through transposition from one medium to another. that’s how propaganda leaflets dropped by jets in afghanistan end up sewn into rugs:
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it turns out that after millenia of hand-weaving elaborate geometric rugs, afghans began to weave war imagery into their rugs after the attempted soviet invasion of 1979. there are now many examples of graphic war rugs, many of which have been imported to the US. some of the more impressive are here:
via warrug.com