The word propaganda is very misunderstood. The main definition, from Princeton, is "information that is spread for the purpose of promoting some cause."
As such, it’s a neutral word. It can just as easily be used for good as evil.
Here are some examples of it being used for good.
First we have Bound by Law. It’s a comic book, which teaches how destructive the copyright wars have become to the end they were meant to support, namely the creation of content.
The book comes out of Duke Law School (Richard Nixon was an alum) and tells the story of a documentary filmaker who winds up fighting the copyright police in the guise of an action hero. (It’s based on a real case, the fact that the great Civil Rights documentary "Eyes on the Prize" had to be pulled from release because copyright owners pulled the rights to its music. A DVD of that title has still not come out.)
Copyright and patent rights are meant to be limited property rights, held for a limited time, and their public purpose is to encourage the production of new work. The trouble is that corporations have extended copyright indefinitely, and tightened their control of copyright works, so as to prevent the production of new work. The law, in other words, has been turned on its head, censoring speech rather than encouraging it. The comic tells this story well.
Hat tip to Joi Ito for the story. Want to know the rest of the story?
Here it is.
Why Mommy is a Democrat is hard to find, and right-wing sites have been Google-bombing it, pushing negative reviews to the top of a Google search on it.
So you have to ask whether, if it’s that bad a book, they’re so upset about it.
It’s heavy-handed, sure, with lines like "Democrats make sure we all share our toys, just like Mommy does." But it’s fun, the illustrations by Yuliya Firsova are interesting, so if you have a really right-wing relative send ’em a copy.
Inscribe it as coming from their kid.
