{"id":43405,"date":"2019-02-01T11:51:16","date_gmt":"2019-02-01T16:51:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=43405"},"modified":"2019-02-01T11:51:19","modified_gmt":"2019-02-01T16:51:19","slug":"children-are-the-political-tool-of-choice-in-the-hands-of-shameless-propagandists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=43405","title":{"rendered":"Children are the political tool of choice in the hands of shameless propagandists"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a href=\"https:\/\/gefira.org\/en\/2019\/02\/01\/children-are-the-political-tool-of-choice-in-the-hands-of-shameless-propagandists\/\">Children are the political tool of choice in the hands of shameless propagandists\u00a0<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><a href=\"https:\/\/gefira.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/3.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/gefira.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/3-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"Source: wikipedia.com\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Policy-making has been with us since the dawn of humanity and generally its rules are timeless. Governments, heads of states, diplomats, religious leaders \u2013 whether they are part of the establishment or in opposition \u2013 have employed various instruments in a bid to tip the balance of the power play to their advantage. These included propaganda, finances, religions or ideologies and \u2013 the most powerful of all \u2013 emotions. It is, however, the twentieth century that made extensive use of\u2026 children. Not that the instrument was not known earlier: the reader will have remembered the Children\u2019s Crusade of the Middle Ages, for instance.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With the advent of the visual mass media \u2013 photography, film footage, television, the internet \u2013 this present-day&nbsp;<em>biblia pauperum<\/em>, the lay and religious leaders alike have learnt to how make a highly emotional appeal to the public through children. The effectiveness of this instrument cannot be overrated. Why, we are \u2013 men and women \u2013 biologically hardwired to positively respond to a child\u2019s facial expressions. If you want to gain support for aid directed toward a far-away country, you post pictures of children\u2019s lovely faces, now sad, now smiling \u2013 whichever better suits the purpose at a given time and place \u2013 and the hearts and minds of the receivers of the message are sure to be won over. That\u2019s the power of an innocent child\u2019s face, as we are accustomed to saying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignright\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.dropbox.com\/s\/0mz8ejxm1qsi6sl\/1.jpg?raw=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-22358\"\/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Nowadays presidents, prime ministers, monarchs \u2013 some of them intentionally childless! \u2013 and popes like to be filmed with or photographed in the company of children. The message is clear: someone who likes children is good, intends no harm. The little ones are not only used to elevate a politician\u2019s image but also to advance and advocate a policy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Children are the political tool of choice in the hands of shameless propagandists\u00a0 Policy-making has been with us since the dawn of humanity and generally its rules are timeless. Governments, heads of states, diplomats, religious leaders \u2013 whether they are part of the establishment or in opposition \u2013 have employed various instruments in a bid [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6],"tags":[7449,6974,382,655],"class_list":["post-43405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitics","category-liberty","tag-children","tag-gefira","tag-governments","tag-propaganda"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=43405"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43405\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43406,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43405\/revisions\/43406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}