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Propaganda, another form of metafora, implies a recipient, usually a mass audience, for its message, who is to be moved by the packaging of an idea in an often rousing manner. Adolf Hitler, a master propagandist, employed the swastika as part of the regalia and staging that mimicked the imagery of the all-conquering Roman Empire. It should be remembered that he was a creative interlocutor in his use of many media to allow a culture to re-imagine itself, albeit with a terrible end. In his book, Mein Kampf, Hitler explored the power of the visual symbol. He understood the emotional and persuasive power in creating a new identity for a depressed culture, and even studied the psychological effects of the colors symbolically employed by his Nazi party. To complete his dominance over the minds of the German people, he aspired to control all the arenas of German culture and media from the schools to radio to fine and visual arts. It is no surprise that he surrounded himself with the likes of the architect Albert Speer; the filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl; coordinator Joseph Goebbels, an orator and journalist who was appointed the head of the National Ministry for the Public Enlightenment and Propaganda. Nothing but humanity's watchful eye can safeguard against creativity being used for the most evil ends.

The Nazi swastika, the most powerful and most negative icon of the twentieth century, was the rallying sign reinterpreted by Adolf Hitler. Ironically in all of its previous incarnations across many cultures, the symbol was one of life and of regeneration. To the Buddhist, it is a symbol of reincarnation and the cyclical nature of life. In the Mesopotamian culture, it was linked with the female reproductive organs and appeared on the pubis of the Goddess Ishtar and where it implied 'life force' was found throughout China. In the Roman catacombs it was used as a sign of Christ; the Scandinavians used it to symbolize thunder and lightning and the god Thor. Finally, it was found in the Babylonian symbol of the sunÕs energy and, finally, in the Native American culture of the four winds or the four seasons.

Symbols of political or religious nature are the visible manifestation of propaganda They include the rose, for socialism and for Islam; the fasces for Italian Fascism; the American bald eagle; the Jewish Star of David and the Chinese Red Star. In the modern sense, propaganda has become the entire apparatus by which a public opinion is molded through the media. The appeal through subtle persuasion and often-reductive simplistic idealizationÑeven to mythic originsÑis used to stir essential wants, prejudices, projections, and unconscious complexes and desires. Primarily, propaganda appeals to what Carl Jung termed "the collective unconscious and the will for survival or betterment manifest in buying into someone elseÕs 'word' and finding community in it."

As much as in any other realm, computer technology shows its imprint upon the change in how we conceive and think about propaganda. All political campaigns since popularization of the Internet in the mid-1990s have been affected by the profuse dissemination of commentary, fact, exaggeration, and satire. A shift in who produces the propaganda has occurred. It no longer emanates solely from the 'central organizing committee' but from the keystroke of whoever may seek to sway the tides of sentiment. There is hardly an email user who is not affected on a daily basis by the distribution of unsolicited jokes and commentary aimed at either changing or reaffirming oneÕs views.

Propaganda exists only by contrast; it is what the other guy says.