Is it really just the point-of-view of the observer?
During the 2014 mid-term elections, a nasty little battle between liberal Long Beach voters for the right to represent the Democrats in the general election for District 70 in the California State Assembly broke out.
If you're familiar with The Wire, think Carcetti defeating Mayor Royce for the primary. Here in Long Beach one candidate was Suja Lowenthal, a Ph.D.-from-USC-having mother who came to the US in 1977 from Madras, India; and Patrick O'Donnell, about whom I know less.
My memories of the election, and for whom I voted are fuzzy. I remember a conversation I had with a reporter friend who had some unpleasant run-ins with Suja when she was on the Long Beach school board, and this reporter was in support, I believe, of O'Donnell.
In any case, because of Corrie's status as a small-business owner and being a woman, and especially a woman-voter, we got something in the mail in the run-up to the primary:
Of course I kept it. It's essentially a sixty-page manifesto from a politician, printed as a 6" x 9" trade-paperback book with glossy pages. Having printed a few books in my time, I can say that the quality is high, for what amounts to political ad-mail. As a book, it's a little garish, what with the shiny pages, but overall production is nice. Also, what can be said about the name? "Repaying America for All It Is to All of Us."
She didn't win. Kind of a bummer, that the political world was robbed of such am ambitious politician. Obviously the woman who sent this out to business-owning, politically-savvy women had/has bigger goals than California District 70.
If you see the endorsements from that 2014 midterms in this area, you can see it was pretty well split down the middle (I just looked it up on ballotpedia.com).
I guess that would qualify as propaganda, but only in the narrow sense of "cult of personality", and when it involves a candidate who didn't win her primary, even that narrow sense is a stretch.
From the world of religiosity, let me take you back to some fall day in 2014. I was at the university's campus in Carson when a white man (rare already on this campus) with a beard and samurai-like ponytail asked me if I liked books. He was standing next to a box and appeared to be handing things out.
Well, how could I say No, I don't fucking like books, when that's so blatantly against character for me? I do, however, find it distasteful to be handed JESUS! books, so I found myself circumspect in my answer. Before I could fully answer, he handed me a tiny pocketbook-sized publication and said, "It's Eastern. Check it out..."
It was titled "Beyond Birth and Death," and looked to be authored by His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada.
His Divine Grace AC is the founder of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness.
The dimensions of my own Robot Crickets, but less than sixty pages, it's a very well put together little book. The cover isn't the same type of material as Robot Crickets, but it looks like they used the same type of printing company. As an artifact, I found it very interesting, and it even pushed me along in trying to finish pulling together some material for myself as a novelty.
Fast-forward to Wondercon 2016, last March, when I was heading back to the convention center after a quick walk around the neighborhood looking for a falafel joint that didn't exist anymore. I was beginning to separate from the crowd of nerds as we crossed the street when, like the campus before, a guy jutted his hand out to me as I passed, able to read me and knowing just what to say: "Hey man, free book."
The title was "The Perfection of Yoga." Holy cow! I thought as I checked it out on the way back through security. I couldn't really believe it. Here they are together:
Of course, at that time in March of '16 I didn't have the first book with me, but the "His Divine Grace" jazz at the bottom is pretty noticeable.
Here are the backs:
Funny thing: I read the very first sentence in "Beyond Birth and Death," took fundamental issue with the basic Cartesian-duality assumption, and didn't read anything more. It turned me off with the very first sentence, and I never returned.
I don't mean it rubbed me the wrong way, I mean I philosophically disagree with the assertion of the first sentence, and if you disagree with that assertion and assumption about the world---you can't convince me of even your premise---you'll be hard pressed to keep my attention for when you finally arrive at your conclusion.
Like I said, as artifacts, I really dig these books. They do seem like religious propaganda, but still, it's a minority religion for the country, and they take their book trust seriously:
Go independent book projects that are propaganda or ads for politics or religiosity!
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