HOW TO DETECT PROPAGANDA by Clyde Raymond Miller

HOW TO DETECT PROPAGANDA

Clyde Raymond Miller

If American citizens are to have clear understanding of present-day conditions and what to do about them, they must be able to recognize propaganda, to analyze it, and to appraise it.

But, what is propaganda?

As generally understood, propaganda is expression of opinion or action by individuals or groups deliberately designed to influence opinions or actions of other individuals or groups with reference to predetermined ends.

Thus, propaganda differs from scientific analysis. The propagandist is trying to “put something across,” good or bad, whereas the scientist is trying to discover truth and fact. Often, the propagandist does not want careful scrutiny and criticism; he wants to bring about a specific action. Because the action may be socially beneficial or socially harmful to millions of people, it is necessary to focus upon the propagandist and his activities the searchlight of scientific scrutiny. Socially desirable propaganda will not suffer from such examination, but the opposite type will be detected and revealed for what it is.

We are fooled by propaganda chiefly because we don’t recognize it when we see it. It may be fun to be fooled but, as the cigarette ads used to say, it is more fun to know. We can more easily recognize propaganda when we see it if we are familiar with the seven common propaganda devices. These are:

1. The Name Calling Device

2. The Glittering Generalities Device

3. The Transfer Device

4. The Testimonial Device

5. The Plain Folks Device

6. The Card Stacking Device

7. The Band Wagon Device

Why are we fooled by these devices? Because they appeal to our emotions rather than to our reason. They make us believe and do something we would not believe or do if we thought about it calmly, dispassionately. In examining these devices, note that they work most effectively at those times when we are too lazy to think for ourselves; also, they tie into emotions which sway us to be “for” or “against” nations, races, religions, ideals, economic and political policies and practices, and so on through automobiles, cigarettes, radios, toothpastes, presidents, and wars. With our emotions stirred, it may be fun and infinitely more to our own interests to know how they work.

Lincoln must have had in mind citizens who could balance their emotions with intelligence when he made his remark: “… but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.”

NAME CALLING

“Name Calling” is a device to make us form a judgment without examining the evidence on which it should be based. Here the propagandist appeals to our hate and fear. He does this by giving “bad names” to those individuals, groups, nations, races, policies, practices, beliefs, and ideals which he would have us condemn and reject. For centuries the name “heretic” was bad. Thousands were oppressed, tortured, or put to death as heretics. Anybody who dissented from popular or group belief or practice was in danger of being called a heretic. In the light of today’s knowledge, some heresies were bad and some were good. Many of the pioneers of modern science were called heretics; witness the cases of Copernicus, Galileo, Bruno. Today’s bad names include: Fascist, demagogue, dictator, Red, financial oligarchy, Communist, muckraker, alien, outside agitator, economic royalist, Utopian, rabble-rouser, trouble-maker, Tory, Constitution wrecker.

“Al” Smith called (Franklin D.) Roosevelt a Communist by implication when he said in his Liberty League speech, “There can only be one capital, Washington or Moscow.” When “Al” Smith was running for the presidency many called him a tool of the pope, saying in effect, “We must choose between Washington and Rome.” That implied that Mr. Smith, if elected president, would take his orders from the pope. Likewise, Mr. Justice Hugo Black has been associated with a bad name, Ku Klux Klan. In these cases some propagandists have tried to make us form judgments without examining essential evidence and implications. “Al Smith is a Catholic. He must never be president.” “Roosevelt is a Red. Defeat his program.” “Hugo Black is or was a Klansman. Take him out of the Supreme Court.”

Use of “bad names” without presentation of their essential meaning, without all their pertinent implications, comprises perhaps the most common of all propaganda devices. Those who want to maintain the status quo apply bad names to those who would change it. For example, the (William Randolph) Hearst press applies bad names to Communists and Socialists. Those who want to change the status quo apply bad names to those who would maintain it. For example, the Daily Worker and the American Guardian apply bad names to conservative Republicans and Democrats.

GLITTERING GENERALITIES

“Glittering Generalities” is a device by which the propagandist identifies his program with virtue by use of “virtue words.” Here, he appeals to our emotions of love, generosity, and brotherhood. He uses words like truth, freedom, honor, liberty, social justice, public service, the right to work, loyalty, progress, democracy, the American way, Constitution defender. These words suggest shining ideals. All persons of good will believe in these ideals. Hence, the propagandist, by identifying his individual group, nation, race, policy, practice, or belief with such ideals, seeks to win us to his cause. As Name Calling is a device to make us form a judgment to reject and condemn, without examining the evidence, Glittering Generalities is a device to make us accept and approve, without examining the evidence.

For example, use of the phrases, “the right to work” and “social justice,” may be a device to make us accept programs for meeting the labor-capital problem which, if we examined them critically, we would not accept at all.

In the Name Calling and Glittering Generalities devices, words are used to stir up our emotions and to befog our thinking. In one device “bad words” are used to make us mad; in the other, “good words” are used to make us glad.

The propagandist is most effective in the use of these devices when his words make us create devils to fight or gods to adore. By his use of the “bad words,” we personify as a “devil” some nation, race, group, individual, policy, practice, or ideal; we are made fighting mad to destroy it. By use of “good words,” we personify as a godlike idol some nation, race, group, etc. Words which are “bad” to some are “good” to others, or may be made so. Thus, to some the New Deal is “a prophecy of social salvation” while to others it is “an omen of social disaster.”

From consideration of names, “bad” and “good,” we pass to institutions and symbols, also “bad” and “good.” We see these in the next device.

TRANSFER

“Transfer” is a device by which the propagandist carries over the authority, sanction, and prestige of something we respect and revere to something he would have us accept. For example, most of us respect and revere our church and our nation. If the propagandist succeeds in getting church or nation to approve a campaign in behalf of some program, he thereby transfers its authority, sanction, and prestige to that program. Thus, we may accept something which otherwise we might reject.

In the Transfer device, symbols are constantly used. The cross represents the Christian Church. The flag represents the nation. Cartoons like Uncle Sam represent a consensus of public opinion. These symbols stir emotions. At their very sight, with the speed of light, is aroused the whole complex of feelings we have with respect to church or nation. A cartoonist by having Uncle Sam disapprove a budget for unemployment relief would have us feel that the whole United States disapproves relief costs. By drawing an Uncle Sam who approves the same budget, the cartoonist would have us feel that the American people approve it. Thus, the Transfer device is used both for and against causes and ideas.

TESTIMONIAL

The “Testimonial” is a device to make us accept anything from a patent medicine or a cigarette to a program of national policy. In this device the propagandist makes use of testimonials. “When I feel tired, I smoke a Camel and get the grandest ‘lift.’” “We believe the John L. Lewis plan of labor organization is splendid; the CIO should be supported.” This device works in reverse also; counter-testimonials may be employed. Seldom are these used against commercial products like patent medicines and cigarettes, but they are constantly employed in social, economic, and political issues. “We believe that the John L. Lewis plan of labor organization is bad; the CIO should not be supported.” (BJ: I would only note here that famous people are often used in the testimonial device, like actress Sally Field selling us bone-strengthening medicine.)

PLAIN FOLKS

“Plain Folks” is a device used by politicians, labor leaders, businessmen, and even by ministers and educators to win our confidence by appearing to be people like ourselves – “just plain folks among the neighbors.” In election years especially do candidates show their devotion to little children and the common, homey things of life. They have front porch campaigns. For the newspaper men, they raid the kitchen cupboard, finding there some of the good wife’s apple pie. They go to country picnics; they attend service at the old frame church; they pitch hay and go fishing; they show their belief in home and mother. In short, they would win our votes by showing that they’re just as common as the rest of us – “just plain folks,” – and therefore, wise and good. Business men often are “plain folks” with the factory hands. Even distillers use the device. “It’s our family’s whiskey, neighbor; and neighbor, it’s your price.”

CARD STACKING

“Card Stacking” is a device in which the propagandist employs all the arts of deception to win our support for himself, his group, nation, race, policy, practice, belief, or ideal. He stacks the cards against the truth. He uses under-emphasis and over-emphasis to dodge issues and evade facts. He resorts to lies, censorship, and distortion. He omits facts. He offers false testimony. He creates a smoke screen of clamor by raising a new issue when he wants an embarrassing matter forgotten. He draws a “red herring” across the trail to confuse and divert those in quest of facts he does not want revealed. He makes the unreal appear real and the real appear unreal. He lets half-truth masquerade as truth. By the Card Stacking device, a mediocre candidate, through the “build-up,” is made to appear an intellectual titan; an ordinary prize fighter a probable world champion; a worthless patent medicine a beneficent cure. By means of this device propagandists would convince us that a ruthless war of aggression is a crusade for righteousness. Some member nations of the Non-Intervention Committee send their troops to intervene in Spain. Card Stacking employs sham, hypocrisy, effrontery. (BJ: “The Big Lie” falls into this category: if you tell a lie often enough people will believe it. The release of falsified documents is included in “The Big Lie.”)

THE BAND WAGON

The “Band Wagon” is a device to make us follow the crowd, to accept the propagandist’s program en masse. Here his theme is: “Everybody’s doing it.” His techniques range from those of medicine show to dramatic spectacle. He hires a hall, fills a great stadium, marches a million men in parade. He employs symbols, colors, music, movement, all the dramatic arts. He appeals to the desire, common to most of us, to “follow the crowd.” Because he wants us to “follow the crowd” in masses, he directs his appeal to groups held together by common ties of nationality, religion, race, environment, sex, vocation. Thus, propagandists campaigning for or against a program will appeal to us as Catholics, Protestants or Jews; as members of the Nordic race or as Negroes; as farmers or as school teachers; as housewives or as miners. All the artifices of flattery are used to harness the fears and hatreds, prejudices and biases, convictions and ideals common to the group; thus, emotion is made to push and pull the group on to the Band Wagon. In newspaper articles and in the spoken word this device is also found. “Don’t throw your vote away. Vote for our candidate. He’s sure to win.” Nearly every candidate wins in every election – before the votes are in. (BJ: It is my fervent prayer that “one day a lemming will fly.”)

PROPAGANDA AND EMOTION

Observe that in all these devices our emotion is the stuff with which propagandists work. Without it, they are helpless; with it, harnessing it to their purposes, they can make us glow with pride or burn with hatred, they can make us zealots in behalf of the program they espouse. As we said at the beginning, propaganda as generally understood is expression of opinion or action by individuals or groups with reference to predetermined ends. Without the appeal to our emotion – to our fears and to our courage, to our selfishness and unselfishness, to our loves and to our hates – propagandists would influence few opinions and few actions.

To say this is not to condemn emotion, an essential part of life, or to assert that all predetermined ends of propagandists are “bad.” What we mean is that the intelligent citizen does not want propagandists to utilize his emotions, even to the attainment of “good” ends, without knowing what is going on. He does not want to be “used” in the attainment of ends he may later consider “bad.” He does not want to be gullible. He does not want to be fooled. He does not want to be duped, even in a “good” cause. He wants to know the facts and among these is included the fact of the utilization of his emotions.

Keeping in mind the seven common propaganda devices, turn to today’s newspapers and almost immediately you can spot examples of them all. At election time or during any campaign, Plain Folks and Band Wagon are common. Card Stacking is hardest to detect, because it is adroitly executed or because we lack the information necessary to nail the lie. A little practice with the daily newspapers in detecting these propaganda devices soon enables us to detect them elsewhere – in radio, newsreels, books, magazines, and in expression of labor unions, business groups, churches, schools, political parties.

Why the Emperor Has No Clothes

Stumbling around pointing-out that the emperor is utterly nude will not, in itself, produce a solution.

The durable solution has to start with the rejection of the belief in 'the state' as having proper legitimacy and good utility. Until this central paradigm is seen as false no good thing can follow.

The reason why the Emperor has no clothes is because he does not, and never could, actually exist; the idea of having and needing an Emperor being only a deeply held, indoctrinated, cult belief.


'The state' elite may whisper that 'the Emperor has no clothes' but scant few will admit, even silently to themselves, that they cannot actually see him, clothed or naked, at all.

And fewer still know that, whilst they are playing out this macabre carnival of self-deception and despite a cold wind blowing, they themselves are indeed all stark naked too.

'The state' elite never had any clothes, cannot have clothes, always were and always are perpetually dressed only in an imaginary attire of deceit, force and indoctrination.

The 9/11 Epiphany

It was through realising the 'US government's official 9/11 conspiracy theory' is clearly an outright lie, that, searching for solutions, I came to the conclusion, the understanding, that those who believe in the religion of 'the state' form the most dangerous cult in the history of humanity. 

It is the belief in the legitimacy and necessity of 'the state' that empowers it, that makes it appear to be real.  It is not real, 'the state' only exists because people believe it is real and act as if it is real.  You think it is real?  show it to me, not its actors, not its buildings, its papers, its tanks, its schools, its violence.  Show it to me if it is real.

The world may always have bad people who want to cause and profit from harm.  The vast number of them, the psychopathic, gravitate to make use of the power this belief in 'the state' enables.  There is no possibility of restraining 'the state' to prevent its abuse (the USA is proof of this - the most liberally conceived nation in the history of humanity has turned into the most massive war machine in the history of humanity).  There is no modification of the model possible to prevent it from becoming a monster for, for no matter how great or small, it is always, and only can ever be, a monster (or a baby monster in the making).

The great thing about 9/11 - the one 'good' thing - is that: to those who are capable of opening their eyes, their minds, of doing the work, of undoing and setting aside a lifetime of indoctrination, to those capable, they can see that 9/11 was a colossal lie.   Once this is truly realised, really accepted, it is then evident that no other persons, properly informed and who examine the facts, can be of any other conclusion.  It is then logical that not only the US government but the governments of the whole world must also realise this evident truth too. 

So how can the governments of the world's nations continue to operate with such a colossal falsehood in their midsts and yet still be trusted, still be believed in?  They cannot.

How many more lies have been dealt to humanity, before and since, by governments?  How much harm?  How much stolen prosperity?  How much squandered happiness?  How many lives?  Plenty I say. 

Once the paradigm is shattered, once one truly breaks free from the indoctrination that 'the state' is real and valuable, once one learns to see that, far from struggle, without the belief in 'the state' humanity will thrive, one learns to see that 'the state' has caused humanity's progress to be wickedly thwarted and perverted.

When free from the belief one can see: whilst humanity has the propensity for good - that people are intrinsically humane, the opposite is true of 'the state'.  Without the use of force, the coercive threat of violence, with that faux legitimacy denied from 'the state' the state collapses, ineffectual.  The power that 'the state' is dependent upon does not legitimately exist for any individual, does not exist for any group of individuals, majority or not.  'The state' only exerts the power of violent force because it has, granted to itself, that monopoly.  That is, at its centre and fundamental to it, outright evil.

So not only is the religious belief in 'the state' a cult belief, it is a cult based in evil to its very core.  And the only reason why the world is not an even bigger mess, than it clearly is, is because that evil, the evil of 'the state', is moderated by the fundamental good inherent in humanity.

The Legitimacy of the All Mighty State

At least as many human cultures have some form of religion as they do some form of leadership.  If belief and gods and religions were not an inherent human propensity there would be numerous cultures without gods or religion.  Religion comes from the part of the mind that sees a figure in the shadows, the human's mind is always trying to make sense of  their environment.  That is the job the brain does: it hears a sound, matches it to every other sound it has previously listened to and draws a conclusion as to the probable source.

I do not deny that seeking leadership in social orders is also something humans have a propensity for.  Leadership is something different to having government.  The word 'leader' does not imply that you are compelled to obey the leader - you can always leave.  'Ruler' is something different.

The utility of leadership and the propensity for belief in gods combine.  In its earliest incantation leaders adopted or invented religions which then gave them greater validity and power.

Leadership has evolved into the state.  That alone does not make the establishment of the system, aeons old perhaps, the most productive means for humanity to structure society into the future.  No more than murdering a neighbouring tribe, raping young women in the woods, sacrificing babies to a god, abusing prisoners, being whipped-up into violent action by a cunning orator and so on.   These are just things a human animal may have a propensity towards.

It is natural for leaders to want more power and absolute power.  It is not natural for people to want leaders with absolute power (though it can appear so if they are seeking advantage themselves from or within that establishment).

I do not see our modern society as having progressively become more atheistic.  I see that science has progressively dismissed mumbo-jumbo religions and so in turn the state itself, which first just took its mandate from the religions of Gods, has diverted religious belief from being a belief in Gods over to the idea of the state as being real instead.  We still live in an age of religious indoctrination: now one of belief in the state as an entity which warrants man's unquestioning capitulation to its real necessity and its supreme power.

Man is infinity adaptable.  If we were born into the world of being jellyfish we would adapt to that the same as we adapt to being born a king or a slave.   Born into a world of states we accept the paradigm as being normality.

One must separate the issues.  It is no good thinking: 'we must have a state, regardless of its legitimacy, because a state is essential'.  That is cognitive dissidence.  Try a thinking exercise for imagining that there is, already, a known answer for every need of human society without needing a state, (or at least restrain from being overwhelmed by the converse belief when it rises).  Would you still demand the necessity of a state then?  A 'state' without it having assumed the authority to make people do what it decrees is not a state.  So a state must have the ability to use force.  If it has the authority to use force it must do so even without voluntary agreement.  Would a state be legitimate if there was no need for it?

Therefore the issue is not is a question of: is 'the state' legitimate, because clearly it is not.  Its imagined legitimacy comes instead from asking the question: is the state essential despite its illegitimacy. 

The act of freedom happens in the mind: we can never be free whilst our minds are enslaved.

 The only thing one can rely upon in a human society is that generally people will act first in their own self-interest. It may be likely that a majority will act reasonably most of the time but it is improbable that that alone would be sufficient to allow an ordered society to function. I do not see where my proposals rely on anything more than just a realistic level of reasonable action - that we are not all thieving psychopathic rapists, just a few are.

I do think most people are generally reasonable and most people realise that their self-interest is best served by their being reasonable and not by acting in a manner harmful to others. But clearly this propensity for fairness and reasonableness is not going to be a sufficient mechanism alone for an ordered safe prosperous society to function.

It certainly is not realistic that some imagined telepathic hocus-pocus could do this job of ordering society because, as far as we know, such a thing does not exist.

A woodland does not need a central planning committee to order it to be sustainable, for the good of the life that thrives in it. But it does need central control if it is being grown as an ornamental park though that would be a very superficial means of determining the wood's surface appearance. If the woodland management stops it quickly reverts to being a natural environment which is more efficient and robust that the man-made model. We need to stop the action of government impinging on human society and allow society to develop the natural systems in place of the false actions of the state. Human society may change its appearance a little but it would be more robust as a result.

People and human society manage to do all sorts of things without the fundamental involvement of government to manage the various processes. A good example is the production and distribution of food. Where the state is involved mostly the result is a deterioration of efficiency - farm subsidies for example. More efficient is allowing pure market forces to find the most profitable means to fulfil the market's demand. Where government did take complete control in the USSR the result was inefficiency, lack of choice, starvation and shortages.

Indeed most of human activity is, thankfully, greatly free from over interference of the state and works just fine. The more government meddles the more distorted the systems become. All we need are market forces responding to the market meeting needs and self-interests.

I like the thinking that everything mankind does is actually part of a 'natural' process.  If that is building nuclear power stations or genetically engineering a new species based on the original human it can all be understood to be the activity and development of a natural creature - much like termites building a mound or chimpanzees murdering the young of mating and resource competitors.

The evolution of leadership in human society is part of a natural ordering that has evolved just the same.  That would make a seed change towards a society that did not require an authoritarian state using force to implement its mandate part of a natural process too.  It would not be artificial, how could it be imposed outside of just being a next step in the development of human society I am not sure (short of extraterrestrials brainwashing humanity as an anthropological experiment perhaps but even that would be 'natural' within a galaxy wide ecosystem).

I am not suggesting that a human society ordered by a plethora of spontaneously formed, needs-based, non-hierarchical, self-organised, systems developing in response to demand would be without imperfections.  I am suggesting that it would respond to such imperfections rapidly and effectively.  The responses that fail to provide the most efficient solutions would be less likely to be as widely adopted as those found to be efficient and successful.

A reasonable quick outline of this science can be found at Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-organization
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spontaneous_order

My proposal is not to do with expecting that a self-organising society will return humanity to some pre-technological style of existence.  That humans are natural creatures living in a natural world does not mean they would not continue to cause market forces that utilise the best of advancing methods.  The analogy with a self-organising ecosystem is intended to only be analytical in that a modern human Societal ecosystem, (whilst still a complexed counterbalanced series of relationships, with causes and effects), can nevertheless include whatsoever advanced solutions service and goods providers find market forces indicate as most advantageous for their commercial success.

Far from government providing a 'firewall' between the weak and the exploitive and to muster initiative at times of duress, the state is the most exploitive mechanism kept at the behest of an elite oligarchy to funnel tax and power to their interest and the state is the predominant cause of violent death by way of war and holocaust.

The Establishment Plagued with Sociopaths, Psychopaths and Useful Idiots
http://21stcenturywire.com/2014/04/29/the-establishment-is-plagued-with-sociopaths-psychopaths-and-useful-idiots/

DEMOCIDE: MURDER BY GOVERNMENT
Democide: The murder of any person or people by a government, including genocide, politicide, and mass murder.
https://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/20TH.HTM

A clear mind can not condone this corrupt system.

What's it all about?

Everything we understand is seen to operate in a predictable rational manner: is natural.

Everything we do not understand will also be found to be natural.

Everything must have either a point of origin or be infinite.

Everything that is not infinite must originate through a natural process, a natural system.

This natural system, from which everything originates, must be infinite. 

'Everything' includes the present universe and whatever caused it.


Logically: all things flow from an infinite natural source (even one outside of the bounds of time and science as we vaguely understand them to be).  This source must be consistent in producing a variety of causes and those causes produce consistent effects.

Nothing can be 'supernatural' for, if it exists, it must be natural albeit just outside of our ability to understand or conceptualise (including: a concious, omnipotent, all seeing, perpetual, mechanism of creation that has a rational far beyond our comprehension and of which there is no evidence except, supposedly, the natural systems of the physical universe and life that are as yet unknown).

Brian Haw and our dead children

Brian Haw was an individual who's character drove him to carry-out his protest in the way he chose. If he had a different make-up he would have approached this perhaps differently or most likely not at all. To understand his depth it helps to consider his faith and that he was a living embodiment of his faith (I am an atheist btw).

In Chpt23 of Matthew, Verse 33. Jesus says:
“Snakes! Sons of vipers! How will you escape the judgement of hell?”
that was Jesus expressing anger and there are many other examples. He was reported to have continued
"You are like whitewashed tombs – beautiful on the outside but filled on the inside with dead people’s bones and all sorts of impurity.”

I think I understand something of Brian Haw's anger - he was exhaustively fighting for the lives and safety of 'his' children - our children, the world's children.

The question is; when will we all get angry, what will it take. Will it only be when you have your child in your hands and you are trying to hold their shattered body together in every way you possibly can, whilst their blood seeps through your fingers and their eyes slowly roll away?

Whatever characteristics combined to make Brian Haw the unique man he undoubtedly was, the result was one of extraordinary worth.

I am ashamed by the negative commentators at the time of his death, the ignorance of which astounds me. They were more concerned with his abrasive style and the detrimental visual effect of his camp. Brian Haw stood against war and harm to the innocent victims of war, especially children. How people could have comment so detrimentally against this outstanding peace campaigner is simply beyond my comprehension. I did not even recognise so many people failed to understand the heroic quality of his long vigil.

It is 'nuts' to support war and to decry those who call for peace - that is real insanity. It is our world that is mad, Brian Haw, eccentric or not, must have been the most sane of us all.

We allow our government to blow people's nation, homes and lives apart on wars waged on behalf of their corporate masters and yet people have the audacity to worry about one unsightly little corner in our city. What is the problem - did the sight of it prickle your consciences?

We can see that the new government are just new actors performing the same old play. But you cannot measure the effect protest has had on limiting the scope of this and other military acts of aggression.

Maybe we would already be at war with Iran if government thought nobody cared when they start bombing. Maybe the violence against Libya would have be even more ruthless than it appears to be. Today the papers are concerned with civilian deaths; is that as a result of your actions?

They gulp-down the narrative and spew it all out again as much as they like but remember, history is always written by the victor. They are lost in the paradigm of propaganda. Between times I'll look between the lines. I use to think calling Americans 'imperialists' was rubbish - I did not understand. I was looking for pith-helmets and verandas surrounded by lawns. Now I see very clearly indeed and a nasty business it is too.

Haw was as successful as he was able to be. He did all he could do within his limitations and circumstance. And we cannot know what influence he actually had. More than you imagine I suspect. Why do companies put their advert on bill boards? Because it works.

 

Brian Haw was a low-tech anti-war direct marketing campaign directed at the MPs and Ministers, etc. His effort was not directed to the public it was ENTIRELY directed at Westminster. He was a living, shouting, conscience pricking advertising bill board.

It does not matter what you or I think about Jesus or his existence. It only matters in this regard about what Brian Haw thought; to understand his motivation.

He considered that all children were 'our children' not just our family, tribe, race but all the children of the world are a part of the human family. And he felt it encumbered on himself to work to try and do what he could to the best of his abilities to protect them all.

What is more important; your children or all the children of Iran, Iraq and Libya. That would be a very tough decision. That is a high moral perspective and in my regard a fine one.
See: http://bit.ly/js4d3o

I fancy his children will hold him in higher regard for making that choice.