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Ack, I have like, no time to write but here goes. Dictionary.com is about my favorite Web site ever. It is the one the very few Web sites that absolutely deserves and must exist, so I'm happy it worked out so well! yay!
I don't normally surf through it for words unless something catches my eye and teases my brain and I need to figure it out. Also I'm editor. My trade is in words }:> Today's word is one of my favorites so I decided to post it for posterity.
agitprop \AJ-it-prop\, noun:
Propaganda, especially pro-communist political propaganda disseminated through literature, drama, music, or art.
Despite its explicit program, when the symphony was first performed in 1957 a Russian audience always on the lookout for subtexts quickly interpreted it as being about the crushed Hungarian uprising of the previous year. This officially sanctioned work of agitprop was read as an encrypted denunciation of the Soviet regime.
--Justin Davidson, "Musical Explosions, Moving and Martial," Newsday, May 22, 1999
The essay was a farewell to the men of the left, a brilliant, impassioned piece of agitprop that galvanized women in communes, bookstores, hippie coffee houses and underground newspaper offices all over the country.
--"Memoirs by women writers get personal with a host of issues, from politics to pregnancy to parent care," Washington Post, January 14, 2001
Neither writer offers a shred of evidence for her claims, which makes these books second-rate agitprop rather than "first-rate sociology."
--Kim Phillips-Fein, "Feminine Mystiquers," The Nation, March 19, 1999
. . . nationally televised agitprop designed to appear nonpartisan while actually pushing the ideology of the party in power.
--Peter Beinart, "The sleazification of an American ritual," The New Republic, February 3, 1997
Agitprop comes from Russian, from agitatsiya, "agitation" + propaganda.
Agitprop can also be an artistic genre as so much theatre (and art in general) can be political and agitate for one political preference or other. Teatre Campesino is a famous example of a troupe that worked it's agitprop magic to get fair treatment for farm workers. They were rad. }:> Another group operating today is The San Francisco Mime Troupe. They kick much ass. Must see them again. }:>
Still confused? Go back and listen to some more Rage Against the Machine. }:D
I don't normally surf through it for words unless something catches my eye and teases my brain and I need to figure it out. Also I'm editor. My trade is in words }:> Today's word is one of my favorites so I decided to post it for posterity.
agitprop \AJ-it-prop\, noun:
Propaganda, especially pro-communist political propaganda disseminated through literature, drama, music, or art.
Despite its explicit program, when the symphony was first performed in 1957 a Russian audience always on the lookout for subtexts quickly interpreted it as being about the crushed Hungarian uprising of the previous year. This officially sanctioned work of agitprop was read as an encrypted denunciation of the Soviet regime.
--Justin Davidson, "Musical Explosions, Moving and Martial," Newsday, May 22, 1999
The essay was a farewell to the men of the left, a brilliant, impassioned piece of agitprop that galvanized women in communes, bookstores, hippie coffee houses and underground newspaper offices all over the country.
--"Memoirs by women writers get personal with a host of issues, from politics to pregnancy to parent care," Washington Post, January 14, 2001
Neither writer offers a shred of evidence for her claims, which makes these books second-rate agitprop rather than "first-rate sociology."
--Kim Phillips-Fein, "Feminine Mystiquers," The Nation, March 19, 1999
. . . nationally televised agitprop designed to appear nonpartisan while actually pushing the ideology of the party in power.
--Peter Beinart, "The sleazification of an American ritual," The New Republic, February 3, 1997
Agitprop comes from Russian, from agitatsiya, "agitation" + propaganda.
Agitprop can also be an artistic genre as so much theatre (and art in general) can be political and agitate for one political preference or other. Teatre Campesino is a famous example of a troupe that worked it's agitprop magic to get fair treatment for farm workers. They were rad. }:> Another group operating today is The San Francisco Mime Troupe. They kick much ass. Must see them again. }:>
Still confused? Go back and listen to some more Rage Against the Machine. }:D
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