This is not a bioethics post, but State propaganda intrigues me so I felt compelled to share. Recently, an Abraham Lincoln impersonator visited the Montessori school my daughter and elder son attend. At the conclusion of his Lincoln portrayal, he gave each child a bookmark.
One side of the bookmark, interspersed with black-and-white photographs of a log cabin, Lincoln and his wife Mary Todd standing arm in arm, and the White House, reads as follows:
HIS HUMBLE BEGINNINGS
"I'll Study, Get Ready, My Chance Will Come"
LINCOLN'S GUIDING
PRINCIPLE
Matthew 22:37-38
Love the Lord your God with all
your heart all your soul all your
mind and love thy neighbor as
thyself, all the laws of the prophets
hang on these two commandments.
HIS HISTORIC FINISH
"Four Score and Seven Years Ago …"
The other side of the bookmark, beneath a picture of Lincoln sitting on his throne at the Lincoln Memorial, reads as follows:
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
16th President of the United States
"Saved Our Nation"
WORDS HE LIVED BY
Adversity - Adversities are just
installments on later successes.
Bible - The Greatest Gift God ever
gave to man.
Ridicule - I have endured a great deal
of Ridicule without much malice and
I have received a great deal of
kindness, not quite free from ridicule.
Achievement - The way for a young
man to rise is to improve himself
every way he can.
Humor - Laughter is medicine to my
bones.
Altruism - I have an irrepressible
desire to live till I can be assured
that the world is a little better for
me having lived in it.
Mercy - Have malice toward none
and charity for all.
Slavery - If slavery isn't wrong,
nothing is wrong.
Love - Love thy neighbor as
thyself.
Integrity - I am not bound to
win, I am bound to be true.
Forgiveness - I am always
willing to forgive on the
Christian terms of repentance.
Emancipation - All men are
created equal.
The State propaganda technique of creating a child's poem with each line starting, in sequence, with a letter from a ruler's name is not new. I recall a Kuwaiti poem utilizing George W. Bush's name. I bet Stalin and Hitler and Mao have been "honored" in the same way.
Bizarre.
One side of the bookmark, interspersed with black-and-white photographs of a log cabin, Lincoln and his wife Mary Todd standing arm in arm, and the White House, reads as follows:
HIS HUMBLE BEGINNINGS
"I'll Study, Get Ready, My Chance Will Come"
LINCOLN'S GUIDING
PRINCIPLE
Matthew 22:37-38
Love the Lord your God with all
your heart all your soul all your
mind and love thy neighbor as
thyself, all the laws of the prophets
hang on these two commandments.
HIS HISTORIC FINISH
"Four Score and Seven Years Ago …"
The other side of the bookmark, beneath a picture of Lincoln sitting on his throne at the Lincoln Memorial, reads as follows:
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
16th President of the United States
"Saved Our Nation"
WORDS HE LIVED BY
Adversity - Adversities are just
installments on later successes.
Bible - The Greatest Gift God ever
gave to man.
Ridicule - I have endured a great deal
of Ridicule without much malice and
I have received a great deal of
kindness, not quite free from ridicule.
Achievement - The way for a young
man to rise is to improve himself
every way he can.
Humor - Laughter is medicine to my
bones.
Altruism - I have an irrepressible
desire to live till I can be assured
that the world is a little better for
me having lived in it.
Mercy - Have malice toward none
and charity for all.
Slavery - If slavery isn't wrong,
nothing is wrong.
Love - Love thy neighbor as
thyself.
Integrity - I am not bound to
win, I am bound to be true.
Forgiveness - I am always
willing to forgive on the
Christian terms of repentance.
Emancipation - All men are
created equal.
The State propaganda technique of creating a child's poem with each line starting, in sequence, with a letter from a ruler's name is not new. I recall a Kuwaiti poem utilizing George W. Bush's name. I bet Stalin and Hitler and Mao have been "honored" in the same way.
Bizarre.
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