I'm not sure if this has come up but I spotted it on conspiracy theory/saucer nut site Rense.com:

http://www.rense.com/

Its on the left about halfway down and is clear an 'illustration' of their ideas about some kind of Zionist attempt to take over the world. There should be some kind of Octopus Defamation Societ or something to stop them being used for unpleasant ends.

Emps

There should be some kind of Octopus Defamation Societ or something to stop them being used for unpleasant ends.
Hello Emps,

We've got our work cut out for us in Singapore. The Center for Research and Documentation on Japan's War Responsibility (JWRC), a Japanese non-governmental organization, has on its site a page from a Singaporean school textbook. The illustration shows an IJO (Imperial Japanese Octopus) seizing Southeast Asia in its arms. Click here (http://www.jca.apc.org/JWRC/exhibit/Ewasia34.htm) to see the page. This is the first propagandapus I've seen with human hands on the distal portion of the arms. A new genus?

Meanwhile, the British Museum has a fine specimen of editorial cartoon, attributed to Jack Chen and of Korean War-era vintage. The visual language is blunt, but I rather like the way Chen uses the snow cap on Mt. Fuji to create the impression of a gaping maw on the shadowy octopus. Click here (http://www.bl.uk/services/learning/curriculum/korea/top4communistact1detail.html) to see the British Museum's presentation of the cartoon, and don't be put off by the Museum's introduction:

"Understanding the meaning of cartoons can be difficult."

For the love of crap.

:|

Clem

well done clem... i havent gone a rovin' for similar items in awhile.....

good find and thanks for the motivation....


to quote homer simpson "cartoons are just stupid drawings that give you a cheap laugh"......

:roll:

This is the first propagandapus I've seen with human hands on the distal portion of the arms. A new genus?
:oops:

Well, no.

http://www.tonmo.com/phpBB/download.php?id=2690

I've no date or point of origin for this illustration, nor any technical data. It'd be nice to know if the color scheme is contemporary or was recently applied to an old engraving. The names on the land-masses being held are mostly illegible, apart from the ones in the foreground: Egypt, India and Canada.

Stupid drawing.

Clem

"Phils2ndbestbestdreamever", eh? The first involved a pith helmet and a Maxim you know.....

That looks a Georgian/early Victorian date to me. I wonder if that is supposed to be John Bull? The British Empire as an octopus.....I wonder where it came from? Great find, Lord Clem!

I wonder if that is supposed to be John Bull?
Hello Phil,

Can you give us a picture of Mr. Bull?

"Phils2ndbestbestdreamever", eh? The first involved a pith helmet and a Maxim you know....
...being modelled by that hottie from "Space: 1999," yes, I know.

:thumbsup:

Clem

Seems it is indeed 'John Bull' a Victorian image of defiant bullish Britain (of the time). Date is much later than I thought though.

Just found this quote here: http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/course/79-104/Readings/Gallery/5.html

5. An American cartoonist in 1888 depicted John Bull (England) as the octopus of imperialism, grabbing land on every continent.

P.S. Clem, were there any 'hotties' in 1999? I thought those in 'UFO' were much nicer. Must have been those purple wigs and tight silver catsuits... :oops: :heart:

Seems it is indeed 'John Bull' a Victorian image of defiant bullish Britain (of the time).
What a great track-down. Thank you, Phil. You've also provided an answer to the question of coloring. 1888? That's interesting, I wonder if the artist was inspired by the California Railroad "monopoloctopus" of 1882, discussed in a previous post. (click here (http://www.tonmo.com/phpBB/download.php?id=1443) to see that one.)

P.S. Clem, were there any 'hotties' in 1999?
If you like shape-shifting redheads, yes. (http://www.space1999.net/~metaforms/bb/4maya-1a.jpg)

:heee:

Clem

Seems it is indeed 'John Bull' a Victorian image of defiant bullish Britain (of the time). Date is much later than I thought though.

It would have to be (as what I assume is) the Suez Canal is marked on Egypt and that wasn't officially opened until 1869.

Emps

P.S. Clem, were there any 'hotties' in 1999?
If you like shape-shifting redheads, yes. (http://www.space1999.net/~metaforms/bb/4maya-1a.jpg)[/quote]

I remember her, :bonk:

Those eyebrows did it for me...

Hi Matt,

There's a "Space:1999" related thread elsewhere in the Culture & Entertainment forum, accessible by clicking here. (http://www.tonmo.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=1821) Seems several of us were scared pantsless by the ceph-monster in the "Dragon's Domain" episode.

On the propaganda front, I found another John Bull cephalopod, this one looking thoroughly unsavory:

John Bull in Egypt (http://www.boondocksnet.com/cartoons/mcc190.html)

Note that Bull's sideburns appear to be made of real mutton. No date for this cartoon is given on the source page, but I'd assume it to be pre-WWI, because Russia isn't presented as Soviet.

Clem

Below is a cartoon that appeared in the August 21st, 1886 edition of the Sydney Bulletin. Titled "The Mongolian Octopus - His Grip on Australia," this illustration is the work of English artist Phil May. (http://41.1911encyclopedia.org/M/MA/MAY_PHIL.htm)

Anti-Chinese sentiment was running high in Australia, fueled by the usual mixture of racism, class-resentment and xenophobia, but given a particular focus during the 1880's by campaigns against immigrant labor conducted by "European" furniture makers. The long hours and low pay tolerated by Chinese laborers in furniture workshops so angered the established white craftsmen that "Euopean labour only" was stamped on individual pieces to discourage discriminating buyers from supporting the new immigrants' trade. Note that the opium-smoker at the botttom of the picture is helpfully leaning forward to showcase his chair; the contemporary Bulletin reader would probably have assumed the chair to be of Chinese manufacture, like the chest of drawers clutched in the "Cheap Labour" arm in the upper-left corner of the picture.

The mass of arms of the "Mongolian Octopus" is unusually graphic for the era in which it was drawn; perhaps May enjoyed the felicity of using ink to draw an animal that produced its own. In addition to "Cheap Labour," most of the other categories of vice are straightforward: "Immorality," (prostitutes), "Small-Pox," "Opium," "Bribery" and "Customs Robbery." The other two are more obscure: "Pak Ah-Pu" is a a lotto-style game, and "Fan Tan" is a card game; white Australians were apparently very bad at both of them, as evidenced by the panic of the illustrated gamblers.

It would be easy to dismiss this drawing as racist, xenophobic crap, but I wonder if Phil May fully believed what he drew. Born into poverty in England, he was orphaned and homeless at the age of nine. He emmigrated to Australia after enjoying some success as a caricaturist in London. The encouragement of race-hatred among the poor is nothing new, and May might have resented the Chinese immigrants for undercutting the more established white folk.

I've also attached a comparison plate: On the left is a contemporary self-portrait by Phil May, on the right a detail of the opium-smoker and the artist's signature. I think the smoker is Phil May: take away the hat, and replace the pipe with the pen, and they're ringers for each other. Did May (who was an alcoholic) also like to smoke opium? Or, is this mocking artist's portrait an acknowledgment that his grotesque drawing springs from an overheated imagination, and is not to be taken seriously?

Click the highlighted text to see a selection of May's drawings at the National Portrait Gallery of England. (http://www.npg.org.uk/live/search/person.asp?LinkID=mp03032&role=art) There's a great little drawing of Winston Churchill's father, Lord Randolph Churchill, with a lion riding in his skull.

:unionjac:

Clem

Plus, they're cute.

Yes, and that makes them all the more tasty.

Full Disclosure: Clem is living on Cape Cod, where many earn their living by trapping and selling lobsters. This has been an especially difficult year for lobstering, with diminished stocks, steep prices and widespread poaching contributing to a generally gloomy outlook. Clem neither supports nor refutes the notion that lobsters are the marine equivalent of dung-beetles.


I'm on the fence about this -- I still don't think lobsters are cute, but they definitely look "cthuul" :cthulhu:. Being financially challenged all my life, I rarely eat lobster more than once or twice a year, so hopefully I am not significantly contributing to the depletion of the species. And I wouldn't eat a very large lobster because I know that would indicate it had lived a long time, and therefore was a "grand old man (or woman)" who had earned survivor's rights to a peaceful retirement. (Yes, this sounds very subjective, but I think people who are neither vegetarians nor observers of religious dietary laws, tend to create their own rules about what to eat anyway.)

With all my medically-prescribed dietary restrictions -- low fat, low cholesterol, low calorie, low alcohol, high fiber -- it's refreshing to take a break every few months and permit myself a lobster dinner with a glass of White Sangría (or a sirloin steak with an extra-spicy Bloody Mary :) ).

Hey, is this chat time? Let's see if I can get a connection....

Me


What if it didn't eat dung eaters? What if it ate coconuts? Despite what lobsters eat, they still taste pretty wonderful, so imagine the taste of the largest hermit crab in the world that gorges itself on the tasty white flesh of coconuts. I never had the chance to try one while I was in Polynesian, but I did see one, and can admit to massive Pavlovian response despite it's even more grotesque apperance. It wouldn't even need butter.

I would not have felt good about it anyway since the locals had nearly eaten the entire population, which is becoming the case in more and more islands. By the same token though, it could also be argued that this is a positive thing when they pick a non-native species, like dogs, as on Auitutaki, one of the Cook Islands. I've heard it tastes a little like lamb....

Having consumed a fair amount of dog meat, as well as cat, it does tastes somewhat like lamb...perhaps a bit "gamey"...maybe more like mutton. Cat is horrific...tastes like cat pee smells... :shock:

Having consumed a fair amount of dog meat, as well as cat, it does tastes somewhat like lamb...perhaps a bit "gamey"...maybe more like mutton. Cat is horrific...tastes like cat pee smells... :shock:

Apologies for straying so far off topic(I did read everything up to this point at least), but this reminds me of another favorite of the Cook Island Maoris - parrot fish. They taste just like coral stinks. Really unpleasant.

On topic - Where the hell do you people find the time to find all of this stuff? I'm lucky if I get fifteen minutes online to poke around, so it took me 3 days just to read this whole thread!

"On topic - Where the hell do you people find the time to find all of this stuff?"
as for myself, I am self employed, and work out of my house, and the paint fumes make for breaks quite often. May even explain some of my posts, now that I consider it... :lol:

I was searching for copyright credtis for pictures I used as reference for building Big Red when I came across this little tidbit. I don't have the time to read the materials on the site, but I thought I'd post it.

It's along the same lines as many of the others posted so far. The octopus is the big bad corporation sticking it's arms into every facet of the industry it's concerned with.

http://www.powerlink.net/fen/octopus.htm

Nice illustration...gather they were upset about the pulping...

Ach.

Apparently, the Northwest Pacific Tree Octopus has a relative in the Northeast, and a rapacious one to boot.

Thanks for posting that link, Pipsquek.

Clem

As Boris "The Jackal" Johnson MP has been upsetting the fine people of Liverpool (including myself ;) ) the front page of The Spectator has been given a lot of coverage on the TV news and it illustrates the welfare state as a large octopus choking the life out of people:

www.spectator.co.uk/covers/2004-10-16.jpg

cool illo!!!!

I really like that 50's style type of drawing....

Found a few lovelies, recently. Here's the first, an American anti-communist pamphlet cover featuring an octopus with Stalin's likeness. The "1938" pencilled into the upper right might be a date of publication; after 1941, Uncle Joe was America's partner in the war effort, and images like these were quietly mothballed.

Clem

http://www.tonmo.com/phpBB/download.php?id=3576

Just did a bit of searching, have any of these been posted before?

I haven't seen the last one...the panicked america...quite a nice painting...where did you find it?
Nice poster Clem !

Just did a image search on altavista :)

guess I need an emoticon of a silly hammer and my head...why didn't I think of that???
Cool stuff...glad you posted it !

Hello Joel,

Thanks for posting that selection. The first one is quite interesting; it's actually a knock-off of a WWII poster I've been looking out for for ages. The 1940's original showed a Japanese octopus reaching down from Honshu towards New Guinea and Australia, with a stylized rising sun behind its head. The original was also wordless, relying on graphic imagery to make its point. Wish I could find it.

The second image has been posted before; it's an infamous Nazi cartoon depciting "the Jew" as a vampiric global conspiracy.

That third one is really something, so detailled that the original must be quite large. The ceph-monster has an odd muppet look about it, or is it Seussian fur? I'd love to know more about the artist.

:thumbsup:

Yours truly,

Clem

This has got to be one of the best threads ever on this site. Great work everyone, keep it coming! It contains all the fodder needed to publish a robust thesis/book on this subject.

Here's another example, this one a contemporary view of Americas' foreign policy. (Hey, don't shoot the messenger.....!)

http://www.tonmo.com/phpBB/files/OCTOPUS_168.jpg

(Hey, don't shoot the messenger.....!)
Phil,

I won't shoot you, but I will ask you - and any person following this thread - to please locate a copy of A. J. P. Taylor's The Second World War, because I'm pretty sure it contains a color plate of the old poster that inspired these recent knock-offs. (I owned the book, once, and now regret letting go of it.)

The person who scans and posts the original will get a pony.

Clem

Apologies for the small image, but it's the only one I could find. This was 'England and the Octopus' by Clough Williams-Ellis and was written in 1928.

http://www.tonmo.com/phpBB/files/england-octopus-120x185.gif

This book was a polemic drawing attention to the destruction of the rural countryside and its inherent aesthetics by the poor management and insidious growth of urban development. The 'Octopus' of the title refers to London. A typical passage describing 'ribbon development': “the disfiguring little buildings that grow up and multiply like nettles along a drain, like lice along a tape-worm”. Apparently the book is as relevant today as when it was first written.

Clough Williams Ellis, who died in 1978, will be a familiar name to anyone who is a fan of Cult TV, for he designed Portmerion, the Italian-style village in Wales which was the setting for the ultra-surreal 1967 TV series 'The Prisoner'. That was the one in which everyone had numbers instead of names and Patrick McGoohan attempted to escape brainwashing each week by the sinister forces in control of 'The Village'. Excellent stuff!

This is German poster produced in 1942 by Goebbels' propaganda unit for display in France. It depicts Churchill as a menacing octopus with arms hacked off at sites of Axis victories. The caption translates as:

"Have confidence....the amputations continue methodically".

http://www.tonmo.com/phpBB/files/SPK.png

12 arms? And what's with the horrible geography? Back to school with you, silly Nazi!

:roll:

I always knew Churchill was up to no good...

I've just looked again at Phil's last posted image and been struck by the appearance of the Churchillopus's mouth. The thick, red lips must have been a conscious choice, perhaps intended to make the viewer think of racist caricatures of Africans. Winston is even wearing blackface. Was it meant to suggest that England's presence in Africa had somehow "polluted" the colonizers? I think this illo is quite insane, actually.

:neutral:

"What an appetite!" I've no date of publication for this illustration, athough the styles of dress on the figures and the color printing peg it as late Nineteenth or early Twentieth Century. It's a French cartoon depicting the Brotherhood of Freemasons as an octopus corrupting a myriad of societal functionaries: magistrates, clergy and police, among others. (The caption is somewhat illegible to me, you folks might have better luck.)

Rue Cadet is a Parisian street that is home to a venerable Masonic temple. The odd pot on the octopus's head could be seen as a smelting cauldron. Metalworking and metalworking symbols are part of Masonic work and ritual, deriving largely from Biblical accounts of the construction of King Solomon's temple. Then again, cartoonists have long used pots worn as crowns to indicate an illegitimate authority.

Cheers,

Clem

cool...evil freemasonry...(greg is making odd hand signals now)

The image posted below has been gathering pixel dust in my scrapbook for a while now, and it was a recent newspaper item that finally provided the impetus to post it and write some words as accompaniment. This year marks the 60th Anniversary of the end of the Second World War, and a contingent of American veterans, mostly Marines, made a recent pilgrimage to the site of one of the war's most ghastly battles, Operation Detachment, on the Pacific island of Iwo Jima.

Securing Iwo Jima was of critical importance to the American strategic bombing campaign underway against the Japanese mainland; positioned halfway between the B-29 bases in the Marianas and Japan proper, Iwo would eventually serve as a base for escorting fighters and an emergency landing field for bombers in distress. A crippled B-29 landed on Iwo scant weeks after the battle had begun.

The battle raged from February 19, 1945 to March 26. Soft volcanic sand slowed the progress of men and machines, black lava rock provided deep cover for the defenders and a heavy smell of sulphur nauseated all. By any measure, it was a hellish fight. Over one-third of the Marines who took part in the invasion became casualties: 28,686 killed, wounded or incapacitated out of an available force of 70,000. The casualty ratio among the defending Japanese was much higher: out of 27,000 defenders, over 20,000 were killed, with slightly over 1,000 surviving to become prisoners of war. Japanese soldiers on Iwo Jima were so securely embedded in their defensive positions - caves, lava tubes and ravines - that the Marines resorted to extreme measures to drive them out, including the use of flame throwers.

In a different time, and a different war, such measures would have been considered barbaric. The psychological ground had already been prepared, though. Both sides had so thoroughly dehumanized the other, in speech and images, that few measures were considered extreme. The United States Marines, a 1943 comic book published by William H. Wise, depicts "A Leatherneck Flame Thrower" torching a grotesque Japanese octopus bearing the likeness of Hideki Tojo, Japan's wartime Prime Minister. The comic's cover image accomplishes two goals: it encourages American children to regard their enemies as animals, and to accept the use of flame throwers in combat.

To view an online timetable of the battle for Iwo Jima, the source for the dates and casualty figures noted, click here. (http://history.acusd.edu/gen/WW2Timeline/LUTZ/iwo.html)

Clem

hehehe


http://www.tonmo.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=638&stc=1

http://www.tonmo.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=639&stc=1

2 more....

http://www.tonmo.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=641&stc=1

http://www.tonmo.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=640&stc=1

Library of Congress didnt have a digital copy...

http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?cd:4:./temp/~pp_HbS3::@@@mdb=fsaall,app,brum,detr,sw ann,look,gottscho,pan,horyd,genthe,var,c ai,cd,hh,yan,bbcards,lomax,ils,prok,brhc ,nclc,matpc

again
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?cd:6:./temp/~pp_HbS3::@@@mdb=fsaall,app,brum,detr,sw ann,look,gottscho,pan,horyd,genthe,var,c ai,cd,hh,yan,bbcards,lomax,ils,prok,brhc ,nclc,matpc

maybe the reference info can help people narrow images down....


then one about standard oil

http://www.tonmo.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=642&stc=1

Inspired Madness/Greatness!!!!! Especially love the "crypto" one...
author, author!!!!

VERY good!

Outstanding, WK.

Where'd you find the Standard Oil image?

Cheers,

Clem

Library of Congress website, images section...

http://catalog.loc.gov/

Hello Folks,

During the past year, this esoteric and serious thread of ours has, somehow, become the most viewed in the Culture & Entertainment forum. I've got some newish finds to contribute during the coming year, and I hope you all have some surprises in store, too.

Here's two in the eye of ignorance.

:glass:

Cheers,
Clem

i figured it had been a while....

LOL ! "cachalots must die!" !!!

initially i was going to put 'squid fishermen' but in order to not be blamed for advocating violence (in a legally troubling way) i decided to go for the absurd angle of stabbing whales....

initially i was going to put 'squid fishermen' but in order to not be blamed for advocating violence (in a legally troubling way) i decided to go for the absurd angle of stabbing whales....
But... but ... then there would be no tasty calimari rings.....

you can swim right? you got teeth or fingers to grab right?

bingo... calamari rings....

my corruptions aside, you really got love some of the wwi propaganda on both sides....

Has anyone ever seen this one?

It's an old anti-railroad monopoly editorial cartoon. Thought this is the one site that could really appreciate it.

I went up to the aircraft museum at RAF Duxford yesterday and found a poster that reminded me of this thread. It's a poster from the Netherlands, I guess 1944 in date (?) that depicts Japan as a monstrous octopus unsnaring the Pacific in its arms.

There are a number of images that were produced under the auspices of Josef Goebbels' propaganda machine that depict international Jewry as some form of bloodthirsty octopus. Taste dictates not posting them here, no matter how relevent. Indeed, one issue of Julius Streicher's ranting Der Sturmer magazine depicted an octopus bearing a Star of David being stabbed with spears labelled 'truth' and 'enlightenment'.
I'd like to see an image of this.

Was reading through Zombietime and saw this... the tentacle aspect of propaganda regarding the protocols of the elders of zion is noted....

about half to two-thirds the way down...
http://www.zombietime.com/us_out_of_iraq_now_sf_3-18-2007/
(numerous pictures arent family friendly)

The person who originally posted that "flag-pus-globe" pic made reference to its origin as well...

http://www.intelligence.org.il/sp/as2_04/img/34tl.jpg

Very interesting topic guys!

Some great new pics...neat stuff, indeed !

Was reading through Zombietime and saw this... the tentacle aspect of propaganda regarding the protocols of the elders of zion is noted....

about half to two-thirds the way down...
http://www.zombietime.com/us_out_of_iraq_now_sf_3-18-2007/
(numerous pictures arent family friendly)

I'm conservative, i'm ameracan, i'm a patriot, and i see this kind of stuff so much i'm pretty much numb to it by now.

alo i didn't see that family freindly thing right away and it kinda took me by surprize.

also that this is your brain on cryptozoology thing, i resent that, go to my profile and read my interests then talk to me about it

NRA depicts Bloomberg as octopus, an anti-Semitic symbol (http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=T&ct=us/0-0&fd=R&url=http://www.amny.com/news/local/wire/ny-bc-ny--nraoctopus0418apr18,0,163505.story%3Fcol l%3Dsns-ap-investing-headlines&cid=1115501442&ei=kjwnRuKtN5XM0AHJmfHSAQ)
amNewYork, New York - 3 hours ago
NRA spokeswoman Ashley Varner said possible parallels between the magazine cover and the historical context of the octopus were accidental. ...
Gun lobbying group depicts New York Mayor Bloomberg as octopus, an ... (http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=T&ct=us/0-1&fd=R&url=http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/04/19/america/NA-GEN-US-Gun-Lobby-Bloomberg.php&cid=1115501442&ei=kjwnRuKtN5XM0AHJmfHSAQ) International Herald Tribune
NRA Magazine Cover Depicts NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg as Octopus ... (http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=T&ct=us/0-2&fd=R&url=http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,266844,00.html&cid=1115501442&ei=kjwnRuKtN5XM0AHJmfHSAQ) FOX News
all 63 news articles

More... (http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=T&ct=us/0-0&fd=R&url=http://www.amny.com/news/local/wire/ny-bc-ny--nraoctopus0418apr18,0,163505.story%3Fcol l%3Dsns-ap-investing-headlines&cid=1115501442&ei=kjwnRuKtN5XM0AHJmfHSAQ)

Obviously, the offended have never seen or followed this thread, or else they would know that this is an all-purpose visual metaphor and isn't inherently or specifically anti-Semitic.

WARNING: This next paragraph just struck me due to the NRA being behind the Bloomberg cover. If you're excessively pro-or-anti gun ownership, read no further. This kind of thing is generally not my style, but:

It struck me as odd, in view of recent events, that there is the NRA, which holds to an often outlandish all-or-nothing view on guns and gun control, and the anti-gun people, who obviously want most private gun ownership abolished. Where's the "we're responisble gun owners who think background checks and, just perhaps, purchasing bans on mental patients are a good idea, but we still like to go hunting or target shooting" group?

Where's the pro-gun lobby for rational firearms enthusiasts? I love guns. I love target shooting. I have some Big Liberal chums who love to go hunting, and I know some Conservatives who can't figure out why assault weapons should be everyday household objects, but respect the intent of the Second Amendment. Why are Americans - my countrymen - always so black and white about everything all the time?

Sorry, this question has been gnawing at my brain for a very long time. What if you love firearms but are pretty sick of the NRA?


Anyway, back to Octopus and Propaganda.

Switzerland. Every house has a gun, by law, and crime is pretty much non existent. Banning guns won't stop bad people from having them; England and Japan struggle with that one all the time.
"What good are yer damn laws? The good people don't need them and the bad people just ignore them." Utah Phillips qouting a friend.

I say open season on the NRA.:wink:

it'd be interesting to hear someone from the JPFO's opinion on all this....

I'm glad Octobot caught this story. I was riding on the subway to work early in the morning and saw a brief mention of the NRA Bloomberg cover in today's Daily News.

The New York Times ran a story about this back on April 15th, linked here. (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/15/nyregion/15nra.html?ex=1334289600&en=85ce43560d16e63e&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss) It shows the offending illustration and provides necessary context about Mayor Bloomberg's campaign against illegal firearms, but it also mentions what's inside the America's 1st Freedom article. From Times writer Diane Cardwell:

The cover article, which labels Mr. Bloomberg “a billionaire, Boston-grown evangelist for the nanny state,” argues that despite the mayor’s carefully chosen words about keeping firearms out of the hands of criminals, he was actually waging war on legal gun ownership.

“Beholden to nothing except his own ambitions, the mayor has established himself as a kind of national gun-control vigilante,” writes James O. E. Norell, identified as a contributing editor. Calling the national coalition a “cabal,” Mr. Norell adds: “Bloomberg’s tentacles reach throughout the country to foist N.Y.C.-style gun control on you, your friends and neighbors.”
Cabal, eh? Mr. Norell's article hits most of the marks a writer versed in coded messages would want to hit, nailing wealth, conspiracy, ruthless ambition and those two cities where lots of those people live. I'd like to know more about how the article and cover illustration came to be, who painted it, and did they read the article or get a summary for the assignment? The illustration is not particularly grotesque, and if you look closely you can see that the tentacles are a background figures unattached to Bloomberg, who has his own arms and signature suited torso. The association with anti-Jewish propaganda featuring cephalopods can still be made, obviously, but the fumes aren't as strong as what's inside the newsletter. Ms. Cardwell's Times piece does not explicitly engage or acknowledge the appearance of an anti-Jewish theme in either Norell's article or the cover illustration.

Associated Press writer Sara Kugler, who penned what Octobot picked up, frames it quite differently and has done some homework but, as Erich notes, not enough. Per Erich, the octopus is not a specifically, uniquely anti-Jewish symbol, and had a long career as a general-purpose symbol behind it. Hitler's appropriation of it for Mein Kampf and subsequent appearances in Nazi visual propaganda, such as Seppla's ravening Churchill octopus guided by the Star of David, capped a long tradition of depicting the enemy other as a ceph. In examples from Nineteenth Century America, targets included Catholics, Chinese immigrants and railroad monopolies, among others. Kugler also fudged what the NRA cover actually shows; Bloomberg isn't an octopus, he's been placed in close visual and metaphorical association with one. That may seem a small distinction, but it's still worth noting.

Another oddity in Ms. Kugler's piece is the muted response to the painting elicited from representatives of the American Jewish Congress and Anti-defamation League.
David Twersky of the American Jewish Congress said he did not think the NRA was trying to be purposely anti-Semitic, but that it had nonetheless committed a blunder by not being aware of the symbol's hateful past. "For them not to know this is really, really stupid," he said. "You take a powerful Jewish figure, and show him in a way that provokes traditional anti-Semitism, it's really unforgiveable." He said the organization may write a letter to the NRA pointing out the problem.

The Anti-Defamation League said although some may perceive the drawing as offensive, it did not believe the cartoon is inherently anti-Semitic. "While the use of an octopus to connote anti-Semitism has been used by the Nazis and anti-Semites, and is still used today, it usually is accompanied with a very specific symbol" or other indicators that the magazine cover does not have, said ADL spokeswoman Myrna Shinbaum.
Shinbaum and Twersky are well-informed and about as measured in tone as I was, that is, before I read about what the Mr. Borell's NRA article actually says, which is a more overt example of anti-Jewish coding. Did the quoted AJC and ADL reps know what was written, or were they asked to respond to the drawing alone? Seems to be some sloppiness afoot.

This story got some steam behind it today, three days after the Times piece and an unknown number of days since the April issue of America's 1st Freedom went out to subscribers. The Virginia Tech massacre re-focused attention here in NY on Mayor Bloomberg's pursuit of illegal firearms, and the fact that at one point 47% of the illegal weapons taken out of circulation were found to have come via Virginia. Journalists casting light on coded bigotry present in the America's 1st Freedom issue doesn't exactly hurt Bloomberg, politically speaking, since it casts his enemies in the NRA in the shadow of bigotry and generalized jack-assedness, but it's also a distraction from the bigger picture. The NRA' s editorial staff may have calculated that dropping anti-Jewish code on receptive members may get that demographic riled-up and ready to buy more guns in Virginia, but the blowback scarcely seems worth it.

Sorry for this over-long post.

Cheers,
Clem

Wow, a very interesting read. I wonder if it would even be worth writing someone and letting them know the long and multi-faceted history of Ceph figures, on all sides of each argument. For the Jews to automatically consider it an anti-semetic symbol is flawed at best, since it has been used on both sides of that argument.

As for the "reasonable gun owners" question; I'm all for it. I have a couple rifles and plan to purchase a handgun in the near future. I mostly enjoy target shooting, but have been hunting in the past (squirrel - we didn't get any). I believe in the right to gun ownership, but not at all costs, as many associated with the NRA believe. I do not believe in complete bans, but much more careful distribution (mental conditions, prior offenses, etc) simply must be sought more than it has been thusfar.

Since the Virginia situation has been mentioned; I will only say this. It is a terrible, terrible shame, and was totally avoidable. Even when he went to school in the town next to mine, students dropped classes they had with him and a techer almost quit, unable to expel him from her class. That individual was very, very troubled for a very, very long time and anyone who came in contact with him knew it. He should have been examined and institutionalized LONG ago, by force if necessary.

People have this feeling about "problems", whether it be waste products or troubled people, that if they simply brush it aside (or dump it in the ocean) that it'll all be OK...As long as "they" don't have to deal with it. As a society, we need to take a much stronger stance on responsibility and actively pursue possible threats, not just brush them aside.

I'm certain there were many at Bradley University who gave a sigh of relief when he moved to Virginia Tech...I wonder how they're sleeping tonight.

There is nothing that is completely "someone else's problem"...All things come full circle.

Nation/World briefs (http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=T&ct=us/9-0&fd=R&url=http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article%3FAID%3D/20070419/NATION/704190336/1020/NATION&cid=0&ei=Fo8oRu6LEpq40QGAj5km)
DetNews.com, MI - 3 hours ago
NRA depicts NYC mayor as octopus: A National Rifle Association magazine cover depicting New York mayor and gun control campaigner Michael Bloomberg as an ...


More... (http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=T&ct=us/9-0&fd=R&url=http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article%3FAID%3D/20070419/NATION/704190336/1020/NATION&cid=0&ei=Fo8oRu6LEpq40QGAj5km)

I have only one thing to say to the NRA...

LOL! :lol:

Hi All,

I'm going to revisit the NRA vs. Bloomberg incident soon, but I've got a few new finds to share first.

On December 9th, 1905, France codified as law the separation of church and state, the "Loi du 9 Décembre 1905 concernant la séparation des Églises et de l'État." Attached is a contemporary illustration depiciting Liberté (or her popular incarnation, Marianne) hacking at the arms of the clerical pieuvre. The arm grasping the schools has already been severed; still to be liberated are the French judiciary, army, industry and the colonies.

Clem

"Vote Red!" Circa 1918, a very pretty art nouveau poster by Albert Hahn for the Dutch Social Democratic Worker's Party (SDAP). A strapping proletariat swings a pickaxe at the octopus of capitalism. The bloody-lipped cephalopod's arms are labeled anarchy, famine (hongersnood) and the suffering of war (oorlogsleed). A fourth arm is labeled levensmiddelen, which translates roughly to foodstuffs, but there's an illegible bit after middelen. The legend at the bottom exhorts us to "Support the Candidates of the S.D.A.P.

Of indeterminate provenance is the monochromatic corporate octopus snaking its arms south across the Mediterranean. The national composition of the array of corporate logos at the top skews towards multi-nationals based in Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands.

Clem

Do we need to make a rebuttal to this? http://octopustruth.com/

Do we need to make a rebuttal to this? http://octopustruth.com/

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?!

Come on, it is all done tongue and cheek and if you look at the last page he actually gives decent "learn more" references

Love it ! Through the shower drain...that's a gem !

Come on, it is all done tongue and cheek and if you look at the last page he actually gives decent "learn more" references

Except for the glaring omission of TONMO. I think we've been snubbed.

Except for the glaring omission of TONMO. I think we've been snubbed.
...or it's one of us gone rogue, and TONMO was omitted to cover his/her tracks.

The octo drawing accompanying the "octopus vs. dolphin" page made me laugh.

Shades of Pakoc, Clem ?

Dang, Greg,

I hadn't thought about that episode in a long time. (To those who weren't here for it, "Pakoc" was an offensive TONMO troll who wrote nasty things about some of us, before coming semi-clean and apologizing, back in 2003; the name was an acronym for "People Against Keeping Octopus in Captivity," and, although never formally identified, the troll was likely a trusted regular going through a bad time in their lives.)

Here's some comic relief.:wink:

Cheers,
Clem

Are any of these propaganda posters available for sale? I'll post some if I ever see any pop up on eBay. I collect Chinese communist propaganda posters and have found a lot of them for cheap (less than $20 shipped) on eBay. I think I've seen 80% of the Chinese propaganda ever made but unfortunately none depict any cephalopods.

Hi Kent,

:welcome:

I've never seen any of this stuff for sale on eBay, so if you see something please post it!

Below is a nice find, dating from 1937. "Telephone Companies! Politics and Capitalism, watching over your business. To fight, to win, CNT." The CNT was the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo, Spain's oldest anarchist union. In 1936, the CNT, based in Barcelona, helped to lead a popular revolution that resulted in the collectivization of a majority of Catalonian industry, and led successful operations against Franco's fascist military. By 1937, the CNT had grudgingly allied itself with the Republican government in Madrid and was facing counter-revolutionary pressures from Stalinst elements of the Spanish Communist party, who wanted to collectivize society according to the Soviet model. On May the 3rd, 1937, military police and Communist fighters laid siege to Barcelona's old telephone exchange building, which the CNT had occupied. After a bloody siege, the CNT was ejected from the exchange. This poster commemorates that action (not the numerous shot-out windows in the old exchange's facade). The discs at the ends of the octopus's arms are odd. I can only guess that they're meant to resemble ears, or the terminals of switchboard wires.

Clem

Kent's post reminded me of two images in my queue. First, a leaflet prepared for WWII-era Taiwan that's described at Ed Rouse's excellent Psywarrior (http://www.psywarrior.com/OWI60YrsLater2.html)site. From Rouse:

It depicts Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek at the left, President Franklin Roosevelt at the right, and the island of Taiwan in the grips of a Japanese octopus in the center. Text on the front is: "China and America Together Doom Violent Japan!" Text on the back is in both Chinese and Japanese and says: "The two great nations fronting on the Pacific Ocean are united with a single purpose. They are determined to sweep away the Japanese pirates and to restore human liberty."

Second, a poster that actually is for sale as a modern giclee print, depicting the Imperial Japanese Navy as an octopus attacking an enemy fleet at Port Arthur, Manchuria. On the night of February 3, 1904, elements of the Japanese fleet attacked Russian vessels at anchor in Port Arthur, the opening salvo of the Russo-Japanese war. I hope there's a Japanese reader here who can translate the text for us. Notable are the Japanese self-identification with the octopus (directed by the confident Japanese admiral perched on the head) and the whimsical "fish ships" of the enemy. Projecting an image of naval might by claiming the octopus as an asset goes way back, of course, all the way to Sextus Pompey (http://www.tonmo.com/forums/showpost.php?p=12171&postcount=15) and the Roman Empire, but in the twentieth century, particularly during Hirohito's reign, Japanese propagandists made the octopus a symbol of foreign aggression. It might be the case that extensive use of the device against Japan by the Western Allies made complementary, positive readings of the symbol impossible. If you like the image, it's available at Allposters.com (http://www.allposters.com/-sp/The-Japanese-Octopus-of-Port-Arthur-Posters_i2299044_.htm)

Clem

Phil wrote about this one years ago, but the images were lost. So, once again, here's the WWII Disney-produced propaganda film "Victory Through Air Power."

Clem, thanks for sharing these... what an excellent, comprehensive collection we have here! I hereby declare this thread yours, to turn into a coffee table book. Let us know the production date!

Thanks, Tony. Know any publishers?

Clem

Well, there are some ideas to consider... I will PM you so as not to dilute the richness of this thread!

Thanks, Tony.

Here's an interesting case of cross-cultural pollination. First, the "Serio-Comic War Map For the Year 1877," by Frederick W. Rose, printed by G. W. Bacon & Co., a bygone U.K. publisher of maps and atlases. 1877 was the year that Russia went to war against the Turkish seat of the Ottoman Empire, a conflct by which Russia hoped to gain permanent access to Mediterranean ports and wrest its Slavic brethren in the Balkans from Ottoman control. The war ended in 1878 after a disastrous Russian campaign and the intervention of the Western powers, with the British Navy moving to oppose a Russian move on Constantinople. The Treaty of San Stefano ended the war and checked Russian expansion, but independence was granted to Romania, Serbia and Montenegro. Rose's wonderful map uses the device of illusionistic caricature to great effect, with each discrete state a representative figure (or conglomerate of figures). Russia the octopus menaces the Turk, but the Turk's drawn a drop of blood from the devil-horned cephalopod's arm, roughly where Yalta and Sevastopol lie on the Black Sea. I can't make out the legend in the lower right of the picture, unfortunately.

Flip ahead to 1904, the war between Russia and Japan and an illustration I first wrote about back in 2004, (http://www.tonmo.com/forums/showpost.php?p=19507&postcount=92) "A Humorous Diplomatic Map of Europe and Asia." I hadn't seen Rose's 1877 map back then and the Japanese version isn't nearly so refined. Here's the English legend, or at least as much as I can make out:
Black Octopus' is a name newly given to Russia by a certain prominent Englishman. For the Black Octopus is so avaricious that he stretches out his eight arms in all directions, and seizes up every thing that comes within his reach. But as it sometimes happens he gets wounded seriously even by a small fish, owing to his too much .[i] Indeed, a Japanese proverb says: "Great avarice is like unselfishness." We Japanese need not to say much on the cause of the present war. Suffice it to say, that the further existence of the Black Octopus will depend entirely upon how he comes out of this war. The Japanese fleet has already practically annihilated Russia's naval power in the Orient. The Japanese army is about to win a signal victory over Russia in Corea & Manchuria. And then...............St Petersburg? Wait and see! The ugly Black Octopus! Hurrah! Hurrah! for Japan.
The "prominent Englishman" could be Frederick Rose, though 1877 wasn't particularly recent in 1904. Now, compare the 1904 Rose knock-off to the 1904 octopus of Port Arthur (http://www.tonmo.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=5749&d=1195930069), which I wrote about a few days ago. The Japanese propaganda meant for Western consumption apes an English artist and casts the octopus as the unchecked foreign aggressor, but the Japanese propaganda produced for the domestic audience casts the octopus as a loyal warrior, drawn with a distinctively Japanese siphonal "mouth". I've no evidence that this heroic octopus narrative spread as a meme within Japan's political class, but there is evidence that the aggressive Russian octopus meme found purchase among sympathetic Americans. In "Japan's Stake in War," a January 21, 1904 article for the New York Times written as foreign correspondence by prominent American political economist E. H. Vickers, the author wrote, "Already a number of Japanese enterprises are established in the territory now gripped by the octopus arms of Russia." Vickers' article pre-dated the start of the war by two weeks. Is it possible that his Japanese hosts and Tokyo readers picked up the Russian octoprop meme from him? Was he the "Englishman" who had "newly" described Russia as an octopus?

...and now I've just discovered that a vintage print of F. W. Rose's Russian octopus sold on eBay France (http://cgi.ebay.fr/SERIO-COMIC-WAR-MAP-For-the-year-1877-by-F-W-ROSE_W0QQitemZ320177243067QQihZ011QQcate goryZ60631QQcmdZViewItem) on November 8, for 302 Euros, or $441. Not that I could have afforded such a thing, but still, :banghead:

Clem

Here's one that was first posted to TONMO by Joel Ang back in October, 2004. Joel's attachment was lost and I'd been unable to relocate it online, but it turns out I'd saved a copy in an overlooked folder.

Clem

I found this here (http://hypnocrites.blogspot.com/2007_03_01_archive.html) in a google image search.

5838

Hello,

Looking for info/images of octopuses in propaganda and pulp art and came across this site.

Thought you might like the following - although most of these images have already appeared in this thread it provides a bit of context:
http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/gilded/power/text1/octopusimages.pdf

:welcome: and thanks for the link!

When I was six or seven years old, I went to New York City with my family and saw the World Trade Center for the first time. I remember the vertiginous feeling that came with looking up at the towers, and the thrill of looking down from the observation deck. I clambered on the spherical bronze sculpture in the plaza, too. The strangest thing I saw in the plaza was a tabletop display, in protest of something or other, comprising two dead, rotting octopus. Every arm was curled around or resting atop some object of significance, though what the significance of each object was is anyone's guess. Coins, a key, form letters, an old weekly newspaper, beads, hand cream, a disposable lighter, all meaning something to the woman behind the table, but all I could see were dead animals. I felt pity for them. Perhaps that was the point.

So, to those who've wondered where this peculiar interest of mine started, it started at the World Trade Center.

Clem