My, that those British are a grim lot. So today I learned about this fantastic series of propaganda posters the UK printed up in WWII. The notion was to promote wellness and mental health while being bombed to pieces during the Blitz. The first read “Your Courage, Your Cheerfulness, Your Resolution Will Bring Us Victory”, white letters on a plain red backdrop with the symbol of the crown at the the top. The notion was to have this design interpreted to be the official letterhead of the positively Orwellian ‘Ministry of Information”; to imbue the oi polloi with the notion that the government still had a plan and that “the people” were part of it. Eight-hundred thousand of these posters were printed and distributed about the country.

The second wave of posters read simply “Freedom is in Peril”, bearing the same white on red motif. I had an odd thought reading about this, that recalled the time I spent as a teenager in Cuba. Aside:

When I was 19 I spent, along with about 3 dozen other students and teachers from my highschool, a week in Cuba in lieu of having the standard “Senior Trip”. It was gorgeous. Stunning, really. The one thing in my life I wish I could reverse time and try again (there was this girl, see? She’s dead now, but also I threw out my back, and I wasn’t smart enough yet. God, I want that week back [and not that weak back {*rimshot*}]). They’ve got billboards dotted around the island, just like here, but instead of promoting commercial goods they’re inscribed with inspirational message to the people of Cuba, installed during the struggle for liberation.

Personal politics aside, there were some that read like daily affirmations of faith (while the billboard on the left is positively Draconian, the one on the right translates as “Your examples live, and your ideas last”). I can absolutely see the appeal of propaganda that doesn’t appeal to the dominion of an empire , but rather in the notion of a gentle hand resting on your shoulder and telling you to work hard, be your best, care for your people. Big Brother isn’t watching you, he’s watching over you. Ah well, me and the Cuban people can write tomes about lost opportunity another day….ANYWAY!

Getting back the British M.o.I. posters, there was one last banner that never quite made it out to the public until just recently. They printed 2.5 million copies of it, to post up during what was assumed to be the inevitable invasion and occupation of England by the Germans. In incredibly proper manners, it stated:

Yeah, Saxons. Be sure to keep a firm upper lip while being ground out by the tread of the Nazi War Machine. That kinda attitude is why the Sun eventually set on the Albion Empire.

Me? I’ve got a different homeland, and it’s a different kind of empire. We even have our own motto:

Ever onward and upward, baby.

-diggy