Josef Goebbels, besides being a dude who sat even 98% of the National Socialist and other parties on their ears, was originally a student of romantic (including mythic) literature; he received a PhD from Berlin University in 1921.

Goebbels said that propaganda does not have to be intelligent, it just has to succeed; he otherwise knew propaganda to be that which facilitates the triumph of personal leaders’ will.

By “not intelligent”, sure, thugs with rubber hoses on posters saying “do it or else” would be propaganda; but most usually, unintelligent propaganda means that stagecraft/cinema/media event which is either grounded in no evidence that should be there (opinions only made), or ignores data which tends to negative what the pomp and circumstance/talking head opinions blurt about.

A rhetorical example: say a State, the SWAs of which are part of a Federal unemployment system, aks its regulated professions to make outrageous enticements to pull in people (formerly with good wages, but now in foreclosure, stamps, etc) on UI extensions with no real experience; next, say regulators know a charade of completing necessary initial licensing/registration forms and ephemera will be included but nobody will have employers submit (contrary to apparent law); then, say as “newbs” such new hires are run ragged or otherwise made to leave the new jobs; next, maybe many such employers don’t pay for training “made pursuant to law” on applications they know they won’t submit, nor pay for first work done; last, say the State’s SWA ends UI for all such people as they”quit”, otherwise refuses to pursue wage claims for them, and regulated agencies back up that mindnumbingly even by the tons no such people “did regulated work” so no ticks to employers; now say as a result UI claim figures go down, and some official(s)prance around saying how messianic they must be just to have a low figure and be thus improving lives, “need we say more?”. This example would be “unintelligent”, as the officials’ claims would be based on an absence and further contradiction of certain facts.

For more on Goebbels or the communications philosophy he merely engendered, visit fifth heading down “Propaganda Minister” at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Goebbels .