2.  Are there any benefits to propaganda? When and Why?

To many people propaganda is presented as a evil thing, a disturbing piece of our society.  People from all over the world with different political systems and cultures, have experienced its presence.  The United States used it to encourage men to join the army during both world wars; the Syrian government did it to expose their rivals as disgusting beings; the revolutionaries of the French Revolution used it to deface the monarchy.  Of course there is more to propaganda than presenting selfish needs.  Propaganda is used everywhere and for everything.  From the depths of Dr. Seuss's well-known story books, to the horrifying filth presented in Upton Sinclair's book The Jungle, propaganda is always able to send a strong message.

Though i gave very negative aspects of propaganda, let me remind you friends that it has presented itself since the earliest days of your lives.  Don't you remember that day when your mother came to your room to read you a bed time story.  She would tell the tales of many: a little red hooded girl who talked to strangers, a boy who to often cried wolf, or a young woman left at the mercy of step-mother.  Remember those stories?  What did they teach us?  Not to talk to strangers, not to lie. . . .   These tales basically told us what and what not to do.  We became scared at the prospect of meeting a stranger. The thought of lying made us feel guilty.   Being mean to others, like the evil step-sisters, was like committing a sin.  These stories told us what to do and what is best.  Of course these messages are directly what your parents want you to believe, so they present a heavy amount of this 'childish' propaganda, to influence us to the extent in which they cannot reach: our imagination.  For me whenever I did something remotely like the 'bad guys' from the stories, the thought of the monster creeping up to punish me was terrifying (took me months to get it out of my system).  

Obviously there is more to the benefits of propaganda than through the pure messages to children.  These days they are everywhere, but most of them are used in a way of a warning. If you do this 'bad' deed, then you are in for deep consequences.  Most of the time, in these cases, the consequences are not exaggerated, but there are those moments.  For instance,  these days I always see the no texting when driving ads on TV.  The viewer is presented with either a victim of a damaging crash or the family member of a fatal one, emphasizing how a small text dramatically destroyed them.  This is beneficial because it tells the youth in this nation to be careful and not to text when driving because they will be extremely hurt.  

When propaganda is used to send a positive moral message to the public I believe it used in a both beneficial and righteous way.