Trying to break out of the COVID stay at home funk and thinking about propaganda again. One piece of American propaganda I think is really interesting is the term "Third World Country"

The Third World is a throwback to the Cold War and included countries that were not alligned with either the first world (America) or the 2nd world (Soviets). Also many of the countries that are '3rd world' have some kind of colonial background

Countries that are considered "first world" include Australia, Namibia, Mozambique, Turkey, and Iran as they were 'on our side' during the cold war. These designations come from about the year 1975

Countries that are third world consist of most of the middle and northern Africa, the vast majority of South America (Suriname and French Guiana 1st world) but also Finland and sweden.

European countries that are 3rd world are Austria, Hungary and the Former republic of Yugoslavia (RIP)

So what is the propaganda on this? Today we consider just 1st world and 2nd world, nothing in between, mostly because there isn't a 2nd world (Soviet union) anymore anyway. But the designation of 3rd world is no longer 'country not wanting to deal with this shit' to just 'shit'

This is some real 'you're either with us or the terrorists' kind of mindset that has set itself deep into the working language of many Americans. 3rd world countries are bad! Disgusting places filled with dirt and disease!

What's the point of this? Probably nothing other than it's another one of those remnants of a bygone era that has remained in American lexicon. The meaning overall has changed, but it got there through our favorite means: Propaganda!

Side note: Cuba is often called '3rd world' by shitty Americans but technically they were 2nd world. There is no real agreed upon definition of what "3rd world" really is, but generally if someone is referring to a country as 3rd world, they're being a bit of a dick

Reading a few articles and laughing at the idea of calling place "Developing nations". Developing what? We're just going to ignore that Europe was doing a lot of UNdeveloping in Africa for hundreds of years? Like if a country doesn't have gunpowder they're undeveloped