Propaganda

Propaganda. What does it mean? How does it work? How can we resist it, and live more decently with one another? Randal Marlin, a professor in the department of philosophy at Carleton University, has attempted to answer those questions in a new book that reviewer Martha Sully calls "a fascinating historical study."

CBS's promo for its program says: "Politicians have had to sell the public on going to war since Colonial times, but they never had the arsenal of advertising and communications techniques the Bush administration is using to sell a possible war on Iraq. Bob Simon reports on those techniques and those employed by the elder Bush prior to the 1991 Gulf War.

Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) warns that "the fraudulent story of Iraqi soldiers throwing Kuwaiti babies out of incubators during the occupation of Kuwait in 1990 is depicted as if it were true in 'Live from Baghdad,' the HBO film premiering on the cable network this Saturday that purports to tell the story behind CNN's coverage of the Gulf War. HBO and CNN are both owned by the AOL Time Warner media conglomerate. ...

"The White House is shifting James Wilkinson, who helped run the U.S./U.K. coalition communications office in the aftermath of the invasion of Afghanistan, to the Pentagon's U.S. Central Command to serve as spokesperson for Gen. Tommy Franks," O'Dwyer's PR Daily writes. "That move is a 'big signal' that the U.S. is 'getting serious' about Iraq, according to a report in The Washington Times. Wilkinson has just returned from a trip to Morocco, where he practiced his Arabic language skills on the streets.