Letters from Whitehouse Frontlines: Propaganda in Newspapers

[Adam]

Propaganda. Letters in newspapers across Americam saying how well it's all going in Iraq. Letters from different soldiers, supposedly. Home town boys and girls writing to their local papers. Yet strangely all the letters are identical. Yep, these letters were sent home from the rough and tough front lines at the Whitehouse.

http://www.theolympian.com/home/news/20031011/frontpage/121390.shtml

 

[Zero]

Are we supposed to be surprised? Everything about this war has been a lie, except for the fact that it is going badly...and the Repugnicans even lie about that!

 

[RageSk8]

Most soldiers read and signed the letter, though they did not write it.

 

[Adam]

A couple more links about this:

http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_3249.shtml
http://www.antiwar.com/justin/j101303.html

 

[russ_watters]

Originally posted by RageSk8
Most soldiers read and signed the letter, though they did not write it.

...and they also agreed with it.

So much for the lies, Zero.

 

[Adam]

Originally posted by russ_watters
...and they also agreed with it.

So much for the lies, Zero.

1) You're patriotically clutching at straws. "American is good, damn you!" It seems you will grab for anything to reassure yourself.

2) Please actually read the articles provided.

When one proud father congratulated his son on getting a letter published in the local newspaper, the soldier said: "What letter?"

"One soldier, who asked not to be identified, said he was reluctant to sign the letter because he did not agree with the comments in the letter but said he was ordered by a superior officer to sign. 'When I'm given an order, I obey it,' he said."

Six soldiers reached by Gannett News Service directly or through their families admitted they did not write the leters. One said he didn't even sign the letter that bore his name.

Sgt. Todd Oliver, a spokesman for the 173rd Airborne Brigade, which counts the 503rd as one of its units, said he was told a soldier wrote the letter, but he didn't know who. He claimed the brigade's public affairs unit was not involved.

"When he asked other soldiers in his unit to sign it, they did," Oliver explained in an e-mail response. "Someone, somewhere along the way, took it upon themselves to mail it to the various editors of newspapers across the country."

 

[Zero]

Originally posted by russ_watters
...and they also agreed with it.

So much for the lies, Zero.

Uh huh...misinformation intended to decieve IS a lie, Russ...you should be familiar with it, you are conservative, after all. What about the soldier who didn't even know about it? HAnding soldiers a form letter and having them sign it, and then the government misrepresenting it as their own thoughts, is lying, Russ.
The honest way of doing this would have been to print it as a letter from the unit, and to publish it with all the signatures of the soldiers who agreed with it. To publish it in different newspapers, with the intent to make people believe that the letter was written by the soldier it was attributed to, is dishonest in the extreme.

 

[Njorl]

What I find most distressing is that someone is in a position of power sufficient to have this done, but is so stupid as to think they could pull it off. Surely no one could read newspapers from two different cities! You'd need some sort of globe-spanning computerized network to do that!

Njorl

 

[Zero]

Originally posted by Njorl
What I find most distressing is that someone is in a position of power sufficient to have this done, but is so stupid as to think they could pull it off. Surely no one could read newspapers from two different cities! You'd need some sort of globe-spanning computerized network to do that!

Njorl

Why not? At some point, 70% of Americans polled believed that Iraq had something to do with 9-11, when all they had to do was use that "globe-spanning computerized network" to know otherwise. There are people who think that the tax cuts for rich people helped the middle class, that Bush has a brain, and that we are 'winning' a 'war on terror'...people believe what they want to believe, especially when they are scared.

 

[Njorl]

I guess H. L. Mencken was right.

Njorl

 

[Zero]

"Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under."?

 

[Njorl]

I was thinking of this one:

"No one in this world has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby. "
- H. L. Mencken

Which is often convoluted with:
"No one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public. "
- H. L. Mencken

To produce this misquote:
No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.

Njorl

 

[BoulderHead]

I have maintained that 'all' is the hook of brainwashing and propaganda...

...with the degree of denial being an indication of the depth of the hook.


But, as long as we are quoting Mencken, allow me;

“A newspaper is a device for making the ignorant more ignorant and the crazy crazier.”

“Freedom of press is limited to those who own one.”

“Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.”

“Truth would quickly cease to become stranger than fiction, once we got as used to it.”

- H. L. Mencken (1880-1956).

 

[Njorl]

I looked at a page of Menken quotes. God how depressingly cynical and accurate they are!

Njorl

 

[BoulderHead]

Originally posted by Njorl
I looked at a page of Menken quotes. God how depressingly cynical and accurate they are!

Njorl

Yeah, I can't help but love the guy, haha