MEANS AND ENDS OF SOCIAL MANIPULATION

Victor-Emanuel Blaga Supervisor: Stuart Elford

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION HISTORICAL BACKGROUND PROPAGANDA DISINFORMATION EDUCATION HISTORY AS PROPAGANDA SURVEILLANCE AND CONTROL CONCLUSION BIBLIOGRAPHY

3 5 8 15 19 22 27 30 31

INTRODUCTION
Rationale
Although often an unacknowledged process both throughout history and in contemporary times, social manipulation / engineering is a heated subject for discussion, and due to its inherent secret nature, is cause for both extensive speculation and more on-topic research. Being one subject I have dedicated most of my reading time to during the last year, it was only normal to choose it as topic for this particular paper. Through this study, I aim primarily at consolidating my already acquired knowledge, and secondarily at categorizing what I otherwise identify as ways of mass controlling the general populace by a number of factions with the power to do so. As my main interest lies not strictly with the instances when or where such techniques were employed, I will only support my examination of the methods used with what I consider to be telling examples, both historical and contemporary, from which the reader may gain a comprehensive understanding of how social manipulation is actually put into practice. My viewpoint is that the great majority of people are all too concerned with daily life that they tend to overlook the little things, such as their own free will. Another goal of this paper is to serve as a sort of guidebook outlining the direction in which the world, as related to social manipulation, is going, and to synthesize as many issues as possible in what I hope will be an easy-to-follow tour of the subject. I wish to thus spare the reader of the trouble of going over a myriad of papers covering a wide range of not always apparently connected topics, only to form a general idea on the methods of goading the public, as well as what one might gain from applying them, while at the same time presenting what I perceive to be a moderate perspective.

Synopsis
The claim that humans are inclined to lie and manipulate one another, should it further their personal interests, stands up to close psychological scrutiny. People belonging to all layers of society adopt such tactics constantly, whether we are talking about someone who influences his peers to become hostile towards somebody else, having an ulterior motive, or, more evidently, if we consider how politicians conduct their electoral campaigns before an election. If we take this type of behavior one step further, we can see how natural it is for groups of individuals with legal, political or economic power to attempt to sway public opinion in their favor, when their goals require it. Because the masses are not composed uniformly of mindless robot-puppets, the means of controlling them are elaborate and well consolidated in a structured system that is able to operate through apparently harmless means. Each faction has its system, developed as much as the factions resources permit, and generally customized according to its own agenda to control a well-defined range of the entire spectrum of society. Integral to this system are propaganda, in the multitude of forms it appears, whether overt or not, disinformation and surveillance through not always concealed invasion of privacy. Propaganda feeds the masses with biased data, which when taken for granted, influences, positively or negatively, one selected group towards another individual, group, state, doctrine, or even religion. The messages included in propaganda are conceived in such a way as to be appealing to the target audience and usually present either the propagandist in a favorable light, or a chosen target in whatever manner suits the propagandist. It should be noted that every faction with something to promote

resorts to such misinformation, whether it be a company advertising its products or services (when propaganda has the excuse of being called a commercial), a clandestine unit fighting to overthrow a well-established political regime, or a multinational organization pitted against an entire belief system of an ethnic group. Anything involving public information can potentially be turned into propaganda, starting with historical and political data presented in school books, and ending with what we see at 5 oclock news every day. Because of this, the more well-connected and influential one is with the media, the easier it is for him to produce believable stories that further his goals. But no propagandist is able to convince the general audience of anything, if the truth is just as readily available as the lie, for no falsehood easily stands to close scrutiny by people from all walks of life, when confronted with reality. Therefore, one actively seeking to win over the hearts and minds of the crowd, has to dumb it down to a manageable level of information, lest he be revealed for the manipulator he is, be discredited, and possibly face the consequences of his attempt at twisting the truth in the detriment of his fellow people. In order to keep people enough in the dark about subjects they shouldnt know about, disinformation campaigns are being resorted to. These consist mainly of the avoidance of uncomfortable subjects and the application of various techniques to discredit whoever comes up with potentially dangerous information as an untrustworthy source. Censorship of the media, particularly the news, of books, and even of what is taught in school ensures that from an early age, people only know half-truths at best, should they not take particular interest in the social and political events around them, and become rather narrow-minded. On top of it all, to gain feedback on the general attitude of the population, on both individual and group level, close surveillance is made use of. Even though passive, as no inspections of private homes are made, the methods of tracking people, their actions and habits, make use of either of ones trust of the confidentiality of official papers and surveys, or of CCTV cameras emplaced in the public domain. Through these methods, particular individuals can be tracked and considerably accurate assertions about their way of life can be made. Moreover, statistics reflecting the preferences of the general public can be compiled from data that people give away in order to apply for a job or even shop in a supermarket. The attempts at controlling society affect every individuals life; in order to meet the expectations of the first from the latter, one has to give away some of his freedoms and at least formally take what one or another group with authority says for granted. While ignorance could at times be bliss, self-controlled conformism may just as well provide a stable environment. Pertaining to social manipulation, society today could be interpreted as a variation of Platos cave: while some people may only see their shadow, others could be blinded forever by the light a few might even stand at the caves entrance or re-accustom their vision upon deciding to go for comfort instead of knowledge; while some might try to pull their fellows out of the dark, others will do their very best to wall the caves entrance in. Where does this reader stand?

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
In order to get a clearer image of the role and extent of social manipulation over the course of history, a number of instances in which it has been used are needed to exemplify how effective the deception of the public can be. As will soon enough become apparent, during the last one hundred years, more than a few major events were either provoked or controlled to bring about a desired effect. Series of events that the public had seen at critical turn points in history were proved, after nothing could be done about them, to be no more than a faade for the power games backstage, played by the various factions of the era, each with its own agenda. Methods of surveillance present in totalitarian regimes also appear to be back, cloaked under a veil of implied civic responsibility, while the media sometimes overlooks the blunders of people we depend on in one way or another. One seeming favorite method of achieving an objective amongst political leaders is the creation of an otherwise inexistent enemy or the choice of a scapegoat to take the fall for an internally generated problem. The number one vilified political figure of the 20th century, Adolph Hitler proved to be remarkably ingenious when it came to expanding his powers to the point of becoming dictator. Although losing the 1932 presidential election to Field Marshall Paul von Hindenburg, Hitler nevertheless managed to win a considerable number of seats in the Reichstag for his party, and later persuaded Hindenburg to appoint him chancellor. On the 27th of February 1933, a communist from Holland, goaded and aided by Nazi storm troopers, sets fire to the Reichstag building. It is worth mentioning that, according to later testimonies, it was members of the SA and SS who spread gasoline and arson devices beforehand, leaving the deranged Marxist to set his shirt on fire and start the flames. Seizing upon the opportunity this staged terrorist attack had provided, Hitler blamed the entire incident on a communist conspiracy to gain power in Berlin through violence, holding the now arrested and soon-to-be beheaded criminal as proof. The morning following the fire, Hitler demanded an emergency decree that would effectively suspend civil liberties that were otherwise guaranteed by the German constitution. What resulted was the diktat called For the Protection of the People and the State, an excerpt of which follows.
Restrictions on personal liberty, on the right of free expression of opinion, including freedom of the press; on the rights of assembly and association; and violations of the privacy of postal, telegraphic and telephonic communications; and warrants for house searches, orders for confiscations as well as restrictions on property, are also permissible beyond the legal limits otherwise prescribed.

Through this means, the German political elite were hoaxed into surrendering democracy to the rule of the Fuehrer, while the public was persuaded to accept such a ploy. But the evil-doer of the Second World War, who is now a hate-figure, was not the only leader to employ less-than-transparent tactics when it came to stirring up public opinion. F. D. Roosevelt, because 88% of the Americans wanted to stay out of the war in 1940, needed a pretext to enter it. But if the U.S. were to come under direct attack, the foreign war American soldiers were sent to fight would have become one to

defend the integrity of their nation. Hitler had avoided engaging the U.S. openly, so when the Japanese entered the Axis at the signing, on the 27th of September 1940, of the Tripartite Pact, Roosevelt imposed an embargo on all trade with them and relocated the Pacific fleet to Hawaii. The alleged reasoning behind this move was that by depriving the Japanese of a source of much-needed fuel through the embargo, it would force it to occupy oil-rich Indonesia. The new positioning of the American fleet in the Pacific potentially threatened the Japanese occupation plans, thus this obstacle had to be removed. As Robert B. Stinnett shows in his book Day of Deceit, there is plenty of circumstantial evidence to show that Roosevelt had knowledge of the impending attack. Apparently, ten days before the 7th of December, radio transmissions, of a non-radio silent Japanese fleet were intercepted and decoded, revealing their warlike intentions. At the same time, to ensure that as much as necessary of the fleet would stay intact to provide enough offensive power to win the war in the Pacific, Roosevelt had the expensive and robust carriers at sea and in an impossibility to be destroyed by the impending stealth attack. It is nevertheless doubtable that Roosevelt intended for Pearl Harbor to turn out the way it did, as a confrontation from which the U.S. would have emerged the victor surely could have been enough of a pretext to enter the war, if not against Hitler himself, then at least against Japan, who being bound by treaty to Germany, ensured the latter would have to declare war on the US. Therefore, through a well-calculated maneuver, the US executives managed to start a chain of events that lead to the Normandy invasion and further on, to the final outcome of the war. During the same time period, pro-war propaganda started to emerge. Not even the youngest of the American youth were spared in this media-wide effort to gain public support for the war. Disney, Paramount and other corporations owning cartoon TV broadcast rights had their scriptwriters and graphic artists put together propaganda, instead of innocent comics for similarly na children. This ve is how in 1942, we have Der Fuehrers Face, starring Donald Duck in Nutziland, and Youre a Sap, Mr. Jap, where Popeye fights the sneaky Japs in the Pacific. 1943 was even more productive in this respect: at least seven known cartoons of that year feature anti-Axis content. The United States were not the only country to employ propaganda campaigns to support the war effort, though virtually every combatant in the conflict had its counterpart. Individuals or organizations with influence may just as well control what does not get broadcast on TV, in addition to dictating the contents of what everyone at home sees. Such censorship, especially of the news, has become so evident to journalists that in 1976, Dr. Carl Jensen, professor emeritus of Communication Studies, at Sonoma State University put the basis of Project Censored, a U.S. nation-wide effort to track news published by independent journals and newsletters and bring to public attention all the sensitive subjects that, for one reason or another, passed overlooked, under-reported or even self-censored by the major news channels. Since 1996, the project was passed on to associate professor of sociology and media research specialist, Dr. Peter Philips, under whose guidance, the team at Sonoma puts together Censored: The News That Didnt Make the News, a compendium of 25 largely untouched news stories per year, covering the subjects in considerable detail. Five examples of such touchy issues follow: 1. Turkey Destroys Kurdish Villages with U.S. Weapons (2000) 2. NATO Defends Private Economic Interests in the Balkans (2000) 3. U.S. Army's Psychological Operations Personnel Worked at CNN (2001) 4. New Trade Treaty Seeks to Privatize Global Social Services (2003) 5. U.S. Government Pushing Nuclear Revival (2003)

These represent only a fraction of the large number of news stories that it is claimed went either unreported, or had not been followed up after they were put on air, because they were detrimental either to the image of important individuals, of the government, or of corporations which had acted in their own best interests, not necessarily following a popular or moral course of conduct. While power seems to entitle some to keep their secrets, the average Joe on the street is constantly reminded that his duty is to report on his neighbors, should he want to be safe. After 9/11, with the terrorist scare at its highest, George W. Bush called for the creation of TIPS, a government surveillance program which, due to its rather invasive nature, was shut down by the Congress. Notwithstanding this decision, a myriad of similar programs were put in place. Marine and Highway Watch programs request from fishermen and truck drivers alike to report any suspicious activity to a centralized dispatch center. Moreover, developed by Military and Law Enforcement officers, the Community Anti-Terrorism Institute, also dubbed CAT Eyes, teaches the masses how to become the effective eyes and ears for potential terrorist activities. They promote the formation of hierarchically structured neighborhood watch programs, with functions such as Neighborhood Coordinator, Block Captain, Block Watcher, and so on. Though not government-funded, this particular program has been adopted by police departments throughout New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Washington D.C., Florida, Nevada, California, as well as by University police departments, including MIT, and is the product of US military training. The government also has a similar program, called USAonwatch or Neighborhood Watch, a component of the Citizen Corps, created by the National Sheriffs Association, in conjunction with a number of federal agencies. On a local level, the police in Orange County, Florida, are training public service workers to look for signs of terrorism, drug abuse, and the like, in the private homes they get to enter while at work. As a result of these governmentendorsed and private programs, just about everybody living in a populated neighborhood is encouraged to spy on his fellow man and to report him to the authorities, should such an action appear justified. Apart from contributing to the general panic that terrorism causes and to the paranoia of the general population, such surveillance serves the same function now, in a democratic country, which it did in communist Eastern-block countries before the nineties, namely it provides voluntary compromises of privacy, where they could not be legally, constitutionally or morally enforced. Basically, what this chapter aimed at showing was that, at least during the last hundred years, social manipulation was ever present in all corners of the world, and still is shaping events and lives in all sorts of circumstances.

PROPAGANDA
"Nothing is easier than self-deceit. For what each man wishes, that he also believes to be true." Demosthenes
Propaganda, as defined by the Columbia Encyclopedia, is the systematic manipulation of public opinion, generally by the use of symbols such as flags, monuments, oratory, and publications. Modern propaganda is distinguished from other forms of communication in that it is consciously and deliberately used to influence group attitudes; all other functions are secondary. Thus, almost any attempt to sway public opinion, including lobbying, commercial advertising, and missionary work, can be broadly construed as propaganda. The Webster Encyclopedia offers another similar definition, describing it to be the spreading of ideas, information, or rumor for the purpose of helping or injuring a cause; also: the ideas, facts, or allegations so to spread. Further elaboration of these two definitions leads us to realize the multitude of methods a propagandist can employ to affect ones opinion, and to recognize that basically, all means of communication in a technologically based society are potential channels for directed misinformation. Whether concealed as news reports, derived from the content of talk shows, included in products of the entertainment industry, openly acknowledged in the form of commercial advertising, as a public speech, or performed on a person-to-person basis, propaganda employs certain tactics and guides itself by principles that make it more easily accepted by the target audience. The most obvious and possibly most benign of all propaganda, being recognized for what it truly sets out to do and taking into account the immediate results of its use, is the commercial. A typical man is subject to seeing about three thousand commercials daily, on the TV, as banners on the street, while surfing the Internet, or on the radio. An approximate figure of 1.4 trillion dollars are poured annually into advertising and marketing of commodities worldwide, while the PR industry was employing around 200,000 people in the U.S., over 48,000 in the UK, most of them situated in London, and an average of 2,400 as full-time members of the Australian Public Relations Institute, as of 1999. Given the immense financial effort that virtually every company with something to promote makes to capture public attention, it is highly doubtable that advertising as a whole is just a huge waste of time and money. Actually, the consumer is heavily influenced by commercials, and it is mostly for the worst, apart from tricking him into buying something which might just as well prove to be useless, or of questionable quality. If on television or on the radio, ads interrupt other programs, and being short themselves, effectively shorten the viewers attention span, which has negative effects on other areas of activity. Moreover, advertising is invasive by nature, not being subject to individual preference, as few would turn on the TV only to watch ads for any reason other than technical curiosity. Setting our perspective from the other side of the barricade, we can see that roughly speaking, the potential customers disadvantages, as caused by commercials, are hugely advantageous to the producer, simply because the populaces welfare doesnt necessarily coincide with the manufacturers. No truly high-quality product needs all that much publicity to sell, so it is through ads that companies promote mediocre goods, thus generating increased profits. Additionally, through a strong, positive media presence, a company, its logo, and all associated brands receive a good reputation, to the point where the shopper blindly trusts the company to provide superior services or items. Initially, the commercial set out to convince the buyer through rational argumentation, that one product or another was beneficial and ought to be bought. Unfortunately, this type of marketing has proved to be largely inefficient, in part due to the irresponsiveness of the public to the well or not-so-well worded fiction that made up

the ad. At the end of the nineteenth century, the technique was improved by one increment, as the use of suggestive imagery became more and more of a standard among corporate advertisement. One pioneer of this concept was French sociologist Gustave LeBon who, in his 1895 book The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind, set out to demonstrate that the masses are motivated by emotion rather than by reasoning, adding that the best way to appeal to ones unconscious is through the use of carefully selected and evocative images. Nowadays, just as body language provides the receiver with more information than the actual words, so do commercials stress the importance of how something is presented more than the object of the presentation. Making heavy use of symbols deeply rooted in society, publicity spots may influence buyer decisions through simple correlations, such as the one between the color white, cleanliness and general good, from where the expression the bright side of things. An all-around persuasive advertisement and therefore, any believable explicit propaganda clip should combine all methods of influencing one positively towards one target, while convincing him to discard all the rest. In the case of television, this is done through ambient music, visuals, speech and written text, which ought to act as a whole in achieving the purpose of the spot. First and foremost, when confronted with the choice of a tune, the ads editor has to decide upon something that, along with the voice acting, reinforces the desired interpretation of the shown images. Going for the most part unnoticed to the viewer, the soundtrack of the ad is instrumental in setting the state of mind of the viewer and ensuring he swallows the more blunt message provided through speech and / or written text, without chewing on it first. There are a multitude of pathways to take when it comes to editing the visuals of a commercial; nevertheless, they should contain symbols that all lead the viewer on the wanted track (making him feel one way or another), fit the tune, as well as generally impress the public through the use of memorable scenes that alternate with easilyremembered slogans. The color editing of the imagery in an advertisement is very important, as it literally holds everything together. While a serene panorama featuring slow-motion action would mostly benefit from bright, slightly desaturated colors, the opposite, where the viewer is agitated into somewhat of a mild buying frenzy, would usually bring about the desired result through violent coloring, maybe reds and oranges, and non-stop action. Though unconsciously, but nevertheless perceived by the viewer, is the subliminal message that can derive from what the consumer sees on screen, and is used to trigger the right associations in his mind. Through repetition, the public mind can even come to recognize the brand image thus created as a standalone unit with certain attributes connected to it. One companys image, logo, or even name may as a result be copied by other parasitic companies aiming at reaping at least part of what the first has sowed in terms of public appreciation. Appropriate examples of brand image association would be the violet cow featured in Milka commercials, which has, at least in Austria, become so popular, that some little children have come to state on television that all cows are violet and produce chocolate. The Nike swoosh, without bearing any particular meaning, now stands for quality sportswear virtually anywhere around the globe. All commercials are meant to bring such brand images to public attention, and the visuals employed fit this image to the point where you can guess what a commercial is for without being shown any product or company names, or not even a logo. While the actual speech in a commercial, if any, ought to have at least some link to what is shown on-screen, it serves as support for further use of loaded words and possibly to guide the buyer to the closest distributor of the product in question. Generally, the faster the pace of the action in the ad, not only the faster the words are spoken, but the more are employed to condition the potential customer. This is because in the case of a slower-paced commercial, the ideal is to calm down the observer, and have him accept the spoken words while still reflecting on the images,

whilst in the case of a fast-paced action commercial, the aim is to catch the eye with a multitude of scenes, agitating the viewer to the point where his focus is on giving some meaning to what he is shown, and taking in automatically what he hears. Few commercials that employ spoken language and pictures still mean for the spectator to analyze what he is told. The text, used mostly to impregnate into ones memory a slogan, catch-phrase or whatever, will appear in the same form elsewhere, as a recognition sign, similar to the use of a logo. It can also fugitively affirm certain compulsory, yet unwanted statements, reason for which these are written down in small letters, generally accompanied by larger, more attractive and easier to commit to memory slogans, which can be read out loud, to divert attention in the desired direction. Text can only be put to good use when it is legible, fast to read and, most of all, memorable. The overall goal of advertisements should not be to make the viewer think critically; instead, their aim is to manipulate him through implied content, and further to stand out from the lot through innovative, original design concepts. But mercantile interest is not the only driving force behind publicity spots. Using the exact same pretext that industrial ads draw on, namely of bringing new developments in some line or another to public knowledge, selected apparently nonprofit state agencies advertise their services to the public. The reasoning behind the evidently costly employment of the same publicity firms to draw attention and positive opinions on something that is profitless might be either that there actually is much money to be made out of that particular service, or that its unpopularity is harmful to the administration, which needs the backing of the public for upcoming elections, referendums or only to consolidate power. As a result, every now and then, when popular support for public services drops considerably, we have ads for public transport, police, health care, and so on, created by the same employees of advertising agencies that had produced margarine and Coca-Cola ads. Therefore, the same subversive tactics that are used by companies to gain financial power over the individual are used by governments to trick the public into trusting organizations that do not put its best interests before their own. Dictators, politicians, military or even religious leaders trying to gain mass support for their agendas cannot resort solely to such impersonal means of persuasion, such as television ads, because then the public would lose sight of the figurehead to be associated with the publicized programs or ideals. Because of this, at least sporadically, though in practice more often than not, these type of people hold public speeches revealing their official stance, or appear in talk shows, supporting their arguments in more-or-less public debate. Every major Christian celebration is normally accompanied by a speech held by the pope; George W. Bush holds, as an average, at least one or two public speeches every week, as the White House website lets us know. The former Romanian president, at least since his second term in office, was present on national television once a month, Thursday after the news, in a debate called State of the Nation. Every last bit of information these leaders gave the public could have potentially been given to the public through more impersonal means, yet the choice to put the leader on view shows how important it is for the crowd to recognize an actual flesh-and-bone individual as the one behind the decisions that affect their lives. Public speeches have the advantage of being largely a monologue, so the speaker may develop his thesis and win over the listeners without open counter-

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argumentation. However, if not televised, the speech can only directly influence a small group of people, which is a certain limitation on the overall efficiency of this type of propaganda. Nevertheless, a groups restrictions and characteristics allow for a more customized, thus more successful presentation of the thesis, allowing better indoctrination of the listeners. Additionally, a compact support group can become an entity of its own, providing a so-called independent source to back up ones allegations. The individual holding the speech may hold a place of significance in the audiences mind, reason for which he appears as a know-it-all who yet still hasnt forgotten that he is only human and who, because of his renown, is cause for the already favorable in attitude listener to relate to; on the other side, the speaker might be unknown to the audience, and not hold any position of importance, case in which he will attempt to gain the publics trust by saying he has an independent, objective outlook on things, and trying to appear as much as possible as potentially any member of the group he is speaking to. Talk shows, on the other hand, present the problem that an issue is debated, and there usually is somebody to provide a counter-argument, whether that is the mediator, another guest, or even a caller whose identity might stay forever anonymous. Such events can be turned into propaganda, but this only through prior preparation, some stage-management of the show, and of course, if not transmitted live, post editing of the video, all of which become surprisingly easy when the guests faction owns the television station. The viewer has to be persuaded, both by the guests behavior and by the actual content that is presented of the validity of one sides points, while discouraging any would-be adepts of the opposite point of view. Reasonably, the winning side is prepared to answer known, fitting questions, while the whole argument is directed on a preset course, any deviations being handled through methods discussed in the following chapter. Apparent outsiders may give calls and raise questions favorable to one cause, while putting the other in a bad light. Finally, inconvenient scenes may be post processed, to put a new spin on the whole released issue. The great plus talk shows have when compared to public speeches is that the viewer can be fed the impression that even though opposition exists, it doesnt deserve real attention, instead of running the risk of the audience realizing they are shown only one side of the story, and maybe pay attention when the other is presented to them. Even though most of these forms of propaganda are convincing, they serve more to consolidate already existing support among followers of a cause, because a neutral and unbiased party will discard such direct messages after confronting them with a discrepant reality. This is enough grounds to attempt at influencing what is broadcast as news, so the public opinion is shielded from extensive understanding of what goes on around them. Studying the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s, George Orwell made the following remark in his book Homage to Catalonia:
Early in life I noticed that no event is correctly reported in a newspaper, but in Spain, for the first time, I saw newspaper reports which did not bear any relation to the facts, not even the relationship which is implied in an ordinary lie. I saw great battles reported where there had been no fighting, and complete silence where hundreds of men had been killedand I saw newspapers in London retailing these lies and eager intellectuals building emotional superstructures over events that had never happened. I saw, in fact, history being written not in terms of what happened but of what ought to have happened according to various party lines.

What people experienced then has in the meantime expanded hundred-fold in scope, as high-tech media and communication allow for such untruths to spread at light speed, and most reporting agencies do not double check a trusted source, especially if its their only source, in the rush to broadcast ground-breaking news reports. This is how it became possible for Hill & Knowlton, an international company specializing in PR, to fabricate the 1990 pre-Gulf War story about Kuwaiti children removed from their incubators that shocked the world enough to provide the spark that ignited the first

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American-Iraqi war. Only subsequent investigations, after the war had ended, proved this to be a hoax, as the main witness of the whole story was actually the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the US, who had never seen, much less worked in the named hospital where the supposed incident was said to have happened. Most news relating to government or corporate issues today derive from the press releases these give regularly. Notably, these releases started in the early twentieth century, when, in an effort to control the irritating media coverage of accidents, Pennsylvania Railways decided to have their point of view presented first, a technique which proved to be so healthy for the public image of corporations worldwide, that fifty years later, so Fortune Magazine, 1949 issue reports, about half of what the most reputable newspapers were including on their pages were citing publicity releases, while just about all the contents of less established papers were the byproduct of corporate or state PR departments. What this means, in practice, is that the public will only know half-truths complimentary of the government, or other institutions of the state, while most potential stories belittling it and most importantly the decisions it makes will pass unreported. Many political parties have taken this one step further, by running their own television stations and feeding the public only with appropriate content for news casts. Far from being a stranger to propaganda, the movie and music industries may contribute, each in their own way, to the shaping of the minds and loyalties of the masses. Even though not necessarily state-sponsored, movies may contain political, religious or any otherwise dogmatic messages well hidden in the fictional concepts they present the audience with, while music is the number one determining factor for the young generations lifestyle. Being popular, movie and pop stars can also influence the public a great deal, and the past US election has clearly shown that more than a few of them do not sneeze at supporting one political group or another. Movies and cartoons too, can and are, to some extent, propaganda. Whether that propagandas source is the state, a political, religious, military or rebel grouping, or simply the convictions of the scriptwriter is always debatable. Every now and then, a movie containing serious food for thought will raise questions and ignite debates but when a number of movies treat an issue as a normal occurrence, when it should prove to be a matter of concern, the public will gradually accept it as such, and over time, consider the matter a clich which is neither interesting, nor worth analyzing. Movies also help reinforce beliefs and standardize the general publics point of view regarding an issue. It is chiefly through movies that one has come to associate the Arab with terrorism and religious fanaticism, the Russian with vodka, communism and a generally rough attitude, and both with the Kalashnikov rifle. When one movie takes another approach, attempting to dispel such myths, it immediately appears unrealistic, as it lacks the aura around the concept that all the other movies have tried so hard to build up. Music stars, music itself and more importantly, the genres it belongs to are highly influential in a youngsters lifestyle. Music has come to dictate, in a huge number of cases, the way people dress, speak, act, where they go out on a Saturday evening, what friends they make, and their general outlook on life. This has become so deeply rooted in the mainstream society, that by superficially analyzing any of these aspects of ones character, you can make a pretty accurate educated guess about the rest. No wonder that music can be and is turned into propaganda by the simple inclusion of catchy lyrics pertaining to a cause. One relevant example of anti-government propaganda is the message of the now disbanded Rage Against the Machine. Their 1999 album, entitled Battle for Los Angeles, is one true testament of left-wing political statements embedded in the music. Along with a host of other bands, some of which still exist, and whose stance each provided a model regarding a different facet of life, RAtM has been defining of the American rebel stereotype in the late 1990s. The most obvious and concentrated propaganda effort however, is during wartime, when there is no place in the world (or in a country at war) where propaganda

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can be escaped from. Starting with posters, TV clips, public speeches and ending with pamphlets, movies and music, each side of the conflict tries to win over the hearts of the people, while demonizing the opposing side. It is during armed conflict that propaganda becomes more visible to the neutral observer, as it has one specific purpose, that of gaining public support for the actions of the government and military, all other objectives becoming secondary. No country at war or preparing for war can and ever could rally its citizens against another without an adequate propaganda campaign. Because the great majority of powers in the world recognize democracy as a given good, the aim of the propaganda now is to convince the public that what the conqueror is doing is actually freeing the conquered form the hopefully soon-to-beoverthrown regime, course of action which is immensely similar to the propaganda conducted in favor of missionary work aimed at collecting the fees the other god is genuinely entitled to. Whatever the method employed, modern-day propaganda guides itself by a number of principles that define the strategies it employs. What one must understand outright is that mass society cannot exist without mass communication any longer, and propaganda is so well embedded in the latter, that a civilized society depends on it as much as the individual depends on food for subsistence. 1. To begin with, it is propaganda that keeps technological developments going while not being a source of constant scare to the public. In the 1930s, the idea of Frankensteins monster was absolutely terrifying, yet now prosthetics and organ transplant are pretty common. Exploratory fiction, followed by media cover of actual research and finally, the news of the actuality paved the way for public acceptance of these advances in medical science. 2. Media has come to such a level of intrusion in the individuals life that one cant hope to escape it, ever. 3. Added to this is the thin line between what one perceives as news, entertainment and propaganda, for there is no objective / subjective switch in ones mind, the borders between the receptions of the three are blurry, ready to be taken down with minimal effort, and it is propaganda that helps swing the public towards demanding gun control after hearing about AK-47-style rifles on the news. 4. By simplifying complex questions, and reducing them basically to stereotypical issues, using readily available myths, propaganda reaches the public, who otherwise generally adopts a moderate position. 5. The repetition through news, films, and Internet channels of catch-phrases or crystallized titles bearing unvarying content helps standardize public reaction when confronted with terms such as Holocaust. 6. The message of propaganda relies mostly on the subtext and the way the public perceives the facts displayed. One can change the entire assessment of World War II pro-Nazi propaganda by simply replacing the background music and presenting the same facts on a different tone substituting the original voiceover with an English narrative. 7. Furthermore, the public impact information has is dependent on the source. No matter how well argued, no public service announcement will ever stop the increase in youth smoking caused by a mere picture of a pop star holding a cigarette. 8. Apart from what happens within his inner circle, an individuals reality is constructed mostly from the media, so propaganda and untruths are as much part of what is real as the genuine truth. Given the number of channels for propaganda to reach the ears of the public, as well as the whole host of opposing forces that have the opportunity use these channels to make their viewpoint known, one group cannot possibly hope to monopolize information sources in order to create an illusion advantageous to itself.

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However, it is possible to discredit, using various arguments, the media channels used by any rival entity. Ranging from the overall bad reputation of the Internet because of the by-and-large anonymity of whoever states anything on a website, to the dismissal of the government officials televised speech as integral to a party line, and not in the least to the frowning upon religious, especially sect dogma as aimed to attract money, or even as a form of brainwashing, the pretexts used to gain the trust of one segment of society will inevitably anger and push away another. What one must realize, therefore, is that by being human, nobody can hold and teach a completely objective point of view through any means, reason for which the receiver of the information must learn to distinguish fact from opinion, even when the two are interconnected, in order to gain a wide-ranging overview of a subject. This means in-depth study and analyzing all the sources of information that come in hand, but also requires questioning ones possible ulterior motives to make one statement or another. Literally bordering on paranoia and not necessarily efficient, due to the huge amount of time needed to dedicate to such matters, this type of attitude may very well be one method of resisting propaganda though it is easier to simply not buy a TV / radio or not pay attention to it, and only research the topics that provide any interest, course of action undertaken by many. We all resort to convincing our peers to hold an opinion, maybe even on a daily basis, arguing or not our logic, at times for all the right motives, while sometimes knowingly doing it for personal gain. Propaganda can be considered the institutionalized form of such behavior, hence has been here since the beginning of society as we know it. Living in the world we are in, we should accept propaganda as an inescapable and, at times, even beneficial factor of society, while still maintaining a reasonable attitude and an open mind.

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DISINFORMATION
"It is always more difficult to fight against faith than against knowledge." Adolph Hitler
Hand in hand with propaganda goes disinformation, as a mass of uneducated people are more prone to falling prey to half-truths and biased information than a group of well-informed, rational individuals. While propaganda rears its head at specific moments when theres something to convince the public of, disinformation is safe to employ constantly, and should be used in this manner, as people need to be continuously kept in check regarding what they know, lest they should reach unwanted levels of information. This disinformation is essentially conducted through damaging censorship of the media and of books, as well as through disruption of public debate regarding touchy subjects. An individuals possible courses of action are naturally limited by the information he has, so by keeping a group in the dark about certain aspects of everyday life, history, possible consequences of government decisions or other knowledge potentially instrumental in making certain choices, its behavior is more easily and accurately predicted. Some governments, be they democratic or not, and state agencies place bans on the import of, or altogether forbid certain books, for various reasons ranging from expressed critical attitudes to bad words scattered throughout the text. For such motives, the US Information Agency found it possible to ban Freedom and Order by Henry S. Commager, from its overseas libraries, due to its attitude towards American course of action in Vietnam. If that procedure can be partially excused, even though it has repercussions upon public knowledge, as a selective procurement policy, driven by the principle of not investing in something that isnt beneficial to the investor, nothing can excuse the Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran for taking book censorship to a new level, by putting a price on the head of Salman Rushdie for writing his novel Satanic Verses, which supposedly is critical of the Islam religion. Fearing for his life, Rushdie went into hiding for an indeterminate period of time. Further back, in the 1920s and 30s, several European dictatorships banned Jack Londons works, Italy censoring The Call of the Wild, Yugoslavia all of his works because their connotations were considered to be excessively radical, while Germany only The Iron Heel, as it portrayed fascist and national socialist concepts as basis for tyranny, consequently implying that Marxism would be preferable. George Orwells novel, Animal Farm, was rejected by publishers, and afterwards, by bookstores and librarians, during the Second World War and shortly after, due to its criticism of the Soviet Union, an ally of England against the Third Reich. Added to this nowadays admittedly rather rare and highly selective type of censorship, other parties such as libraries, bookstores, schools, whether they are state or private owned censor books according to various internal policies. Notwithstanding the source of censorship, its purpose is the same: to forbid the public from acquiring knowledge that the censor would find to be unsupportive of his policies. However, books are often subjective, and can be dismissed as such. But news reports, due to their wished for objective nature, are more dangerous for the censor, should they reveal information that puts him in a difficult posture. Taking into account that in a democratic country freedom of the press is a basic constitutional right, government policies cannot officially relate to its censorship. However, there is no

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regulation against ownership of news agencies, and each may choose what stories are put on the air and which not. Since the 1996 Telecommunications Act, a host of media merges have taken place in the US, resulting in the current situation of that nations public information systems being dominated by at most ten major media corporations, the biggest being AOL-Time-Warner (CNN). In practice, a maximum of ten boards of directors decide the policies to be observed by virtually every TV news station. Such monopolization of the media irremediably leads to the loss of diversity in matters of political viewpoints and news story sources alike, which is replaced with a politically acceptable perspective driven mainly by marketability ratings. It is through such policies that the public may be presented an inaccurate image of what society really is like. One such aspect that has surfaced more-or-less officially is the over-reporting of crime, which lead to abnormally widespread public fear of law offence, while the crime rate has actually declined. Furthermore, by seeing, hearing, and speaking no evil even when its there, the media can pass over significant issues and create the false impression in the public mind that they dont exist. But such illusory images of what society is like cannot be upheld in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary brought about by public debate. Therefore, people coming with solid arguments against the imposed, politically correct perspective regarding one subject or another, must be either thrown off track, or be discredited through a variety of techniques. Usually applied in talk shows, in public forums, or wherever open dialogue is implied, these methods commonly serve to divert focus from the important factual argumentation to secondary issues, as well as to bring about an emotional response from the contender, and possess specific defining traits, as do the people who employ them. First of all, none actually treat the problem straight out, nor do any provide positive input, and must generally avoid making references or providing any credentials. However, by implying this and that, they also have to create the false impression of being professionals in the domain. Another defining trait is not falling prey to their own tactics: they have to concentrate their efforts on misdirecting the main issue, which means distracting the people who actually have an argument, not answering personal attacks from other commentators. Unfortunately, this strategy leads to a thick skinned attitude, because in spite of the fact that the person in cause will be able to keep at it even in the face of overwhelming non-acceptance, he might find himself not convincing anyone, due to his marginalization by the rest of the participants to the discussion. So in order to avoid being completely ignored, people applying these methods of disinformation may work in groups, be them selfcongratulatory or apparently at odds with each other, thus effectively monopolizing the discussion. The last kind involves one belonging to the group becoming the straw-man for the rest, automatically discrediting the rest of the genuine participants by association. All these traits are side-effects of the application of certain methods used to distance a conversation from its original course and thus avoid possible resolutions to unwanted issues. The means of achieving an emotional response from somebody arguing a point, thus sidetracking the issue and further, misinforming the public are rather simple, and easy to categorize. 1. One efficiently used tactic is to avoid the main subject matter by focusing on irrelevant side issues, which may have been directly stated or even be a product of a sudden leap of logic and either prove them wrong through various arguments or connect them to another taboo subject that will be taken as is, and not be challenged. Alternatively, one discussions topic can be changed into another at least equally important or disputed one, by making more-or-less obvious connections between the two. 2. Saying how dare you! or look there, a three-headed monkey! may however not be enough to make someone look wrong in his line of reasoning, so his sources of information have to be questioned. In conjunction with an under-reported topic in the news, one can dismiss

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anothers allegations as not being based at all in fact, but as a product of wild rumor, regardless of the evidence. Furthermore, should one opponents source of information have a counterpart on the Internet, all the better that supplier of information already has such a bad reputation that it can be used to discredit anyone using it without any difficulty. 3. Ill reputation can be further emphasized through name calling and a scornful attitude. However, when attempting to make somebody look bad through such methods, one has to be moderate in his approach, and rather imply the appellative than say it outright, lest should he appear as unbalanced. The advantages of this line of attack are two-fold: primarily, the main target of the attack will try to dismiss the allegations harmful for his reputation, putting an end to his arguing of the main issue, and secondly, possible supporters of the main target will think twice before speaking their minds for fear of being called the same. If one can make his opponent appear to have adopted his stance out of a hidden personal agenda, all the better, because it will further distance him from his supporters, and have the public question possible ulterior motives instead of the strength of his argument. 4. Because people are dependent on popular support, playing dumb, demanding impossible to produce evidence to support the opponents claim or even complete solutions may very well prove to be a fruitful gambit. Outright denial of ones allegations by calling it unsubstantiated, illogical, incomplete or such by a number of people or even by one influential individual alone can make one drop his arguments, in spite of their authenticity. 5. On the reverse, popular support can be gained through admitting, in retrospection, of minor errors in judgment that however do not detract from ones credibility, but on the contrary make him look as only human and do not affect the main issue. Implying that the opponent has seized upon the opportunity that the named mistake provided and blew it out of proportion is a good follow-up to this stratagem. 6. Further disinformation, through the use of ambiguous, two-sided statements, can lead the public astray when following the course of a scandal. One remarkable such example is the way Bill Clinton, in connection with the Lewinsky affair, after lying under oath to a special investigator, had nevertheless managed to convince television audiences that he courageously admitted to have committed a wrongdoing, by actually saying You know, I dont suppose there is any fancy way of saying that I have sinned. 7. A final way of setting people off track is through outright fabrication of proof supporting a different point of view. While not necessarily well rooted, these false clues one introduces have to conflict with the opponents presentation enough to neutralize an argument if taken for granted, as not many dedicate enough time to research and investigate each piece of evidence. While these attitudes and methods may also appear spontaneously in a discussion, it is their repeated and distinct employment that marks the use of intentional disinformation tactics against a sincere attempt at talking a matter through. What one should take into account when attempting to uncover the sources of propaganda and disinformation is that these are not necessarily well-entrenched entities such as governments, corporations or international organizations, as they generally have society already working for them, and mostly need to employ these techniques only as damage control. It is also the upstart company promoting its services or products, the newly imposed dictatorship vying for public support and maybe not so evidently, groups belonging to the public that find it beneficial for one reason or another to challenge authority that proceed to attract the masses to their cause through in such ways, not having other possibilities to do so. All in all however,

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what one should identify either as disinformation or as propaganda, is not that much related to the source as to the method. Unfortunately, the two manners of manipulation are as much employed against the emergence of concern regarding them in public consciousness as for any other goal; therefore common people, though aware of the existence of the two, do not pay that much attention to them and their effects, which lets the few rule the many even when this has dire consequences. Against all odds, a misinformed public is capable of overriding basic logic with external opinions that apparently have substance, and a society which systematically encourages the masses to take in what people with authority, whether popularly instilled or self-proclaimed, tell them is even more prone to do so. Therefore, social manipulation relies as heavily on not telling the truth as it does on spreading lies, and this is one of the reasons for which propaganda cannot be effective without disinformation, and the latter would be pointless without the former.

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EDUCATION
"Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world." Nelson Mandela
Any long-standing system, to prolong its existence, resorts to instilling its guiding principles into the minds of the younger generation, from a very early age. Thus, supporters of the system exist in the future, ensuring its further development, the well-being of whoever is in control of the named system, and ultimately, its very survival. We see this in virtually every social and political structure to date, be it the communist Soviet Union or our currently upheld democratic regimes. The concepts one can in some domains bring into the publics mind through propaganda and disinformation, can also be introduced in the minds of the rising generation through the education system, possibly with far better results. This is because children at an early age do not possess the same critical thinking skills as adults, and are much more easily influenced. What a student learns continuously starting in the first grade might stay with him his entire life and if that means the development of a consumer approach to life, artificial dependence on a system or approval of a political regime that doesnt actually have the childs best interests at heart, so much the better from some points of view. Ever intent on capturing the hearts and minds of the youth, the Nazi regime openly declared that Germanys youth belong to the Fuehrer, and considered that the concept of race superiority, along with military training, recognition of leadership and a new understanding of religion should be the most emphasized aspects of schooling. Taking into consideration that Germany, at the time, was preparing for war, there is no doubt that fundamental for the Reich was a young generation ready and willing to do military service and not question the infallibility of its superiors. Soviet Russia, the other monolithic totalitarian system of the 20th century, also adopted a centralized, government-run education system which, in addition to teaching students by state manuals that only partially tackled some subjects and provided propaganda material, used all social sciences to indoctrinate the students with communist ideology. Parallel to the actual education, but still integral to the schooling system, were paramilitary-organized structures that recruited all students and provided an environment in which the desired dogma and behavior could be encouraged and even enforced as part of the youths course of conduct. This was taken to such an extreme, that in the 1930s, the Pioneers, as they were called, were expected to report their parents, should their beliefs differ from the communist / socialist doctrine, and were even rewarded upon doing so. Moreover, the structuring of these Pioneer organizations, being similar to that of a military and complemented by the combative spirit promoted by them, contributed widely to the youths acceptance of the oppressive regime they were under, as they most certainly felt empowered, at least to some extent, by their standing in society. To some extent influenced by the Soviet education system, schooling in China still overtly indoctrinates people and even requires investigation of a students social behavior and moral character prior to admittance in universities. Government-sponsored education and moreover, the exclusivity of this type of teaching can ensure that the curriculum only contains the desired concepts for

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education, and by not allowing alternative teaching, the state can impose or even falsify the knowledge given through school, in order to suit its needs. One favored subject for such fabrications is history, as in the mind of a youngster, who has not been alive long enough to witness any important political or social changes and see the consequences for himself, historical events can easily be turned into frames of a black-and-white movie which invariably ends with the righteousness of the current regime. History teaching thus turns into masked propaganda and serves to prove through alleged factual data furnished to the student that the rulers of his country ought to be trusted, while its enemies hated. Given the wide choice one is presented with regarding education in a free country, people would be logically inclined to dismiss any concerns of even mild indoctrination of their children through school as unfounded, more so as politicallyoriented propaganda favoring one party or another is not only not integral to any schools program of study, but also illegal in the educational system. Nevertheless, the declared goal of schooling being to help the student integrate into society, it is only natural for it to be supportive of the type of regime currently in power in the particular country it is part of. While quite a few teachers may indeed adopt a not necessarily constructive anti-establishment stance, the ministry-approved schooling materials and the imposed curriculum invariably work for the good of the localized society as is, and almost never favoring any change of its structure, except for the case in which such change is planned by the powers that be. In many cases, this previously named objective of integration in society is further emphasized to the point where the borders between general education and vocational training become blurred, the latter likely to progressively take over. This becomes visible when taking into account the early choices for specialization that schools have students make, enabling them to ignore a wide range of information on their path to graduation. Even though in theory beneficial, not institutionally imposing a world view on the would-be student, this schooling system actually brings up masses of people, admittedly qualified to work specific tasks, but not really trained to do anything else than fit in the gaps in society left by the old, now unfit to work, generation. By comparing the learning standards that the USSR imposed in the 1970s with the American ones of the same era, it becomes apparent that a university student in the West was not even able to meet the norms in place for secondary school students, knowledge-wise. This example provides a glimpse into what may at first appear as a paradoxical situation. Why is it that democratic, free countries, during the Cold War era and afterwards, the schooling system was not at all competitive, while by contrast, the Soviet Union, a communist country with all the egalitarian principles implied, supported a very elitist approach to education shouldnt it be the other way around? The answer may lie in the assumption that people with wealth are sufficiently able to train their offspring as to ensure the continuation, over generations, of their earning power, while the children belonging to more ordinary families are, by adhering to a mass education system, less well equipped to compete fairly with the children of more socially and economically privileged families. Therefore, what a system apparently egalitarian for the masses ends up in doing is widening the social divide between what may be called the elite and the crowd. Moreover, the empty space that organized education leaves in matters of facilitating the creation in the students mind of a comprehensive outlook on the world is filled by the mainstream media, which promotes doubtable values at best. This is possible because the educational system does not efficiently promote individual learning, and the daily distractions provided by the varied divisions of the entertainment industry are omnipresent and more heavily emphasized on, as they bring about more money and at a faster rate than in-depth study of any specific subject, which is reflected in the high popularity of Media Studies in the UK, when compared to other more dry subjects such as Physics. Added to this is the routine corporation funding of schools in the US, which although beneficial to the student is, from the corporate point

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of view, mostly a form of advertising, as banners and stickers with the sponsor companys logo make their way into schools along with the donated money or objects. With schools relying on government and corporate funding, it is only normal for the teachers whose wages depend on those funds to speak highly of their only sources of income, even if such an action would not be justified should only the students wellbeing be taken into account. Pupils will therefore be fed with open or implied publicity by people with direct authority over them, the same individuals that teach them the various subjects present in the curriculum, which contributes to children not simply dismissing the advertising as irrelevant. Advertising does not stop here however; companies can also enroll the support of a student through sponsored contests which are usually related to their products or services. Technology, in addition to advertising, is also said to enslave people, and it does this by providing convenient shortcuts to otherwise lengthy and complex processes, shortcuts on which society comes to depend. Education, or rather undereducation can thus speed up this development, by allowing students to overly depend on the readily available equipment. A great majority of students in the US cannot make simple mental calculations, as they have always relied on the computer doing it for them. Another indicative example of such school-induced dependence on technology, and further, on the people producing that technology, would be the deskilling of trades; for instance, a mechanic might no longer know how to fix a problem, but he will readily replace the faulty mechanism altogether: car parts now usually come integrated in an enclosed box, so if a small part breaks down the entire unit is switched with a fully functional one. It stands to reason that there is less skill involved in loosening a few screws and fitting in a unit than fixing the unit itself, but the latter course of action would surely prove cheaper and cause less wastage, which is not at all beneficial to the company producing the parts in question. While students might not see any problem with the way they are taught, their parents, in the case in which they had received a different and possibly better type of education, are likely to protest against the new direction in which the teaching of their young is going, or at least provide a counter balance to the schools effects. Because such action on a wide scale would nullify almost all efforts to lead the students on a predefined track, devote them to a cause or manipulate them into behaving in a desired manner, acceptance of the schooling system among parents is to be attained. This is generally achieved through publicizing a ground-breaking and even noticeably superior approach to teaching, carefully selecting the aspects and most importantly, the consequences of the new method to be brought to public attention. All this is not to deny the beneficial aspects of a rigorous, well-conducted and most importantly, open-minded approach to education. One is obviously in incapacity to reinvent or rediscover alone all that is taught in school, for to ask such a thing from somebody would really mean to discard all the achievements of past generations. It is precisely the importance in ones life and the need of each individual for education that is cause for such manipulation to be possible. As long as education does not serve through its structure, through the teachings involved, or through the attitude of the teachers themselves as a restrictive, conservative conditioning system that makes the student prone not to question and, even if needed, not make possible changes to his way of life, education cannot be anything but helpful both to the individual, and to society. The great overall advantage of manipulation through education is that, in contrast to media (namely television, radio, and the such), which can only feed the public with propaganda, school can forcibly push it down the throat of the student and have him swallow it as a whole, because he is graded on how well he assimilates it, and his future social status and wealth will, at least theoretically, depend on it. Therefore, education is a key factor in social control, as virtually all citizens of a country have to go through at least part of the process it represents, and it is not something easily forgotten by the individual.

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HISTORY AS PROPAGANDA
"History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it." Winston Churchill
Even though the historians agreed-upon role is to objectively record accounts of the past and present, no man holds no bias, or is not sympathetic to a cause, be it even his own. Reflecting this normal human characteristic are the numerous viewpoints regarding controversial events throughout history that chroniclers of various eras have adopted and presented as impartial, factual data. Whether this bias is intentional or not cannot always be determined; however, the results of accepting favoritisms in what should be neutral reports of the past, can at times be highly dissimilar to the potential outcome of the actual truth becoming part of the publics culture. Naturally, if the outcome is beneficial to a particular party or another, the named perception of history becomes a closely guarded standpoint that may actually transform in an official taboo subject. Related to all these points, the Second World War, the belligerent parties and the way they are perceived today still project a shadow over the mentalities of people to-day. Entire chapters of history have been overwritten from time to time, mostly due to new archeological discoveries and / or the unearthing of documents previously unknown. Such modifications however, usually pertain to ancient history and even prehistory, because the closer events are to modern times, the more details and surviving documents analyzing them exist. In depth understanding of Neolithic-age societies cannot be compared with what is known about the 19th century. While previous misconceptions about historical facts could have therefore been well-founded at the time, based on sincere interpretations of documented evidence existent at that moment, others stand out as intentional twisting of history, maybe not even surviving basic logical analysis, but nevertheless well motivated if one is to consider the political context of whenever the claims were made. Such an example can be found in 18th century Romanian and Hungarian history, when the questioning of the Romanians continuity as a people was used to justify the marginalization of that ethnic in Transylvania, at the time under Hungarian occupation. At the time, representatives of the Romanian inhabitants of Ardeal asked Budapest to acknowledge their ethnicity and religion among the favored ones, and therefore grant the Romanians the political and economical rights they were deprived of. Because the Romanians were composing the majority of the population in Transylvania and Banat, the Hungarians refused to do any such thing, and had Robert Roesler give reason for this attitude by saying that the Romanians were newcomers in those lands, thus not deserving official recognition. Appearing in Leipzig in 1871, his paper Romanian Studies, Research upon the Old Romanian History was widely combated as it proposed the idea of the formation of the Romanian people exclusively south of the Danube, from where they migrated north in the 9th century. Though not backed up by any historical proof and discarding all evidence to the contrary, this theory was

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accepted as official by Budapest, as it implied that the Hungarians were the first inhabitants of Transylvania, after the Roman retreat of 271 AD left the land completely devoid of any population. Common sense, as can be seen, did not play a great role in what was to become the main argument in favor of the Hungarian minority being socially privileged in comparison to the Romanian majority in what was actually the latters national land. Selective or revised history does not only serve to justify the current regime, but can also be used as grounds for a myriad of other acts. As a somewhat opposite approach, history can be used to fuel liberation movements, nationalistic sentiments among the population, or even foreign occupation. Integral to the Irish Republican Armys and its descendants vision is the sovereignty as a state of the entire Irish island, interpreting the centuries-old English occupation and almost millennia-old cultural and economic influence as oppressive. The validity of their claims can sure enough, be questioned, but they are nevertheless used as justification for terrorist acts and also to recruit new members what this boils down to, of course, is one mans terrorist being the freedom fighter of another. However, not all freedom fighters belong to the same state that is to be liberated. One such example may be the March 12th 1938 Anschluss, when Austria, in spite of being a separate, sovereign state, of admittedly common Germanic ethnicity, was annexed by Germany. Along with hopes of economic revitalization and escape from the political turmoil of Austrias First Republic, the repeated statements by the Reich that the two peoples belonged together due to their common roots, allegation which conveniently left out the fact that the two formed, throughout history, separate entities, message reinforced by Hitlers Mein Kampf, a quite popular book at the time, significantly contributed to the great majority of Austrians cheering when their independent state was taken over by another. This particular figure of 20th century history himself became, after World War II was over, both target and part of historical propaganda to back up the interests and positions of virtually anybody with a political agenda. By blowing up out of proportion all of Hitlers wrongdoings and ignoring all the beneficial results of his policies, as well as by portraying him as suffering from almost every conceivable mental illness, and repeatedly publicizing this image, what was in life an agreeable leader to the public gradually transformed into a hate-figure to all nations of the world. Now a very effective marketing tool, his memory can be used by anyone against his opponent of the day. Illustrating this behavior, in 1999, the Serbs, along with Russia and China, accused the US and NATO of having policies worse than those of Hitler, while on the other side of the conflict, Clinton and Blair used the constructed image of Hitler to demonize the Serbs, by calling them Nazis. Ironical, but sadly true, is the fact that any neo-Nazi would readily disagree with any such use of the word, regardless of the speaker, for the simple reason of not acknowledging Hitler as evil. Therefore, a paradox appears, because though at odds and both behaving, to some extent, similarly to Hitler, Serbia and NATO found common ground in their appreciation of history, and managed to get their message across to the rest of the world who, due to their moral framework, could promptly make the connection between evil and Hitlers deeds. This being said, it becomes noticeable that in order for such damaging use of Hitlerism, or any name calling, for that matter, to work, at least the people taking up this tactic should have some implied ethical support to their claims coming from the previously-mentioned neo-Nazi, the otherwise injurious statements of both NATO and Serbia could not be taken as anything else but praise.

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In order for similar standards to have world-wide acceptance, an official, canonic history is recognized by most world powers, with few side issues, canon that is generally favorable to the winners of the last war. Thus, to the victor go the spoils, as does the task of writing history. Though not outright presented as such, this canonical perspective is gradually put together through official declarations and media post-war propaganda commending the justice done by the winning side. Often the loser is put in the embarrassing position of apologizing for his actions during the war, and even the leaders are charged with war crimes, as Nuremberg and the ongoing Milosevic and Hussein trials have repeatedly proved. No need to say that Eisenhower was not charged in court for ordering the massacre of Japanese civilians, nor had the RAF have to apologize for the bombings of Dresden and Hamburg. This sort of official stance is what Education Ministries allow to be included in history schoolbooks, what appears on the news as credible, and what ultimately gets instilled in the public consciousness, at least as a general and admittedly foggy picture. The methods of using history as effective propaganda are so adaptable that they can be used in almost any environment, and hold the advantage of being scientifically backed up. Ever present in the media, both in the form of fiction based on reality, and as documentaries, as well as providing pre-digested paradigms in persuasive theses, this particular form of propaganda is very persuasive, as it cannot easily be dismissed by the general uninstructed public, and the voices doing so are readily hushed by what becomes popular culture. One good approach is to selectively choose past accounts that can lead one to a desired conclusion, and besides this to portray historical events by skipping chosen details that can detract from the wished for conclusion. While not actually rewriting history, this methodology uses verifiable half-truths to bring about in the public mind an inadvertently biased perception of the actual event, its present consequences, as well as future comparable situations it can be categorized as propaganda, just as well as it can be as disinformation. Even though most effective in documentaries, this type of propaganda can even more conveniently be included in fiction with declared roots in reality, as when viewing a movie, the audience is tempted to take the implied background circumstances as the seed of truth and only admit the localized plot as subjective. The award-winning movie Spartacus, for instance, was influential enough to stimulate conspiracy theorists to take the historically inaccurate and incomplete, not to mention fictional screenplay as genuine history, and use it to document the longstanding tradition of social manipulation for a political goal. Over-emphasizing the importance of certain events, in spite of their not-so-great impact on the world is another method of both justifying a cause and gaining public acclaim for the deeds of one faction or another. Not necessarily appearing in actual debates related to the magnitude or weight of the incidents in case, as they would be somewhat prone to refutation by knowledgeable persons, this unsubstantiated over or under-emphasizing of episodes in the past is more likely mirrored in the amount of media coverage they receive. Assuming the if its not dealt with, it didnt happen or definitely is insignificant approach, the masses develop a type of historical pop culture that does not correspond at all with what conclusions one might draw upon in-depth study of the subject. One such instance is the over-hyped accounts of Allied successes during the Second World War, especially on the western front and during Operation Overlord. Even though just as probably a product of national pride and patriotism in the ranks of media developers as of government propaganda, this importance given to the liberation of Europe from the Iron Grip of the Third Reich comes at the cost of the public having absolutely no knowledge of the ways in which it was initially occupied. Outstanding importance was given, at least since 1998, to the bravery and skill of the Allied paratrooper units and the securing of Omaha Beach. An individual gaining his knowledge from Discovery Channel and National Geographic, as well as watching HBO, playing computer games and frequenting the cinema stereotype which is pretty common at least among the youth will indisputably know all about the 101st Airborne

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unit of the US Armed Forces from the TV series Band of Brothers, the Spearhead addon to the Medal of Honor game, as well as from another game named Call of Duty, all blockbuster titles, not to mention the scores of documentaries broadcast by NG and DC relating to this subject. What that individual will have no idea about however, is the large number of successful paratrooper operations that Germany conducted in Crete, Belgium, Holland, Denmark and southern Norway, as well as the fact that it was these operations that determined the US to form its own Airborne unit. Other movies such as Saving Private Ryan, The Thin Red Line, A Bridge Too Far, Patton, MacArthur, Two Men Went To War, Wind Talkers, Pearl Harbor, and Enemy at the Gates, in conjunction with computer games such as the entire Medal of Honor series, Call of Duty, the World War Two series, Brothers in Arms Road to Hill 30, the Deadly Dozen series, Pacific Warriors, Wolfenstein 3D, and its followup, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, all present the Second World War from the Allies perspective, effectively lauding and magnifying, with insufficient critical analysis the deeds of the victors, not putting the finger on the key question of how, at first, was the war nearly lost?, and causing the German operations to be neglected. Unfairly enough, many Hollywood movies dealing with the Normandy invasion, Saving Private Ryan, for instance, even tend to portray it as an all American show; the truth is that the British initially had more troops involved than the US. What should be noted, in respect to these titles, is that not only are they the best movies and games of the genre, but the angle which they present is the only one made known to the public, not one well-known and not even necessarily Hollywood movie presenting the war from the German point of view, and scarcely few maybe under five games doing the same. At least in the case of games, the favored role for the player is always that of an American soldier, regardless of the depicted conflict, with countless other games to serve as authentication for this statement. What this leads to, in the minds of the young generation, at least, is to the concept of the immeasurably superior training and high moral conduct of the US and / or NATO armed forces, which is at least a bit flawed, as news reports from actual war zones can from time to time confirm. In this category fall just about all of Novalogics developed and published games, such as the entire Delta Force series, accompanied by simulators such as the Comanche series, F-22 Lightning series, or F-16 Multirole Fighter. Ubisoft and Red Storm Entertainment contribute to this image with the release of games directed by all-too-famous ex-CIA operative and novelist Tom Clancy, such as Rainbow Six, Ghost Recon or Splinter Cell. We have to take into account, when examining these titles, that many of them Delta Force standing out among them are officially funded by, and some even made according to US Army specifications, to serve as commercial versions of military simulators. One might say that history isnt all-important to many, and ones conduct is byand-large independent of whether he has all-encompassing knowledge of history or is totally ignorant in that matter. If that were so, people throughout the Western world would not be prosecuted for writing about World War II and the Holocaust and presenting a different vision of them, even if backed up by factual data and professional scientific proof. These revisionist historians are fined, placed behind bars, expelled from their native countries and even denied entry into others throughout the entire European Union, as well as in Canada and Australia. Laws are in place in these countries that make it illegal for people to question and draw conclusions conflicting with the standards imposed by these governments regarding the events of the Second World War and the Holocaust. The Canadian government has, for instance, trialed and convicted publisher Ernst Zundel twice, in 1985 and 1988, for nothing more than publishing books with revisionist content. After both convictions were over-turned by

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the Canadian courts of justice, Zundel and his wife fled to the US, only to be handed over back to the Canadians, post 9/11. The Canadian government, making use of its newly instated anti-terrorism laws, threw him in jail right away, without the bother of a third trial. Practically, Ernst Zundel has been in solitary confinement since February 2003 for no other reason than publishing a book. Romania has, to please the US Jewish community in its attempt earn influential support to enter NATO, since 2002, adhered to the same type of laws prohibiting freedom of expression regarding such matters. As can be seen, certain hard to dispel myths about history are central to the public acceptance of various current political decisions as well as to the world populations position regarding trends in society, and can provide the basis for a wide range of courses of action undertaken by governments, political parties and other such interest groups, in addition to playing a not-so-minor role in the would-be intellectuals outlook on the world, definitely influencing where his loyalties lie.

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SURVEILLANCE AND CONTROL

"They, who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty nor security." Benjamin Franklin
George Orwells 1984 has been an often reminded, yet far-fetched universe, as both the idea of a totalitarian regime in the Western world and the technology employed to scrutinize every individuals movements were at the time, and for enough decades after, nothing more than fiction. Now, we face the daunting reality of the existence of the former being a disputed subject and the latter an inexpensive, common addition to our everyday life. Called with less and less success the land of the free, the US is a pioneer of adopting wide-range surveillance methods to pry upon the taken-for-granted privacy of its citizens. Unsurprisingly enough, these methods of inspecting the individual lives of the public can conveniently be categorized by criteria used by military intelligence services, namely Human Intelligence, dealing with the more-or-less direct information gathered with the help of independent individuals or companies, Signal Intelligence, referring to data analysis of intercepted telephone and Internet transmissions, and Image Intelligence which has its civilian counterpart in CCTV camera surveillance of public places. The most basic way of poking ones nose into the private lives of a large number of unwilling subjects, is by recruiting individuals that report anything out of the ordinary or that conforms to certain given guidelines to a centralized center. East Germany, for example, similarly to virtually every country on the Soviet side of the Iron Curtain, apart from its approximate 91,000 full-time workers, also made use of no less than one in fifty of its citizens to spy and tell on their neighbors whenever the occasion permitted. Public conception of what a democratic country is would influence one to believe that such policies and programs would not be on their governments agenda, assumption that is particularly wrong. No more than four months after 9/11, the US Justice Department announced TIPS, short for Terrorist Information and Prevention System, a government-endorsed program which ought to have recruited millions of American truckers, letter carriers, train conductors, ship captains, utility employees and others as government informants. Due to the public outcry resulting from this decision, the Congress quickly shut down the program, yet others, more specific, but when put together having the exact same role as the defunct TIPS appeared and are still up and running, as detailed in a previous chapter. These so-called security measures, however, do not function adequately, if their presumed role is to increase public safety, because as in the USSR and other communist countries, the informants, being untrained, provide irrelevant data, or even point the finger at people they simply dislike. However, this omnipresence of stool pigeons in society leads to increased paranoia and conformism, out of fear of attracting unwanted attention and official reprisals one may first look around the room and ask himself what objects might appear suspicious before calling a utility worker to fix the plumbing. Corporations also have their own methods of finding out personal details about consumers, data that is mostly semi-voluntarily given away by citizens. Many companies resort to internally-funded polls to build a big picture of consumer behavior, results of which, needless to say, are used to modify corporate policies in their own, not the buyers best interests. Moreover, a great number of supermarkets require nominal membership identification, which is used to track their clients acquisitions of goods over time. Apart from telling the supermarkets owner what type of clientele is prone to buying one type of merchandise or another, therefore allowing him to decide on what products to have on his shelves the next month, this method of tracking provides a potentially very accurate personality profile dossier of any individual, should one find

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that you are what you buy, as this extends not only to food or clothing, but also to books, services, household items, computer software and the like. It would be problematical for anyone to construct such a dossier by relying only on one such source, due to the evident gaps related to varying aspects of ones life. This impediment has not proved to be insurmountable, as in 2003 and 2004, news broke out of several of the US largest airlines such as American Airlines, JetBlue, Northwest Airlines and United Airlines giving government agencies or sub-contractors passengers records by the millions. Two years earlier, as a survey reported, over 150 colleges and universities gave away their students private information to the FBI, a large number of them even without a subpoena. Furthermore, in May 2002, the Professional Association of Diving Instructors made private information of practically everybody that had learned to scuba dive during the previous years available to the same bureau, not to speak of the large number of US transportation companies that had turned over both customer and employee information to government agencies. By having personal information databases in the private sector turn into sources of information for state agencies, these organizations can expand their knowledge of the publics activities without facing problems of having too many people on their payroll, or having to concern themselves with the building of enormous centralized data banks. Moreover, allowing state agencies to tap the resources belonging to the private sector offers a significantly increased amount of data, as most US citizens interact and make transactions not with the government itself, but with companies that offer them products and services. Moreover, in spite of the variety of independent factions which cooperate with more-or-less indifference, none else but the one gathering the data will ever see the big picture, be that on a social scale or merely related to the individual. Adding to all of this, the discretion that US laws impose on government procedures do not in the least relate to private companies, which are supposed to abide to their own, often un-protective, confidentiality policies. Along with the technological boom of the last decade, came an entirely new level of privacy intrusion politics. The old image of the detective listening to ones telephone conversations through the use of a hidden microphone is long gone, making way to the new detectives adopting a shotgun approach to surveillance by having telephone companies grant state agencies access to all conversations, and ISPs provide detailed logs of customers Internet activity. This last aspect is particularly invasive, as Internet Service Providers do not only record what one buys, but also what he looks at, for how long, and even in what order the average person does not only use the Internet to shop, but also to research topics of interest, debate heated subjects, seek help for personal problems, all of which add to give the would-be observer a very clear image of his targets personality and habits. The 1970s provided a glimpse of the current situation, as along with the other scandals relating to US intelligence agencies, it was uncovered that ever since the end of the Second World War, telegraph companies had, although at the time breaking the law, transferred copies of all messages incoming and outgoing from the US to the NSA, on a daily basis. However, to rely solely on such companies cooperation, in the absence of a legislation enforcing it (which came along with the Patriot Act), would mean to take an unwanted risk. Thus, for individuals phone calls to be easily traced and listened to, in 1994 the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act was issued, forcing telecommunications providers to design their equipment according to the FBIs specifications. Though far-reaching, supervision of public behavior cannot be limited to personality profiling based on gathered data and telephone calls, if it is to be allinclusive. The public domain can provide excellent anonymity for the individual in a mob, if not closely recorded. No wonder then, that one cannot make a step in central areas and even on many mundane streets of towns in the US without being videotaped. While this type of scrutiny proves very useful for subsequent investigation of a particular individuals whereabouts, it fails miserably at its widely-advertised purpose,

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namely that of making the public domain a safer place. First of all, as US government security experts have stated themselves, monitoring video screens is both boring and mesmerizing, and noted that after barely 20 minutes of tracking monitor screens, the attention of most individuals has degenerated to well below acceptable levels, reason for which one cannot talk of immediate efficient action to stop crime resulting from such surveillance. Secondly, no would-be criminal can easily be identified by the rather bad quality images produced by cameras placed in remote locations, especially if he had been planning the crime and is most probably aware of the fact that he is being recorded. What such CCTV cameras do provide the public with, is either an impression of safety, or an awkward feeling of being watched, of which the latter is similar in effect with having the neighbor a government informant. All things considered, indiscriminate surveillance of the masses through all these methods leads to a better understanding and prediction of social patterns, as well as to easier and more conclusive assertions about the lifestyle, behavior and probable motivations of targeted individuals, while from the public it usually generates mistrust or even paranoia, when openly acknowledged.

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CONCLUSION
Man, through fiction, has explored a wide range of possibilities that the human mind has been able to come up with, based on the perceived reality. More than once, what one century was pure fantasy became reality in the next; yet aspects of the future have even more often proved to surpass or even outright disprove what mankind had previously thought of them. One mans foresight may not always coincide with what the entire world shapes itself into. Orwell and Huxley, in 1984 and Brave New World have presented us with a grim vision of a yet-to-come dystopian world, where the most prized asset of the human race, free will, is suppressed, twisted and perceived as a threat to society. After reading this paper, one might come to believe, not without reason, that this is the environment we now live in; moreover, that the deviousness of our controllers has left us completely blind to their manipulation, thus defenseless against the entire establishment which has gradually and subtly turned against us, while at the same time using each and every one individual on the planet as no more than a pawn in a game of power. Along would then come the preachers of enlightenment, proving this deceit to the world exposing the media for being manipulative, accusing politicians of lust for power and corporations of craving money, arguing that education is no more than conformism, history no more than a party line and finally, confirming every individuals fear of never, ever being safe from the all-seeing eye of Big Brother then asking for a radical change in society. And when the called for transformation is complete and the general euphoria is over, these preachers come to guide their followers into what at last becomes nothing more than a revamped version of the former society that we all wanted to do away with apparently irreversible changes such as technology matter not, for it is human nature that pervades through all of its accomplishments. In this eternal struggle between the haves and the have-nots, the former wanting at any rate to maintain their standing, though preferring to become havemores, and the latter aiming to usurp the power of the former, if not at least given the illusion of having more relatively to the not-so-distant past, social manipulation plays a central role, through its various stratagems and tactics, in rallying mass support for any of the seemingly countless factions at odds with one another which would readily employ these methods to take advantage of the otherwise unwary bystander. This type of conflict is a defining feature of society the way we have always built it around us, and one of the reasons for which history has not frozen over; we should, therefore, embrace it and regardless of what side we choose, we should not kid ourselves into believing that even if what we help bring about is a just, all-encompassing system that serves everyone right, or a self-serving one, there will not come a time when no matter our actions, somebody will tear it down and question the values we had fought for. With this in mind, we ought to learn to read between the events that take place around us and understand that trends, be them political, social or religious, come and go even if in cycles spanning centuries what we today take for granted could have been an extensively disputed issue in the past and might just as well be fundamentally denied by the world by-and-large in the future. But because all these trends have human origin, they will never represent both Alpha and Omega, as well as everything in-between. Therefore, in order to be accepted, their promoters will resort to the manipulation of at least part of the spectrum of the population they affect. Following this, the course of action each may undertake will speak for every mans basic convictions, loyalties, preferences, and last but not least, personal interests. Attempting to guide the reader to anything more than knowledge and free choice would be manipulation in itself.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Note
To ease the checking of references, the bibliography will be categorized according to the particular chapter it relates to. Bibliographical references to material that is used in more than one chapter will only be listed under the first chapter that they connect to.

Historical Background
Robert B. Stinnett Day of Deceit, Free Press, December 7, 1999, ISBN 0684853396 The Authentic History Center, http://www.authentichistory.com/ Project Censored, http://www.projectcensored.org/ Jay Stanley The Surveillance-Industrial Complex, American Civil Liberties Union, August 2004

Propaganda
Columbia Encyclopedia, http://www.bartleby.com/65/ Websters New Encyclopedic Dictionary, Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers Inc., 1995 Kenneth Warren and John Guscott Propaganda, PR and PsyOps, Wild Ideas Lecture Series The Battle for Your Mind, Lakewood Public Library, October 15, 2000 Gustave LeBon The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind, Fraser Pub. Co, September 1, 1982, ISBN: 0877971684 Frank Thayer Principles and Tactics of Propaganda: Inevitability and Effectiveness of Managing Public Attitudes, Journalism 484, Department of Journalism and Mass Communication, New Mexico State University, 2001 George Orwell Homage to Catalonia, Harvest/HBJ Book, June 1, 1969, ISBN: 0156421178 The Rise of Corporate Propaganda, New Internationalist Issue 314 - July 1999 Kim Cassino American Demographics, November 1997. Darl Turner Hill & Knowlton: Exporting Propaganda Engineering Warfare through Public Relations Sharon Beder The Best Coverage Money Can Buy

Disinformation
H. Michael Sweeney 25 Ways to Suppress Truth: The Rules of Disinformation, 2000 David Martin Seventeen Techniques for Truth Suppression st Roger W. Wicke Overcoming the Trickster: Media Wars of the 21 Century The Online Books Page, http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/banned-books.html Peter Phillips and Project Censored Project Censored Guide to Progressive Media, 2003

Education
Die Erziehungsgrundstze des neuen Deutschlands, Frauen-Warte Issue 22 (1936/37) Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, http://www.wikipedia.org/ IndexChina, http://www.index-china.com/

History as Propaganda
I.I. Russu Etnogeneza romnilor, Bucharest, 1981 A. Rosetti Originile limbii romne, Bucharest, 1977 Erdly trtnete (History of Transylvania), Editor in Chief: Kpeczi B. II., Budapest, 1986 The Atrium, RogueClassicism, http://www.atrium-media.com/rogueclassicism/2003/12/28.html Christopher Cole and Bradley R. Smith The Campaign to Decriminalize WWII History, "No one should be imprisoned for writing a book.", November 29, 2004 The Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust, http://www.codoh.com/

Surveillance and Control

Jay Stanley and Barry Steinhardt Bigger Monster, Weaker Chains: The Growth of an American Surveillance Society, American Civil Liberties Union, 2003 Through the Keyhole, Privacy in the Workplace: An Endangered Right, American Civil Liberties Union

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