Research Notes Concerning Why America Fights by Susan A.

Brewer This book was a great source of information concerning propaganda. I gained much insight concerning what ideals Americans value during times of war. It also helped me understand the main ideas that are continually woven into American propaganda time and time again. Introduction- Page 3: When Americans are called upon to fight, they want to know why Americans must kill and be killed. They expect their leaders to prove that war is right, necessary, and worth the sacrifice. People naturally expect a legitimate justification for war. Look to leaders for guidance

Introduction- Page 4: To explain to Americans why they fight, government leaders translate war aims into propaganda- deliberate manipulation of facts, ideas, and lies. To do so they condense complex foreign policies into easily communicated messages: to make the world safe for democracy or to lead the Free World. They seek to bring the whole story together in one official narrative When war aims are turned into propaganda, a story is created. Complex goals are translated into ideas that the general public can comprehend. Democracy and leadership are two things that Americans value enough to go to war for they therefore are central to understanding American propaganda.

Introduction- Page 4: The official narratives have presented conflict as a might clash between democracy and dictatorship in World War II The main narrative of WWII propaganda is the fight between democrac y and dictatorship. Spreading democracy and ridding the world of other forms of government is therefore a central goal in American politics.

Introduction- Page 4: The message that what is good for America is good for the world drew on the belief in American exceptionalism. This treasured myth claimed that the United States, as the worlds morally superior nation, had special responsibilities and privileges. Leaders declared that Americans had a duty not only to protect their valued system of democracy and capitalism, but to extend it to others. The assumption of American superiority also

explained why the rest of the world was incapable of achieving the American way of life on its own. Generally speaking, this is why America fights. America has justified countless wars by stating the need to spread democracy the American way. America assumed the tasks and burdens of spreading the messages of democracy and freedom since it sees itself as the only country supremely fit to do so.

Introduction- Page 5: In wartime, the idea of the American mission takes on vibrant patriotic trappings. The rituals of stirring speeches, parades, and martial music fill the imagination War destroys, noted historian Drew Gilpin Faust, but it also exhilarates and intoxicates. *This describes the psychological desires humans have concerning war. Nationalism and Patriotism instantly increase due to the use of propaganda to psychologically entice the publics support.

Introduction- Page 5: Wartime propagandists defined that meaning by ennobling geostrategic objectives with patriotic purpose They organized spectacles to honor heroic warriors in their fight against dehumanized enemies. By invoking past glories and promising a happy ending, the official narrative provided a persuasive framework for understanding the current conflict. They also served to distract from reality. For example, in World War II, propagandists appealed to American confidence in their national mission while they shielded civilians from a full knowledge of the immense struggle they faced to defeat Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. Again the argument of dehumanizing the enemy during times of war is brought up. *Important* Propaganda serves to create an illusion during war. It shields the public from the actual struggles of war.

Introduction- Page 5: Propaganda can inspire and unite a nation in time in crisis; it can also deceive. Interesting way to phrase the concept Things can be inspiring to us regardless of their factual validity.

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It is important for citizens to understand wartime propaganda, for controversial at it is, it is also essential. Even though war notoriously is fought in a fog, leaders must endow it with clarity and purpose in to order to maintain morale and justify sacrifice. When used ethically propaganda can help explain war. It helps maintain the unity of a country during times of conflict.

Introduction- Page 6: Its role, wrote veteran World War I propagandist Edward Bernays, is to help bring order out of chaos. Great definition of propaganda! It explains how helpful propaganda can be when it comes to organizing situations.

Introduction- Page 7: As packaging, they must be unwrapped in order to investigate the war aims that are being sold. The question to consider about official propaganda is how closely what people are told aligns with the governments objectives. Does it illuminate of obscure the actual war aims? This is where propaganda becomes dangerous. If it significantly diverges from the truth then it runs the risk of completely obscuring war objectives. A detailed analysis of propaganda is therefore crucial when it comes to understanding the actual goals behind a war.

Introduction- Page 7: We call our stuff information and the enemys propaganda, said an American colonel in 2005, summing up the conventional distinction. This statement is quite hypocritical. Such a contradiction dangerously blinds the citizens of a country.

Introduction- Page 7: The First Amendment to the Constitution protects the right to communicate persuasive messages through speech and the media As opposed to covert propaganda, which comes from hidden sources and tends to be false, overt propaganda comes from a known source and is understood to be based on facts. It can be a self-interested selection of the facts, To rally Americans around the flag, officials have manipulated facts, exaggeration, and misinformation.

Introduction- Pages 7-8: In the two world wars, temporary propaganda agencies called the committee on Public Information and the Office of War Information were set up to mobilize the nation for total war. The idea of total war is brought up again. The fact that agencies are made to specifically control the distribution of information shows how significant a role propaganda plays in American politics and war.

Introduction- Page 8: Wartime administrations have delivered their propaganda through speeches, cartoons, advertisements, posters, radio shows, films, and the news media That said they sought to manipulate the content of that information. Officials usually embraced the use of factbased propaganda teemed with censorship. Propaganda isnt just limited to pictures, it also appears in all of the forms listed above. Censorship plays an important role in propaganda. But, does omitting part of the truth still make the report truthful?

Introduction- Page 9: The troops have recounted their experiences to reveal that fear, incompetence, and greed were as much a part of war as bravery, skill and generosity When confronted with such challenges to their uplifting version of events, officials have sought to marginalize dissent and revise their own messages. Propaganda shields the public from the actual horrors of war. When truthful accounts from soldiers at the frontlines make it back to citizens, the spell propaganda cast on the public is broken. Leaders must therefore rethink their messages.

Introduction- Page 11: In the end, war aims must be achieved in the real world, not in the dramatic version represented by propaganda. When war has to be fought, propaganda is necessary to explain how and why. It simplifies and courages. The clarity of the official narratives may be blinding, however, not only to the public but to the officials who deliver them. The messages reflect the assumption that the world welcomes America- sponsored

democracy and freedom, when many people at home and abroad point out that Americans themselves have not always lived up to such ideas. Propaganda assures Americans that the expansion of their wealth and power benefits them and everyone else when it may not. Even though propaganda can help people make sense of conflict, the ideals supported by propaganda are not always relevant or true. Pressuring specific ideals onto other people is not always the way to go.

Introduction- Page 12: Over time, official strategies of persuasion have favored a public of misinformed spectators over informed citizens. Misinformed spectators are easier to control and persuade than people who formulate their opinions from factual information.

Introduction- Page 13: Wartime propagandas portrayal of the United States as a generous liberator, spreading democracy as it defends civilization, was designed to appeal to what Americans wanted to believe about themselves. In the end, propaganda works because it portrays Americans in the best light. It is how Americans want to be seen, so they are easily persuaded to accept official propaganda. This is a great explanation of how subconscious desires play a role in the acceptance of propaganda.

The Good War- Fighting for a Better Line in World War II- Page 87: President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared that the United States was determined not only to win World War II but also to secure the peace that would follow American internationalism presumed American leadership. Americas foreign policy became greatly involved in international affairs Huge goals

The Good War- Fighting for a Better Line in World War II- Page 88: In an important change, however, they emphasized the pragmatic rewards of victorya better life and a safer world. And the way to get these things was through internationalism.

America built a successful future based on the goals it hoped to accomplish during WWII. It served as a form of persuasion when it came to convincing American citizens that intervention was the way to go.

The Good War- Fighting for a Better Line in World War II- Page 88-89: The Office of War Information (OWI), set up in 1942, adopted the strategy of truth, which honored the idea that informed citizens could be trusted to make up their own minds The strategy of truth complemented the portrayal of the war as a clash between democracy and dictatorship. Politically based information was initially intended to be based on truth. Great starting goal! Intentions were pure in the beginning.

The Good War- Fighting for a Better Line in World War II- Page 89: Wartime propaganda blended facts with inspiring and reassuring cultural beliefs, blurring what was true with what people wanted to believe was true. As a result it delivered mixed messages they sold the war with promise that once it was over everyone could come home to enjoy a prosperous peace The promise of a better world guaranteed by American internationalism required the greatest stretch of the strategy of truth. After all, no one knew what the future would bring. This shows how personal desires can affect a war effort. Subconsciously we want to be seen in a certain way and therefore strive to accomplish such. Its as though blinders are put on people and everything becomes irrelevant as long as the goal is accomplished. Is it still considered truth if it has not yet come to pass?

The Good War- Fighting for a Better Line in World War II- Page 89: To reassure the public, propaganda portrayed the allies as just like us, sharing not only a common enemy, but also common war aims. Such a portrayal sought to inspire the popular endorsement of internationalism desired by President Roosevelt. He want to create bipartisan support at home for whatever commitments he might make overseas. As stated in my proposal, people are most unified when they share a common enemy. By unifying citizens in such a way, people automatically give leaders permission to fight battles against said enemy.

The Good War- Fighting for a Better Line in World War II- Page 95: At Pearl Harbor in December it delivered the worst naval defeat in American History. Japans attack on Pearl Harbor and the Philippines united the Allies and the American home front. On December 8, Congress declared war on Japan with only one dissenting vote. This is probably the most unanimous Congress has ever been concerning political decisions. The need for revenge was the cause for a huge change in American foreign policy concerning WWII.

The Good War- Fighting for a Better Line in World War II- Page 97: The attack on Pearl Harbor demonstrated that the worlds oceans could not protect the United States. False sense of security shattered during war

The Good War- Fighting for a Better Line in World War II- Page 99-100: From the beginning, the OWIs strategy of truth confronted many obstacles. First, there was the issue of censorship. On December 16, 1941, President Roosevelt set up the Office of Censorship The Office of Censorship had authority over all civilian communication Teamed with censorship, the strategy of truth meant selections of the truth, not the whole truth. Most significantly, the militarys heavy censorship made the job of the OWI a difficult one. The establishment of censorship blocked the good intentions of the OWI to spread the truth. If the whole truth is not told, is it still considered truth?

The Good War- Fighting for a Better Line in World War II- Page 87: Telling the public the truth about war aims was challenging because policymakers did not agree which to spell out what those aims were. How can a country ethically fight a war if even its leaders dont understand the aims of such war? That means that they are fighting for the sake of fighting which is morally and ethically wrong.

The Good War- Fighting for a Better Line in World War II- Page 103: As propagandists surveyed their audience, they considered whether to tell Americans what they should know or what they wanted to hear or some combination of the two. Conveying ideas all came down to what angle propagandists decided to put on the information. They juggled between portraying ideal images of America and personal desires, versus the real truth.

The Good War- Fighting for a Better Line in World War II- Page 107: Concerned about the pervasive stereotyping in popular culture, government officials warned against underestimating enemy forces. The comics, they noted, represented the Japanese as toothy, short, evilly slant-eyed. and violently yellow For all their intentions, propagandists did draw on the prejudices of the American public to enhance the emotional power of their messages. Official propaganda, however relied less often on crude stereotypes than popular culture. There is a difference between media based propaganda and official propaganda Media-based= racist Official= more realistic, yet still exaggerated situations

The Good War- Fighting for a Better Line in World War II- Page 109: Careful as it was to treat American citizens of German and Italian heritage with respect, the U.S. government failed to do so with Japanese Americans. Military authorities, politicians, and pressure groups accused Japanese Americans on the west coast of disloyalty and treason, although they had no evidence to back up these charges. In February 1942, Roosevelt ordered the internment of 120,000 Japanese Americans in concentration camps. Eighty thousand, born in the United States, were U.S. citizens Dropping the term concentration camp, officials adopted language chosen to deflect comparisons to Nazi policies. The official government film, Japanese Relocation, emphasized the cheerful cooperation of Japanese Americans There was such a difference between the treatment of Germans and Italians vs. Japanese Doesnt this violate the Bill of Rights?

How can a country be fighting a war to rid another nation of a certain phenomenon, yet still instill the same methods on their own soil? HIPOCRACY Renaming concentration camps and official films are outright lies to cover the injustice and unlawful personal violations.

The Good War- Fighting for a Better Line in World War II- Page 122: It seems to me that the folks at home are fighting one war and were fighting another one. Theyve got theirs nearly won and weve just got started on ours, said a gunner on a Flying Fortress named Mary Ruth, Memories of Mobile I wished theyd get in the same war were in. The disparity between war views is alarming! Its literally as though a country is fighting 2 different wars This is probably due to the fact that most American wars occur over seas.

The Good War- Fighting for a Better Line in World War II- Page 136: For Americans, the war came to a close as it had started, with a shock. It took only one atomic bomb, harnessing the basic power of the universe, announced the White House, to destroy a city. President Harry Truman announced that the first bomb had been dropped on Hiroshima, which he called a military base because Americans wished to spare civilians. This statement favored image over reality Yet the celebration of the wars end was tempered by anxiety over the implications of the new weapon. U.S. leaders appealed to faith and national destiny. It is an awful responsibility which was come to us, declared President Truman Lying about the military base!! Its entirely false that they wished to spare civilians! Most people who died were regular citizens. Again, America is assuming that it has to carry the worlds burden.

Why America Fights- Conclusion Page 280: Americans do not expect to know the whole truth during wartime, but they do not want to be lied to about why they are fighting. What happens when people learn they have been misled deliberately by wartime propaganda? There is a fine line between ethical propaganda which can help make sense of a situation, and outright lies. Being deliberately misled is ethically and morally wrong When such happens, how are we different from our enemies?

Why America Fights- Conclusion Page 282: as the manipulation of public opinion may be in time of crisis, propaganda remains controversial. The question of whether the manipulation is tolerable depends in large part on the legitimacy of the policy being promoted the more flawed the policy, the more heavily officials have relied on lies and exaggerations to manipulate opinion. The more ethical the goal- the less the reliance on propaganda When massive amounts of propaganda is used, its a sign that policies being promoted arent actually legitimate.

Why America Fights- Conclusion Page 285: As long as propaganda assumes that people cannot handle the truth, it leaves Americans to wonder why they fight. The truth is important! It helps us make sense of the events taking place around us! It offers a form of clarity