Propaganda

As has now been well established (see the post below) the entire Jessica Lynch story was a mass media fabrication intended to bolster support for "our troops."

The original "public relations" or (better yet?) "perception management" article from The Washington Post can be found here.

These things don't happen by accident. One of the original theorists behind mass media manufacture of consent was Walter Lippmann. Here is a snippet of his thinking:

"That the manufacture of consent is capable of great refinements no one, I think, denies. The process by which public opinions arise is certainly no less intricate than it has appeared in these pages, and the opportunities for manipulation open to anyone who understands the processes are plain enough.

The creation of consent is not a new art. It is a very old one which was supposed to have died out with the appearance of democracy. But it has not died out. It has, in fact, improved enormously in technic, because it is now based on analysis rather than on rule of thumb. And so, as a result of psychological research, coupled with the modern means of communication, the practice of democracy has turned a corner. A revolution is taking place, infinitely more significant than any shifting of economic power." --Walter Lippmann, Public Opinion

Reality

Propaganda II

After Jessica Lynch came the case of Pat Tillman the "poster boy" for Bush's Global War on Terror. It couldn't have been scripted better--professional football star chooses country over fame and fortune. Unfortunately, his squad is ambushed while he valiantly fights back and attempts to save his men. For his heroism he is awarded the Silver Star.

Here is one of the first media accounts.

And for what it is worth, here is what Ann Coulter had to say:

"American hero Pat Tillman won a Silver Star this year. But unlike Kerry, he did not write his own recommendation or live to throw his medals over the White House fence in an anti-war rally.

Tillman was an American original: virtuous, pure and masculine like only an American male can be. The stunningly handsome athlete walked away from a three-year, $3.6 million NFL contract with the Arizona Cardinals to join the U.S. military and fight in Afghanistan, where he was killed in April.

He wanted no publicity and granted no interviews about his decision to leave pro football in the prime of his career and join the Army Rangers. (Most perplexing to Democrats, he didn't even take a home movie camera to a war zone in order to create fake footage for future political campaigns in which he would constantly palaver about his military service and drag around his "Band of Brothers" for the media.)

Tillman gave only an indirect explanation for his decision on the day after 9-11, when he said: "My great grandfather was at Pearl Harbor, and a lot of my family has gone and fought in wars, and I really haven't done a damn thing as far as laying myself on the line like that." He said he wanted to "pay something back" to America.

He died bringing freedom and democracy to 28 million Afghans – pretty much confirming Michael Moore's view of America as an imperialist cowboy predator. There is not another country in the world – certainly not in continental Europe – that could have produced a Pat Tillman.

On the anniversary of D-Day, as Americans like Pat Tillman risked their lives to liberate 50 million Iraqis and Afghans, in a year when Americans poured into theaters to see a movie about Christ and reaffirmed their support for moral values at the polling booth, America's greatest president died. Ronald Reagan appealed to what is best about America and so transformed the nation that we are now safe to carry on without him."

Reality II

This story quickly unraveled as the family was quick to detect holes in the government story. Soon it became evident that Tillman had been the victim of "friendly fire" though the details were murky at best.

It also was becoming increasingly clear that Tillman was against the war in Iraq and was quite vocal about his views. He had also scheduled an interview with Noam Chomsky after his return from Afghanistan.

This, of course, if true, would make Coulter and her ilk eat their words. But it is easier to engage in the following kind of "reasoning":



Recently new information has been released that is even more chilling. Apparently, according to the doctors who performed Tillman's autopsy he was shot with a three round burst to the forehead from about thirty feet away. This raises the possibility that Tillman was not killed accidentally by friendly fire but that he was assassinated.

Bounding the Debate: Elementary Mind Control

Here Chomsky lays out the concept of "bounding" debate and how this provides the illusion of controversy and dialogue.

Bounding the Debate: Elementary Mind Control II

Quotation:

"Even if it were true, which is extremely unlikely, who cares? It doesn't have any significance. It's a little bit like the huge energy that's put out on trying to figure out who killed John F. Kennedy. Who knows? And who cares? Plenty of people get killed all the time, why does it matter that one of them happened to be John F. Kennedy? If there was some reason to believe that there was a high level conspiracy, it might be interesting. But the evidence against that is just overwhelming. And after that, if it happened to be a jealous husband, or the mafia, or someone else, what difference does it make? It's just taking energy away from serious issues onto ones that don't matter."