What do Americans know? Not very much

From the editor of the Web site Mediachannel.org and author of EMBEDDED: Weapons of Mass Deception, How the Media Failed to Cover the War on Iraq, Danny Schechter:

The general absence of comprehensive, thorough reporting is particularly regrettable with Washington under the control of an administration that has taken public relations into the realm of "perception management."

Its corporate-trained communications specialists have perfected a 24-hour spin machine while co-ordinating every official utterance. They've coined and tested repeatable catch-phrases to mobilise opinion. They want to ensure that we regurgitate their simplified phrases, and salute their patriotic stands. In their world, propaganda is passed off as marketing.

Click here.

Add the indoctrinational nature of the public schools into the mix and the result is an American population that is easily manipulated by those in power. The manipulated are not very docile about their manufactured beliefs, either: telling them that they're dead wrong may result in being on the receiving end of a punch in the mouth.

It's maddening.

Thanks to J. Orlin Grabbe.

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