How America Was Sold on World War

Remembering George Creel, the founder of modern war propaganda

Brian Doherty | April 3, 2009

(Page 2 of 2)

The Bush administration’s manipulation of media did become increasingly naked and obvious. This whole idea of taking correspondents and embedding them with troops [arose from a precedent Creel set]. Reporters who were honest talked of the psychological effect of being embedded: You instantly take their side, you are one of them, you are co-opted even if no one tells you you have to be.

Reason: Anytime I've come across Creel's name and project, especially from libertarian-leaning historians, it has generally been in a pretty negative context, but your book is by no means dedicated to attacking the guy.

Axelrod: I decided Creel was an honorable man, and that the news that he reported was probably as accurate as any that any fully independent set of correspondents would have gathered. There really was an attempt to be honest, to simply present the facts and deal these out on a perfectly equal basis to all media outlets.

The slant came in the P.R. part of the operation, which sought directly to shape public opinion by giving them a stake in the war, in this idea of a world safe for democracy. Creel wrote a book, How We Advertised America, but it really was not advertising that CPI did—it was P.R. The difference being that advertising will promote a product, but P.R. seeks to shape opinion.

I certainly understand libertarian objections to Creel, but from his point of view CPI was very American, because it was an alternative to the un-American idea of clamping down and censoring news. He wanted to create and control news and he swore to be honest about it. And I concluded that his organization was probably as honest and objective about the facts of the war in terms of battles, in terms of what happened at the front, as anybody could have been. But in trying to shape public opinion, they created an apparatus that reached into every aspect of American life, into news, movie theaters, schoolrooms, churches, the lodge halls, everything.

Creel came before commercial radio; the only real mass media were newspapers and movies, and it was a big effort to control them, but they could be controlled. It was done with a sometimes not so subtle combination of legal threat and patriotic shaming and also supplying media outlets with really good products that were very well-written and well-reported.

But was it creepy for government to do this? Yeah. Is it dangerous to declare war on ideological grounds, is it dangerous to take for granted that democracy is a good thing that everyone should have whether they want it or not? Yes, that’s very dangerous, and I think it was a mistake for America to enter World War I. I came away after much thinking, and not just while writing this book, but studying the subject for years, to think it was a mistake, a war of choice that was unnecessary. And had we not gone into that war Germany would have won and there's every chance the world would have been spared World War II.

Reason: Would a repeat of Creel's efforts be able to replicate his success in the 21st century?

Axelrod: I just heard in the last few days about the Chinese government paying thousands of bloggers to blog favorable things about China. That reminded me of something like the "Four Minute Men" Creel had created, this army of ordinary people who would make a patriotic war-related speech tailored to fit exactly within the four minutes it took a projectionist to change reels, which made four minutes of dead time [during movie showings] when speakers could address audiences about war-related topics. The Four Minute Men were issued talking points but they would speak as part of the community. It was sheer genius. The speakers were ordinary yet respectable members of the community perceived by audiences as one of them, speaking the government line yet in their own words.

If the government can get supposedly disinterested ordinary people, bloggers, to blog the party line...but I tend to doubt it could really work in the U.S., and on balance having a means of disseminating information to a mass audience that is not directly controlled by corporate entities or government entities, that's not a one-way broadcast medium like TV, makes it inherently more difficult to seize control of mass media the way Creel was able to do.

Senior Editor Brian Doherty is author of This is Burning Man (BenBella), Radicals for Capitalism (PublicAffairs) and Gun Control on Trial (Cato Institute).

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|4.3.09 @ 4:08PM|#

I'm going to assume from now on that any picture of an ape or a monkey posted on Reason is a racist attack on Barack Obama.

That poster is Raaaaaaaciiiiiiiiiiiistttt!!!

Barry Loberfeld|4.3.09 @ 4:10PM|#

Published in the September 2004 issue of Liberty

To Refuse Allegiance to the State

An Open Letter to the National War Tax Resistance
Coordinating Committee

by Barry Loberfeld

To all people of goodwill in the NWTRCC:

One of the nice things about this past Christmas vacation was all the time I had to devote to things that really were about "peace on Earth."
Now I could finally read some of the stuff I had collected throughout the year,
such as the May-June issue of The Nonviolent Activist, the official "Magazine of the War Resisters League," which I'd picked up at a kind of poetry-and-politics cabaret hosted by PeaceSmiths, a Long Island antiwar group.

What struck me most was a one-page piece entitled "AN APPEAL TO CONSCIENCE: In Support of Those Refusing to Pay for War on Iraq" ("a project of the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee"). It sped straight to the point of what war means: "death and disease" -- by bombing, shooting, and environmental poisoning -- for both soldiers and civilians in Iraq, as well as "terrorist attacks against the United States, its citizens, and those of any allies who join us." It also means "tens, if not hundreds, of billions of dollars, thus further diverting resources from addressing the hunger, homelessness, unemployment, and other economic problems facing millions of American families." The Appeal (which can be seen and signed at warresisters.org/wtr_complicity.htm) contended that "[p]re-emptive war against Iraq violates international laws, including the Charter of the United Nations, which the U.S. Constitution requires us to uphold" and suggested that "there are other, more peaceful and effective approaches to dealing with real threats posed by weapons of mass destruction." It concluded:

We believe that every citizen of this country has a moral duty to speak out against, and avoid cooperation with, this escalated war against Iraq -- and to encourage others to do the same.

Refusal to pay taxes used to finance unjust wars, along with refusal by soldiers to fight in them, is a direct and potentially effective form of citizen noncooperation, and one that governments cannot ignore. War tax refusal has a long and honorable tradition among religious and secular opponents of war ...

Refusal to pay all or a portion of one's federal taxes as a form of conscientious objection to war may involve personal risks. For that reason, material and moral support for war tax refusers -- including organizing support committees, raising support funds, and providing legal defense -- is an important form of war resistance in itself.

Therefore, we, the undersigned individuals, believing that war tax refusal under the present circumstances is fully justified on moral and ethical grounds, publicly declare our encouragement of, and willingness to lend support to, those persons of conscience who choose to take this step. [original emphasis]

Among the names listed were Joan Baez and Daniel Berrigan, William Sloane Coffin and Daniel Ellsberg, Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn.

All of these persons are fully aware of the reasons given for going to war. They have heard prominent, accomplished individuals, both inside and outside the Administration, present empirical evidence and moral arguments. They have heard the War on Terrorism justified as a benefit to all people, including the Iraqis, and they have heard the accusations of "selfishness" and "indifference" hurled at those who've rejected this claim. They must surely acknowledge the possibility that this invasion of Iraq, like the earlier one, might garner the support of a majority of the population. And yet they defend the right of any dissenting individual, acting upon no more than his own judgment and ethics ("conscience"), to withhold his person and property from the war effort of the State.

The Appeal is a remarkable statement -- explicitly and implicitly. Consider. I oppose the War on Drugs. I disagree with those, inside and outside the government, who defend it. My own judgment of the evidence and my own moral code lead me to conclude that narcotics prohibition is a benefit to no one, that it has left many neighborhoods looking like actual combat zones. Even though poll after poll may show that a majority of Americans oppose legalization, don't I have a right to refuse "to pay all or a portion" of my "federal taxes as a form of conscientious objection" to this war?

READ THE REST OF THE ARTICLE

Kolohe|4.3.09 @ 4:10PM|#

it's unlikely another Creel could achieve what he did.

Haven't rtfa yet, but is a part of the thesis that modern proganda is *less* effective than the 'old time religion'?

My gut check tells me to disagree.

CLS|4.3.09 @ 4:13PM|#

One excellent book on Creel and his Committe is by James Mock and Cedric Larson, published in 1939, and entitled "Words That Won the War."

Kid Blast|4.3.09 @ 4:18PM|#

@Barry Loberfeld

A paragraph or two with a link works well around here.

Thanks!

Kolohe|4.3.09 @ 4:19PM|#

The singular distinction of America is a preternatural ability for advertising and marketing, present from the beginning

The years have only honed this ability.

|4.3.09 @ 4:24PM|#

Michelle Obama's arms have their own blog.

I'm going home. I need a fucking drink.

|4.3.09 @ 4:25PM|#

I'm going to assume from now on that any picture of an ape or a monkey posted on Reason is a racist attack on Barack Obama.

Now if I can only drive NutraSweet away like joe...

|4.3.09 @ 4:27PM|#

I didn't say I disapproved...

(That's a joke, humorless assholes. You know who you are.)

Warty|4.3.09 @ 4:33PM|#

Those aren't guns. Is everyone in America so pathetically fat that we think pitiful straight biceps like those count as "guns"? Fuck this country and everyone in it. Fuck, I need a drink too.

Actually, I think I'll steal some syringes on the way home and inject Everclear into my balls. Fuck cock shit ass balls shit fuck.

|4.3.09 @ 4:33PM|#

Dear Zod, does this mean that Monkey Tuesday is racist? Egad.

By the way, Baked Penguin has jumped on the recent flag redesign proposal posted here and has redesigned the Florida flag. As a Floridian, I intend to adopt it immediately.

|4.3.09 @ 4:44PM|#

Warty, if you do that, I will give you five dollars. FIVE WHOLE DOLLARS.

You fuckers are 3 hours ahead of me, so I can't...wait, why can't I start drinking now?

Warty|4.3.09 @ 4:50PM|#

Unfortunately, Epi, I'm out of Everclear at the moment, so I'll need to drive to Camp Perry to get some at the PX. (That's a tip, fellow Ohioans: there is one store in the entire state where you can get Everclear, because it's on federal property). I should pick up an M1 Carbine at the CMP store while I'm at it.

I just wonder how difficult it is to handle a syringe, a steering wheel, and my balls at the same time.

|4.3.09 @ 4:54PM|#

Warty,

Easy, if you take some simple precautions.

|4.3.09 @ 4:55PM|#

I just wonder how difficult it is to handle a syringe, a steering wheel, and my balls at the same time.

Why do it yourself? That's what transvestite hookers are for. Come on, YOU KNOW THIS.

|4.3.09 @ 5:08PM|#

Like I said, precautions, though I don't know about the transvestite part. Eliot Spitzer's whore is out of work, I believe. Maybe she could do it?

Sinclair|10.30.09 @ 10:10PM|#

Or perhaps Mark Foley. He likey u vedddy much...

|4.3.09 @ 5:13PM|#

Ashley doesn't do bareback, ProL, so no good.

Warty|4.3.09 @ 5:18PM|#

If you break a few fingers first, I bet she will.

|4.3.09 @ 5:21PM|#

Toes, Warty. She needs those fingers for...stuff.

Warty|4.3.09 @ 5:24PM|#

I meant MY fingers. What kind of sick bastard are you, Epi?

|4.3.09 @ 5:26PM|#

Sheesh, they should just put this thread up for Friday Funnies. It would reaffirm my faith in their editors.

|4.3.09 @ 5:29PM|#

What kind of sick bastard are you, Epi?

The kind of sick bastard who watches The Last House on the Left. Duh.

Kolohe|4.3.09 @ 5:34PM|#

now that I've rtfa: good article.

But I still disagree with this contention:

If the government can get supposedly disinterested ordinary people, bloggers, to blog the party line...but I tend to doubt it could really work in the U.S.,

Despite the protestations elsewhere in the article that the Bush admin was so nakedly brazen about it, it was nonetheless effective for the most part (it at least got him a second term). Furthermore, this is exactly what Obama Admin is doing with continuing the 'Obama for America' blogs. Plus, newly appointed admin officials (like the new CBO head) continuing to blog in their official capacity similar to what they had done in their immediate previous employment.

And in one respect, it's far easier than anytime in the past, because of the willingness of various press people to simply regurgiate any old press release.

Art-P.O.G.|4.5.09 @ 6:10AM|#

Fuck cock shit ass balls shit fuck.

Warty is Jamie Kelly?

|4.5.09 @ 8:32AM|#

That pic is now my messenger icon

awsome pic!

|4.5.09 @ 11:21AM|#

is this it for discussion? What's happening to Hit & Run?

|4.7.09 @ 9:13PM|#

If the government can get supposedly disinterested ordinary people, bloggers, to blog the party line...but I tend to doubt it could really work in the U.S.

Oh heavens, has he not heard of his namesake Axelrod's blog-comment astroturf operation, propagandizing The One's agenda? I'm sure it's still in operation, now that Oprompta has taken over the government, like some kind of vile prion.

Of course he has. So I can only conclude he favors such an operation. Truth, schmuth. It's all about the higher good. Heh heh.

Boy, talk about a case of Stockholm syndrome. Good thing this fool didn't write a book about the 9/11 attackers.

Sinclair|10.30.09 @ 10:11PM|#

Ah, but a manifesto was written; it was called "Rebuilding AMerica's Defenses"

pay close attention to pps 50-70. A long read but very enlightening!

Scarpe Nike|8.8.11 @ 11:45PM|#

is good

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