Doubls Bind Messages

Double bind messages are extremely effective.
For example in Nicaragua the Sandinistas were seen as the personification of the evil. Demonization was the tool to make the U.S.-population to believe that. And the propaganda, called "Operation Truth", succeeded - and is successful until today. The Sandinistas are still considered an enemy in the head of the people. The media played the role of spreading propaganda - nearly without any criticism.
By the end of the 1980s the USA even paid Nicaraguans for voting other parties than the Sandinistas.

El Salvador was a similar case. Again the guerrilla got demonized. The difference was the involvement of the Catholic Church, which was highly fought against by the ruling parties of El Salvador - and those again were financially and organizationally supported by the USA. The elections in the 1980s were more or less paid by the USA.
U.S.-politicians were afraid El Salvador could end up being a second Cuba or Nicaragua. Every means was correct to fight this tendency, no matter what it cost.
On the 21st of September 1996, the Washington Post published several documents proofing an old rumor: not only that Central American soldiers had been educated in a U.S.-army school (the SOA), they also were taught to use torture as a method against revolutionaries. Some of the Salvadorian "students" of that school became very famous for being extremely cruel, one of them being General Roberto d'Aubuisson (35), the person who ordered the killing of Archbishop Oscar Romero in 1980.

TEXTBLOCK 1/2 // URL: http://world-information.org/wio/infostructure/100437611661/100438658752
 
Television

No mass-media is more efficient in disinformation and propaganda than TV. And no one seems to be better in influencing that which is considered the truth. e.g. around 67% of the Austrian population in 1999 believe that TV is the most reliable information-media.
Opinion polls show that it is said to be the most realistic media, the only one worth trusting. History tells us the contrary. The combination of words and moving pictures, together with the documentary style of the news, looks sincere, while it produces images in our heads which start working on their own. The Vietnam war was only the first war performed on television ...

But: also watching the news is part of the entertainment show of the media. And therefore they are presented in an entertaining form. Manipulation of the contents of the news is part of the show.
One factor is the issue that news must be reported in a very short period. Several seconds for each catastrophe. Scarcity implies disinformation.
Ted Koppel's movie Revolution in a box demonstrates this:
When the TV-news showed pictures of the nuclear plant accident in Chernobyl, they showed pictures of another - still working - plant. The thought behind was to demonstrate that in this world nothing can stay undetected by the media, to show that still everything is observed and under control - at least in the West.

TEXTBLOCK 2/2 // URL: http://world-information.org/wio/infostructure/100437611661/100438658568
 
General Schwarzkopf

General H. Norman Schwarzkopf (* 1934) followed in his father's footsteps at the United States Military Academy at West Point.
In 1965 he applied to join the troops in Vietnam. For the next 20 years Schwarzkopf worked on his career. As Commander in Chief of the U.S. Central Command, he led U.S. and allied forces in the Gulf War (Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm). He retired from the Army in 1992 and wrote his autobiography.

For a picture see: http://www.jesterbook.com/sections/5a_mom/gallery/schwarzkopf.htm

http://www.jesterbook.com/sections/5a_mom/gal...
INDEXCARD, 1/2
 
Joseph Stalin

Joseph Stalin (1879-1953):
After Lenin's death he took over and became a dictator without any limits of power. Everyone who dared to talk or act against him or was in suspicion of doing so, got killed. Millions were murdered. His empire was one made out of propaganda and fear. As long as he was in power his picture had to be in every flat and bureau. Soon after his death the cult was stopped and in 1956 the De-Stalination was started, though he was partly rehabilitated in 1970.

INDEXCARD, 2/2