unSpun: Finding Facts in a World of Disinformation Review

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unSpun: Finding Facts in a World of Disinformation ReviewAt least I think it's a great book, but now I'm not so sure. The authors, Brooks Jackson, and Kathleen Hall Jamieson have done such an outstanding job of showing me why I bought the electric scissors I didn't need and how I was focusing so much on watching the healthy people on the television doing Tai Chi in the park, I completely overlooked the possible side effects of the drug the commercial was pedaling. Now that I've listened and found out that it may lead to complete loss of body hair, tailbone growth, swelling of the lips and tongue, excessive weight gain, webbed feet, tooth loss, emesis and leprosy, I've stopped taking the drug.
Starting out with the first snake oil salesman making outrageous claims, to political advertisements by republicans and democrats, by Bush and Kerry, we learn that virtually none of them can be trusted because they appeal to our biases, our perception, our experiences, and cynicism with words that are open to interpretation such as clinically tested, larger, better, more people trust or use..., on average, and other caveats that deserve closer scrutiny. (I've also added to the list: "Read with an open mind," and "Only for those who can be objective").
If that isn't bad enough, the authors show us how our personal experiences and eyewitness accounts can be manipulated by others and by our own biases. For example, when subjects were shown two lines of differing lengths, they often reported that the shorter one was longer, once they learned that everyone else (supposedly) had selected the shorter line. An even better one is the neighboring review: One, who has made his conservative feelings clear, felt that there was more "left favoring" bias to this book. A commenter said that he felt there was more "right-favoring" bias. This is a classic recommendation for the book.
The most fascinating thing I took from this short paperback is that people will cling to their beliefs more tenaciously in the face of overwhelming evidence that reveals their position is incorrect or invalid, that people will short-circuit their own brains and readily accept as fact that which conforms to their own beliefs, and that we must learn to question bias, sources, evidence, and our cynicism before parting with our money or accepting information as knowledge or fact.
So, I can guarantee that you will be 100% satisfied as were the people in my survey who read this book compared with another. Two out of three found this not only a better read, but reported that it killed the germs that cause bad breath, took inches off their waistline, and removed wrinkles. So, what are you waiting for? Get started today. Start reading. After all, you have everything to lose!
Guaranteed! Or, my name isn't Axel Schnookenhoffer!
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Projections of Power: Framing News, Public Opinion, and U.S. Foreign Policy (Studies in Communication, Media, and Public Opinion) Review

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Projections of Power: Framing News, Public Opinion, and U.S. Foreign Policy (Studies in Communication, Media, and Public Opinion) ReviewRobert Entman, Professor of communication and political science at North Carolina State University, has produced a fascinating study of the US media, which is applicable to Britain's media too. Their ruling assumption is that the US state is innocent and benign.
In Chapter Two, he compares the media handling of two similar events: Korean Air Lines 007, shot down by a Soviet jet in 1983, and Iran Air Flight 655, shot down by a US ship in 1988. The first was judged as a murderous attack, `wanton, brutal and deliberate', proof of Soviet moral bankruptcy, portrayed with pictures of the dead and much empathy, outrage and generalisation. The second was seen as a tragic accident, `understandable, mistaken and justified', a technical glitch, described in the passive voice, in abstract language, with no pictures, no generalisation and no blame.
In Chapter Three, Entman looks at the media treatment of the US attacks on Grenada, Libya and Panama. The media presented coherently only the administration's view. Typically, CBS's anchor Dan Rather said they were "not sure exactly what was happening but knowing the teams. It was the US against Qaddafi". Entman concludes, "The analysis demonstrates how journalists served as more or less loyal conduits of U.S. government propaganda in wartime." It seems that the first rule of the US state's news management is `lie early and lie often'.
In Chapter Four, Entman examines the media's `great debate' about the war on Iraq, which, it appears, was between those who wanted war at once and those who wanted war later. 71% of the Americans who appeared on camera were pro-war, just 3% against.
Entman shows how the state portrays the enemy as a threat, then uses a brief `wave of patriotism' to rubbish dissent. The state pretends that it is responding to public opinion, and claims that the media reflect public opinion: both notions support the ruling pretence that the public governs. In Chapter Six, Entman disproves all these myths by showing how the US state, with media assistance, beat back the hugely popular movement for a nuclear freeze.Projections of Power: Framing News, Public Opinion, and U.S. Foreign Policy (Studies in Communication, Media, and Public Opinion) Overview

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Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning Review

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Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning ReviewAnd boy, does Jonah Goldberg have himself some enemies.
It was inevitable that the review section for Goldberg's "Liberal Fascism" would degenerate into the Mother of all Flame Wars. The advance dislike for this book simmered for months, and now the floodgates for negative reviews are open. I'd advise all potential readers of this book to bear in mind how few of the negative reviews appear to reflect a reading of the book.
For those willing to give Goldberg the chance, he offers the following thesis: that the label fascist has its roots in the governing philosophies of Italy's National Fascist Party and Germany's National Socialist (Nazi) Party. He argues that there has been a false duality created between the Soviet Socialists of the USSR and the socialists united under the fascists in Italy and Germany. He argues that the totalitarian impulse, the philosophy of state control of decisions taking priority over individual freedoms, is the core uniting principle behind these movements, and he argues that the ongoing home of such statism is in what has come to be known as the "liberal" politics of the modern progressive movement. As you can imagine, that doesn't sit very well with the targets of his argument (hence the rain of 1-star reviews).
I'd encourage open minded readers of all backgrounds to read Goldberg's book and address his arguments. I find his conversational and somewhat informal style to be witty and readable. That said, longtime Goldberg fans should know that this is not a book-length "G-File" (the hip and irreverent column he wrote for National Review Online). This is a serious scholarly work, and it deserves to be read and judged as such. Goldberg is attempting to right a historical injustice. This book is not attempting, as many seem to think, to say that all liberals are closet Nazis, but rather that, contrary to popular misconception, it is not conservatism, but liberalism, that traces its roots to the fascists. In some ways it is a book-length extension of the question conservatives sometimes pose to liberals: "If you leave out the parts about killing all the Jews and invading Poland, what specifically about the Nazi political platform do you disagree with?" (That platform is handily provided in the appendix.) After Goldberg's book, this question is much harder to simply shrug off.
Still, one doesn't need nearly 600 citations just to allow conservatives to say "I'm rubber, you're glue" the next time they are called a fascist. Goldberg argues that our focus on the atrocities committed by fascists in Germany obscures the fact that the fascist drive is, to a degree, universal in modern politics. The heritage and institutions of America lead it to manifest itself in a different form here. Whether it is the smothering embrace of the "It Takes a Village" mommy state or, to a lesser degree, the big-government, "compassionate conservatism" of Bush, fascism in the U.S. is well-intention, "smiley face" fascism, but it still looks first to the state, last to the individual.
In the end, that's what I liked best about this book. Yes, it's great to have a 5-pound rebuttal to the next person who tries to use "fascist" as an epithet to end criticism of a liberal program. However, what comes through in the end is not so much Goldberg's hatred of fascism, but his love of liberty. Fascism in all its forms is the enemy of liberty, and recognizing it for what it is will always be a prerequisite for stopping it. Goldberg's "Liberal Fascism" clears away decades of obfuscation to allow that recognition in both the past and present day politics. Those who continue to fight for individual freedom will enjoy and appreciate this book.Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning Overview

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Fascism: Comparison and Definition Review

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Fascism: Comparison and Definition ReviewThe author purports "not to provide another description of fascism but to wrestle with some basic problems of definition and comparison"; that abstract task does, however, involve a good deal of historical exposition. Fascism is defined within the historical context of the Italian Fascist and German National Socialist parties, their historical antecedents and contemporary parallels, and the Mussolini and Hitler regimes. The existence of present-day fascism, in the strict and literal sense, is considered at most an anachronism.
The book represents a significant academic acheivement, analysing a vast amount of research material and thoughtfully synthesizing an objective viewpoint. Although "forces that promoted a world historical disaster are hard to view with scientific detachment", the author succeeds in "disengag[ing] this analysis as much as possible from political emotions and overt moralizing." The work does much to clarify and de! fine what is "probably the vaguest of contemporary political terms", rejecting overly simplistic and/or ideologically biased conceptions of fascism.Fascism: Comparison and Definition Overview

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