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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: jttmab who wrote (162306)	5/21/2005 1:50:01 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Mai Lai was not the normal every day behavior of our soldiers in Vietnam. It wasn't SOP either officially, or as some unofficial behavior that was accepted as normal even if it was against the rules. The best propaganda always has a bit of truth to it. Some of it is truth, at least in the sense of being "nothing but the truth", even if its not likely to be "the whole truth". Selective presentation of facts, every one of which is 100% true, or at worst possibly true, is a common propaganda tactic. You seem to be neutral on propaganda, i.e., simply words or images used to persuade. That is what propaganda means. Yet, I don't think that you'll find anyone who wishes to persuade ever introduce their argument by referring to it as propaganda. Two reasons for that. One if your trying to persuade you don't often want to start our with "I am going to persuade you", and two many of the more notorious examples of propaganda were dishonest, and were even outright lies in the service of unquestionable evil. So people associate propaganda with lies or even evil regimes even though that is not part of its definition. Tim