Rating: 
Summary: Of Course, These Essays Have Agendas, Too
Review: "You Are Being Lied To" is a conspiracy theorists dream come true, and an interesting cross-section of modern American progressive thought. Featuring essays by Noam Chomsky, David McGowan, and others, YABLT offers a mix of the intellectual and the borderline loony, and although most essays are well-cited, some of them rely on the same kinds of information manipulation this book is supposed to debunk.There are several essays on how the media is and has been used as a tool to control information. There isn't much here new for anyone with a passing knowledge of Brave New World, and most of what is here is a repeat of Neal Postman's "Amusing Ourselves to Death." There is an essay on the Bush family's connection to the Nazis (although it should be noted that there is a much better essay on the connection of American BUSINESS to fascist Europe) and Gore's awful environmental record. Drugs are demystified, the Drug Wars bemoaned, the OKC bombing analyzed, Jesus questioned, and Columbus bashed. All in all, a good helping of far leftist thought. The book's fault is that many of the essays, as previously mentioned, ignore large logical holes and other pertinent information to make their point. The Jesus essay is insipid, more the stuff of a whiner than a real Biblical or religious scholar; the OKC essay blatantly ignores several facts in favor of hyperbole; and the Columbus essay has been done before. Of note are the "Apt Pupils" article, an excellent piece on the alienation of those who do not conform to antiquated ideas of normalcy in the American school system. Also of note is "Who's Who in Hell," an excellent list of the different humanists/atheists/agnostics/Unitarians and non-Christians who have made an impact in both European and American history. There's enough good stuff here to justify a purchase, but it's a buyer-beware scenario. One must not let his or her research end with this book - it's a starting point, not a finishing point for many of the issues discussed here. Don't think that just because some of these conspiracy theorists are bucking the mainstream ideas of events and concepts means that they are automatically correct; some of the bibliographies couldn't stand up to serious scientific or scholarly scrutiny, although many can. Also watch for logical flaws, because they abound. If you are interested in this book, by all means check out "From the Smoking Gun" and Postman's great "Amusing Ourselves to Death." Grade: C+
Rating: 
Summary: Question Authority!
Review: Disinfo is one of the best resources available when it comes to alternative views of everything from the mass media to the nature of reality itself. Though some of the articles contain rather speculative statements and opinions, I found this book to contain many enlightening insights into how and why the authorities of certain institutions lie to the public. As a result of buying this book, readers may find themselves digging deeper than the mass-consensus for a long time. This is healthy and comendable, for you have every reason to be paranoid about the govt, corporate america and the mass media. This book does a wonderful job of proving that your paranoia is justified. By the way, I am almost sure that "alex burns" (two or three reviews below this one) wrote one of the articles for this book. "you are being manipulated". Just thought I should point it out.
Rating: 
Summary: Scoop Agenda
Review: It's quite obvious that the first review had it right. People, media, and concerned citizen's revelatory rants are just someone's elses loser and dashed hopes consist in the pegorative slant. Sometimes these nutwings get right.
Rating: 
Summary: articles that peel back layers of "mind"
Review: Like its counterpart, Everything You Know Is Wrong: a stunningly entertaining book filled with articles designed to awaken you from your intellectual slumber induced by the evil "conservative media" and turn you into more of an educated consumer of news. There is good diversity among the articles but all seem concerned with putting things right by exposing the litany of hypocrisies polluting our brains. If you enjoy getting to the heart of controversial matters, then this enlightening - not to mention large and nicely designed -
resource will surely satisy. Makes for a nice companion book to Kingdom of Fear and TSOG, by Thompson and Wilson respectively. OPEN YOUR MIND & JUST SAY KNOW!
Rating:
Summary: Stellar Guide to Escaping the 21st Century Consensus Trance
Review: Spearheaded by editor Russ Kick, this massive volume skewers the most "sacred cows" since Adam Parfrey foresaw the Apocalypse Culture. Whatever your belief system, worldview, political or religious affiliation, there will be something here that probably both offends and inspires you. Filled with some heavy thinking, from Noam Chomsky and Howard Bloom to Riane Eisler, Douglas Rushkoff and Peter Russell, but always in an accessible style (and with helpful footnotes, references, and a further reading list), the material ranges from media studies and alternative politics to science, history, environmental and feminist thought, magick, psychology and more. The book also collects together countercultural and conspiratorial explorations by key writers, including Richard Metzger, RU Sirius, Kenn Thomas, Preston Peet, Nick Mamatas, Robert Sterling, Cletus Nelson, Mickey Z, David McGowan, and myself. You may not agree with everything here, but after browsing through You Are Being Lied To, you'll "know" that the cosmos is a stranger place than you previously imagined it to be.
Rating:
Summary: more ugly than you wish
Review: That corporate media frequently misrepresent and distort facts is a well known phenomenon. Mainstream media serve the interests of the elite and censor stories which might have a harmful effect on the government. The principal objective of the mass media is to marginalize dissent; this is done by employing selective reporting. Chomsky's elaborate analysis of the mainstream media divulges the spectacular achievements of propaganda, the most important of which is to gain support for the government's military incursions. This book puports to account for media distortion, historical whitewashes and cultural myths. Thinking that this book would provide honest and unbiased answers I was utterly disappointed. Having said that, I am not implying that this book is worthless. There are highly respected and eminent contributors, some of which are Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn and Ali Abuniham. Nonetheless there are also "experts" (most notably Christian and Michael Parenti and Howard Bloom) who distort and misrepresent facts. Given that their objective is to expose lies and tell us the truth, it is an irony that they were included in this book. Just a few examples to illustrate the point. Christian and Michael Parenti assert that the Serbs were the victims of the war in Kosovo and not the aggressors. This assertion is extremely preposterous and completely unfounded. The whole world knows that the Serbs had attempted to create a "Greater Serbia", in which there would be no place for non-Serbs. This is what drove Serbs to attack Croatia, Bosnia and ultimately Kosovo. As far as I recall, the neighbouring countries did not attack nor attempt to invade Serbia. In light of this fact, how can the brothers Parenti protect war criminals like Milosevic, Karadzic and Mladic and downplay their gruesome atrocities? It is beyond my comprehension. The wars in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo were not civil wars as the brothers Parenti so ardently suggest but genocides perpetrated by the Serbs. This is extremely well documented and has been corroborated by numerous renowned journalists, some of which are David Rohde and David Reiff. The brothers Parenti seem to have forgotten the unfathomable massacre of Muslims in Srebrenica, a massacre which was carried out by Ratko Mladic and his paramilitary factions from Serbia. Approximately 10,000 Muslims were killed in one of the worst massacres in Europe after the World War II. Howard Bloom holds in his analysis that the Palestinians are not the victims of the Israeli occupation; according to Bloom the Palestinians are not oppressed. Paradoxically, Bloom makes no mention of the 22-year long Israeli occupation of Southern Lebanon. Thus, their analyses are biased and distorted as they blame the victims and exculpate the aggressors. This is indicative of spurious scholarship and poor journalism. Consequently, this book does not live up to its title, namely to expose lies and rectify them. Alternative media is for the most part much more reliable and accurate than mainstream media but the examples above strongly indicate that that is not always the case. Beware, there is plenty of sophisticated propaganda even in places where you least expect it to be.
Rating:
Summary: this is not journalism
Review: This book is a collection of articles on a variety of topics, giving the reader a glimpse of dissident views and evidence that contradict official and established notions on a variety of topics. The quality of the articles varies, as some researchers and journalists examine their issue more thoroughly than others. Once you recognize you are being lied to, you next must wonder how accurate any "alternative" theory is. Research these topics in more detail, as the articles in this text only give a partial or distorted picture of the realities they propose to examine. Disinfo has done a great service of providing a forum for suppressed information and views, and this book provides a good variety of articles to introduce readers to some thought-provoking ideas.
Rating:
Summary: A Must Read
Review: This book is an excellent primer for teaching readers or viewers of any media the tools of critical thinking and is filled with contributions by such distinguished writers as Noam Chomsky and Richard Metzger. Although the book is filled with much interesting factual data, Russ Kick (the editor) in his introduction notes that it is much easier to tear down the sacred cows of society than it is to replace them with the absolute truth. For example, Howard Bloom in his second article falls into the very same trap regarding media reporting that he is trying to warn people against with a rather biased, misleading and one-sided presentation of the situation in the Middle-East. Despite the fact that what Bloom does choose to convey is truthful, what he omits is damning, and he is in complete error in suggesting that the overall perception created of Arabs by the media is that of the victim when in reality, with the exception of works by such writers as Chomsky and Fisk that have been the subject of negative campaigns, Arabs have been represented throughout media history as terrorists. And sometimes the authors admittedly only raise questions about beliefs without really disputing them (as in the article Is Jesus A Myth? which fails to really refute evidence of the historical figure). However, the vast majority of this book is well researched and supported, and serves a useful purpose even when it is only raising questions instead of presenting answers by fighting against the supression of truth. Thus while the article on evolution does not present a new and more accurate theory, it does show scientists as the frauds they are in supressing findings that raise questions about our current understanding of evolution instead of trying to reconcile the apparently harmful data in order to come up with a better understanding of the process as per proper scientific method. The first article, by Howard Bloom, is an excellent summary of social psychology studies regarding the forces of conformity and how they can blind people from even obvious, indisputable truths (I got to personally witness recreations of some of these experiments as a psychology student). The second section of articles then shows how the media can and does, both deliberately (through purposeful disinformation) and through error (usually from laziness, incomplete reporting or lack of knowledge by the reporter on the subject matter), misreport the truth. One example is the FBI citing a humour article warning of a number of made-up computer viruses (e.g. the Clinton virus, which destroys itself when it can't decide which of two files to infect) as if it were about real viruses, and said FBI report then being used as source material in newspaper and university articles exaggerating the threat of computer viruses, and by computer security companies with a financial interest in exaggerating the problem. Following this series of articles illustrating how common misconceptions can arise both innocently and more insidiously, are chapters dealing with more specific instances of disinformation and misinformation and attacks on common misconceptions. This is one of the best books of this nature I have ever read. Must reading.
Rating:
Summary: blistering when compared to what usually filters through
Review: Uneven? Yes. Thought-provoking? Definitely.
Ishmael Reed quipped something to the effect of "history chronicles the effects of secret societies at war", and these articles / vitrols / essays make you believe it. In short order, the book takes revealing looks at Jesus, AA, and Presidents both shot and living, past & present.
Some facts, like blatant story doctoring by news agencies, can be seen by even an untrained eye (read Yahoo News long enough or, better yet, take the same hot story and see how it was written up by rival news agencies).
Consider each piece carefully for what it says, how it is said, and who says it; then again, shouldn't you be doing this already??!?
This book has caused me to think and smoke a packful of cigs since it was passed to me; ironically, a recent news article claims smoking hinders thinking. In this case, good. I needed every drag of each cancer stick. Anything to take the edge off.
Co-workers heckled me for taking it home; yet, the same co-workers flipped through it most readily when I left it on my desk. Is it worth the money? "Yes" - if only to force a reexamination of what you hold dear. The books provokes by virtue of running counter to the info you are fed, so don't expect to like it. Or put it down.
Rating:
Summary: Disinformation dissolves consensus reality
Review: You Are Being Lied To, the first volume from alternative media company, Disinformation, goes to great lengths to prove exactly what its title spells out. Editor, Russ Kick amassed more than sixty articles, columns and interviews, connected solely by an opposition to some widely accepted perception. Alternative journalists share space with Pulitzer-winners, national experts with grumbling dissenters and dissident giants such Chomsky and Zinn with relative upstarts. The only standard for inclusion seems to be a new perspective or a thick folder of quieted information. At its best, You Are Being Lied To, is profoundly eye-opening. Veteran investigative journalist, Sydney Schanberg???s review of John McCain???s questionable attempts to keep secret information on POWs (including McCain himself) will surely alter views on the man who ran the "Straight Talk Express." An article by Patrick Moore, a founding member of Green Peace, unmasks the sensationalism and senselessness found in today's environmental movement. An excerpt from a work by turn-of-the century, religious dissenter, MM Mangasarian, outlines a credible argument against the historicalness of Jesus. A fact sheet complied by drug policy commentator, Paul Armentano catches US drug czars telling blatant lies. And a catalog of missing evidence in some of the most important scandals in US history, collected by conspiracy theorist, Jim Marrs, is downright frightening. You Are Being Lied To occasionally sways from its course, though. Kick sometimes mistakes an unpopular opinion with an uncovered truth. Meta-physicist, Peter Russell???s redefinition of consciousness and sex columnist, David Steinberg's perspective on the photographing of undressed children are interesting but hardly uncover any secrets. Another flaw is the inclusion of articles that merely advertise the alternative press. Examples include interviews with myth-buster, Phillip Jenkins, explaining his methods and paleopsychologist, Howard Bloom in which the interviewer candidly christens Bloom the next revolutionary thinker. Articles in which alternative writers toast one another take away from the book's sense of nonpartisanship. Surely some of its parts are unnecessary, but as a whole, You Are Being Lied accomplishes its task. It presents enough solid evidence, concerning interest group sensationalism, historical inaccuracies, media distortions and government conspiracies to convince you that yes, you are being lied to. In fact, you are being lied to at every moment and from every direction.
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