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A Familiar Spin on Exposing the Sins of War Propaganda
Press Action
Saturday, July 16, 2005
http://www.pressaction.com/news/weblog/full_article/solomon07162005/

The more books published that expose the culpability of the U.S. political duopoly in committing war crimes the better off we’ll be. Norman Solomon’s “War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death” certainly falls into this category, and he should be congratulated for writing this important book.

Solomon in fact follows very closely the model established by Mickey Z. in his 2004 book “The Seven Deadly Spins: Exposing the Lies Behind War Propaganda.” Instead of seven spins, Solomon explores 17 spins.

Here are the titles to Mickey Z.’s seven chapters:

• The Sleeping Giant
• Good Wars
• U.S. vs. Them
• Support the Troops
• The Devil Made U.S. Do It
• Surgical Strikes
• Only Losers Commit War Crimes

Here are the titles to Solomon’s 17 chapters:

• America Is a Fair and Noble Superpower
• Our Leaders Will Do Everything They Can to Avoid War
• Our Leaders Would Never Tell Us Outright Lies
• This Guy Is a Modern Day Hitler
• This Is about Human Rights
• This Is Not at All about Oil or Corporate Profits
• They Are the Aggressors, Not Us
• If This War Is Wrong, Congress Will Stop It
• If This War Is Wrong, the Media Will Tell Us
• Media Coverage Brings War into Our Living Rooms
• Opposing the War Means Siding with the Enemy
• This Is a Necessary Battle in the War on Terrorism
• What he U.S. Government Needs Most Is Better PR
• The Pentagon Fights Wars as Humanely as Possible
• Our Soldiers Are Heroes, Theirs Are Inhuman
• America Needs the Resolve to Kick the ‘Vietnam Syndrome’
• Withdrawal Would Cripple U.S. Credibility

Solomon obviously brings some new insight about U.S. war propaganda to his book. But doesn’t it seem he should at least acknowledge the previous work that Mickey Z. did on this topic? Take a look at the chapters above and notice the similarities.

But like I said, it’s best to have as many books that dissect U.S. war propaganda in circulation as possible. Solomon’s book will obviously have a wider readership because it’s published by John Wiley & Sons, which has a much bigger promotional and distribution budget than Mickey Z.’s Common Courage Press. I found Solomon’s book at my local library but couldn’t find Mickey’s. If Solomon makes any money off this book, maybe he should consider sharing a portion with Mickey.