Page 130 - Dragon Flood

audience is able to feel self-righteous indignation toward the enemy, and, at some level,
identify with the perpetrators of the crimes. "A young woman, ravished by the enemy,"
he wrote "yields secret satisfaction to a host of vicarious ravishers on the other side of the
border..."

CPI Poster

Emotional appeals and simplistic caricatures of the enemy influenced many Americans,
but the CPI recognized that certain social groups had more complex propaganda needs.
In order to reach intellectuals and pacifists, the CPI claimed that military intervention
would bring about a democratic League of Nations and end warfare forever. With other
social groups, the CPI modified its arguments, and interpreted the war as "a conflict to
destroy the threat of German industrial competition (business group), to protect the
American standard of living (labor), to remove certain baneful German influences in our
education (teachers), to destroy German music - itself a subtle propaganda (musicians),
to preserve civilization, 'we' and `civilization' being synonymous (nationalists), to make
the world safe for democracy, crush militarism, [and] establish the rights of small nations
et al. (religious and idealistic groups)..."

Finally, like most propagandists, the CPI was frequently dishonest. Despite George Creel's
claim that the CPI strived for unflinching accuracy, many of his employees later admitted
that they were quite willing to lie. Will Irwin, an ex-CPI member who published several
confessional pieces after the war, felt that the CPI was more honest than other
propaganda ministries, but made it clear that "we never told the whole truth - not by any
manner of means." Citing an intelligence officer who bluntly said "you can't tell them the
truth," G.S Viereck argued that, as on all fronts, victories were routinely manufactured
by American military authorities. The professional propagandist realizes that, when a
single lie is exposed, the entire campaign is jeopardized. Dishonesty is discouraged, but
on strategic, not moral, grounds.
[Source: http://www.propagandacritic.com/articles/ww1.demons.html]

It should be obvious to perceptive Christians that the government is operating by Satanic
principles when it creates an agency to mold public opinion through the deliberate use of