President Bush held another town hall meeting on Social Security on May 24th. One of the more interesting quotes from the President:
"See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda."
Perhaps not surprisingly, this comment was followed by polite applause from the audience (see this Daily Show segment on how town hall meetings are put together).
George Lakoff has been pointing out the "repeating things over and over" effect for quite some time now. The trouble is, this technique works with lies and distortions of the truth as well as it works with the truth.
The moral of the story: make sure you get your news from a variety of sources. If you rely exclusively on sources like Fox News, you may end up hearing the wrong thing over and over again.
Download an MP3 file of the quote in context here.
Read the full transcript of the conversation here.
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| Attachment | Size |
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| catapult_propaganda.mp3 | 77.29 KB |
| Greece-NY-A23962524.PDF | 148.52 KB |
FYI, posted the Bush quote in my "Public Diplomacy Press Review" (may 25) here.
best, john
Just came across a great quote on this topic:
"Repetition does not transform a lie into a truth." -- Franklin D. Roosevelt
I just got a message from someone at Nise Music who had composed a song called "Catapult the Propaganda." The song features the Bush clip above, along with several others from Bush, Cheney, et al.
Listen to it here.
I wonder who it is making the powerful "pack of lies" quote at the end of the song?
I have that quote on my Facebook. Unbelievable.