Tag: Propaganda

“A lasting tribute to meticulous journalism” (The Hidden History of the Korean War: New Edition reviewed in ‘Asian Affairs’)

February 20, 2024

Stone, as always working from open-source materials, condemned the continuation of the bombing of the north even though there were no viable military targets left…These days, the Stone’s ‘Hidden History,’ while still viewed with hostility in certain quarters, is regarded as one of his best works. But given that it appeared long before the archives were open and while the conflict in Korea continued, is there merit in republishing it? The answer is yes. Stone may not have got everything right, and occasionally lapses into conspiracy theories, but his broad picture was accurate enough at the time and remains so. It is a lasting tribute to meticulous journalism.

Parallels between the old Cold War in the Pacific and the new… (The Hidden History of the Korean War reviewed in ‘Socialist China’)

February 20, 2024

Peace was very much an option…Reading Izzy Stone’s reporting today, it’s striking the extent to which these mechanisms of Cold War still exist and are being used to wage a New Cold War. The military bases, the troop deployments, the nuclear threats that aimed to contain socialism and prevent the emergence of a multipolar world in the 1950s continue to serve the same purposes in 2023.

Novel as biography (Radek reviewed in ‘Against the Current’)

February 20, 2024

In his 1995 novel Radek, published in English translation for the first time last year by Monthly Review Press, Stefan Heym portrays Karl Radek as not only a man of the world but a perpetual outsider — a socially awkward contrarian with stereotypically Jewish features, thick glasses and a big mouth. In this, Heym likely saw in Karl Radek something of a kindred spirit.

Listen: “Ending the Myth” podcast (Co-author of Dissenting POWs interviewed on ‘Mechanical Freak’)

Listen: “Ending the Myth” podcast (Co-author of Dissenting POWs interviewed on ‘Mechanical Freak’)

February 20, 2024

The podcast Mechanical Freak, recently welcomed esteemed sociologist Jerry Lembcke to talk about how the memory of the Vietnam War was both recreated and used in the 1980s and 1990s to unify public sentiment against the liberatory movements of the 1960s. Lembcke reminded the audience that even in the creation of memory, there is a political struggle for the future that needs to be waged.

Dispelling folkloric stories of “spitting” soldiers (from the co-author of Dissenting POWs)

February 20, 2024

There is no evidence that Vietnam veterans were spat on. Nor could they have been, at least not in the manner described in the most often told stories. Those stories tell of landing at San Francisco Airport and being met by groups of spitters, often hippies. But flights from Vietnam landed at military airbases like Travis outside San Francisco; protesters could not have gotten on the airbase, much less near deplaning troops.

“A skillful, researched warning against the blind acceptance of wartime propaganda” (The Hidden History of the Korean War to appear in ‘Foreword Reviews’)

February 20, 2024

The presentation is novelistic: there is a rising action as tensions build before the war begins. Once the conflict starts, there’s gripping escalation, then brief falling action as the war concludes. Questions posed throughout keep engagement high while also allowing time for contemplating new pieces of information. The result is illuminating…

NEW! Radek: A Novel, by Stefan Heym (EXCERPTS)

NEW! Radek: A Novel, by Stefan Heym (EXCERPTS)

February 20, 2024

…Stalin asked, “So you think my truth needs improvement?”
“The truth,” Radek replied, “can’t be improved. The truth is true, or it is not. But a line of evidence can gain a great deal by new and better evidence…”

No Factchecking for Right-Wing Migration Myths (David Wilson, in ‘Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting’)

No Factchecking for Right-Wing Migration Myths (David Wilson, in ‘Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting’)

February 20, 2024

Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy asked a bizarre question at President Joe Biden’s November 3 press briefing. The president seemed to misunderstand the question, which referred to potential settlements of a lawsuit stemming from the Trump administration’s notorious 2017–18 family separation policy. Biden bungled his response, apparently calling reports about the settlement “garbage.” Not surprisingly, the media ran with the story of Biden’s blunder. Doocy’s question, on the other hand, was mostly ignored or played down….

Sure to “inspire new directions in research and debate” (“Dissenting POWs” reviewed in H-Soz-Kult, H-NET)

Sure to “inspire new directions in research and debate” (“Dissenting POWs” reviewed in H-Soz-Kult, H-NET)

February 20, 2024

Without trivializing the hardships of often several years in jail, Wilber and Lembcke dissect personal accounts by former POWs. They point out contradictions, distinguish between physical punishment measures and deliberate violence, reconstruct different phases in the history of the prisons, and conclude that brutal treatment and torture were less common and systematic than purported.

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