Deceiving politics and manipulating governments.

[uss]

The topic of an essay I have to do is deceiving politics and manipulating governments. I'll have to write about that in school, the time given is 45 minutes. Actually, they gave us 2 x 45 minutes to do it, but the first lesson was last week, and I think I did so bad that I should start from scratch. Thus the reason why I came here to ask about it.

What should I write about? Last time I started with talking about how humans evolved and invented stuff and needed different governments, but now that I think about it, that's quite off-topic and silly.


I thought I should maybe start with WWII, about how the Nazis and Soviets used propaganda, then some about the propaganda in Russia today, and then some about Bush and how he mixes religion with politics and about the state of Iraq.

I'd greatly appreciate any ideas about anything else I should write about.

I came to ask about it here because the Current Events crowd is evidently into politics a lot.


Thanks in advance. [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Dirty Meg]

Originally posted by uss: I thought I should maybe start with WWII, about how the Nazis and Soviets used propaganda

Just the Nazis and the Soviets?

[dplax]

Originally posted by Dirty Meg: quote: Originally posted by uss: I thought I should maybe start with WWII, about how the Nazis and Soviets used propaganda

Just the Nazis and the Soviets? [/QUOTE]Not only them. Also everyone else who was in the war. It's just that the nazis and the soviets did it most.

About the essay: you could also talk about how the Soviet Union manipulated central- and eastern european politics during more than forty years after the war.

[Dirty Meg]

Both sides were just as dependent on propaganda. British newspapers from 1939-1945 were full of stories like 'German soldier rapes nun on table' (as if the table made it worse). Both sides launched campaigns of misinformation to attack the enemy.
It still happens today, with nonsense stories about Iraq's WMD, or Iraq's minister of information standing in front of ruined buildings, claiming the US forces were being driven back.

[shamrock_uk]

It would be much easier to suggest a structure if you could give us a question? Or did they just set you a general topic?

[dplax]

Originally posted by Dirty Meg: Both sides were just as dependent on propaganda. British newspapers from 1939-1945 were full of stories like 'German soldier rapes nun on table' (as if the table made it worse). Both sides launched campaigns of misinformation to attack the enemy. It still happens today, with nonsense stories about Iraq's WMD, or Iraq's minister of information standing in front of ruined buildings, claiming the US forces were being driven back.

Of course both sides were dependant on propaganda. What I was saying is that the Nazis and the Soviets were using it much more. When the germans occupied most of western Russia the Soviets told their people that it was a strategic move to draw back into the middle of the country, while in reality they were being beaten.

German propaganda told the german people that they were going to beat the allies in the Ardennes. Yet they did not.

IMO the "western" propaganda was on a much smaller scale and the lies told were also smaller.

[uss]

Originally posted by Dirty Meg: quote: Originally posted by uss: I thought I should maybe start with WWII, about how the Nazis and Soviets used propaganda

Just the Nazis and the Soviets? [/QUOTE]Good point. I did mean to say(write) that I'd write about the other side using propaganda also, I just thought no one would notice.

Originally posted by Dirty Meg: Both sides were just as dependent on propaganda. British newspapers from 1939-1945 were full of stories like 'German soldier rapes nun on table' (as if the table made it worse). Both sides launched campaigns of misinformation to attack the enemy. It still happens today, with nonsense stories about Iraq's WMD, or Iraq's minister of information standing in front of ruined buildings, claiming the US forces were being driven back.

I know what you mean. I remember an article in Estonian newspapers about Rumsfeld commending the performance of US soldiers in a bunker, which later turned out that didn't exist. I also heard from my history teacher that when a Czech historian recently claimed that the holocaust took the lives of less than 6 million jews, he lost his job instead. Pretty interesting stuff.

Originally posted by Dirty Meg: It would be much easier to suggest a structure if you could give us a question? Or did they just set you a general topic?

They just gave us a general topic. They actually gave us 5 different topics to choose from, but I thought that I'd take the only one that concerns politics, since politics don't interest my classmates. I'm not really quite sure, but since the topic is strongly tied to politics and the teacher said it was "probably the most difficult of the topics," I might be the only one who's taking this topic. Hope I can handle it though.

[Stratos]

You intend to write an essay on this topic in just 45 minutes? People write doctor's thesis' about these kind of things.

In any case, an analysis of an example might be a good idea, but 45 minutes...damn.

[Dreamer128]

If you're looking at present day, Ukraine may be an interesting example. Putin is doing everything he can to make sure his candidate wins the election.

[philip]

I think it's pretty easy to find examples. Just today I saw a piece by the Dutch government for a documentation assigment and it just left out all counterarguments like they're nothing. Every politician will want to make his view come through in the end so all of them are lying and manipulating stuff to look better.

Best thing is having a good example and then maybe link it to different situation in the past and present (especially if it's for history). Good luck!