The public relations industry makes it living by lying to the Amercan people, or at least spinning money out of your wallet. The government specializes in public relations, too, fooling the public by manipulating the language. Whoever owns the language controls the policy. "One of the earliest definitions of PR was coined by Edward Bernays. According to him, "Public Relations is a management function which tabulates public attitudes, defines the policies, procedures and interest of an organization followed by executing a program of action to earn public understanding and acceptance."

After the Republicans took control of Congress in the 1990's, blowhard extraordinare Newt Gingrich became Speaker of the House and moved to manipulate the language even further. This memo shows how Gingrich trained Republican congressman to use positive words to describe their agenda and negative words to demonize the enemy. It's a funny memo, but it's not so funny when you realize that controlling the language affects public policy.

Modern spinning reached its apex in the 1940's when the Department of War became the Department of Defense. Then we invaded Vietnam without any provocation and killed a few million people.

WIth President Bush's popularity hovering somewhere near the toilet and the sewer, it was time for a new round of snow-jobbing. Some guy in the White House basement came up with the word "surge" to describe George W. Bush's plan to escalate troops in Iraq. You have to admire the public relations job here. Everyone is calling it a surge, not an escalation.

"Surge" sounds strong and determined. "Escalation" sounds like quagmire. Except that no one escalates into quicksand. We escalate into war. The public relations success story that surrounds Surge is discussed here. The media routinely describes the Bush plan as a Surge, not an escalation.

As Think Progress tells us:

The choice of words is not an academic point. A CBS poll released Monday found that only 18 percent of Americans support an escalation of forces in Iraq. However, when asked whether they support a “short-term troop increase,” the number jumps to 45 percent approval (48 percent disapproval).

Surge or escalation, call it what you will. It was said that the Best and the Brightest dragged us into the hellhole that was the Vietnam War. Now America's dumbest is doing the same in Iraq. According to IraqBodyCount.org, more than 50,000 Iraqis have died since George W. decided he wanted a war of his own. Another study, by the British medical journal Lancet, says the death toll is in the six figures. This reminds me of the best spin job of all: calling war deaths "collateral damage." "Hello, Mrs. Jones? This is Sgt. Smith from the United States Military. Your son Charles was the victim of collateral damage. The funeral is Monday."