http://www.amazon.com/Age-Anxiety-McCarthyism-Terrorism/dp/0151010625/ref=ed_oe_h/105-5474947-8469261?ie=UTF8&qid=1179944117&sr=8-1

The Age of Anxiety: McCarthyism to Terrorism

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Pulitzer-winning journalist Johnson (The Best of Times) offers an engrossing account of the career of red-baiting demagogue Joseph McCarthy and a chilling description of his legacy for today. The focus is on the disturbing questions raised by McCarthyism: how could a little-known freshman senator, driven by Cold War paranoia, quickly amass the power to intimidate senior colleagues, bully the media, terrorize innocent citizens and even threaten two respected presidents? Why did fellow Republicans not reject his sleazy, dishonest tactics when they were personally revolted by them? Most urgently, are we seeing the birth of a new "age of anxiety," in which terrorism replaces communism as the bogeyman? Johnson's answer is clearly yes. He traces the current climate in Washington directly to the 1950s: "McCarthyism was a major factor in the rise of the radical Right and the polarization that plagues American life, pitting group against group and region against region, sowing cynicism and distrust, and manipulating public opinion through fear and smear." He reviews recent events, including the use of the Patriot Act to stifle dissent, the abuse and detention of thousands of American Muslims guilty of no crime, and politicians' readiness to impugn the patriotism of opponents without evidence. Johnson's own critique is not ideological; rather, his most important argument may be that ideological polarization continues to prevent us from rationally assessing and dealing with real threats.

The first link pulls up a Wikipedia entry which points out that RAF had the lead role in the bombing campaign. But regardless, I did not say that the US was strict, I said it was stricter than the British when it came to bombing targets in Germany. Certainly the US was less restrained in Japan.

"All nationalists have the power of not seeing resemblances between similar sets of facts. A British Tory will defend self-determination in Europe and oppose it in India with no feeling of inconsistency. Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits, but according to who does them, and there is almost no kind of outrage — torture, the use of hostages, forced labour, mass deportations, imprisonment without trial, forgery, assassination, the bombing of civilians — which does not change its moral colour when it is committed by ‘our’ side ... The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them." - Orwell, Notes on Nationalism

http://orwell.ru/library/essays/nationalism/english/e_nat

Is our version of "you can't make an omellete without breaking a few eggs" a phrase that Doremus Jessup found was usually used in the context of rationalizing brownshirted thugs committing acts of violence.

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/05/23/falwell-memorial/

Also speaking was Rep. Virgil Goode (R-VA), who notoriously warned “American citizens” to “wake up” or “there will likely be many more Muslims elected to office.”

With liberty and justice for all ... except you ragheads. Amen. We miss you already Rev. Falwell.

Vietnam was one of the central focuses for Chomsky and Herman in Manufacturing Consent, published 20 years ago. In it they document all the stuff that Sysprog pointed out in the comment linked in the update. There's been plenty of discussion recently about the propaganda model proposed by Herman and Chomsky in light of the anniversay, but the best discussion so far has been Sheldon Rampton's essay "Has the Internet changed the Propaganda Model?"

http://www.prwatch.org/node/6068

Rampton is one of the founders of the Center for Media and Democracy, which is the premier site on the internet for documenting propaganda and its subversive effects on democracy. Rampton and his co-author Stauber have been way ahead of the curve in detailing the manner in which the Bush administration has used propaganda and p.r. firms to manipulate and manufacture public opinion.

There's also the following essay from Danny Schecter in which he similarly reflects on the propaganda model, observing that the press's greatest crime is not so much what it reports, but what it does not report, which leads him to suggest an updated version of the book might be appropriately titled "Manufacturing Indifference."

http://www.mediachannel.org/wordpress/2007/05/18/searching-for-the-new-%e2%80%98propaganda-model%e2%80%99/

It is likely that the reason why the claims of the Iraq war cheerleaders have fallen on such deaf ears among huge swaths of Americans is because so many of them have heard it all before and are not going to fall for the deceit a second time.

Sure, now they won't fall for it. But memory and truth are fragile things. Andrew Bacevitch observed in The New American Militarism that it took national collective amnesia for the United States to invade Iraq in 2003. America had forgot not only the recent past of the region, but the lessons of Vietnam.

The noise machine played a significant role in destroying those memories. The noise machine is an assult on truth, reason, and reality.

If something significant doesn't change in this country ... in the way the press functions and is structured, the same mistakes will happen again.