You Are Being Lied To
The Disinformation Guide to Media Distortion,
Historical Whitewashes and Cultural Myths

edited by Russ Kick
published by Disinformation Books
400 pp * ISBN 0966410076

Reviews:

· Publishers Weekly "Book of the Day" for 31 October 2001.
· BookSense 76 pick for November/December 2001.
· Quality Paperback Book Club selection

"One of our bestsellers." (Martin Quinn, buyer for all Virgin Megastores in the US.)

Heading: Lies! Lies! Lies!
Source: Impact Weekly (Dayton, OH), April 19-25, 2001
Reviewer: Melissa Fowler-Presock

For some of the most fascinating reading you'll find this year - or even this millennium - ... order this gem.

This review is a lie. Or maybe it's a half-truth. Truth is, after reading You Are Being Lied To--a dissection of hot-button issues as digested by today's media from a host of relevant, cutting-edge economists, social analysts and yes, media themselves--it's hard to know what to believe anymore.

Published by Disinformation, an online resources dedicated to "be the search service of choice for individuals looking for information on current affairs, politics, new science, and the 'hidden information,' that seldom seems to slip through the cracks of the corporate-owned media conglomerates," You Are Being Lied To's essays touch on everything from how the mainstream media is controlled by the U.S. military and corporate interests (duh) to common misconceptions about the Oklahoma City bombing and Columbine tragedies.

The great thing about these pieces is they're chewy. The book contains plenty of fully researched, in-depth articles that question personal beliefs about various issues. "Why Does the Associated Press Change Its Articles?" by editor Russ Kick explores how the news wire service has often softened the language of later versions of stories on controversial subjects such as the Waco bombing. [Note from Disinformation Books: Although Waco is covered in YABLT, it isn't mentioned in Russ' article on the Associated Press.] "The Female Hard-on" by Tristan Taormino explores the billion-dollar male-focused drug industry that has brought us Viagra but done little to nothing to advance studies of female sexuality and arousal. One of the most noteworthy and thought-provoking essays is "Don't Blame Your Parents," an interview with Judith Rich Harris, a former author of psychology textbooks on child development. Without a Ph.D. tacked to the end of her name, Harris has brought forth one of the most singularly fascinating concepts today: Despite the longstanding "nature vs. nurture" theory, Harris theorizes a child's development has little to do with parental involvement and everything to do with peer relations. In her book The Nurture Assumption: Why Children Turn Out The Way They Do, Harris discusses how children learn to behave differently in their respective environments (parental and peer) and how peer socialization is an overwhelming factor in how a child develops into the adult he/she eventually becomes.

You Are Being Lied To is overwhelmingly liberal, through no fault of the editor: Kick notes in the beginning how plans to work with several leading right-wing theorists and authors fell through after they decided not to participate or completely cut off contact.

However, the absence of conservative views doesn't hinder this collection, which has enough suspicion of the government, mistrust of big corporations and commonly-held conceptions, and roundups of conspiracy theories to make any doubter realize this isn't about left-wing or right-wing: It's about what they're not telling you and why.

Unfortunately, there isn't room to expound on the essays about Columbine and Waco coverups, why the "Bible Code" can also be used on great works of fiction or why Nutra-Sweet is a dangerous nutra-sham.

For some of the most fascinating reading you'll find this year--or even this millennium--log on to disinformation.com to order this gem.

Heading: You Are Being Lied To
Source: Baltimore City Paper (Baltimore, MD), April 25-May 1, 2001
Reviewer: Justin Hampton

At their best, they strike a mighty blow against the ignorance fostered by the dominant culture.

By now, most literate or even semiliterate citizens of the United States and elsewhere know the system doesn't work for them; it works for heads of state and giant multinational corporations. But since the mainstream media tends to rest squarely in the side pocket of these groups, one has to make a full-time job of proving the dominant paradigm wrong. That's where the counterculture Web portal Disinformation (www.disinfo.com) comes in, all ready and set to sell whoever will listen the not-so-surprising revelation that You Are Being Lied To, about a great many things.

Some of the essays in this collection--penned by such intelligentsia celebrities as Noam Chomsky, Jim Hogshire, and Thomas Lyttle--occasionally contradict each other and trumpet the sizable egos of their authors. But they also pose a healthy challenge to the reader's perception of the outside world. At their best, they strike a mighty blow against the ignorance fostered by the dominant culture.

The collection excels with its political-science and media critiques. Chomsky sets the tone for many of the essays with a brief outline of his theories on mainstream media. Subsequent exposés such as Michael Parenti's "The Media and Their Atrocities" follow Chomsky's tactics for deconstructing popularly reported news items--in this case, the Kosovo crisis--almost to the letter. Such formulaic writing made this reader thankful for Sidney Schanberg's "The War Secrets Senator John McCain Hides," an excellent piece of investigative reporting that shows how the federal government, and McCain, have more information about POWs and MIAs than has been shown to their families.

Other sections of this book, such as the one about religion, "Holy Rolling," don't work as well, thanks in part to shorter and less-complete condensations of their topics. In such segments, the collection loses its coherency and, at the awkward moments where the essayists take the time to plug their books (presumably available on the Disinformation site), its legitimacy.

But this should not dissuade readers from taking in the message of hope delivered by Jim Hogshire, who in "Poppycock" transforms the prohibition of the opium poppy into a profound metaphor for foolish, utterly brutal tyranny. (Hogshire speaks of the efficacy of a single shot of morphine and determines that "the power to relieve pain is greater than the power to inflict pain.") Nor does it weaken Howard Zinn's "Columbus and Western Civilization," which brilliantly analyzes why children are taught to see Christopher Columbus' brutal colonization of the Americas as heroic. As difficult as it may be to arrive at the truth, all of these authors believe it can still set us free. And from there we can draw our own conclusions.

Heading: You Are Being Lied To
Source: Midwest Book Review: Internet Bookwatch (Oregon, WI), May 2001
Reviewer: Diane C. Donovan

This amazing, candid, and documented compilation of essays offer a number of experts on a vast spectrum of issues . . .

You Are Being Lied To: The Disinformation Guide To Media Distortion, Historical Whitewashes And Cultural Myths is an iconoclastic, 399-page expose of some of our most cherished cultural, political, social, and institutionally cherished errors of fact. Here revealed is the often times startling truth about our most commonly held mistaken beliefs ranging from errors of science (the "Big Bang" is not an airtight fact); to religion (there is no hidden code in the Bible); to national security (hackers do not pose a grave threat to the nation and most terrorists are not Middle Eastern); to medicine (Alcoholics Anonymous is far from being as effective as popular opinion supposes); to the environment (thousands of species have not become extinct because of deforestation). This amazing, candid, and documented compilation of essays offer a number of experts on a vast spectrum of issues ranging from Noam Chomsky on news as propaganda and media as big business to Greenpeace cofounder Patrick Moore on environmental myths. You Are Being Lied To is enthusiastically recommended reading for students of history, politics, popular culture, media, education, science, environmental studies, and virtually all the major social issues of the day.

Heading: The Art of the Blurb
Source: San Francisco Bay Guardian (San Francisco, CA), March 28, 2001
Reviewer: The Editors

Put this on your bookshelf next to Jim Redden's brand-new Snitch Culture (from the fanged folks at Feral House).

Amid all this hand-wringing, Flapdoodle has some actual good news. A beautiful new coffee-table book has come out from Disinformation: a compendium of anarchic, crazed, and politically radical writing called You Are Being Lied To: The Disinformation Guide to Media Distortion, Historical Whitewashes and Cultural Myths. Put this on your bookshelf next to Jim Redden's brand-new Snitch Culture (from the fanged folks at Feral House), a paranoid schizophrenic's useful guide to the new surveillance state. It's good to be angry and fearful, especially when the rolling blackouts hit.

Heading: You Are Being Lied To
Source: Philadelphia Weekly (Philadeplhia, PA), April 11, 2001
Reviewer: Bethany Klein

The writing is penetrating, uncompromising and pretty convincing--though the clear lesson to take away from the book is to approach all "facts" with a discerning eye, not open arms.

Presented by the New York-based Disinformation Company, You Are Being Lied To bills itself as "the Disinformation Guide to Media Distortion, Historical Whitewashes and Cultural Myths." As a reference, this book attempts to cover a wide range of issues, from questionable journalistic practices to myths about drugs. In an effort to avoid the same sort of narrow reporting the mainstream media passes off as news coverage, editor Russ Kick sought conservative writers as well as the expected leftists. Not surprisingly, right-wingers didn't jump at the solicitation and their politics remain for the most part absent. However, the roster of contributors does manage to reflect diversity of thought with other distinctions.

Whereas most collections adopt a staunchly academic approach or a decidedly laic one, You Are Being Lied To mixes and matches within each of the book's sub-categories. As a whole, the academic essays, replete with footnotes and sources, make for far more successful arguments, if not the easiest reading.

Displaying a scholastic methodology, David McGowan's analysis of the disparate news reports for the Columbine shooting uses a traditional research paper structure to suggest the possibility of other people's involvement and bigger agendas at work. On the other hand, Tristan Taormino's "The Female Hard-On," a two-page hodgepodge of issues in female sexuality, seems embarrassingly inappropriate for such an ambitious collection.

The majority of essays live up to what we might expect from familiar figures such as media critic Douglas Rushkoff, linguist Noam Chomsky and journalist Gary Webb. The writing is penetrating, uncompromising and pretty convincing--though the clear lesson to take away from the book is to approach all "facts" with a discerning eye, not open arms.

Heading: You Are Being Lied To
Source: SXSW Daily Tech Report (Austin, TX), May 1, 2001
Reviewer: The Editors

A collection of articles that are sure to offend as well as inspire.

You Are Being Lied To: The Disinformation Guide to Media Distortion, Historical Whitewashes & Cultural Myths is the latest cure for your brainwashed mind from the folks at Disinformation.com. A collection of articles that are sure to offend as well as inspire, You Are Being Lied To uncovers the hidden truths and lies that slipped through the cracks. Read it and get paranoid.

Heading: You Are Being Lied To
Source: Seminary Co-op Bookstore (Chicago, IL), May 2001
Reviewer: The Editors

You will be challenged, surprised, and angered.

You are Being Lied To does not hold back any punches. The articles in this collection expose the manipulations and omissions of politicians and the mainstream media. The contributors to You Are Being Lied To, including academics, investigative reporters, political dissidents, and philosophers, offer a sharp rebuke to the status quo and challenge conventional wisdom about a range of issues. Though you might not always find yourself in agreement with the articles you will be challenged, surprised, and angered by the underexposed and even suppressed ideas and issues the contributors raise. Contents include: Noam Chomsky on news propaganda and media big business, Sydney Schanberg on John McCain's efforts to conceal information on POW/MIAs, Howard Zinn on Columbus, Michael Parenti on Western media coverage of Kosovo, and essays on the myths about drugs and addiction, religion, and science.

Heading: You Are Being Lied To
Source: City Lights Bookstore (San Francisco, CA), May 2001
Reviewer: Jeff

An unprecedented group of researchers . . . paint a picture of a world where crucial stories are ignored or actively suppressed.

An unprecedented group of researchers-- investigative reporters, political dissidents, academics, media watchdogs, scientist-philosophers, social critics and rogue scholars-- paint a picture of a world where crucial stories are ignored or actively suppressed and the official version of events has more holes in it than Swiss cheese. Includes pieces by Chomsky, Parenti, Zinn, Howard Bloom, and others.
$19.95
Picked by Jeff

Heading: You Are Being Lied To
Source: The Onion AV Club (New York City, NY), May 2001
Reviewer: Nathan Rabin

Sacrificing depth for breadth, the book addresses a staggeringly broad array of topics, covering everything from the nefarious corporate media to childhood-development theories to the CIA, whose members pop up at an alarming rate.

A conspiracy-minded book that more than lives up to the bold provocation of its title, Disinformation's You Are Being Lied To collects a series of essays by cranks, conspiracy theorists, investigative reporters, and superstar academics dedicated to asking difficult questions and overturning conventional wisdom. From ancient history to Columbus' voyage to the Columbine massacre, the muckrakers here find lies, conspiracies, and deceptions lurking behind seemingly every event in the history of mankind. Sacrificing depth for breadth, the book addresses a staggeringly broad array of topics, covering everything from the nefarious corporate media to childhood-development theories to the CIA, whose members pop up at an alarming rate. As editor Russ Kick notes early on, most of the book's contributors fall on the leftist side of the political divide, but any collection that attacks the PLO, feminism, radical environmentalists, and the gun-control lobby can't be accused of hewing too closely to orthodox left-wing ideology. As is perhaps inevitable in a compilation in which Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky share space with self-proclaimed conspiracy theorists and small-time zine contributors, the quality of writing and thought in You Are Being Lied To varies wildly. At its worst, Kick's book is the literary equivalent of a "question authority" bumper sticker, making wild, provocative accusations without providing much evidence. And, like many muckraking endeavors, it's better at pointing out problems than offering solutions. Mixing solid investigative journalism with loony theorizing, and hard science with wild-eyed conjecture about UFOs, You Are Being Lied To is best approached with a healthy sense of skepticism. But, as a sort of radical counter-mythology to the accepted notions of the day, it serves an interesting and important function, encouraging readers to judge for themselves whether they are, indeed, being lied to.

Russ Kick responds:

Among the alternating compliments and snarky comments, something in this review really stands out. The reviewer claims that YABLT contains "wild-eyed conjecture about UFOs." Interesting.

There are only two brief portions concerning UFOs in the book. In Appendix A, I quote astronauts from Mercury and Apollo missions who say they saw strange lights and crafts. In Appendix B, I review a book written by a panel of mainstream scientists from Stanford University, the Institute for Aerospace Medicine, the National Center for Atmospheric Research, the University of Bordeaux, and other of the world's most prestigious institutions. They conclude that most sightings can be explained by ordinary phenomena, though a small number "may have their origins in secret military activities."

So I'd really like this reviewer to tell me which group he considers "wild-eyed"--the astronauts or the scientists?

Heading: You Are Being Lied To
Source: Cosmik Debris Magazine, June 2001
Reviewer: Shaun Dale

What you will know by sure by the end is that there's almost always more to the story, any story, than you heard on Headline News.

Subtitled "The Disinformation Guide To Media Distortion, Historical Whitewashes and Cultural Myths," You Are Being Lied To comes from the people behind the Disinformation website www.disinfo.com, one of the Internet's most comprehensive, and most reliable, archives of the unofficial history of politics, pop culture and general paranoia. That's significant because, as the material that makes up this book makes clear, the official history is anything but comprehensive or reliable.

Village Voice columnist Russ Kick has assembled an outstanding collection of contributions from voices that range from (relatively) mainstream journalists and academics to (apparently) outright cranks. By the time you've finished pouring through those contributions, though, you'll likely be wondering which source belongs in which category as it slowly dawns that everything you know just may, in fact, be wrong after all. Or not. What you will know by sure by the end is that there's almost always more to the story, any story, than you heard on Headline News. This isn't the all-comprehensive sourcebook that will fill you in on everything "they" haven't told you, but as a virtual broom it's an excellent tool for a little mental cob-web cleanup and it provides plenty of pointers for the inquisitive.

You are, you know, being lied to. Perhaps even by some of the writers in this book. But you won't know until you look, and look again. This is a great place to start looking.

Heading: You Are Being Lied To
Source: Library Journal (New York City, NY), May 2001
Reviewer: Robert C. Moore

The best articles will surely compel readers to pursue further reading; none should be accepted as exhaustive. Public libraries ought to invest in a copy to keep alongside other sources of skepticism; academic libraries will find the scholarship uneven but provocative.

Containing exposes on topics ranging from Columbus to Columbine, this collection of stimulating articles Disinformation Books' inaugural title challenges popular beliefs on the Big Bang and the depredations of hackers. Kick, author of Psychotropedia and a columnist for the Village Voice, has collected an impressive array of articles by such contributors as Sydney Schanberg of the New York Times, in which he asks why John McCain persistently blocks public disclosure of MIA files, and the lesser-known Jim Marrs, a Kennedy conspiracy zealot and freelance journalist who discusses missing data from historical tragedies, including the Lincoln and Kennedy assassinations and the Lockerbie bombing. Do gay teens really constitute a suicidal risk group? Was Jesus a myth? The best articles will surely compel readers to pursue further reading; none should be accepted as exhaustive. Public libraries ought to invest in a copy to keep alongside other sources of skepticism; academic libraries will find the scholarship uneven but provocative. [You may obtain a free e-book copy of this title if you purchase the paperback from http://store.disinfo.com; the e-book may also be purchased separately for $8.85. Ed.] Robert C. Moore, ITworld.com, Southboro, MA

Heading: You Are Being Lied To
Source: Shepherd Express (Milwaukee), June 21, 2001
Reviewer: Dave Luhrssen

It also zaps us here and now with a devastating analysis of how "market research" degrades our society onto a consumption culture.

"Village Voice writer Russ Kick has edited a compendium that fleshes out the arguments in the No-Nonsense Guides [reviewed earlier in column], You Are Being Lied To: The Disinformation Guide to Media Distortion, Historical Whitewashes and Cultural Myths (Disinformation). Its contributing essayists, including such heavyweights as Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn and Howard Bloom, dissect the vast web of lies that compromise the generally held view of reality. The entries go back to into the distant past to prove that Columbus was a genocidal greedhead and the recent past to cast doubt on our media's one-sided coverage of Yugoslavia's civil war. It also zaps us here and now with a devastating analysis of how "market research" degrades our society onto a consumption culture. The most depressing articles show how easily journalists are led around by press handouts instead of trying to seek the truth with eyes wide open."

Heading: You Are Being Lied To
Source: Abercrombie & Fitch Quarterly (New York City), Back To School Edition, June 2001, p. 265
Reviewer: Seean T. Collins

This expansive and engrossing book is more of the same daring same. Every article is a challenge to everything we've been told is true - about history, sexuality, drugs, religion, politics, business, conspiracies, even human nature itself.

You Are Being Lied To: The Disinformation Guide To Media Distortion, Historical Whitewashes and Cultural Myths. Edited by Russ Kick. As any of us with friends on the front lines of the recent wave of anticorporate protest clashes can attest, 95 percent of what the media says is pure malarkey. Disinformation, a counterculture clearinghouse found at www.disinfo.com, has long been the premiere home on the Web for the news and views that the propaganda wings of Disney, AOL, G.E. et al. don't want us to know about. This expansive and engrossing book is more of the same daring same. Every article is a challenge to everything we've been told is true - about history, sexuality, drugs, religion, politics, business, conspiracies, even human nature itself. The shocking truth is not something you see every day, but this book knows exactly where to look - Sean T. Collins

Heading: You Are Being Lied To
Source: Book Review.com (Book of the Month), July 2001
Reviewer: Paul Lappen

There is something in this book to upset everyone. To begin to cut through the lies and manipulation of daily life, this is the place to start. It is very highly recommended.

Current Events - Politics
Title: You Are Being Lied To
Author: Russ Kick (ed.)
Rating: (3 Books) Excellent!
Publisher: The Disinformation Company Ltd.
Publisher's Web Page: http://www.disinfo.com
Reviewed by: Paul Lappen

Subtitled "The Disinformation Guide to Media Distortion, Historical Whitewashes and Cultural Myths", this is a huge compendium of articles, some previously published, some original, that document, in extreme detail, the variety of ways in which the American people are the victims of outright lying.

One of the justifications of the NATO bombing of Kosovo were reports of hundreds of thousands of civilians buried in mass graves. Later independent investigation concluded What Mass Graves? It seems to be standard operating procedure for the FBI to "lose" key pieces of evidence in high profile cases, ranging from the JFK assassination to the Oklahoma City bombing (and the case of Timothy McVeigh). Former POW Sen. John McCain has waged his own battle to stop the release of any more information on those listed as missing in action or those who may have been left behind in Vietnam. Former President Jimmy Carter considered human rights to be a cornerstone of his administration, despite continuing to send arms to right-wing dictatorships in El Salvador, Indonesia and Guatemala.

According to explosives experts, the ammonium nitrate bomb used in the Oklahoma City bombing could not have caused all that damage by itself. Another contribution punches large holes in the story that former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was murdered by a lone gunman. After the Columbine shooting, everyone was quick to blame Marilyn Mnason or easy access to guns; nobody seesm to mention that one of the shooters was taking Luvox, a prescription anti-depressant which can cause mania in some people. There were many myths attached to America's entry into World War II; for instance, that Pearl Harbor was a surprise, that the Allies fought to liberate the death camps, only the Axis nations committed war crimes, World War II was inevitable and "good". The 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous were taken from a Protestant evangelical group called the Oxford Group Movement. Among the ingredients in aspartame (NutraSweet) are methanol, which converts to formaldehyde, then fermic acid (ant sting poison) and petrochemicals, like gasoline.

Far from being a watchdog against such a state of affairs, the mass media frequently aids and abets such untruths. One could be forgiven for thinking that America has become a place where for any public figure or organization to tell the truth all the time is the aberration. There is something in this book to upset everyone. To begin to cut through the lies and manipulation of daily life, this is the place to start. It is very highly recommended.

Heading: Conspiracy Theories and the Truth
Source: Delusions of Adequacy (Rochester, NY), July 2001
Reviewer: Geoff Parkes

You Are Being Lied To asks us to ask more questions, certainly more questions than answers given. It calls on us to be educated media interpreters, and it demands our attention and our action rather than a passive acceptance so easily obtained in a world of Big Brother and CNN.

Title: You Are Being Lied To
Editor: Russ Kick
Publisher: The Disinformation Company
Available from: www.disinfo.com

Brain-child of media men Richard Metzger and Gary Baddeley, Disinfo.com began its internet voyage in late 1996. Now Disinformation is a large scale operation, including TV shows, a music label, and its latest book publishing venture. You Are Being Lied To is the first off the ranks, and begins with a typical piece of disinformation that sets the stage for much of what's to come: The Disinformation Company Ltd. has not verified and neither confirms nor denies any of the foregoing. The reader is encouraged to keep an open mind and to independently judge for him- or herself whether or not he or she is being lied to. Subtitled The Disinformation Guide to Media Distortion, Historical Whitewashers & Cultural Myths, this collection of conspiracy theories, media analysis and cultural criticism is one hell of a trip through 21st Century culture.

Featuring the works of, among many, Noam Chomsky, Douglas Rushkoff, Howard Bloom, and a roundtable compiled by Australian online editor Alex Burns, You Are Being Lied To gives an in-depth deconstruction of the many ways our myths and media-reliance have worked together to deceive us into believing official versions over the more complex and difficult task of sifting through reams of information to reach our own conclusions. Topics tackled include the usual suspects - why no federal agents were killed in the Okalahoma explosions, how the US government assisted South American death squads in Nicaragua during the 80s - and the dangerous. Among the latter include an in-depth expose on how Alcoholics Anonymous draws much of their material from evangelical Christian teachings and a challenging of the role of sexual identity in youth suicides.

What's most impressive about the book and, at the same time, its greatest drawback is the vast array of material gathered here. It's not just left-wing radicals, nor right-wing anti-government thinkers writing here. Instead, we cross the huge axis of discursive possibilities; each argument is carefully constructed, and I found myself swinging from viewpoint to viewpoint as I made my way through the 400+ pages.

You Are Being Lied To asks us to ask more questions, certainly more questions than answers given. It calls on us to be educated media interpreters, and it demands our attention and our action rather than a passive acceptance so easily obtained in a world of Big Brother and CNN. Never content to take the easy argument, the success of Disinfo's first print publication can be seen in the final appendix - 15 pages of recommended reading that encourage you to hunt down the "truth," to contradict what you have been reading, to ask those fundamental questions about your existence and to demand a responsible answer. This is not light reading, but it is essential.

Heading: You Are Being Lied To
Source: Vice Magazine (The Summer Kids Issue, Vol 8 Num 5, p. 80), July 2001
Reviewer: Darren Beans

For the past five years disinfo.com has consistently brought some of the most dangerous and controversial stories America could ever hope to find out about.

What started out as someone saying there should be an alternative Sixty Minutes has become the most reliable news source on the internet. For the past five years disinfo.com has consistently brought some of the most dangerous and controversial stories America could ever hope to find out about. AA doesn't work. Pearl Harbor was a scam. It's not your parents fault and humans have been cloned are but a few this book puts to print. We're not sure if it's because this people at Disinformation are so tenacious or mainstream media is so watered down they make anyone with so much as half a ball seem like subversive ninjas. All we know is next to salon.com the only way you are going to find out what's really going on is to open up this 400 page compilation of their best stuff and say "holy fuck."

Heading: Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics
Source: Dazed & Confused (London), September 2001, p. 72
Reviewer: Francesca Gavin

It is a lot less radical than some extremist conspiracy theory books, yet that's something that makes the pieces all the more believable.

You can always count on the dissident underground to point out the failings of the establishment. You Are Being Lied To: The Disinformation Guide To Media Distortion, Historical Whitewashes And Cultural Myths, published by Disinformation brings together over 60 authors who examine the hidden sides of accepted information.

Opening with Noam Chomsky's "What Makes Mainstream Media Mainstream," the book looks at the way we are manipulated or misinformed about politics, media, religion, sex, science and drugs. From WWII through to Dolly The Sheep to Alcoholics Anonymous, editor Russ Kick's aim was "to get people to seriously question everything they're told."

YABLT certainly doesn't have all the answers, but it raises important questions," says Kick. "It provides a lot of evidence and ammunition for people to use when evaluating the claims made by governments, the media, corporations, religions and other powerful institutions."

It is a lot less radical than some extremist conspiracy theory books, yet that's something that makes the pieces all the more believable. "A lot of material on hidden machinations is fascinating, but it can be so unsubstantiated that it isn't believable or useful," explains Kick. "I purposely went after the most well-documented and convincing material to show that something rotten is undeniably afoot."

Heading: PW Daily Book of the Day: You Are Being Lied To, A Guide
Source: Publisher's Weekly (October 2001)
Reviewer: Edward Nawotka

Editor Russ Kick, a Village Voice columnist, has collected essays from writers across the political spectrum offering an interpretation of recent events that is often counter to that of the mainstream media. Taken as a whole, this anthology represents an instruction manual in how to "read" the news..