Dealing Propaganda

Been away so long I hardly knew the place
Gee it's good to be back home
Leave it till tomorrow to unpack my case
Honey disconnect the phone
--The Beatles

My friend Vitaliy discusses the new Michael Moore 'Capitalism' movie thru his lens of a former citizen of the Soviet Union. He proposes that successful propaganda efforts share three characteristics:

1) influencing attitudes rather than providing information
2) selectively presenting facts (what he calls 'lying by omission')
3) eliciting emotional rather than rational response

The short story is that, if people engage their brains and employ their capacity to reason, then propaganda is rendered useless.