Everything You Know Is Wrong: The Disinformation Guide to Secrets and Lies

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This book begins where You Are Being Lied To left off. Once again, an amazing group of investigative journalists, researchers, insiders, dissidents, and academics peels back consensus reality and shows us what's really happening. Hard, documented evidence on the most powerful institutions and controversial topics in the world. Among the revelations:

• Antidepressants trash your brain.
?• China has repeatedly threatened to nuke the US.
?• Young people are less violent now than they have been in over 30 years.
?• Mad Cow disease is killing people in America.
?• Many disabled people don't want to be "cured" and don't admire Christopher Reeve.

Plus previously unpublished revelations about the International Monetary Fund, the Vatican Bank, the Olympic Games, Henry Lee Lucas, the drug war in South America, unpublicized accidents at nuclear power plants, and much more. Includes reproductions of rare documents and photos, including an unpublished eyewitness sketch of a mysterious third gunman at Columbine.

Among the 50+ contributors: Naomi Klein • Douglas Rushkoff • Arianna Huffington • Howard Zinn • Paul Krassner • Gary Webb • Howard Bloom • Noreena Hertz • Alexander Cockburn • Thomas Szasz • William Blum • James Ridgeway • Kalle Lasn • Wendy McElroy

Marketing Plans:
?• Heavy promotion on Disinformation site (500,000+ unique visitors/month) and Disinformation email newsletter (50,000+ subscribers).
?• Disinformation TV series will air nationally on Sci-Fi Channel during 2002; contains profiles of several of the book's contributors.
?• Marketing campaign by Green Galactic publicity agency.

Disinformation Books editor Russ Kick has previously written two popular alternative reference books: Outposts and Psychotropedia. The Disinformation Company operates the most popular counterculture and alternative news site on the Web, Disinformation (www.disinfo.com).

Also Available:

You Are Being Lied To

TP $19.95, 0-9664100-7-6 • CUSA

Reader Reviews:

I just can't resist laughing in the face of someone that claims "there really should be limits to speech" when confronted with "Ideas" that conflict with so called solid research, solid science, etc. Anything that claims to say theories are solid proof because of the "scientific method" simply ignores exsistence and the fact that you can never know everything. That seems to be the biggest obstacle to most when presented with conflicting information, it's the fear that " I don't know any solid truths or facts after all". Usually the person runs off with the ball so to speak and never comes back to play, fear and it's lenghty history of control over mass populations does exist, it's not a conspiracy.

I've given this book out as a gift numerous times and love the sort of eager response that it gets. It's also worth mentioning I have read most of the DIsinfo collection and it's not at all liberal or conservative in it's approach, in fact I would consider the disinfonaughts politically athiest if such a term were to be applied with regard to politics. Anyone who tells you otherwise most likely has some sort of disinfo to spread themselves or just plain likes labeling everybody something that fits in with their "order" of things.

Disinfo does a great job of stepping aside, not defining itself, nor allowing others to slap labels upon themselves, in a sense the term disinformation employs a non-certainty that usually also makes religious or political nutcases or even liberal nutcases go wild with ecstatic fervor and anger. The gatekeepers love to hate stuff like this book, all the more reason to buy more copies and give them out to friends and family alike.This book has 46 articles whose purpose is to educate you about some story that has been ignored, or is in error, by the Corporate Media. Its human nature to listen to gossip that pretends to give you secrets. Sometimes these facts can't be corroborated easily. So when you read these articles, consider that they may be one-sided. But you have to be one-sided to correct a widespread error. Anyone who's had years of experience with events in the news has figured out "you are being lied to".

The 'Introduction' mentions the censorship about various events. The contributors of these articles do not necessarily agree with each other. That is a sign of "objectivity", not printing to fit. The articles will challenge or educate you, they shouldn't bore you. You can decide which you like better. You are not likely to find them in your local newspaper or national magazines.

The first article "Burn the Olive Tree, Sell the Lexus" is a good overview on the disastrous policies of globalization. Arianna Huffington writes a good report on "Drug Companies". Is this why her column is no longer printed in NJ? Jonathan Levy's article will not be found in your local newspaper; stories like this are too hot to handle. Dominick Armentano's essay is an example of sophistry; don't believe him. It denies the history of the late 19th and early 20th century. Lucy Komisar explains how corporations and the rich avoid taxes by using secret offshore bank accounts. Taxes are for the middle-classes. Noreena Hertz tells how globalization has impoverished more people than before.

Mike Males' discusses the "Myths About Youth". They are not more violent, homicidal, criminal, suicidal, or smoking and drinking more. They are in general more responsibly behaved than their Baby Boom parents (p.115)! Special interest groups, like the Carnegie Corporation, are pushing an agenda to convince people that more repression is needed. Many of their claims are false and deliberately misleading, like "injury and violence have now replaced illness as the leading cause of death for adolescents". Many fewer teens die from the infectious diseases common before the mid 1950s! The truth is that poverty correlates to the problems of teens, but this fact is banned by the politics of those spreading fears. It would require changes that they don't want to discuss (p.118). "Toxic TV Syndrome" by Kalle Lasn explains why watching TV makes you sick: the more you watch, the more depressed you become (p.142).

David T. Hardy reports the truth about the Waco Incident, when the ATF raided a communal church (p.183). It debunks the story in the Corporate Media. William Blum presents the censored facts about the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, "a mass of conflicting evidence" (p.190). Peter Gorman tells of the secret coup that overthrew the President of Peru, and how this relates to another secret war to seize control of the coca fields of Colombia. Are there hidden oil fields there?

Russ Kick explains why 9-11-2001 was not a surprise: there were many warnings that something was going to happen (pp.241-257). In Manila 1995 they found plans to hijack a commercial plan and crash it into CIA headquarters, the Pentagon, the White House, the Sears Tower, the Transamerica Tower, or the World Trade Center (p.246). Crashing a plane into a Tower was attempted in December 1994 (p.247). Were telephone calls being intercepted (p.249)? [But some of these stories sound like "urban legends" (p.253).] Was this attack as big a surprise as Pearl Harbor?

Howard Bloom's article on the Chinese Century is must reading! J. T. Gatto's hidden history of American education is very important for your understanding on how the system works. Before WW I "the Education Trust" was created to attack the middle-class of owner-operated businesses (p.274). Future generations were to be trained as economic serfs for the big corporations. Children would be deprived of the traditional education learned in farms and villages, and be told of what to think. Schools were like factories that took in raw materials and shaped them into finished products (p.275). The hidden policies created a rise in school violence and chaos due to the process of restricting the ability of teachers to control and discipline children. This created a market for drugs for kids. Big corporations would control schools and children, not the family and church (p.277). The literacy rate for soldiers in WW II, Korea, and Vietnam kept dropping; this measured the "dumbing down" in the education system (p.278). This was due to the "whole-word method" (p.279). Was the schooling of the masses aimed at destroying democracy (p.285)? Were today's high-cost, low-value schools created for big corporations (p.286)? What will be the effect of well-educated people who can't find work (p.287)? Can the perverse education philosophy of the last century be cured and corrected? Can we afford anything else? If illiteracy causes crime and violence, doesn't that make our schooling system responsible (p.279)?
Each essay is well written and most of the time an interesting argument is presented. You cant help but raise an eyebrow at some of the references though (or lack of them).

Unfortunately the book assumes that you are American, or at least in touch and in tune with a lot of what goes on over there. There are many political and social references made that I have never heard of.

So I think the book should be renamed

'Americans: Everything you know is wrong'This compilation of "Disinfo" challenging articles is varied and not directed toward any specific consensus other than the notion that various special interests manipulate information presented to the public for self-serving agendas. Some of the articles that challenge conventional views about social phenomena were very insightful, as was the section on the authoritarian socialist agenda guiding the educational system. The articles about political issues like 9-11 seemed rather short and could have dug deeper into these topics. Whether or not you agree with the various ideas expressed in this book you will find some things that challenge you to expand your views and understandings on some issues. Perhaps you will even take the time to research and explore some of the topics in greater depth in other sources. After all, if people made the effort to educate themselves and not rely on "experts" and "authorities" to tell them what to think then there might not be a need for a book that tells us "Everything You Know Is Wrong."Yeah, that's right. I'm a super-far-left, bleeding heart liberal with near-socialist ideas who wants to rock feeble minds in uptight conservative towns with my loud, crazy music and my bizarre, twisted clothing styles, and I'm giving this book a one-star rating. I'm also reasonably intelligent and have a great fondness for rational thought, logic, and science. This is why I can't stand "Everything you Know is Wrong" (or its companion, "You Are Being Lied To").

Other reviewers (for both books) have already made note of some of the more severe errors contained within. Articles about human psychology and medicine, in particular, are at fault; for the most part, the authors of the articles do not cite any scholarly texts or actual scientific studies. Sure, you could be a paranoid nut and claim that they are refusing to cite credible sources because "those sources are evil, man, and they're giving us the wrong information!" But you'd be a paranoid nut, and that's usually not a good thing. The way it works in the real world is this: if you want to prove something, such as the effectiveness of an herbal treatment for cancer, then you need to test your hypothesis many times and show to us that your success can be replicated by anybody. You can't just make wild claims and then pretend they're true just because you're being rebellious and sticking it to The Man. I tried that game in high school and it didn't work---that's why I have to calm down and prove my points in rational, correct ways.

What is so offensive to me about these books is that they go to such a great effort to make themselves seem important and credible. They assert themselves as being the one voice in our world that you can trust. This is a dangerous thing to read---particularly when many of the articles are based on speculation, anecdotal evidence (always a terrible sign), and simple opinion.

This book, and its partner, are an example of why the first amendment does need some limits. Simply put, everything about these two titles is full of false advertising and empty promises. You are trying to read them to find out the truth about the world, and instead you just get a bunch of disorganized half-truths, lies, and ramblings that end up doing more damage than they do good.

I would go so far as to say that this book is dangerous. Believing certain things can be detrimental to one's physical and mental health---or even deadly. Do yourself a favor and avoid this title, no matter how delightfully controversial it may appear to be.
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