October 20th: Yves Engler Book Launch: A Propaganda System

Join OPIRG Guelph, CFRU 93.3 Community Radio, and the Guelph Young Communist League for a discussion with Yves Engler on his new book

Wednesday October 20th, 5:30-7pm

MacKinnon Room 227 (University of Guelph Campus)

https://www.facebook.com/events/333896453625982/

About the Author
Dubbed “Canada’s version of Noam Chomsky” (Georgia Straight), “one of the most important voices on the Canadian Left today” (Briarpatch), “in the mould of I. F. Stone” (Globe and Mail), “part of that rare but growing group of social critics unafraid to confront Canada’s self-satisfied myths” (Quill & Quire) , “ever-insightful” (Rabble), “Chomsky-styled iconoclast” (Counterpunch) and a “Leftist gadfly” (Ottawa Citizen), Yves Engler is the author of nine books and hundreds of articles.

About the Book
A Propaganda System: How Canada’s Government, Corporations, Media and Academia Sell War and Exploitation reveals why most Canadians believe their country is a force for good in the world, despite a long history of supporting empire, racism and exploitation. The book details the vast sums Global Affairs Canada, Veterans Affairs and the Department of National Defence spend articulating a one-sided version of Canada’s foreign policy. With the largest PR machine in the country, the Canadian Forces promotes its worldview through a history department, university, journals, war commemorations, think tanks, academic programs and hundreds of public relations officers.

A Propaganda System traces the long history of government information control during war, including formal censorship, as well as extreme media bias on topics ranging from Haiti to Palestine, investment agreements to the mining industry. The book also details the corporate elite’s funding for university programs and think tanks.

Written for ordinary Canadians interested in the structures impeding understanding of this country’s role in the world, the book should be of interest to journalists curious about the institutions seeking to “spin” them, development workers dependent on government funds and academics interested in the foreign-policy establishment’s influence on campus.