Elijah Wald comments on how the Iraqis are likely to receive the latest billboards pronouncing that "everything is getting better", in contrast to how Americans generally receive such pronouncements:

Iraqis have lived for decades with a constant barrage of optimistic pronouncements from Saddam Hussein's government, even as they lost wars and underwent suffering from an international embargo. They are among the least likely people on earth to believe cheery billboards that are contradicted by the evidence of their own eyes and the experiences of their friends and neighbors. They know propaganda all too well and, far from being comforted, will take it as a sign that the US intends to rule them like any other authoritarian government.

Back home in America, though, optimistic pronouncements are often taken on faith. We do not expect outright lies from our leaders, or even from commercial advertising. We trust our press's freedom and basic honesty, even if we sometimes regard it as biased, and there is a general perception that any claim that receives wide coverage has been vetted to the point that "They couldn't print it if it wasn't true."

More to the point, we have become used to the idea that the only way we can get "news" is from the media. People who know that they and their friends are living worse than they did 10 years ago will turn to the papers to see how the economy is doing. People whose neighborhoods are as safe as they were in 1950 are terrified to walk the streets because of all the murders on television. People who scream that their landlord and their boss are twisting them for every penny will nod along with radio personalities who rail against controls on rents and predatory business practices. And people who are besieged by panhandlers and have to step over people sleeping on the street will nonetheless believe that even poor Americans share the highest living standards on earth.

It's remarkable how, as Americans, we perceive propaganda to be a mechanism used by other regimes to control their population's perceptions, assuming we are the first society free from such silliness. Now that's effective propaganda!