Information control, or, How to get to Orwellian governance

Good morning.

My impression from the last few pages and the material Bernie has pasted here is that attempts at "Orwelliam" manipulation of the public mind is OK, if it is done by a correctly-oriented newspaper with a tolerant and benevolent (to the favored writers) owner investor (or better yet a consortium of universities), bur dangerous and dead wrong if done by elected officials (or even worse if done by wrong-thinking writers or news readers in the media). I concede that Bernie would likely not label the writings, statements, propaganda of his favored figures as "Orwellian) manipulation, however he appears to have made no distinction whatever between the matwerials they produce - and which he consumes so assiduously, and those coming from others which he finds so dangerous.

"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State."

"The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly - it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over"

"Think of the press as a great keyboard on which the government can play."

The selling of America on the Persian Gulf War was a public relations triumph. Its leading man, Saddam Hussein, was cast as pure villain commplete with menacing leer and malevolent mustache. It has Iraqi soldiers snatching infants from hospital incubators and leaving them on the floor to die while Iraqi helicopters hovered over Kuwait City and Iraqi tanks rolled down the streets. The Kuwaiti military, meanwhile, was portrayed as alive, well, and eager to fight back against the invaders.

One detail was left out of that version of the war, however: the fact that it was crafted by one of America's biggest public relations firms, Hill and Knowlton, in a campaign bought and paid for by rich Kuwaitis who were Saddam's archenemies."

These aren't simple matters. But to the degree to which you george, or you tico, are invested in a particular party, discussion with either of you becomes increasingly purposeless. You are not prepared, at least yet, to openly consider that "it could happen here".

blatham wrote:

These aren't simple matters. But to the degree to which you george, or you tico, are invested in a particular party, discussion with either of you becomes increasingly purposeless. You are not prepared, at least yet, to openly consider that "it could happen here".

I agree, they aren't simple matters. However it seems very odd to me that you don't credit either of us with either the ability or willingness to consider alternatives to our expressed political views,

Togetherness In Baghdad

A surreal facet of the Iraq fiasco is the lag between when a fact becomes obvious and when the fiasco's architects acknowledge it.

George F. Will

Many months ago it became obvious to all but the most ideologically blinkered that America is losing the war launched to deal with a chimeric problem (an arsenal of WMD) and to achieve a delusory goal (a democracy that would inspire emulation, transforming the region). Last week the president retired his mantra "stay the course" because it does not do justice to the nimbleness and subtlety of U.S. tactics for winning the war.

Doggedness can be admirable, but this is clinical.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15460708/site/newsweek/

Meanwhile, the New York Times propaganda machine keeps rolling along with a Page One photo essay: Burials of soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery ...

The truth isn't propaganda, Tico. This is the distinction that you constantly [and purposefully] miss. You also missed this.

Quote:

100 Americans die in Iraq during October

BAGHDAD, Iraq - At least 80 people were killed or found dead in Iraq on Monday, including 33 victims of a bomb attack on laborers lined up to find a days work in Baghdad's Sadr city Shiite slum. The U.S. military announced the death of the 100th service member killed in combat this month.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061030/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq

Drudge reminds us of the NYT's story on missing explosives in Iraq published 8 days before the 2004 election.

Black pot Drudge.

The White House said President Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, was informed within the past month that the explosives were missing.....
Administration officials said Sunday that the Iraq Survey Group, the C.I.A. task force that searched for unconventional weapons, has been ordered to investigate the disappearance of the explosives.

Yeah, it must have been propoganda to report on what administration officials told them.

"propaganda" from dictionary.com
1. information, ideas, or rumors deliberately spread widely to help or harm a person, group, movement, institution, nation, etc.
2. the deliberate spreading of such information, rumors, etc.
3. the particular doctrines or principles propagated by an organization or movement.

The sad part is I know you're being serious.

parados wrote:

Yeah, it must have been propoganda to report on what administration officials told them.

Here is blatham's helpful definition of "propaganda":

Quote:

"propaganda" from dictionary.com
1. information, ideas, or rumors deliberately spread widely to help or harm a person, group, movement, institution, nation, etc.
2. the deliberate spreading of such information, rumors, etc.
3. the particular doctrines or principles propagated by an organization or movement.

Seems to fit that definition.

And the timing of the stories fits the NYT's agenda.

parados wrote:

Yeah, it must have been propoganda to report on what administration officials told them.

Here is blatham's helpful definition of "propaganda":

Quote:

"propaganda" from dictionary.com
1. information, ideas, or rumors deliberately spread widely to help or harm a person, group, movement, institution, nation, etc.
2. the deliberate spreading of such information, rumors, etc.
3. the particular doctrines or principles propagated by an organization or movement.

Seems to fit that definition.

And the timing of the stories fits the NYT's agenda.

Blair faces Commons defeat on Iraq inquiry

Deborah Summers and agencies
Tuesday October 31, 2006
Guardian Unlimited

Tony Blair faces a possible defeat today as he tries to face down calls for an inquiry into the handling of the Iraq war.
MPs are to debate a motion tabled by Scottish and Welsh

Fears over huge growth in Iraq's unregulated private armies

· Mercenaries 'outnumber UK soldiers three to one'
· Security companies are unaccounable, say critics

Richard Norton-Taylor
Tuesday October 31, 2006
The Guardian

A huge increase in the number of unregulated private military and security companies operating in Iraq and Afghanistan is driving concern about the lack of regulation and constraints on their activities.
There are three British

Pentagon boosts 24-hour public relations
AP
Published: 31 October 2006

The US Defence Department is setting up a system to counter derogatory publicity quickly, a rapid response operation perfected in recent US political campaigns.

A prime goal appears to be to deflect criticism increasingly directed toward Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld over the Iraq war.

In a memo obtained by The Associated Press, Dorrance Smith, assistant secretary of defense for public affairs, said new teams of people would "develop messages" for the 24-hour news cycle and "correct the record".

The memo describes an operation modelled on political campaigns that use "Rapid Response" action to answer opponents' assertions quickly.

Another branch would co-ordinate "surrogates". In political campaigns, surrogates are usually high-level politicians or key interest groups who speak or travel on behalf of a candidate or an issue.

WASHINGTON, Oct. 23 (UPI) -- Senior U.S. government officials and military officers have suggested that Iraqi insurgents are trying to influence the U.S. midterm elections

A U.S. military spokesman in Iraq last week attributed the increase in violence at least partly to terrorists who want to influence the American vote.

His comments Thursday echoed those made by U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney two days earlier on conservative pundit Rush Limbaugh's radio show, which is carried on the Armed Force Radio network in Iraq.

Brig. Gen. William Caldwell, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad and head of the U.S. forces information operations branch as well as its public affairs unit, Thursday described several reasons why violence in Iraq is up despite a four-month offensive called Operation Together Forward meant to bring Baghdad under control. One of those, he said, was the American political calendar.

"We also realize that there is a midterm election that's taking place in the United States and that the extremist elements understand the power of the media; that if they can in fact produce additional casualties, that in fact is recognized and discussed in the press because everybody would like not to see anybody get killed in these operations, but that does occur," Caldwell said.

On Oct. 17, Cheney told Limbaugh: "I was reading something today that a writer -- I don't remember who -- was speculating on increased terrorist attacks in Iraq attempting to demoralize the American people as we get up to the election. And when I read that, it made sense to me. And I interpreted this as that the terrorists are actually involved and want to involve themselves in our electoral process, which must mean they want a change."

In tight races across the country, the Republican Party faces the possible loss of a majority in both houses of Congress.

A spokesman for Caldwell, Maj. Douglas Powell, told United Press International Thursday the comment was not based on intelligence, but rather what Caldwell knows in general about the enemy in Iraq.

"We have a thinking enemy who is aware of how American politics works and how the American public reacts to events," Powell said Thursday.

By Friday, the story had changed. According to Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Todd Vician, Multi-National Forces Iraq reported that Caldwell based his comments on insurgent Web sites which say they need to attack "during this period."

That period may be interpreted as the run up to U.S. elections, but now is also Ramadan, Islam's holy month -- a time when violence has increased in Iraq in each of the last three years.

Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., told UPI he doubts there is a correlation between the U.S. election and the increase in violence in Iraq, particularly in Baghdad.

"I hope they are right, but I see no basis for it in the previous three-and-a-half years of experience in Iraq," O'Hanlon said. "We did not see a spike before the November 2004 (presidential) election. We have not seen big spikes before other major political milestones. Sure, you can see slight increases in violence due to such things, but the big increases are generally due to changed American and Iraqi army tactics. Increased engagements with the enemy lead to greater casualties on all sides.

"Political events do not in my experience appear to be big drivers. I'd love to be proven wrong this time, because that would imply a reduced level of violence after Nov. 7, but I'd be very surprised if that happened on a major scale," O'Hanlon said.

In a new report published by the Johns Hopkins University and Brookings, researcher Victor Tanner and his Iraqi colleague -- who uses a pen name to protect his identity -- analyze the complex nature of the sectarian violence that now grips Baghdad. More than 5,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed in the city since May, most of them execution style.

The report describes factions motivated as much or more by their own quest for power, the evening of scores on a neighborhood level, and sheer thuggery, than it does a central strategy driven by geopolitics or the American election cycle.

That said, Tanner told UPI not to "underestimate the political acumen of the radical armed groups on both sides."

That Caldwell commented on the American election raised eyebrows as well. Military personnel are prohibited by both law and policy from using their "official authority or influence to affect the course of outcome of an election."

Caldwell stopped short of advocating for Republican retention of power, but the implication of his comment -- that terrorists in Iraq want to affect the outcome of the U.S. election -- makes that suggestion.

"In my opinion, Gen. Caldwell's statement crosses over the line into political partisanship," said Diane H. Mazur, a former Air Force officer and University of Florida law professor.

Caldwell's office did not respond to UPI's inquiry about the potential political implications of his statement.

Limbaugh's show was not the first time Cheney has suggested terrorists have picked favorites in the upcoming election.

In August, Cheney told wire service reporters that "al-Qaida types" were looking to break the will of the American people to stay and fight in Iraq and Afghanistan. He linked that al-Qaida effort to the Connecticut Democratic primary rejection of Iraq war supporter Sen. Joe Lieberman.

Senate Minority Leader Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., dismissed Cheney's logic.

"This situation isn't going well (in Iraq), and anyone that suggests that the people of Connecticut are somehow supporting terrorists, I don't think that's credible and that's what Cheney suggested," Reid said at the time.

SUGAR LAND, Tex., Oct. 30 -- President Bush said terrorists will win if Democrats win and impose their policies on Iraq, as he and Vice President Cheney escalated their rhetoric Monday in an effort to turn out Republican voters in next week's midterm elections.

BTW, have you considered that your icon is a man who is known for tough guy roles but who has had plastic surgery to look better?

Ticomaya wrote:

parados wrote:

Yeah, it must have been propoganda to report on what administration officials told them.

Here is blatham's helpful definition of "propaganda":

Quote:

"propaganda" from dictionary.com
1. information, ideas, or rumors deliberately spread widely to help or harm a person, group, movement, institution, nation, etc.
2. the deliberate spreading of such information, rumors, etc.
3. the particular doctrines or principles propagated by an organization or movement.

Seems to fit that definition.

And the timing of the stories fits the NYT's agenda.

Funny, the White house telling the NYTimes and other news agencies would also meet that definition then.

And that's what makes tico's argument above (photos of servicemen's burials constitute 'propaganda') inappropriate and deeply dangerous in a democracy.

I suppose that this event, as with the earlier white house meeting with bush and hannity et al, was designed entirely with the purpose of propagating particular talking points/attitudes so as to mobilize these individuals's audiences prior to the election...guys like you, and not guys like me or thomas. It is propaganda machinery and clearly so. Please don't be tiresome.

I hold, as a fundamental premise, that democracy cannot survive in the presence of serious and pervasive government secrecy. It follows then that I believe serious and objective (non-partisan) inquiries in Britain and the US regarding the initiation of the war with Iraq are absolutely mandatory.