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hcap
04-20-2008, 06:00 AM
"The Ministry of Truth is where the main character of the book Nineteen Eighty-Four, Winston Smith, works. It is an enormous pyramidal structure of glittering white concrete rising 300 meters into the air, containing over 3000 rooms above ground. On the outside wall are the three slogans of the Party: "War is Peace," "Freedom is Slavery," "Ignorance is Strength." There is also a large part underground, probably containing huge incinerators where documents are destroyed after they are put down memory holes

...The Ministry of Truth is involved with news media, entertainment, the fine arts and educational books. Its purpose is to rewrite history and change the facts to fit party doctrine, for propaganda effect. For example, if Big Brother makes a prediction that turns out to be wrong, the employees of the Ministry of Truth go back and rewrite history so that any prediction Big Brother previously made is accurate."


Today the New York Times tells us the story of the Bush administration's ingenious media strategy for selling the Iraq war back in 2002. The key innovation was to bypass traditional journalists and instead focus their attention on military analysts, who turned out to be outstandingly pliable as regurgitators of Pentagon talking points


http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/washington/20generals.html?hp=&pagewanted=all


"Torie Clarke, the former public relations executive who oversaw the Pentagon's dealings with the analysts as assistant secretary of defense for public affairs, had come to her job with distinct ideas about achieving what she called "information dominance." In a spin-saturated news culture, she argued, opinion is swayed most by voices perceived as authoritative and utterly independent.

....In the months after Sept. 11, as every network rushed to retain its own all-star squad of retired military officers, Ms. Clarke and her staff sensed a new opportunity. To Ms. Clarke's team, the military analysts were the ultimate "key influential" — authoritative, most of them decorated war heroes, all reaching mass audiences.

....The Pentagon's regular press office would be kept separate from the military analysts. The analysts would instead be catered to by a small group of political appointees, with the point person being Brent T. Krueger, another senior aide to Ms. Clarke....Over time, the Pentagon recruited more than 75 retired officers, although some participated only briefly or sporadically. The largest contingent was affiliated with Fox News, followed by NBC and CNN, the other networks with 24-hour cable outlets.

.... At the Pentagon, members of Ms. Clarke's staff marveled at the way the analysts seamlessly incorporated material from talking points and briefings as if it was their own.

"You could see that they were messaging," Mr. Krueger said. "You could see they were taking verbatim what the secretary was saying or what the technical specialists were saying. And they were saying it over and over and over." Some days, he added, "We were able to click on every single station and every one of our folks were up there delivering our message. You'd look at them and say, 'This is working.' "

Ned Locke
04-20-2008, 08:19 AM
hcap

Would that be called Propaganda? And if so, which governments in the past have engaged in that technique to sell wars to their citizens?

46zilzal
04-20-2008, 11:30 AM
An old story: "Remember the Maine!" and The Gulf Tolkien.

lsbets
04-20-2008, 11:47 AM
The Gulf Tolkien.

Is that the unpublished ending to the Lord of the Rings?

46zilzal
04-20-2008, 12:06 PM
Is that the unpublished ending to the Lord of the Rings?
Same level of validity as that fictional trilogy however.

46zilzal
04-20-2008, 12:09 PM
Should read this good one by Naomi Klein.
Lenora Todaro, Village Voice, December 5, 2007

In The Shock Doctrine, journalist Klein trains her sharp investigator's eye upon the flaws of neoliberal economics. This meticulously researched alternative history, ranging from economist Milton Friedman's "University of Chicago Boys" to George W. Bush, brings Klein's argument into the present. Using stirring reportage, she shows the ways that disasters— unnatural ones like the war in Iraq, and natural ones like the Asian tsunami and Hurricane Katrina—allow governments and multinationals to take advantage of citizen shock and implement corporate-friendly policies: Where once was a Sri Lankan fishing village now stands a luxury resort. The Shock Doctrine aims its 10-foot-long middle finger at the Bush administration and the generations of neocons who've chosen profits over people in war and disaster; the effect is to provide intellectual armor for the now-mainstream anticorporatist crowd.

lsbets
04-20-2008, 12:12 PM
Same level of validity as that fictional trilogy however.

You don't even realize that you spelled Tonkin Tolkien, do you? or that you left out the "of" in "Gulf of". Is not like Tolkien was a one letter typo, the words bear little similarity.

For someone who likes to demean others intelligence all the time, you certainly appear to have a lot in common with your favorite rutabaga when it comes to command of the language.

toetoe
04-20-2008, 12:34 PM
Don't forget the Department of Defense is really the Department of War.

46zilzal
04-20-2008, 12:46 PM
Don't forget the Department of Defense is really the Department of War.
My father pointed this out to me: a one time if was the War Department and on the Great Seal, the eagle faced the arrows in one claw rather than facing the olive branch on the opposite claw.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_War

The way they have acted over that last 5 years, the Department of "unprovoked" War is about right.

PaceAdvantage
04-20-2008, 12:53 PM
Unprovoked war could be taken as defense all the same.

46zilzal
04-20-2008, 12:55 PM
Unprovoked war could be taken as defense all the same.
Yes in many of demented wacko neocon's heads.

PaceAdvantage
04-20-2008, 01:03 PM
Yes in many of demented wacko neocon's heads.You sound like a 4th grader attending romper room. Does your discourse ever rise about grade school level?

lsbets
04-20-2008, 01:06 PM
a one time if was the War Department

PA -my kindergardener uses better grammar than this, so 46 definitely doesn't rise to even the 4th grade level you give him credit for.

46zilzal
04-20-2008, 01:06 PM
You sound like a 4th grader attending romper room. Does your discourse ever rise about grade school level?
Dementia knows no specific age group nor social level.

Having Pick's disease and being in government is a dangerous mix.

PaceAdvantage
04-20-2008, 01:26 PM
Dementia knows no specific age group nor social level.

Having Pick's disease and being in government is a dangerous mix.I am beginning to think you aren't human at all....your responses sound so "canned" and artificial.

Are you some sort of semi-advanced university AI project being tested right here on PA off-topic?

Now that I think about it, forget about AI part...your responses sound more like a Magic 8-Ball, only with greater variety.

46zilzal
04-20-2008, 01:29 PM
Now that I think about it, forget about AI part...your responses sound more like a Magic 8-Ball, only with greater variety.
Nope just continue to point out a STUPID and reckless foreign policy which was based upon OVERT lies. It usually catches up to the protagonists.

Poor old rutabaga, what a place on the bottom of the heap of presidents. Old Cal Coolidge (an old Fiji frat house boy) is even held in higher regard.

Tom
04-20-2008, 02:59 PM
You don't even realize that you spelled Tonkin Tolkien, do you? or that you left out the "of" in "Gulf of". Is not like Tolkien was a one letter typo, the words bear little similarity.

For someone who likes to demean others intelligence all the time, you certainly appear to have a lot in common with your favorite rutabaga when it comes to command of the language.


:lol:

He left the "r" out of Pick's Disease, too!

hcap
04-20-2008, 09:27 PM
hcap

Would that be called Propaganda? And if so, which governments in the past have engaged in that technique to sell wars to their citizens?Orwell wrote about the dangers of post WWII England following the path of totalitarian Russia and Nazi Germany.

But the allies had propaganda departments as well. All enlisted in selling the "war" effort.

Sort of like RPM selling us the latest greatest horse racing system.
The selling of the invasion of Iraq was more of the same.
Some bought it hook line and sinker.
Unlike RPM however, no return policy.

rastajenk
04-21-2008, 10:09 AM
So what exactly is the story here? Has there ever been an administration that hasn't tried hard to sell its version of events, even going back to before the age of mass media? The Times set out to dig up some criminal activity, and found nothing, but ran with the story anyway.

Max Boot writes (http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/boot/3466) "How dare the Pentagon try to break the media monopoly traditionally held by full-time journalists of reliably 'progressive' views! The gall of those guys to try to shape public opinion through the words of retired officers who might have a different perspective! Who might even be, as the article darkly warns, 'in sync with the administration’s neo-conservative brain trust.'

"The implicit purpose of the Times’s article is obvious: to elevate this perfectly normal practice into a scandal in the hopes of quashing it. Thus leaving the Times and its fellow MSM organs–conveniently enough–as the dominant shapers of public opinion."

hcap
04-30-2008, 07:07 PM
rastajenkSo what exactly is the story here? Has there ever been an administration that hasn't tried hard to sell its version of events, even going back to before the age of mass media? The Times set out to dig up some criminal activity, and found nothing, but ran with the story anyway.Looks like they did break the law.

http://www.prwatch.org/node/7261

"The Pentagon military analyst program unveiled in last week's exposé by David Barstow in the New York Times was not just unethical but illegal. It violates, for starters, specific restrictions that Congress has been placing in its annual appropriation bills every year since 1951. According to those restrictions, "No part of any appropriation contained in this or any other Act shall be used for publicity or propaganda purposes within the United States not heretofore authorized by the Congress."

As explained in a March 21, 2005 report by the Congressional Research Service, "publicity or propaganda" is defined by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) to mean either (1) self-aggrandizement by public officials, (2) purely partisan activity, or (3) "covert propaganda." By covert propaganda, GAO means information which originates from the government but is unattributed and made to appear as though it came from a third party."

.................................................. ...........................................

And in the context of "selling the war" that many of us have pointed out from the beginning, the congress and the people were snookered.

The story is we were lied to. By pundits enlisted by the Pentagon. Including many with financial conflict of interests

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/04/30/williams/

"Both McCaffrey and Downing were about as far from "independent" as a news analyst could possibly be. On November 15, 2002, a press release was issued announcing the formation of something called "The Committee for the Liberation of Iraq," which was devoted "to advocat[ing] freedom and democracy in Iraq." Its list of 25 members was filled to the brim with the standard cast of war-hungry neocons -- including Bill Kristol, Newt Gingrich, Richard Perle, Leon Wieseltier, Danielle Pletka of the American Enterprise Institute, Eliot Cohen, and anti-Muslim "scholar" Bernard Lewis. Both Barry McCaffrey and Wayne Downing -- the two extremely independent "news sources" hailed yesterday by Brian Williams -- were two of its 25 founding members."

Beyond their ideological affiliations that negated their "independence," both McCaffrey and Downing had substantial ties to the defense industry which gave them strong financial incentives to advocate for the war. Worse, these ties were detailed all the way back in April of 2003 by The Nation, in an article entitled "TV's Conflicted Experts"

delayjf
04-30-2008, 07:29 PM
Bush administration's ingenious media
Finally and admission of the Rights intellectual superiority

By the by, the Gulf of Tonkin happened – the VC have admitted to attacking the US (first attack).

riskman
05-01-2008, 12:00 AM
GWB is also good at public relations AKA as "re-education"

"Our foreign policy is based on a clear premise: We trust that people, when given the chance, will choose a future of freedom and peace."

See Hamas.

"We will stay on the offense, we will keep up the pressure, and we will deliver justice to the enemies of America."

Haven't we heard this before? Paging Osama bin Laden.

"Al Qaeda is on the run in Iraq, and this enemy will be defeated."

Bush always talks about the war in Iraq as if the primary battle is against al Qaeda, though numerous military and terrorism experts have repeatedly said that al Qaeda is a rather small slice of the insurgency in Iraq.

"A free Iraq will deny Al Qaeda a safe haven."

In Saddam Hussein's unfree Iraq, al Qaeda had no safe haven. And there is little chance that should the U.S. withdraw troops from Iraq, the Shia, Sunni, and Kurds would hand over the country to the small and unpopular al Qaeda outfit in Iraq.

"America is using its influence to build a freer, more hopeful, and more compassionate world."

That must be why the United States' standing in the world is so low.

"America is leading the fight against global poverty."

Other Western nations devote a higher percentage of their gross national product to foreign assistance. By the way, GWB never mentions American poverty in his speeches.

"So long as we continue to trust the people, our nation will prosper, our liberty will be secure, and the State of our Union will remain strong."

We just cannot trust the his people when it comes to war. Two-thirds of the American public now say the Iraq war was a mistake. Bush refuses to acknowledge that. There is a profound gap between the people and the president.