Secrecy, Lies and Propaganda Sweeping the U.S.

Again, Siroos is discussing the issues, while you are attacking Siroos.

Who is doing the better job of supporting their arguments?

Considering The Source

Originally posted by Siroos
Before you're so quick, pay notice to that this was not written by Common Dreams, but was posted on their website. INTERPRESS SERVICE is the publisher of the article, and they in turn are quoting what the non-partisan, non-profit org based in New York, "FREEDOM HOUSE" said in its annual report on the state of freedom of the press throughout the world.

Then why channel it through a notorious propaganda mill like CommonDreams.org?

My point is that for them to decry propaganda is akin to George Bush criticizing people for malapropisms. It's gross hypocrisy.

I have looked into CommonDreams.org before, and that site has gone out of its way to earn my enduring distrust, well beyond the call.

So if you're looking to convince me of something, linking anything from them is a step in the wrong direction.

But let's put them aside, and consider the original source, Freedom House.

This article appears where on their site? It doesn't. It's Interpress's spin channeled through CDO.

But let's assume (for now) those dirty hands haven't varnished or embellished Freedom House's claims.

The True Meaning Of Freedom

I can accept for the sake of argument that Freedom House is "non-partisan" and "non-profit".

However, they do have an agenda (several, actually), as stated on their own website, and as noble as that is claimed to be, I would not expect an organization like that to say everything's rosy.

After all, they exist for a reason, don't they? Freedom House does take sides, by their own accounts.

The website tells of their lobbying efforts, activism programs and funding sources, for example.

And that's the point: they are a political organization, and should therefore be afforded the same scrutiny and skepticism all such organizations are subject to.

Analogies: Do you trust everything the NRA says about guns? Do you trust everything the Christian Coalition says about abortions? Do you trust everything the Beef Council says about vegetarianism?

Then why accept as gospel the ratings given for “press freedom” by a self-described political activism group?

The Greater Irony

Having said all that, I think there are some very real problems in this country that deserve serious attention, but this sort of propagandistic polemic isn't the way to go about getting it.

Nor does gratuitously inserting the word “lies” when it doesn't appear in the source article. That sort of nonsense is self-discrediting, and I recommend getting out of that habit if you are interested in establishing yourself as worthy of not ignoring on ATS.

Sure, even pathological liars like CommonDreams.org and ATS's self-appointed propaganda pushers tell the truth once in a while.

I'm just not so hard up that I feel compelled to sort through all the bullcrap for it when there are more reliable sources elsewhere.

The best weapon against lies is the truth, not more lies.

So please, don't inject “lies” where they don't exist.

Originally posted by xmotex
Again, Siroos is discussing the issues, while you are attacking Siroos.

Who is doing the better job of supporting their arguments?

I guess if Siroos was posting a bunch of BS from the Flat-Earth Society, and I thought it was so evidently wrong that the Earth was flat, I didn't bother to post a counter-argument, I guess you'd join the Society yourself xmotex since she had the better argument. :shk:

In 2002 the United States ranked 20th in Freedom of the Press.

Just look at the Americans in this thread who say "lalalalalala I'm not listening", when you say anything about the United States that they can't handle hearing, it shows that many Americans want to be ignorant, want to be lied to.

Given the opportunity they will piss and moan about "liberal media", but then turn around
and say that we aren't being deceived.
The media serves corporations and money, not political parties or leanings.
The "liberal bias" argument is a divisive tactic of those who lack facts.

Those with no historical knowledge should read up on such things as
A Report on CIA Infiltration and
Manipulation of the Mass Media

or perhaps dissect the reports Mediamatters.org and attempt to debunk what they are saying. If you can you might earn some respect, until then your baseless opinions are full of hateful stinking animal dung.

Here I'll let you take your pick of links about Army 'psyops' at CNN

Or do some research into Drug War propaganda, for instance "Gateway drug" was a term coined by the criminal Nixon adminstration, with aboslutely no basis in science or medecine.

"Marijuana causes brain damage" was another lie sponsored by the government and told for twenty years

One witness, a psychiatrist from the Tulane University
medical school, had conducted experiments on monkeys. He
pumped marijuana smoke into the lungs of ten monkeys and
implanted electrodes in their brains to measure the results. Two
of the monkeys died (of respiratory complications, he
explained), and the other eight suffered changes in brain-wave
patterns. His testimony resulted in national headlines along the
order of "Marijuana Smoking Causes Brain Damage." A later
witness at the hearings, a Nobel Prize winner, pointed out that
the monkeys had been given doses that were equivalent of a
human being's smoking one hundred strong marijuana cigarettes
a day. But that sort of rebuttal didn't make headlines.

Wait did I say it was told for 20 years? Make that 35, some ignorant morons are stilly making the "kills brain cells" claim, proving just how much state sponsored propaganda can make the more gullible among us into worthless morons for the long term.

You'll notice our government and the media has dropped the whole "Saddam gassed his own people" stories, since too many people have been made aware, and not bu\y corporate media, that it was the Reagan-Bush administration that provided Saddam with the deadly agents, and provided military and tactical support even after knowing full well his war crimes.

Why haven't they reported on this?
Is the new motto of the press "you can't handle the truth"?

Propaganda and lies is nothing new for the American government and the American press.

You'll note the detractors to these facts have no facts of their own to back up any
of their opinions. They also seem incabable of using the internet to find support for their arguments.

Their posturing as "patriots" is a bluff, and as an American I find their actions detestable.

If you have broadband I suggest you watch Spin
The Mpeg-1 is over 500 megs, the Mpeg-2 is over a gig. Well worth watching as it
exposes how the media undermined the elections in 1992 and how the "news" is spun.








[edit on 5-5-2005 by Legalizer]

Originally posted by jsobecky

from Siroos
I'm constantly amazed how radicals like you portray people who critisize the U.S. for its policies and actions as "anti-American" and as "hating" the U.S.!! Amazed!! I mean I'm perfectly aware of the ultra-patriotic sentiments of many Americans, which sometimes borders or crosses the borders of what would by many be regarded as extremist. You know whith whole landscapes, buildings, hats, heads, bodies, everything being covered in the American flags, and with slogans hanging all over the place, like "Proud to be American" or "These colors don't run"....etc.... But I never thought that people would be so extremely fanatical, that they would accuse people for being "anti-American" or for hating America and Americans, just because they critisize the U.S. government and its actions. I think people like you are the ones who bring Hitlers to power and who in the past were burning or hanging alleged "withces" like in Salem. You are the self-proclaimed prosecutors - the mob - who always pretends to represent the truth and that which is right, but who in reality prosecutes the truth and the innocent. In the 1930's and 1940's it was the Jews, and prior to that and after that it was the blacks, and today it's Islam, homosexuality, liberals, and immigrants - legal and illegal.

Poor Siroos. You try so hard to make us believe that you are not a hater, then you resort to childish attacks such as this. Do you think you are going to get me angry and lower myself to your level? Tsk tsk tsk.

:shk:

The way you try to portray Iran and the US reminds me of the insane rantings of Baghdad Bob. Tell me, are you related to Comical Ali?

No, we're not related - And I know that you're not related to Chevy Chase, because he was/is funny!

Originally posted by Siroos
Oh, so that makes it ok? Is it ok that the U.S. government is bribing the media to spread misinformation and lies? And is it ok for the media to accept bribes and agree to spread misinformation of behalf of the U.S. government?

Misinformation and lies? Why, because you don't agree with it? The fact is that most news sources prefer to have a bias in presenting only what is going wrong in any issue, and that has been a fact in most of the US media at least for the past 15 years. It has almost always been the task of either the government, or some of the US media to portray everything about a topic or issue. But, really, what exactly do you think that news sources who are against the Bush administration, are liberals or democrat/liberals would say...

The thread here is "Secrecy, Lies and Propaganda Sweeping the U.S." Should be more of a question than a statement. Do an article search on EBSCOhost for economics or oil consumption and see how biased the returns are. Unlike in Cool Hand Luke, what we don't have here is a failure to communicate. Corporate policy is seen splayed out across the media board, and everyone is copying what is supposed to be "the most accredited" source - where the most accredited source is a ficticious marketing ploy corralling the herd.

The Council on Foreign Relations publishes Foreign Affairs, which states, "It is more than a magazine—it is the international forum of choice for the most important new ideas, analysis, and debate on the most significant issues in the world. Inevitably, articles published in Foreign Affairs shape the political dialogue for months and years to come."

They're not joking either as numerous professors and "accredited" personnel post authoritative articles, which the media gleans for information. They know all too well, as do the think tanks, how to promote and institute a course of policy.




[edit on 5-5-2005 by vincere7]

Originally posted by Legalizer
In 2002 the United States ranked 20th in Freedom of the Press.

Just look at the Americans in this thread who say "lalalalalala I'm not listening", when you say anything about the United States that they can't handle hearing, it shows that many Americans want to be ignorant, want to be lied to.

Given the opportunity they will piss and moan about "liberal media", but then turn around
and say that we aren't being deceived.
The media serves corporations and money, not political parties or leanings.
The "liberal bias" argument is a divisive tactic of those who lack facts.

Those with no historical knowledge should read up on such things as
A Report on CIA Infiltration and
Manipulation of the Mass Media

or perhaps dissect the reports Mediamatters.org and attempt to debunk what they are saying. If you can you might earn some respect, until then your baseless opinions are full of hateful stinking animal dung.

Here I'll let you take your pick of links about Army 'psyops' at CNN

Or do some research into Drug War propaganda, for instance "Gateway drug" was a term coined by the criminal Nixon adminstration, with aboslutely no basis in science or medecine.

"Marijuana causes brain damage" was another lie sponsored by the government and told for twenty years

One witness, a psychiatrist from the Tulane University
medical school, had conducted experiments on monkeys. He
pumped marijuana smoke into the lungs of ten monkeys and
implanted electrodes in their brains to measure the results. Two
of the monkeys died (of respiratory complications, he
explained), and the other eight suffered changes in brain-wave
patterns. His testimony resulted in national headlines along the
order of "Marijuana Smoking Causes Brain Damage." A later
witness at the hearings, a Nobel Prize winner, pointed out that
the monkeys had been given doses that were equivalent of a
human being's smoking one hundred strong marijuana cigarettes
a day. But that sort of rebuttal didn't make headlines.

Wait did I say it was told for 20 years? Make that 35, some ignorant morons are stilly making the "kills brain cells" claim, proving just how much state sponsored propaganda can make the more gullible among us into worthless morons for the long term.

You'll notice our government and the media has dropped the whole "Saddam gassed his own people" stories, since too many people have been made aware, and not bu\y corporate media, that it was the Reagan-Bush administration that provided Saddam with the deadly agents, and provided military and tactical support even after knowing full well his war crimes.

Why haven't they reported on this?
Is the new motto of the press "you can't handle the truth"?

Propaganda and lies is nothing new for the American government and the American press.

You'll note the detractors to these facts have no facts of their own to back up any
of their opinions. They also seem incabable of using the internet to find support for their arguments.

Their posturing as "patriots" is a bluff, and as an American I find their actions detestable.

If you have broadband I suggest you watch Spin
The Mpeg-1 is over 500 megs, the Mpeg-2 is over a gig. Well worth watching as it
exposes how the media undermined the elections in 1992 and how the "news" is spun.


[edit on 5-5-2005 by Legalizer]

I dont care if I get points deducted for excessive quoting. This needs to be posted again! Absolutely brilliant post.

You have already voted for Legalizer this month.

Originally posted by Muaddib

Misinformation and lies? Why, because you don't agree with it? The fact is that most news sources prefer to have a bias in presenting only what is going wrong in any issue, and that has been a fact in most of the US media at least for the past 15 years. It has almost always been the task of either the government, or some of the US media to portray everything about a topic or issue. But, really, what exactly do you think that news sources who are against the Bush administration, are liberals or democrat/liberals would say...

Ah yes, the conservative approach. There is nothing wrong here. Everything is fine, trust us.... Evil liberal media has only been focusing on what is wrong. Who cares about human rights violations, the lack of WMD, the thousands killed...we are spreading democracy!!

didn't Iran just killed a Iranian Canadian reporter? didnt Iran just ban Al Jazeera. America aint not the most freeist in freedom of information but its better than Iran, o yeah we still have the freedom of information act.

Originally posted by djohnsto77
I wouldn't be surprised at all to find out that Siroos is a paid propagandist for the Iranian Ministry of Information.

i was starting to question siroos too, everytime siroos post it's like s/he's doing a research paper lol, normal people don't spend like an 1 hour to post and trying to convience everyone that he/she is right. usually people like NWO is coming or we all going to die!!! or Aliens is real, i saw it with my own eyes are people who just doing it for fun.

---> now to the topic
in today's media, it's not for government interest but for corprate greed/interest.

Iceberg Alert

Originally posted by LogansRun
I dont care if I get points deducted for excessive quoting. This needs to be posted again! Absolutely brilliant post.

You have already voted for Legalizer this month.

Agreed, a very good post, in my opinion.

Ah, but only the teeny tiny tip of the iceberg.

The battleground for the ongoing Information Wars is our own minds, and most of us have no idea just how furious and monumental these struggles are.

Skepticism and honesty are the only defenses I have ever seen work, and even they aren't foolproof.

To quote the great bard philosopher John Michael “Oswald” Osbourne:


Ozzy's Uncertainty Principle: If you think you're right, you're wrong, and if you think you're wrong, you're right.

Well Done Siroos!

Unfortunately, I have been advacating just that, though for my thoughtd were more directed to isolation of particular press people and/or networks for even so much as negative reports on stories ill-fitting to the administration.

Dallas

Originally posted by Majic
Considering The Source

Originally posted by Siroos
Before you're so quick, pay notice to that this was not written by Common Dreams, but was posted on their website. INTERPRESS SERVICE is the publisher of the article, and they in turn are quoting what the non-partisan, non-profit org based in New York, "FREEDOM HOUSE" said in its annual report on the state of freedom of the press throughout the world.

Then why channel it through a notorious propaganda mill like CommonDreams.org?

They're not channeling it through CommonDreams - CommonDreams chose to publish it. As simple as that. CommonDreams publishes the articles of Financial Times, Herald Tribune, Boston Globe, The New York Times, etc..

My point is that for them to decry propaganda is akin to George Bush criticizing people for malapropisms. It's gross hypocrisy.

Well, it seems to me that you may have missed the point then, because the article is not about just plain propaganda. It's about bribing journalists and media outlets to show or publish things that benefit the agenda of the U.S. government, even if it's false.



I have looked into CommonDreams.org before, and that site has gone out of its way to earn my enduring distrust, well beyond the call.

So if you're looking to convince me of something, linking anything from them is a step in the wrong direction.

But let's put them aside, and consider the original source, Freedom House.

This article appears where on their site? It doesn't. It's Interpress's spin channeled through CDO.

But let's assume (for now) those dirty hands haven't varnished or embellished Freedom House's claims.

The True Meaning Of Freedom

I can accept for the sake of argument that Freedom House is "non-partisan" and "non-profit".

However, they do have an agenda (several, actually), as stated on their own website, and as noble as that is claimed to be, I would not expect an organization like that to say everything's rosy.

After all, they exist for a reason, don't they? Freedom House does take sides, by their own accounts.

The website tells of their lobbying efforts, activism programs and funding sources, for example.

And that's the point: they are a political organization, and should therefore be afforded the same scrutiny and skepticism all such organizations are subject to.

Analogies: Do you trust everything the NRA says about guns? Do you trust everything the Christian Coalition says about abortions? Do you trust everything the Beef Council says about vegetarianism?

Then why accept as gospel the ratings given for “press freedom” by a self-described political activism group?

The Greater Irony

Having said all that, I think there are some very real problems in this country that deserve serious attention, but this sort of propagandistic polemic isn't the way to go about getting it.

Nor does gratuitously inserting the word “lies” when it doesn't appear in the source article. That sort of nonsense is self-discrediting, and I recommend getting out of that habit if you are interested in establishing yourself as worthy of not ignoring on ATS.

Sure, even pathological liars like CommonDreams.org and ATS's self-appointed propaganda pushers tell the truth once in a while.

I'm just not so hard up that I feel compelled to sort through all the bullcrap for it when there are more reliable sources elsewhere.

The best weapon against lies is the truth, not more lies.

So please, don't inject “lies” where they don't exist.

Point Of Order

Originally posted by Legalizer
Just look at the Americans in this thread who say "lalalalalala I'm not listening", when you say anything about the United States that they can't handle hearing, it shows that many Americans want to be ignorant, want to be lied to.

Being an American who agrees with the majority of your post, and certainly its spirit, I just want to point out that a broad brush paints a crude picture.

I am skeptical of this particular thread's source article, and particularly skeptical of how it got here, as indicated above.

That does not mean I close my ears to information simply because it portrays the U.S. in negative terms.

If I did that, I would be left with a bare fraction of news to choose from, because almost all of it is negative in one way or another.

That's because bad news sells, and good news doesn't.

But I advise against making the mistake of thinking that all Americans who greet news with skepticism are closing their eyes to the truth.

It's more along the lines of having rocks constantly thrown in our faces, and needing to convince ourselves that the next rock is worth opening our eyes for.

We are constantly bombarded with a raging fecal storm of lies, propaganda and overt brainwashing that I find intolerable. So much so I that stopped watching TV over two years ago and gave up radio shortly thereafter.

Being cut off from mass programming from those sources makes it much more obvious when I see it on the Internet.

In other words, calling attention to information warfare is good, but criticizing some people for not buying the very same propaganda being fed to us would be misguided.

I'm skeptical of all of it.

Originally posted by LogansRun

Ah yes, the conservative approach. There is nothing wrong here. Everything is fine, trust us.... Evil liberal media has only been focusing on what is wrong. Who cares about human rights violations, the lack of WMD, the thousands killed...we are spreading democracy!!

Ah, the liberal approach...who cares about what the authorities in Spain found about a link between Iraq and at least one of the terrorists involved in 9/11.

Who cares that the intelligence from every country in the world was saying Saddam had WMD.

Who cares that even president Putin told us ever since 9/11 up to the war in Iraq that their intelligence was telling them that Saddam was working on making terrorist attacks on US soil....

Who cares that Saddam broke the sanctions, lied and manipulated the UN, and the US while 2 million iraqis died, 560,000 of them being children during the reign of Saddam and because of the UN sanctions which were not working...

Who cares that Saddam was paying the families of terrorists who killed Americans and Israelis.

Let's all pray for peace and disarm the US...the US should disarm first, who cares that the rest of the world will never disarm and would probably take advantage that the US is disarmed...

Liberals don't give a damn about the US it seems....except that they want to turn the US into country of potheads....



[edit on 5-5-2005 by Muaddib]

Originally posted by Siroos
Well, it seems to me that you may have missed the point then, because the article is not about just plain propaganda. It's about bribing journalists and media outlets to show or publish things that benefit the agenda of the U.S. government, even if it's false.

I think you are missing the point.

One of the main differences between the western media and the media of middle eastern countries is the motivations behind the reporting. In the west, especially in the US and in Europe, the mass media is driven by the wants and demands of the consumers of the media, not the government, nor the corporate interests behind the media. Western mass media is driven by money, just like everything else, and there is no money whatsoever is accepting a pittance of a bribe from some schmuck government official versus breaking newsworthy storys that will garner ratings and therefore advertising dollars.

Also, there are simply too many media outlets in the west to effectively surpress for your theory to work, unlike where you apparently come from, where there are fewer outletsand they are heavily controlled by government regulation and censorship.

The media is our government's woest enemy. The Bush administration would love nothing more than to lock up every single reporter and newspaper editor so they could have a free hand at implementing their agenda. Its our media, liberal or otherwise, that keeps our government honest. Thats why in countries like Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Syria, the government controls the media, so people are kept in the dark.

To imply that the US media is in bed with the government, and is profiting from this arrangement, demonstrates a total lack understanding of the dynamic of the relationship between the US media, the masses, the government, big business, and the all-power goddess herself....... $

Originally posted by Muaddib

Originally posted by Siroos
Oh, so that makes it ok? Is it ok that the U.S. government is bribing the media to spread misinformation and lies? And is it ok for the media to accept bribes and agree to spread misinformation of behalf of the U.S. government?

Misinformation and lies? Why, because you don't agree with it? The fact is that most news sources prefer to have a bias in presenting only what is going wrong in any issue, and that has been a fact in most of the US media at least for the past 15 years. It has almost always been the task of either the government, or some of the US media to portray everything about a topic or issue. But, really, what exactly do you think that news sources who are against the Bush administration, are liberals or democrat/liberals would say...

Well, do you think it's ok that the government in a supposedly free and democratic society bribes journalists and media to propagate whatever it is that it wants to propagate, be it false or true? If you do, and you favor a free and democratic society, I think you're contradicting yourself.

About That False Dichotomy

A word of warning to those who buy into the patently false “Liberal/Conservative” dichotomy.

It's a tool for controlling otherwise free minds.

If you are adopting a position or opinion because you are a “liberal” or “conservative”, you are being played for a fool, and have just sold your brain to the lowest bidder.

It's called the “us-them dichotomy”, and it's one of the oldest tricks in the book for dividing, conquering and controlling otherwise united groups. It works so well because humans instinctively embrace it as part of our social programming.

In the U.S., this device is used to cement control of the government by a tightly-held oligarchy of Democrats and Republicans who tell their respective constituents what they want them to hear, keep them rabidly polarized and at each other's throats through the use of inflammatory partisan rhetoric and then fleece them for all they can get.

A mind is a terrible thing to waste. Just say NO to partisan brainwashing.

Overcoming mind control is not easy. The hardest thing to be is hard because it's worth fighting for, and that's why I recommend it:

Be yourself.

I dont care if I get points deducted for excessive quoting. This needs to be posted again! Absolutely brilliant post.

You have already voted for Legalizer this month.

Thank you for that one! Beautiful and very well said and so true!