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A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Paul Street at Mar 14, 2005

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Want to get a chilling new glimpse of your emergent totalitarian future in the "home of the free?" Then go to.... http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/13/politics/13covert.html?ei=5070&en=2d48dec4b53dff33&ex=1111381200&pagewanted=print&position= There (or below in this post) you will read "Under Bush, a New Age of Prepackaged TV News" by DAVID BARSTOW and ROBIN STEIN, in the New York Times (March 13, 2005). You've heard dominant "mainstream" media reporters and editors described, perhaps, as "stenographers of power." You've read, I imagine, about that media's tendency to rely heavily on official state news sources in their "unbiased" coverage of current events. This story (below) shows that federal thought-manipulators have decided to take things to another level and fully produce the "news" stories that "your" "independent" media broadcasts. Call it (to use a term from the modern "managerial"- corporate form of business enterprise) a form of "forward [state-propogandistic] vertical integration." Further foreboding leftist commentary seems largely unnecessary. I will observe three things in advance, however: (1) there's a bipartisan history to the direct pre-packaged federal production of actual news video, which was practiced by the Clinton administration (though not on the Bushcons' level). (2) the corporate news media's own job-slashing personnel practices are a signficant part of this story (nothing new there), creating opportunities for central state authorities to directly produce news coverage, (3) It's all part of the sort of blurring of lines and values that one would expect in a society that is creeping (in the name of such nice labels as "democracy," "capitalism," and the "free market") into full-fledged corporate-state fascism. The story: "Under Bush, a New Age of Prepackaged TV News" DAVID BARSTOW and ROBIN STEIN NYT (March 13, 2005) It is the kind of TV news coverage every president covets. "Thank you, Bush. Thank you, U.S.A.," a jubilant Iraqi-American told a camera crew in Kansas City for a segment about reaction to the fall of Baghdad. A second report told of "another success" in the Bush administration's "drive to strengthen aviation security"; the reporter called it "one of the most remarkable campaigns in aviation history." A third segment, broadcast in January, described the administration's determination to open markets for American farmers. To a viewer, each report looked like any other 90-second segment on the local news. In fact, the federal government produced all three. The report from Kansas City was made by the State Department. The "reporter" covering airport safety was actually a public relations professional working under a false name for the Transportation Security Administration. The farming segment was done by the Agriculture Department's office of communications. Under the Bush administration, the federal government has aggressively used a well-established tool of public relations: the prepackaged, ready-to-serve news report that major corporations have long distributed to TV stations to pitch everything from headache remedies to auto insurance. In all, at least 20 federal agencies, including the Defense Department and the Census Bureau, have made and distributed hundreds of television news segments in the past four years, records and interviews show. Many were subsequently broadcast on local stations across the country without any acknowledgement of the government's role in their production. This winter, Washington has been roiled by revelations that a handful of columnists wrote in support of administration policies without disclosing they had accepted payments from the government. But the administration's efforts to generate positive news coverage have been considerably more pervasive than previously known. At the same time, records and interviews suggest widespread complicity or negligence by television stations, given industry ethics standards that discourage the broadcast of prepackaged news segments from any outside group without revealing the source. Federal agencies are forthright with broadcasters about the origin of the news segments they distribute. The reports themselves, though, are designed to fit seamlessly into the typical local news broadcast. In most cases, the "reporters" are careful not to state in the segment that they work for the government. Their reports generally avoid overt ideological appeals. Instead, the government's news-making apparatus has produced a quiet drumbeat of broadcasts describing a vigilant and compassionate administration. Some reports were produced to support the administration's most cherished policy objectives, like regime change in Iraq or Medicare reform. Others focused on less prominent matters, like the administration's efforts to offer free after-school tutoring, its campaign to curb childhood obesity, its initiatives to preserve forests and wetlands, its plans to fight computer viruses, even its attempts to fight holiday drunken driving. They often feature "interviews" with senior administration officials in which questions are scripted and answers rehearsed. Critics, though, are excluded, as are any hints of mismanagement, waste or controversy. Some of the segments were broadcast in some of nation's largest television markets, including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas and Atlanta. An examination of government-produced news reports offers a look inside a world where the traditional lines between public relations and journalism have become tangled, where local anchors introduce prepackaged segments with "suggested" lead-ins written by public relations experts. It is a world where government-produced reports disappear into a maze of satellite transmissions, Web portals, syndicated news programs and network feeds, only to emerge cleansed on the other side as "independent" journalism. It is also a world where all participants benefit. Local affiliates are spared the expense of digging up original material. Public relations firms secure government contracts worth millions of dollars. The major networks, which help distribute the releases, collect fees from the government agencies that produce segments and the affiliates that show them. The administration, meanwhile, gets out an unfiltered message, delivered in the guise of traditional reporting. The practice, which also occurred in the Clinton administration, is continuing despite President Bush's recent call for a clearer demarcation between journalism and government publicity efforts. "There needs to be a nice independent relationship between the White House and the press," Mr. Bush told reporters in January, explaining why his administration would no longer pay pundits to support his policies. In interviews, though, press officers for several federal agencies said the president's prohibition did not apply to government-made television news segments, also known as video news releases. They described the segments as factual, politically neutral and useful to viewers. They insisted that there was no similarity to the case of Armstrong Williams, a conservative columnist who promoted the administration's chief education initiative, the No Child Left Behind Act, without disclosing $240,000 in payments from the Education Department. What is more, these officials argued, it is the responsibility of television news directors to inform viewers that a segment about the government was in fact written by the government. "Talk to the television stations that ran it without attribution," said William A. Pierce, spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services. "This is not our problem. We can't be held responsible for their actions." Yet in three separate opinions in the past year, the Government Accountability Office, an investigative arm of Congress that studies the federal government and its expenditures, has held that government-made news segments may constitute improper "covert propaganda" even if their origin is made clear to the television stations. The point, the office said, is whether viewers know the origin. Last month, in its most recent finding, the G.A.O. said federal agencies may not produce prepackaged news reports "that conceal or do not clearly identify for the television viewing audience that the agency was the source of those materials." It is not certain, though, whether the office's pronouncements will have much practical effect. Although a few federal agencies have stopped making television news segments, others continue. And on Friday, the Justice Department and the Office of Management and Budget circulated a memorandum instructing all executive branch agencies to ignore the G.A.O. findings. The memorandum said the G.A.O. failed to distinguish between covert propaganda and "purely informational" news segments made by the government. Such informational segments are legal, the memorandum said, whether or not an agency's role in producing them is disclosed to viewers. Even if agencies do disclose their role, those efforts can easily be undone in a broadcaster's editing room. Some news organizations, for example, simply identify the government's "reporter" as one of their own and then edit out any phrase suggesting the segment was not of their making. So in a recent segment produced by the Agriculture Department, the agency's narrator ended the report by saying "In Princess Anne, Maryland, I'm Pat O'Leary reporting for the U.S. Department of Agriculture." Yet AgDay, a syndicated farm news program that is shown on some 160 stations, simply introduced the segment as being by "AgDay's Pat O'Leary." The final sentence was then trimmed to "In Princess Anne, Maryland, I'm Pat O'Leary reporting." Brian Conrady, executive producer of AgDay, defended the changes. "We can clip 'Department of Agriculture' at our choosing," he said. "The material we get from the U.S.D.A., if we choose to air it and how we choose to air it is our choice." Spreading the Word: Government Efforts and One Woman's Role Karen Ryan cringes at the phrase "covert propaganda." These are words for dictators and spies, and yet they have attached themselves to her like a pair of handcuffs. Not long ago, Ms. Ryan was a much sought-after "reporter" for news segments produced by the federal government. A journalist at ABC and PBS who became a public relations consultant, Ms. Ryan worked on about a dozen reports for seven federal agencies in 2003 and early 2004. Her segments for the Department of Health and Human Services and the Office of National Drug Control Policy were a subject of the accountability office's recent inquiries. The G.A.O. concluded that the two agencies "designed and executed" their segments "to be indistinguishable from news stories produced by private sector television news organizations." A significant part of that execution, the office found, was Ms. Ryan's expert narration, including her typical sign-off - "In Washington, I'm Karen Ryan reporting" - delivered in a tone and cadence familiar to television reporters everywhere. Last March, when The New York Times first described her role in a segment about new prescription drug benefits for Medicare patients, reaction was harsh. In Cleveland, The Plain Dealer ran an editorial under the headline "Karen Ryan, You're a Phony," and she was the object of late-night jokes by Jon Stewart and received hate mail. "I'm like the Marlboro man," she said in a recent interview. In fact, Ms. Ryan was a bit player who made less than $5,000 for her work on government reports. She was also playing an accepted role in a lucrative art form, the video news release. "I just don't feel I did anything wrong," she said. "I just did what everyone else in the industry was doing." It is a sizable industry. One of its largest players, Medialink Worldwide Inc., has about 200 employees, with offices in New York and London. It produces and distributes about 1,000 video news releases a year, most commissioned by major corporations. The Public Relations Society of America even gives an award, the Bronze Anvil, for the year's best video news release. Several major television networks play crucial intermediary roles in the business. Fox, for example, has an arrangement with Medialink to distribute video news releases to 130 affiliates through its video feed service, Fox News Edge. CNN distributes releases to 750 stations in the United States and Canada through a similar feed service, CNN Newsource. Associated Press Television News does the same thing worldwide with its Global Video Wire. "We look at them and determine whether we want them to be on the feed," David M. Winstrom, director of Fox News Edge, said of video news releases. "If I got one that said tobacco cures cancer or something like that, I would kill it." In essence, video news releases seek to exploit a growing vulnerability of television news: Even as news staffs at the major networks are shrinking, many local stations are expanding their hours of news coverage without adding reporters. "No TV news organization has the resources in labor, time or funds to cover every worthy story," one video news release company, TVA Productions, said in a sales pitch to potential clients, adding that "90 percent of TV newsrooms now rely on video news releases." Federal agencies have been commissioning video news releases since at least the first Clinton administration. An increasing number of state agencies are producing television news reports, too; the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department alone has produced some 500 video news releases since 1993. Under the Bush administration, federal agencies appear to be producing more releases, and on a broader array of topics. A definitive accounting is nearly impossible. There is no comprehensive archive of local television news reports, as there is in print journalism, so there is no easy way to determine what has been broadcast, and when and where. Still, several large agencies, including the Defense Department, the State Department and the Department of Health and Human Services, acknowledge expanded efforts to produce news segments. Many members of Mr. Bush's first-term cabinet appeared in such segments. A recent study by Congressional Democrats offers another rough indicator: the Bush administration spent $254 million in its first term on public relations contracts, nearly double what the last Clinton administration spent. Karen Ryan was part of this push - a "paid shill for the Bush administration," as she self-mockingly puts it. It is, she acknowledges, an uncomfortable title. Ms. Ryan, 48, describes herself as not especially political, and certainly no Bush die-hard. She had hoped for a long career in journalism. But over time, she said, she grew dismayed by what she saw as the decline of television news - too many cut corners, too many ratings stunts. In the end, she said, the jump to video news releases from journalism was not as far as one might expect. "It's almost the same thing," she said. There are differences, though. When she went to interview Tommy G. Thompson, then the health and human services secretary, about the new Medicare drug benefit, it was not the usual reporter-source exchange. First, she said, he already knew the questions, and she was there mostly to help him give better, snappier answers. And second, she said, everyone involved is aware of a segment's potential political benefits. Her Medicare report, for example, was distributed in January 2004, not long before Mr. Bush hit the campaign trail and cited the drug benefit as one of his major accomplishments. The script suggested that local anchors lead into the report with this line: "In December, President Bush signed into law the first-ever prescription drug benefit for people with Medicare." In the segment, Mr. Bush is shown signing the legislation as Ms. Ryan describes the new benefits and reports that "all people with Medicare will be able to get coverage that will lower their prescription drug spending." The segment made no mention of the many critics who decry the law as an expensive gift to the pharmaceutical industry. The G.A.O. found that the segment was "not strictly factual," that it contained "notable omissions" and that it amounted to "a favorable report" about a controversial program. And yet this news segment, like several others narrated by Ms. Ryan, reached an audience of millions. According to the accountability office, at least 40 stations ran some part of the Medicare report. Video news releases distributed by the Office of National Drug Control Policy, including one narrated by Ms. Ryan, were shown on 300 stations and reached 22 million households. According to Video Monitoring Services of America, a company that tracks news programs in major cities, Ms. Ryan's segments on behalf of the government were broadcast a total of at least 64 times in the 40 largest television markets. Even these measures, though, do not fully capture the reach of her work. Consider the case of News 10 Now, a cable station in Syracuse owned by Time Warner. In February 2004, days after the government distributed its Medicare segment, News 10 Now broadcast a virtually identical report, including the suggested anchor lead-in. The News 10 Now segment, however, was not narrated by Ms. Ryan. Instead, the station edited out the original narration and had one of its reporters repeat the script almost word for word. The station's news director, Sean McNamara, wrote in an e-mail message, "Our policy on provided video is to clearly identify the source of that video." In the case of the Medicare report, he said, the station believed it was produced and distributed by a major network and did not know that it had originally come from the government. Ms. Ryan said she was surprised by the number of stations willing to run her government segments without any editing or acknowledgement of origin. As proud as she says she is of her work, she did not hesitate, even for a second, when asked if she would have broadcast one of her government reports if she were a local news director. "Absolutely not." Little Oversight: TV's Code of Ethics, With Uncertain Weight "Clearly disclose the origin of information and label all material provided by outsiders." Those words are from the code of ethics of the Radio-Television News Directors Association, the main professional society for broadcast news directors in the United States. Some stations go further, all but forbidding the use of any outside material, especially entire reports. And spurred by embarrassing publicity last year about Karen Ryan, the news directors association is close to proposing a stricter rule, said its executive director, Barbara Cochran. Whether a stricter ethics code will have much effect is unclear; it is not hard to find broadcasters who are not adhering to the existing code, and the association has no enforcement powers. The Federal Communications Commission does, but it has never disciplined a station for showing government-made news segments without disclosing their origin, a spokesman said. Could it? Several lawyers experienced with F.C.C. rules say yes. They point to a 2000 decision by the agency, which stated, "Listeners and viewers are entitled to know by whom they are being persuaded." In interviews, more than a dozen station news directors endorsed this view without hesitation. Several expressed disdain for the prepackaged segments they received daily from government agencies, corporations and special interest groups who wanted to use their airtime and credibility to sell or influence. But when told that their stations showed government-made reports without attribution, most reacted with indignation. Their stations, they insisted, would never allow their news programs to be co-opted by segments fed from any outside party, let alone the government. "They're inherently one-sided, and they don't offer the possibility for follow-up questions - or any questions at all," said Kathy Lehmann Francis, until recently the news director at WDRB, the Fox affiliate in Louisville, Ky. Yet records from Video Monitoring Services of America indicate that WDRB has broadcast at least seven Karen Ryan segments, including one for the government, without disclosing their origin to viewers. Mike Stutz, news director at KGTV, the ABC affiliate in San Diego, was equally opposed to putting government news segments on the air. "It amounts to propaganda, doesn't it?" he said. Again, though, records from Video Monitoring Services of America show that from 2001 to 2004 KGTV ran at least one government-made segment featuring Ms. Ryan, 5 others featuring her work on behalf of corporations, and 19 produced by corporations and other outside organizations. It does not appear that KGTV viewers were told the origin of these 25 segments. "I thought we were pretty solid," Mr. Stutz said, adding that they intend to take more precautions. Confronted with such evidence, most news directors were at a loss to explain how the segments made it on the air. Some said they were unable to find archive tapes that would help answer the question. Others promised to look into it, then stopped returning telephone messages. A few removed the segments from their Web sites, promised greater vigilance in the future or pleaded ignorance. Afghanistan to Memphis: An Agency's Report Ends Up on the Air On Sept. 11, 2002, WHBQ, the Fox affiliate in Memphis, marked the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks with an uplifting report on how assistance from the United States was helping to liberate the women of Afghanistan. Tish Clark, a reporter for WHBQ, described how Afghan women, once barred from schools and jobs, were at last emerging from their burkas, taking up jobs as seamstresses and bakers, sending daughters off to new schools, receiving decent medical care for the first time and even participating in a fledgling democracy. Her segment included an interview with an Afghan teacher who recounted how the Taliban only allowed boys to attend school. An Afghan doctor described how the Taliban refused to let male physicians treat women. In short, Ms. Clark's report seemed to corroborate, however modestly, a central argument of the Bush foreign policy, that forceful American intervention abroad was spreading freedom, improving lives and winning friends. What the people of Memphis were not told, though, was that the interviews used by WHBQ were actually conducted by State Department contractors. The contractors also selected the quotes used from those interviews and shot the video that went with the narration. They also wrote the narration, much of which Ms. Clark repeated with only minor changes. As it happens, the viewers of WHBQ were not the only ones in the dark. Ms. Clark, now Tish Clark Dunning, said in an interview that she, too, had no idea the report originated at the State Department. "If that's true, I'm very shocked that anyone would false report on anything like that," she said. How a television reporter in Memphis unwittingly came to narrate a segment by the State Department reveals much about the extent to which government-produced news accounts have seeped into the broader new media landscape. The explanation begins inside the White House, where the president's communications advisers devised a strategy after Sept. 11, 2001, to encourage supportive news coverage of the fight against terrorism. The idea, they explained to reporters at the time, was to counter charges of American imperialism by generating accounts that emphasized American efforts to liberate and rebuild Afghanistan and Iraq. An important instrument of this strategy was the Office of Broadcasting Services, a State Department unit of 30 or so editors and technicians whose typical duties include distributing video from news conferences. But in early 2002, with close editorial direction from the White House, the unit began producing narrated feature reports, many of them promoting American achievements in Afghanistan and Iraq and reinforcing the administration's rationales for the invasions. These reports were then widely distributed in the United States and around the world for use by local television stations. In all, the State Department has produced 59 such segments. United States law contains provisions intended to prevent the domestic dissemination of government propaganda. The 1948 Smith-Mundt Act, for example, allows Voice of America to broadcast pro-government news to foreign audiences, but not at home. Yet State Department officials said that law does not apply to the Office of Broadcasting Services. In any event, said Richard A. Boucher, a State Department spokesman: "Our goal is to put out facts and the truth. We're not a propaganda agency." Even so, as a senior department official, Patricia Harrison, told Congress last year, the Bush administration has come to regard such "good news" segments as "powerful strategic tools" for influencing public opinion. And a review of the department's segments reveals a body of work in sync with the political objectives set forth by the White House communications team after 9/11. In June 2003, for example, the unit produced a segment that depicted American efforts to distribute food and water to the people of southern Iraq. "After living for decades in fear, they are now receiving assistance - and building trust - with their coalition liberators," the unidentified narrator concluded. Several segments focused on the liberation of Afghan women, which a White House memo from January 2003 singled out as a "prime example" of how "White House-led efforts could facilitate strategic, proactive communications in the war on terror." Tracking precisely how a "good news" report on Afghanistan could have migrated to Memphis from the State Department is far from easy. The State Department typically distributes its segments via satellite to international news organizations like Reuters and Associated Press Television News, which in turn distribute them to the major United States networks, which then transmit them to local affiliates. "Once these products leave our hands, we have no control," Robert A. Tappan, the State Department's deputy assistant secretary for public affairs, said in an interview. The department, he said, never intended its segments to be shown unedited and without attribution by local news programs. "We do our utmost to identify them as State Department-produced products." Representatives for the networks insist that government-produced reports are clearly labeled when they are distributed to affiliates. Yet with segments bouncing from satellite to satellite, passing from one news organization to another, it is easy to see the potential for confusion. Indeed, in response to questions from The Times, Associated Press Television News acknowledged that they might have distributed at least one segment about Afghanistan to the major United States networks without identifying it as the product of the State Department. A spokesman said it could have "slipped through our net because of a sourcing error." Kenneth W. Jobe, vice president for news at WHBQ in Memphis, said he could not explain how his station came to broadcast the State Department's segment on Afghan women. "It's the same piece, there's no mistaking it," he said in an interview, insisting that it would not happen again. Mr. Jobe, who was not with WHBQ in 2002, said the station's script for the segment has no notes explaining its origin. But Tish Clark Dunning said it was her impression at the time that the Afghan segment was her station's version of one done first by network correspondents at either Fox News or CNN. It is not unusual, she said, for a local station to take network reports and then give them a hometown look. "I didn't actually go to Afghanistan," she said. "I took that story and reworked it. I had to do some research on my own. I remember looking on the Internet and finding out how it all started as far as women covering their faces and everything." At the State Department, Mr. Tappan said the broadcasting office is moving away from producing narrated feature segments. Instead, the department is increasingly supplying only the ingredients for reports - sound bites and raw video. Since the shift, he said, even more State Department material is making its way into news broadcasts. Meeting a Need: Rising Budget Pressures, Ready-to-Run Segments WCIA is a small station with a big job in central Illinois. Each weekday, WCIA's news department produces a three-hour morning program, a noon broadcast and three evening programs. There are plans to add a 9 p.m. broadcast. The staff, though, has been cut to 37 from 39. "We are doing more with the same," said Jim P. Gee, the news director. Farming is crucial in Mr. Gee's market, yet with so many demands, he said, "it is hard for us to justify having a reporter just focusing on agriculture." To fill the gap, WCIA turned to the Agriculture Department, which has assembled one of the most effective public relations operations inside the federal government. The department has a Broadcast Media and Technology Center with an annual budget of $3.2 million that each year produces some 90 "mission messages" for local stations - mostly feature segments about the good works of the Agriculture Department. "I don't want to use the word 'filler,' per se, but they meet a need we have," Mr. Gee said. The Agriculture Department's two full-time reporters, Bob Ellison and Pat O'Leary, travel the country filing reports, which are vetted by the department's office of communications before they are distributed via satellite and mail. Alisa Harrison, who oversees the communications office, said Mr. Ellison and Mr. O'Leary provide unbiased, balanced and accurate coverage. "They cover the secretary just like any other reporter," she said. Invariably, though, their segments offer critic-free accounts of the department's policies and programs. In one report, Mr. Ellison told of the agency's efforts to help Florida clean up after several hurricanes. ''They've done a fantastic job,'' a grateful local official said in the segment. More recently, Mr. Ellison reported that Mike Johanns, the new agriculture secretary, and the White House were determined to reopen Japan to American beef products. Of his new boss, Mr. Ellison reported, ''He called Bush the best envoy in the world.'' WCIA, based in Champaign, has run 26 segments made by the Agriculture Department over the past three months alone. Or put another way, WCIA has run 26 reports that did not cost it anything to produce. Mr. Gee, the news director, readily acknowledges that these accounts are not exactly independent, tough-minded journalism. But, he added: ''We don't think they're propaganda. They meet our journalistic standards. They're informative. They're balanced.'' More than a year ago, WCIA asked the Agriculture Department to record a special sign-off that implies the segments are the work of WCIA reporters. So, for example, instead of closing his report with ''I'm Bob Ellison, reporting for the U.S.D.A.,'' Mr. Ellison says, ''With the U.S.D.A., I'm Bob Ellison, reporting for 'The Morning Show.''' Mr. Gee said the customized sign-off helped raise ''awareness of the name of our station.'' Could it give viewers the idea that Mr. Ellison is reporting on location with the U.S.D.A. for WCIA? ''We think viewers can make up their own minds,'' Mr. Gee said. Ms. Harrison, the Agriculture Department press secretary, said the WCIA sign-off was an exception. The general policy, she said, is to make clear in each segment that the reporter works for the department. In any event, she added, she did not think there was much potential for viewer confusion. ''It's pretty clear to me,'' she said. The 'Good News' People: A Menu of Reports From Military Hot Spots The Defense Department is working hard to produce and distribute its own news segments for television audiences in the United States. The Pentagon Channel, available only inside the Defense Department last year, is now being offered to every cable and satellite operator in the United States. Army public affairs specialists, equipped with portable satellite transmitters, are roaming war zones in Afghanistan and Iraq, beaming news reports, raw video and interviews to TV stations in the United States. All a local news director has to do is log on to a military-financed Web site, www.dvidshub.net, browse a menu of segments and request a free satellite feed. Then there is the Army and Air Force Hometown News Service, a unit of 40 reporters and producers set up to send local stations news segments highlighting the accomplishments of military members. ''We're the 'good news' people,'' said Larry W. Gilliam, the unit's deputy director. Each year, the unit films thousands of soldiers sending holiday greetings to their hometowns. Increasingly, the unit also produces news reports that reach large audiences. The 50 stories it filed last year were broadcast 236 times in all, reaching 41 million households in the United States. The news service makes it easy for local stations to run its segments unedited. Reporters, for example, are never identified by their military titles. ''We know if we put a rank on there they're not going to put it on their air,'' Mr. Gilliam said. Each account is also specially tailored for local broadcast. A segment sent to a station in Topeka, Kan., would include an interview with a service member from there. If the same report is sent to Oklahoma City, the soldier is switched out for one from Oklahoma City. ''We try to make the individual soldier a star in their hometown,'' Mr. Gilliam said, adding that segments were distributed only to towns and cities selected by the service members interviewed. Few stations acknowledge the military's role in the segments. ''Just tune in and you'll see a minute-and-a-half news piece and it looks just like they went out and did the story,'' Mr. Gilliam said. The unit, though, makes no attempt to advance any particular political or policy agenda, he said. ''We don't editorialize at all,'' he said. Yet sometimes the ''good news'' approach carries political meaning, intended or not. Such was the case after the Abu Ghraib prison scandal surfaced last spring. Although White House officials depicted the abuse of Iraqi detainees as the work of a few rogue soldiers, the case raised serious questions about the training of military police officers. A short while later, Mr. Gilliam's unit distributed a news segment, sent to 34 stations, that examined the training of prison guards at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri, where some of the military police officers implicated at Abu Ghraib had been trained. ''One of the most important lessons they learn is to treat prisoners strictly but fairly,'' the reporter said in the segment, which depicted a regimen emphasizing respect for detainees. A trainer told the reporter that military police officers were taught to ''treat others as they would want to be treated.'' The account made no mention of Abu Ghraib or how the scandal had prompted changes in training at Fort Leonard Wood. According to Mr. Gilliam, the report was unrelated to any effort by the Defense Department to rebut suggestions of a broad command failure. ''Are you saying that the Pentagon called down and said, 'We need some good publicity?''' he asked. ''No, not at all.'' Anne E. Kornblut contributed reporting for this article.

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Bauerly, Mtbrad at Mar 22, 2005 07:33 AM
"The words "stateless socialist society" don't even mean anything" If they don't mean anything, how come you know what I mean? I think you need to look beyond your 7th grade civics teachers definition of socialism. The society I am talking about is the very first form of society that humans created. Clans helping each other procure food, build shelter and care for offspring. Some where we got of track as a society and we need to find our way back to this. Read marx, he is all about creating more freedom, cooperation and harmony. He is not about building institutions of oppression into our society, he is about breaking them down.

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Shannon, James at Mar 22, 2005 04:21 AM
Another thoughtful exchange!

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Yurallnuts, Realpc at Mar 22, 2005 04:02 AM
"Thus the goal of humans is to reach a stateless socialist society." No, that is not the goal of anyone who is even slightly in touch with reality. The words "stateless socialist society" don't even mean anything.

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Bauerly, Mtbrad at Mar 22, 2005 03:01 AM
"Marx thought capitalism would evolve into stateless communism, and he was wrong" I think you are jumping the gun here. To think that people don't want there needs met without coursion is a mistake. All of humanity strives to live a full satisfying life without being controled by others. Thus the goal of humans is to reach a stateless socialist society. Your claim that some are living in that state now is true, but not all are and people do not rest until they are free.

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Bauerly, Mtbrad at Mar 22, 2005 02:54 AM
"many people living in rural areas have never seen someone who works for the governmnet, there are no offices nearby." You are ignoring the density differences between the state-less societies you mention and our situation, which is decidedly more dense in population and therefore require a greater number of inter-group rules. these rules must be inforced, or not?

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Train, Spike at Mar 21, 2005 12:03 PM
what i mean is that state and market-driven attempts to engineer society make very little sense. these formal schemes have been studied and been shown to be destructive and parasitic to society. i would argue that our advances in the last century have happened despite the state and capitalism. we know of many state-less societies existing today in parts of africa, madagascar. there is a governmnet, but many people living in rural areas have never seen someone who works for the governmnet, there are no offices nearby.

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Train, Spike at Mar 21, 2005 11:57 AM
but an anarchist society would have exactly the kind of structure you mention "cooperative agencies formed by citizens to provide essential services". hierarchical states of necessity need a schematic plan for social order and this always ignores essential features of any real, functioning social order. the failures of modern projects of social engineering, ie the soviet union, are as applicable to market-driven standarization as they are to bureaucratic homogeneity. western capitalism has been in crisis since the 1970's. the recent military adventures of the bush admin are end-stage symptoms of the collapse of the center in our current center/periphery structure. this phase of globalization is rapidly declining, i think.

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Yurallnuts, Realpc at Mar 19, 2005 15:33 PM
Marx thought capitalism would evolve into stateless communism, and he was wrong. It didn't, and it never will, however long you wait. Some form of government is needed in any society. A central government is needed, mainly for national defense. A hierarchy of governing agencies is needed, from the federal down to the local level. Without that, there would be no way to protect citizens from crime, maintain roads, etc. The levels of government in our system are really cooperative agencies formed by citizens to provide essential services. Even social animals are governed, mostly by their genetic programming. There can be no society without some kind of structure. Anarchism does not make any sense.

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Train, Spike at Mar 19, 2005 13:02 PM
i am a socialist, and even further an anarchist. liberalism and capitalism require a huge amount of state control in order for the system to benefit the right people, and this is what leads to the constant violence, i think. without state intervention most people recognize that capitalism would destroy itself very quickly. this is a fundamental contradiction of capitalism, it is built in to the system. marx himself believed in darwinian evolution, and as that applies to human societies. he believed that human social organization would inevitably evolve into stateless communism - capitalism being a necessary stage. but we are talking about very large time scales and a very macro level analysis. however, marx saw no contradiction in speeding the process along by organizing into revolutionary parties etc. the difference between marx and the anarchists was that marx thought a strong communist state was needed to protect the revolution from capitalists, whereas the anarchists felt that capitalism and the state needed to be destroyed immediatly.

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Yurallnuts, Realpc at Mar 19, 2005 00:37 AM
"i disagree that society is controllable. it is a natural organism." Then you are not a socialist. That is the central belief of contemporary liberalism and capitalism.

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Train, Spike at Mar 18, 2005 23:47 PM
but actually realpc chomsky is the first to point out our limited understanding of human nature, i don't think it enrages him. he brings it up all the time. and i don't agree that we have the intelligence to create a good society if only stupid evil people were out of the way. this is the same mistake that Habermas makes for example. the reason we can have sciences of economics and society is because they operate according to rules that are beyond the control of any one individual or group of individuals. if it were possible to "create" society there would be no mystery to its function. perhaps we will learn how to live better, we do that already. as was mentioned, life expectancy in most societies has gone from 45 in 1900 to 75 in 1990. but i disagree that society is controllable. it is a natural organism.

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Shannon, James at Mar 18, 2005 22:43 PM
The profound state of your ignorance is not visible to you! You are a typical example of human nature at work in all its' glory!

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Yurallnuts, Realpc at Mar 18, 2005 21:36 PM
Chomsky is enraged because he does not see how limited we are. Our problems must result from incompetence, greed, ignorance. Surely we have the intelligence to create a good society. If only the good/smart people could have a chance, if only the evil/stupid people were out of the way. The profound state of our ignorance is not visible to 19th century-style rationalists.

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Yurallnuts, Realpc at Mar 18, 2005 21:33 PM
Our extreme ignorance about human nature, and therefore politics, is one reason I am not a progressive/socialist. Socialism rests on the assumption that we understand human society well enough to engineer it. The USSR was an edifying example of the fundamental defect in socialism -- hard as they tried to create a fair and efficient system, it could not be done. Liberalism (in the original sense) means having the faith to let things happen, to some extent, and the humility to know we don't know much.

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Yurallnuts, Realpc at Mar 18, 2005 21:29 PM
Very little is understood about human nature, or nature in general. One of our civilization's myths is the idea that science has arrived at a deep level of understanding. It is not true. Our technology is amazing, and that misleads even experts into thinking we understand the forces we use. Even electricity is not understood. Famous psychologists have been admired for their supposed understanding of human nature. We want to think somebody understands something. In fact hardly anything is understood.

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Train, Spike at Mar 18, 2005 21:18 PM
well if you insist. but my point was that in many blogs, the blogging ends up getting reduced to a discussion about human nature. everybody has opinions about human nature, which is fine. but what i mean is that human nature at this point is a very poorly understood empirical question. we understand almost nothing about what governs human behavior. and the social sciences like economics base entire theoreties on assumptions about human nature (ie rationality) that are turning out to be dead wrong from a scientific perspective.

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Shannon, James at Mar 18, 2005 20:58 PM
Wisdom - to discover how ignorant we are! Spike Train for president!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Train, Spike at Mar 18, 2005 20:31 PM
but that was my point - we are not the experts we think we are. the illusion of having detailed and coherent knowledge about complex things is often confused for impressions of detailed knowledge. this has been shown for our folkscience understanding of biological organs, and tides for example. it is likely to hold for other complex causal systems, such as those governing human behavior (Keil, 2003).

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Shannon, James at Mar 18, 2005 20:17 PM
" so what exactly is human nature " To be abissmally ignorant is a start!

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Shannon, James at Mar 18, 2005 20:15 PM
"how does everybody here know so much about human nature." DOH. - Simpson Every man is an natural expert on the subject - Most deny the reality of that truth. Man's nature stops one from "Lookin in the Mirror" then we can blame whatever for the reality of existance.

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Train, Spike at Mar 18, 2005 20:06 PM
i think it was camus who said - "the only excuse for god is that he does not exist" how does everybody here know so much about human nature? we are only begining to understand nature, let alone the human part of nature. as the formal sciences reveal more and more about extremely complex causal systems like the brain, DNA, social organization, we discover that our intuitive understandings of these things are very coarse. despite decades of research and thousands of articles, the way in which DNA codes for morphological structures in development is not understood, for example. extrapolate the complexity of DNA exponentially and perhaps we come close to the complexity of social systems. so what exactly is human nature?

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Shannon, James at Mar 18, 2005 19:45 PM
"It's all part of the sort of blurring of lines and values that one would expect in a society that is creeping (in the name of such nice labels as “democracy,” “capitalism,” and the “free market") into full-fledged corporate-state fascism." Paul Street I agree with you 110% - but so what. Let's have a reality check. Human Nature is predictable, all leaders know that. Be it Church - State - Political - or whatever - the Nature of Man is used to "control" our hearts and minds. Propaganda - Education - Law - Religion - Politics you name it - are all after the same thing -our hearts and minds, for one purpose and one purpose only greed aka power. For the record - "If God Exists" then evil cannot. Period. There can be no rational argument against that absolute truth. That "Man is Bad" has served an extreme injustice on humanity. That universal belief is the reason why things are as they are, and we are all forced to live an unnatural life.

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Yurallnuts, Realpc at Mar 18, 2005 15:31 PM
Being an activist makes you feel self-righteous. You know who the enemy is and you are one of the good guys. You have a purpose in life, a sense of superiority, and worthwhile goals. No wonder it's impossible to reason with them. All their psychological needs are filled by the ideological group. It substitutes for the primitive tribe, where everyone agrees. Fundamentalist Christians are the same -- knowing the truth and knowing they are heading for heaven is more important to them than reason.

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Yurallnuts, Realpc at Mar 18, 2005 15:28 PM
I think if activist progressives had a better understanding of human nature, and of why they feel so unhappy and angry, they would change their course. It's human nature to look for a villain when we are hurt, and the US government makes a convenient villain. The US is the oldest capitalist democracy, and the most powerful. It has a nice long list of mistakes and atrocities the activists can point to as the cause of all suffering. I am saying the cause of our suffering is not capitalism or the US. If we see the real cause, improvements can be made.

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Yurallnuts, Realpc at Mar 18, 2005 15:25 PM
Anyway, my point is that anti-capitalism is mostly based on the feeling that something is wrong with our current system -- and the system is wrong for us. We did not evolve to live among strangers, to have nowhere to turn for help except the government. It's very sad to have only the US government as your friend in need! But that's how it is, and we have only human intelligence and creativity to blame, and our love of freedom.

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Yurallnuts, Realpc at Mar 18, 2005 15:20 PM
As for primitives having a short life -- we simply do not have the data to claim that. We know that infant mortality is much higher among non-Western humans. That is because modern medicine prevents most early deaths. However, infant mortality is expected by nature and strengthens the species as a whole (we are no longer benefitting from natural selection). High infant mortality lowers the average life span. This does not mean people got old and dropped dead at 40. If they survived to 40 they probably lived to 70 or 80, just like now.

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Yurallnuts, Realpc at Mar 18, 2005 15:18 PM
The progressive ideal is, I think, to attain the level of cooperativeness we evolved to expect. And primitives were highly competitive also, when necessary, with neighboring tribes. But since the population density was low for most of our species existence, war was not as frequent or intense as it is now.

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Yurallnuts, Realpc at Mar 18, 2005 15:15 PM
bwong, I did not say primitives had a wonderful life. I said they had the emotional closeness and social stability that most of us probably crave. Many ancient societies were horrible by our standards. I was not talking about powerful agricultural states, but about simple hunter-gatherers. Yes of course their lives were treacherous (no more than ours, in different ways, though), but they had social support. And my point was just that we cannot go back to the homogenous close-knit cooperative group.

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Gammon101, Bwong at Mar 18, 2005 05:11 AM
I don't see any difference between the "human nature bad" argument and the point that the only way to build a just society is to go back to the cave. The implications are the same: resistance is futile. One small difference. There is indeed a chance that we may return to the cave, after a WWIII apocalypse. Watching movies like Mad Max does not give you lots of confidence that anything decent may come of it.

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Jautter, Mind at Mar 18, 2005 04:46 AM
The only unreconcilable conflict preventing a modern, cosmopolitan society from achieving equality and cooperation is the fact that shit floats to the top and the top rules.When rulers are accountable only to their subordinates rather than a more powerful force,havoc and disintegration generally ensue.

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Gammon101, Bwong at Mar 18, 2005 04:23 AM
"Primitive humans had the stability and security that comes from knowing everything with certainty" Well, I won't call it "security" if you have to spend all your waking moments hiding from predetors, seeking shelters from the elements and don't know where your next meal come from. Anxieties in ancient societies are reflected in mythologies and folk lores. Many of the really old lores are very bleak.

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Gammon101, Bwong at Mar 18, 2005 04:09 AM
There is no need to romanticize the past. I don't see any "freedom" in having to play hide and seek with sabre tooth lions everyday, just to name one small comfort we take for granted. I don't know how true is that "primitive societies" are completely free of strifes. This could be a fiction dreamt up by weary exiles from modrenity. It is true that when the settlers arrived in North America they found a kind of Native society which were in many ways more pristine and "socialistic". But had they arrived a hundred years earlier they would have found slave states completed with all kinds of cruelty and expliotations similar to the Aztecs in the South. The settlers apparantly just caught a glimpse of the Natives in their "declining" state.(source: Ronald Wright" A brief history of progress") I don't see any unreconcilable conflict in a mordern, cosmopolitan society built on the principles of equality and cooperation.Marx might be right that a truly liberated society cannot arise without an adequate material base.

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Jautter, Mind at Mar 18, 2005 03:42 AM
realpc;I'm 55 years old.Had I lived in an aboriginal society,I probably would only have made it to 40.That's 15 extra years I've had to put up with this F'ing shit and still no end in sight.Given a choice,I believe I'd choose primitive.Though a Chinese proverb said,"May you live to see interesting times.",hopeless does not equate with interesting to me.

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Gammon101, Bwong at Mar 18, 2005 03:33 AM
I don't think the point is that you have to move back to the cave. "Mind" is only demonstrating that "human nature" as some of us percieve it now is not a "built in" feature in our species. Conservatives like to smugly quote Churchill(a Fascist, racist pig by all account even though he stood up to Hitler)that anyone who is a socialist over 30 has no brain. Well, if your outlook change with age it is certainly not "human nature". The society has grounded you down.

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Yurallnuts, Realpc at Mar 18, 2005 03:30 AM
Mixed economies -- the most prevalent type in advanced nations today -- balance competitive capitalism with cooperative socialism. Too much of either leads to problems.

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Yurallnuts, Realpc at Mar 18, 2005 03:26 AM
Maybe some kind of compromises will be possible. Human society is not meant to be a lawless wilderness. Even the wilderness has its laws, and social animals live in well-ordered societies where compassion and competition are balanced.

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Yurallnuts, Realpc at Mar 18, 2005 03:21 AM
We all try our best to find out where we belong. We try various things and may never find our perfect environment. Primitive humans had the stability and security that comes from knowing everything with certainty, everything learned from their grandparents and parents was absolutely true, since there were no conflicting ideas. Still, with all the advantaqes they had over us, their life was terrifying and difficult in ways that ours is not.

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Yurallnuts, Realpc at Mar 18, 2005 03:18 AM
Forcing us to live in small cooperative groups like our primitive ancestors would probably drive us crazy. We are used to freedom of thought and action. Anyway, we cannot unlearn all that we know.

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Yurallnuts, Realpc at Mar 18, 2005 03:17 AM
Scientific and technological progess makes our world a disorienting and dangerous place.

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Yurallnuts, Realpc at Mar 18, 2005 03:16 AM
Primitive groups were closely related, genetically, to each other, and often stayed together for life. Now that we have freedom and avalanches of information, we can never go back. We live among strangers and acquaintances. Our oldest friends and closest relatives may disagree strongly with us on religion, politics or science.

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Yurallnuts, Realpc at Mar 18, 2005 03:13 AM
Primitive people studied by 20th c. anthropologists lived in small cooperative groups, more or less in harmony with their natural environment. It's possible that humans beings lived this way for hundreds of thousands of years. This may be the Garden of Eden we subconsciously long for, and which motivates many religious or political ideologies. We cannot recover our lost paradise, however. Primitive tribes were highly homogenous, not the least bit diverse. All members held exactly the same beliefs, passed down from each generation to the next.

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Jautter, Mind at Mar 18, 2005 02:17 AM
Human Nature? Aboriginal societies forced to live by and acquiesce to the laws of nature due to a lack of technology seem to inherently migrate toward and adhere to the very type of social structure we,as civilized people seem to desire but are unable to maintain for any length of [historical]time.Cooperation spells success,competition ultimate doom.The key to a meaningful,fulfilling life will never come from the human, it will only come from the human understanding of Nature.[GOD]

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Hesed00, Hesed at Mar 18, 2005 00:58 AM
I find it amazing just how isolated I feel when I do my daily cruise through the mainstream media. I rarely find a single one of my thoughts reprepresented there. I like coming here and finding the occasional shared perspective.

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Street, Paul at Mar 18, 2005 00:25 AM
Hesed the exhaustion is with the "Evil Human Nature" argument - it never goes anywhere and I've had it for years. It may be the single worst moral-intellectual block against radical activism I've heard (again and again). I'm curious how long 7Natures is going to go on with this bizarre line of reasoning where he passionately denounces the terrible rulers and masters of empire and inequality (I agree with aspects of the denunciation) and then proceeds to destory the actionable relevance of the critique by blaming it all on "human nature." 7N seem thinks we are all part of God's conspiracy against humanity (or is it the other way around? I'm not sure), telling even radical anti-capitalists and antiimperialists to "look in the mirror" and realize their inherently (apparently) evil. Well, I just looked in the mirror. I had some food stuck between my teeth and I'm having a bad hair day. I've had some nasty thoughts and I think I cut someone off on the road today. But I am neither a Nazi nor clueless and yet still claim to be neither less nor more than human.

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Hesed00, Hesed at Mar 17, 2005 20:52 PM
7N, take your pills, call your shrink. Amen Paul. I emapthize with your exaustion on the topic of propaganda. I recognize two kinds, passive and active propaganda. Passive is much more complicated and subjective and has to do with the skewing of historical perspectives and subtle indoctrination not to mention peer pressure. It's the fog of ideas we walk around in everyday. I've had some pretty interesting and heated conversations over passive propaganda. If passive propaganda is like a fog, then active propaganda is the giant ice chunks that fall from the sky, like the video press releases. It's the unashamed bludgeoning of the free-flow of idea. I haven't had nearly as many heated conversations over active propaganda because I have yet to find an unapologetic fascist who is willing to argue about it.

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Shannon, James at Mar 17, 2005 18:53 PM
The Gate Keeper's of America are nothing but neo-Nazi's draped in Red,White& Blue. Using every means available to manipulate society for their personal benefit. Harvard educated MBA/JD Degreed Nazi's who are abismally ignorant of the blood others shed daily from the effects of their greed. Family's and lives torn apart so they can dictate. Arrogant self-righteous privledged no-it-all sociopaths who have never felt the effects of the foot of justice on their throat as their hearts were ripped out. "Nothing personal it's just business" as the Insurance Companies and Doctors and Lawyers and Administrators and Judges and Attorney Generals accomplish unconscienable acts to defraud you as your government stands by and watches. Clueless "from sea to shining sea". Human Nature.

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Shannon, James at Mar 17, 2005 18:20 PM
You can believe what you want - I'll believe the reality of what is. America is about the corruption of cost shifting - Making someone else pay the bill to clean up your shit - your Human Nature. Our Government - Manufacturers - Retailers - Banks - The Insurance Cartel - Hospitals - Doctors - Lawyers - Education - Defense - Public Works - Transportation - You name it - all engage in the universal practice of cost shifting because no one wants to clean up the shit of the next guy if they can get someone else to do it. Human Nature. Find a way to change man's nature and then let's talk politics.

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Shannon, James at Mar 17, 2005 18:00 PM
All of us who are concerned for peace and triumph of reason and justice must be keenly aware how small an influence reason and honest good will exert upon events in the political field. Albert Einstein on Reality of Human Nature He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would fully suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, senseless brutality, deplorable patriotism, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be part of so base an action! It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder. Albert Einstein on Human Nature Wars are about Power - Power is about Money - There is a war raging in America and it is about who gets the money. Its' complexity can only be understood by the finest most highly developed and educated of minds. I've been out there everyday for years and years fighting for justice. Corruption is what defines America - that is the beginning - middle - and end of the story.

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Yurallnuts, Realpc at Mar 17, 2005 03:04 AM
"We should close the book of popular struggle" Not at all. We should oppose injustice and cruelty wherever we find it, most of all within our own selves. We should struggle against the inevitable tendency of powerful organizations, public or private, towards corruption and greed. We should work towards improving our laws and strive to correct imbalances and excesses. This is an ongoing process that will never be complete. Each of us can do something positive -- even reading, thinking and communicating our ideas can be a form of positive action.

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Shannon, James at Mar 17, 2005 03:01 AM
Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions. Albert Einstein

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Shannon, James at Mar 17, 2005 02:57 AM
So you got yours and all is right with the world. Sounds like human nature!

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Shannon, James at Mar 17, 2005 02:52 AM
Guns and Butter all over again! Human Nature

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Gammon101, Bwong at Mar 17, 2005 02:48 AM
realpc, Where do you get the strange that "progressives" are for "big government"? To add to Hesed's point, why is it "big government" if the state invests in education and health, but it is ok if the same state transfers all the cash to the military, police and prisons?

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Gammon101, Bwong at Mar 17, 2005 02:47 AM
Paul, Excellent point about the naive belief that propaganda can only come from the government. Many people think that we have an "objective" media because it is not owned by the government like in the U.S.S.R. Fact is, even the government is privately owned(in a sense). BTW, nevermind 7, he's just a bitter Nietzche wanna be. Let him rant on, soon he will spam the site with quotes from dead people. Just watch.

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Shannon, James at Mar 17, 2005 02:37 AM
Talk about niave - Go look in the mirror. History has proven over and over and over - the only way a man relinguishes either money or real power is at the point of a gun. Real power is military and corporate - you know the "Military - Industial Complex" we were warned about over 50 years ago. Even if we killed all the mother f...ers ruining "justice" for the rest of us - we would just get more of the same Harvard brainwashed mother f...ers to replace them. And that is the truth of human nature. It is been said "Cream Rises to the Top" many times - Reality Check go look in a septic tank "It's Scum that Floats" and that is history and that is human nature. All the ignorant do gooders united can't do shit to change things and that too is history. Jesus and King are good examples.

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Street, Paul at Mar 17, 2005 02:06 AM
But 7Natures the odd thing about your version is that you seem truly outraged about all this terrible Greed and seem to wish that "human nature" was better and different. Well, preacher Paul has got mighty good news for you and the rest of the flock: it is! I'm a believer and I have seen the light. I know you've been let down by humanity but believe it or not many of us homo sapiens really aren't inherent genetically encoded or God-ordained exploiters...narrow seekers of wealth and power, grinders of the poor, and murders of the ecosphere. Brother believe me when I say that there's a strong living human record of altruism, cooperation, and struggle for justice and democracy and the setting of limits to concentrated wealth and power/empire and inequality. So please put your hand on the ZNet bible and repeat after me on March 19th: "The people united will never be defeated"..."Whose streets? Our streets!"...."This is what democracy looks like." Can I please get an AMEN?

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Street, Paul at Mar 17, 2005 02:01 AM
Now with realpc he just agrees with this in an intellectually semi-bemused know-it-all sort of way and then tells all us latently blood-thirsty romantic proto-genocidal radicals (Martin Luther King's declared democratic socialism ultimately leads to Pol Pot's skull collections, you know) to get real and accept the limits of "life." We should close the book of popular struggle and seek solace in God, mystery, and the protection our little possessive individualist corners of the universe. I've had that argument more times than I ever want to again...ctd.

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Street, Paul at Mar 17, 2005 01:54 AM
I had to have this God and human nature argument over and over again for half a year with one of my privelege-apologizing power-accommodating ruling-class enabling colleagues. I said pretty much what I think bwong said above though I should add that I'm so overdosed on the topic I had to skim that debate very quickly so as not to become overly nasueous. Here is a "Comment by 7Natures posted on Tuesday, March 15 at 11:27 AM" "If we destroyed this system we would just wind up with some 'new' version of The Golden Rule." "I got mine - screw the rest of you." "Human Nature" Than what in the name of God (or whatever) are you doing here? This is fatalistic surrender to injustice at its worst or close to it - totally unwarranted in my opinion....ctd

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Street, Paul at Mar 17, 2005 01:39 AM
"To the Editor: "The response to your article has to be outrage. In every century, in every totalitarian nation, the media have been used to speak the thoughts, words and policies of those leading the country - always in glowing terms or threatening suggestions." "And now we learn what many suspected: that much of the news is not news but a carefully crafted message to channel opinions into accepted outlets. What this amounts to is absolute disrespect for the American people." "Are we so ignorant, uncaring or inattentive that we cannot be trusted to form our own opinions? Is this why so many needy people vote for policies that are against their own interests?" "Every American deserves to get straight news coverage without the contents' being sifted by government agencies, corporations or special interest groups. That is the essence." Leona Mahler-Sussman Cedar Grove, N.J., March 15, 2005 Street: again the sentiments are nice but the naivete is pronounced. Even without the incredibly disgusting practice exposed in the NYT piece, "much of the news is not news but a carefully crafted message to channel opinions into accepted outlets."

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Occupy_iowa_city_rally

Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Street, Paul at Mar 17, 2005 01:37 AM
"And government-sponsored messages disguised as independent news are nothing less than government-sponsored propaganda. It would be naïve to imagine that these slick government-sponsored videos were not deliberately designed for public consumption as if they were actual news." "The failure of news editors to make this distinction, intentionally or not, has critically undermined the credibility of news organizations and has put us in the same company as all those countries whose propaganda machines have long been targets of our derision." "President Bush has made the spread of freedom and democracy around the world a cornerstone of his presidency. Perhaps we need to start this process at home, and fast." David E. Cohen Wyckoff, N.J., March 13, 2005 Ok fine but Cohen does't seem to grasp that we are already the most propagandized people on earth even before and without the direct news production by the Bushcon White House and before them the Clinton adminstration.

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Street, Paul at Mar 17, 2005 01:35 AM
Consiststent with my concern, shared by Jose (March 15th comment) that the Times expose on state-packaged news (remember that -- the subject of the post that is?) could lead some people to falsely assume that they aren't already being heavily propagandized by dominant (much better phrase than "mainstream"...were Pravda and Izvestia the USSR's "mainstream" press?) Orwellian corporate state media, here are two interesting and rather naive letters to the NYT editor today (March 16th) March 16, 2005 "To the Editor: "'Under Bush, a New Age of Prepackaged News' (front page, March 13) was truly alarming. Our freedoms are assured by our access to a free press, which must be untainted by government propaganda." ..ctd.

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Hesed00, Hesed at Mar 17, 2005 01:33 AM
Realpc writes: "What we have now are progressives who hate corporations, and conservatives who hate big government." Conservatives hate big government? Which conservatives? Government spending is the highest it has EVER been in this country. Are you saying that even though conservatives control every branch of the government that they are somehow not responsible for the spending spree or the giant expanse of government we've seen over the last 5 years? Yeah conservatives like to say they are against big government but let me clue you into something...IT'S A LIE.

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Yurallnuts, Realpc at Mar 16, 2005 23:20 PM
Do not trust human nature -- at least, don't trust anyone you do not know, and that includes the government. Do not trust big powerful organizations, of any kind. If you want to trust someone, trust God.

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Yurallnuts, Realpc at Mar 16, 2005 23:18 PM
"I doubt that most people here would agree with the top down, social engineering by command approach that alarms realpc." I don't know bwong, I have a feeling they would fall for it again and again. Why do they trust the government more than they trust the giant corporations? I think we need a new form of liberalism where all powerful organizations are distrusted. What we have now are progressives who hate corporations, and conservatives who hate big government. We should not love either; we should try to find ways to keep both under control.

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Shannon, James at Mar 16, 2005 22:18 PM
Human Nature - is not an excuse for the reality of the world - it is the undeniable result of evolution / creation. Look in the Mirror. Few can or will. History stands as proof.

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Gammon101, Bwong at Mar 16, 2005 22:08 PM
I doubt that most people here would agree with the top down, social engineering by command approach that alarms realpc. That kind of "grand", top down social engineering scheme was a characteristic of 19th centry philosphy. In those days everyone has to have an all encomapssing philosphical system before they talked about any specific problem. Thus, Marx went through great length to develope dialectical materialism and historical materialism before he investigated and critiqued capitalism. That was the sign of the time and was not confined to "socialists" either. Grand, elaborated systems often suffer the disadvantage of not being "robust" in that the whole thing may collapse if one part does not hold up. In our time we are a lot more flexible and "ad hoc". Few believe you need to build some rigid, grand system before you can take part in social change.

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Gammon101, Bwong at Mar 16, 2005 22:05 PM
"Human nature" is a poor excuse for inaction. While human nature no doubt exists, we know very little about it. And as far as what we do know, it can manifest itself in either benevolent or malevolent ways depending on the context. In the capitalist enviroment, some of the worst human instinct are "selected", to use a term in biology. Anti-social behaviours such as greed and selfishness are celebarated and rewarded(what it takes to "get ahead"). Overtime these become the dominant trait. My view is that "socialism" is not so much about "re-engineering" human nature in a top down fashion based on some pie in the sky, Utopian idealogy(which I do agree with realpc would easily lead to totalitarianism). It is about creating alternative structures(economical, social). We need to create a more human friendly "ecology" that "selects" the more benevolent traits of our species. It has to work through "human nature", not against it.

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Gammon101, Bwong at Mar 16, 2005 20:52 PM
Stop the self pity, realpc. No one hates you and want to lock you up in a gulag here. You sound pathetic because half of the time you're rambling and don't seem to have a clue what you're talking about. r4d20(a liberal like yourself) makes some very challenging points from time to time, quite contrary to the leftist, anti-capitalist world view expressed in these blogs. But the difference is he knows what is talking about. His points are always well argued and intelligently presented. I enjoyed our discussions even though often time I disagree with him. I think quite a few others would agree.

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Shannon, James at Mar 16, 2005 20:20 PM
Or they want to believe that Jesus or Mohamed or the Pope or Ayatolla or Luther or Einstein or Ford or Edison or Rockefellor or Carnegie or Edison or Washington or Jefferson or Lincoln or Kennedy or Regan or Bush or Mohamed or the Pope or the Queen or the Shah or Stalin or Marx or Powell or Geenspan or Keynes or Aristotle or Aquinas or Gates or Ebbers or Democrats or Republicans or or or ad infinitum have the "real" "honest" "Word of God" "truth" for Questions that defy absolutes. Our brains are wired that way. Again Human Nature at work.

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Yurallnuts, Realpc at Mar 16, 2005 20:09 PM
"We will be in control, we will be the rulers. And we will love and care for everyone, even if we hate them and even if they are pathetic jerks like realpc."

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Yurallnuts, Realpc at Mar 16, 2005 20:09 PM
The need to belong and to feel superior are powerful drives. So is the need to believe there are answers to the big questions and solutions for the big problems. Here is what you think: "We are smart and enlightened and well-informed here. If we were in charge, things would go well. The neo-cons and the corporations care only for themselves, and have brain-washed the ignorant and trusting flock of sheep to vote against their own interests. If we get rid of capitalism, we will take over and, with our superior intellects, will create a society that is safe and fair for everyone."

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Yurallnuts, Realpc at Mar 16, 2005 20:02 PM
People, in general, want to think they know some big explaining truth, and hate to admit it's impossible. People also want to feel they are somehow superior, belong to the group that is smarter, more compassionate, more ethical, whatever. Therefore everyone who does not agree just has to be brainwashed, or delusional, or ignorant, or stupid, or evil. How else could we explain the fact that people have such dramatically different answers to the important questions?

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Shannon, James at Mar 16, 2005 19:16 PM
Realpc - rarely ignored. A very honest observation of how people ignore what they don't want to hear or believe. We choose our beliefs. That is our Nature. Once our beliefs are locked in we are willing to die (or kill others Hitler / Bush) to prove that our beliefs are the "Word of God". Jesus Christ is another example. Name a "leader" or a cause and prove observable "Truth".

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Yurallnuts, Realpc at Mar 16, 2005 19:01 PM
But I dislike and distrust manufactured consent so the pressure to conform does not stop me from expressing my opinions.

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Yurallnuts, Realpc at Mar 16, 2005 18:58 PM
"I personally suspect that mass consent is just as significantly manufactured through the production of "The Apprentice" ..." It's manufactured in the US the same way as it is here, on this blog, and everywhere. Everyone wants to be liked and to fit in with some group, whether it's a nation, a church, a corporation, whatever. In order to fit in you must agree with certain defining assumptions of the organization. Here, on this blog, it's the assumption that most of our problems result from capitalism. Since I question that assumption, I don't fit in here and people are instructed to ignore my irreverent comments.

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Jautter, Mind at Mar 16, 2005 17:41 PM
Fear[of not having enough] is the father of greed,and ignorance is its mother.Though people who have the desire to amass great wealth obviously must posess an above average intelligence,they are apparently ignorant of the lessons of history[let them eat cake].

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Hesed00, Hesed at Mar 16, 2005 06:53 AM
Comptroller General, David Walker from the GAO offered a quick solution to the problem of video press releases being misrepresented as news. His idea was to put an icon on the screen identifying it as a government production. Bush promptly advised government agencies to ignore this suggestion.

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Occupy_iowa_city_rally

Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Street, Paul at Mar 16, 2005 05:04 AM
I think that Chomsky has tended to neglect the Huxlean side insofar as it relevant and this is mainly for personal or cultural or professional (maybe I should add generational) reasons as much because of intellectual choice as to relevance. He doesn't have the patience or taste to sit through sit coms and major sports events and reality shows etc. (I barely have it but I am a baby boomer after all). Somebody ("baby") wrote here that a Britney Spears is as relevant as a Goebbels in thought control ...'baby' may be on to something with that. I personally suspect that mass consent is just as significantly manufactured through the production of "The Apprentice" or "Greg and Dharmah" as it is through the selective corporate-imperial presentation of current events in the Washington Post or the ABC Evening News. And it's as much about how (to sound a little like Postman) people think (and perhaps feel) as it is about what they think and what information they get.

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Street, Paul at Mar 16, 2005 04:47 AM
Keir, yes I read the late Postman, who I thought was brilliant if too-Luddite. This Orwellian-Huxlean dichotomy has been a big preoccupation of mine over the years. See "More Than Entertainment: Neal Gabler and Illusions of Post-Ideological Society," Monthly Review (February 2000): 58-62; "Thought Control" (April 27, 2004) at http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=5410; "Killing Us Softly: Politics and Enertainment,"(April 21, 2004) at http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=5372; and "Thought Control, Costas...." at http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Aug04/Street0829.htm. I think Orwell and Huxley are both going on at the same time in some mutually reinforcing and increasingly intersecting ways and its worth recalling that Orwell's Nineteen Eighty Four State also had a lurid entertainment culture for "the proles." I tend to try to reconcile GO and AH from a more explicitly Marxian perspective.

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Train, Spike at Mar 16, 2005 04:45 AM
the problem is explaining where these assumptions come from. of course this goes to psychology and personality etc. but beyond each individual this seems to be intensified at the social-system level. i am just speculating here, but an individual might change her assumptions, an entire social-system is less likely to change its assumptions. but system wide assumptions are just the aggregates of all the individual assumptions in that system. there is a bi-directional causality here that i'm sure could be described mathematically by a smart person. but it does bring us back to beliefs and desires at both the individual and group level. i am not surprised by what the NY times article describes. it seems to be a natural way for the system to behave, and it seems natural too that such a system will eventually collapse.

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Train, Spike at Mar 16, 2005 04:34 AM
and i don't mean expectations about how the government 'should' act, but expectations about the behavior of things. we don't expect trees to fly out of the ground, and if we saw this happen we would try every possible means of explaining this freakish phenomenon in some way that fits to our world-view. in the same way, people who are antecedently convinced of the american government's nobility cannot understand evidence that the american military is brutal, for example. no amount of documentary evidence will convince people of this perspective otherwise. this can be seen in the way the media explains away evidence that is too obvious to ignore - fallujah, abu-graib, guantanamo etc. these things are anomalies from their perspective. from another perspective they are completely unsurprising.

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Train, Spike at Mar 16, 2005 04:27 AM
i think it also relates to implicit assumptions in the way people represent the government. in science there are many examples of researchers rejecting experimental evidence because it did not fit with theoretcial expectations. the mainstream media thows out or explains away evidence that does not fit its assumptions, or internal categories. for example i think a strong implicit assumption of much of the media is that the US government is a benign, well-intentioned and even heroic 'entity'. therefore its actions must be of this nature as well. evidence to the contrary is either thrown out, or not even noticed because such evidence does not fit with powerful expectations about how the government can act.

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Gammon101, Bwong at Mar 16, 2005 04:06 AM
I think the "propaganda system" is much more diffuse and complex then it may appear. Sometimes you can locate the sources as in the cases of concerted compaigns for specific purposes(say, selling the war). But more often, it operates in a web of deciet and self deceptions, cherished beliefs and self serving illusions.Dominant class interest is an important factor, but not all of it. The caricature that a few evil genuis pulling the string to dupe everybody seems to be a bit simplistic to me. Sorry if I sound sort of vauge like realpc, I am still trying to work this out.

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Gammon101, Bwong at Mar 16, 2005 03:55 AM
In totalitarian countries this phenomenon of propaganda backfiring takes an even more extreme form. The function of propaganda in totalitarian states is often more to indimidate than to convince, as noted before. Sometimes it works so well that the citizens adapt by becoming sort of two faced. When everyone may be lying you have no way to know if anyone is telling the truth. The rulers are often unable to obtain crucial information as a result. It has been said that on the eve of the Iraq invasion, the only one (other than the duped U.S public)who sincerly believed Iraq had stockpile of WMD was Saddam himself. This is not as far fetched as it sound. It is fairly well established that the great Chinses famine between 1958-61 was unintended. The famine was allowed to fester and grow because for a long time the leaders did not even know there was a famine. Local officials faked their harvest reports to appease their superiors and avoid punishment, the lies then propagated up the chain of command.

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Gammon101, Bwong at Mar 16, 2005 03:54 AM
It turned out the Arab viewers were watching American TV for the entertainment, but turned to Al jazera for the news. It is kind of comical. It's like you go fishing. The fish ate the bait and swim away without fail. The operation costs the U.S government quite a bit of money and the executives apparantly have a lot of explanations to make in order to ensure continued funding. I think what is remarkable is that the whole idea behind this propaganda compaign was based on another set of propaganda, perpetrated by pretty much the same class of the people. It is the negative stereotype of the Arabs being a bunch of unsophisticated, emotional simpletons(like "children"). Show them some movies, some song and dance and then they would be won over. Somewhere along the line the perpetrators themselves begin to believe in it.

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Gammon101, Bwong at Mar 16, 2005 03:52 AM
Here is an example. The U.S government is spending big money in the middle east to set up TV stations to promote American pov. These TV stations have tacky names like "Freedom TV", "Free man" etc. They show American news, political commentaries along with sit coms, movies and pop music. Presumably the entertainment is the sugar coat for the pill that is the politics. After the operation was in gear for a while,surveys showed that the subcribing rate was at an all time high. That was the good news, the bad news was "anti -American" sentiment was also at an all time high. The brians behind the project were straching their heads. What the hell was going on? The more they watch our propaganda the more they hate us; the more they hate us the more of them subscribe???!(well, kind of like realpc..)

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Gammon101, Bwong at Mar 16, 2005 03:51 AM
I don't know to what extent the perpetrators of propaganda believe in their own lies. It is an interesting topic for psychologists. When watching political commentaries on TV( you can actually see the commentators) I am often struck by the utter inaity of the comments as well as the apparant sincerity of the commentators. You can usually tell if someone is lying through his/her teeth. There are such scoundrels but they are not the majority(I don't have FOX news and I din't watch much American news, so maybe I have only a very limited sample). Some French writer,-whose name I forget,-wrote that propaganda is a dangerous weapon, it is like a slippery snake. You try to hold it in your hand, but if you're not careful, it may just turn around and bite you.

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Shannon, James at Mar 16, 2005 01:49 AM
I have two Arab-American nieces both Smithies who have been raised on the international stage. Their view of the world is radically diffferent than the 2% of the world's population that call the US home. We are not the center of the universe. As a nation we are being dealt an extreme disservice by the "Media" of GREED that is controlling the hearts and minds of our fellow americans. Capitalism in a modified form is spreading to the other 98% of the worlds people. Change is all around us we just don't see it happening. When gas hits $60 a gallon and the US Govt goes bankrupt, when few have jobs and the only thing of value is land and food - then and only then will people wake up. The end is in sight. Reganomics started it. Millions will starve.

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Street, Paul at Mar 16, 2005 00:25 AM
I'm with you Jose, which is why I said (second comment) "I suppose it could lead some people to falsely assume that they aren't already being propagandized even without direct state forward vertical integration into story production." FOX News is insane; they are Nazis over there. The mere fact that they exist and have an audience ought to send chills down our spines.

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Yurallnuts, Realpc at Mar 15, 2005 23:22 PM
Debate is a threat to your sense of certainty and superiority.

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Yurallnuts, Realpc at Mar 15, 2005 23:21 PM
If you refuse to debate with liberals you will never understand why we do not agree with you.

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Street, Paul at Mar 15, 2005 22:39 PM
Hesed, realpc is no big deal. I obviously find his world view supremely misguided and even toxic at the end of the day. But, well, so what? It's not like he's telling me I better watch what I say because he "knows where I live." He's very low on the list of people who challenge my sanity. I'll take snotty not-so know it all capitalists over neo-fascists, though I will also point out (along with George Orwell circa 1937) that realpc's capitalism naturally develops into wtgn's fascism. I do suspect realpc has some masochism and/or sincerity issues on this and perhaps other blogs: people just destroy him intellectually and morally again and again and he shuts up for a while and then he just pops up again to take yet another licking (one of which was administered on David Peterson's blog). If it isn't masochism then its just an outwardly self-effacing determination to repeatedly divert and otherwise destroy the meaningful exchange of left ideas. This might be rational activity of sorts for someone who believes the things he says he believes...that the spread of such ideas is in fact the advancement of mass murder and totalitarianism In any event the repeated refutation of the relentlessly reactionary realpc gets boring after the initial few times: the thrill is gone realpc!

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Shannon, James at Mar 15, 2005 22:27 PM
If we destroyed this system we would just wind up with some "new" version of The Golden Rule. I got mine - screw the rest of you. Human Nature

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Yurallnuts, Realpc at Mar 15, 2005 22:21 PM
"you are resigned to just lay down and take it when it's your turn to get fucked" Not at all. Like every living thing on this planet I try to protect and defend myself. Life is tough. It is not like it was inside the womb. On the other hand, I try to be fair and considerate to others. It's all balance and it's damn hard. I do not disagree with all the observations made here about the unfairness of the US system. I agree with some but not all. But what I disagree with most is the idea that life would be lovely if we destroy this system and start another.

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Hesed00, Hesed at Mar 15, 2005 22:09 PM
Ya know, realpc, your comments on this blog, today in particular, speaks volumes about your character, why you come here and why you harass Paul Street. What kind of person admits to all the problems in the world and then says "get used to it"? Well, I'll tell you...a LAME and a COWARD. Sure you hide behind political ideology but the truth about you, which you've made painfully clear today, is that you are resigned to just lay down and take it when it's your turn to get fucked and the only way you can avoid confronting your own cowardice is to make people like Paul Street feel as if HE'S CRAZY for not laying down like you do. The reason I read this blog everyday is because the people here have decided that they aren't going lay down for anyone, epsecially for someone as lame as you. You can keep coming around here if you want. Just know that we all have your number.

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By Shannon, James at Mar 15, 2005 21:30 PM
The Real Golden Rules 1- He who has the gold makes the rules. 2- He who has the gold keeps the gold. 3- There are no more rules. Scary yes - but that's the way man is wired!

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Trackman101, K_sweet at Mar 15, 2005 21:24 PM
I am very disturbed by the fact that the truth out there is being filtered and interpreted for us, the public, by media organizations. Humanities ability to judge right from wrong, and make rational decisions based on the truth is permanently handicapped when the information that their opinions/decisions are based on are false or skewed. When people cannot even agree on what the factual, god-given truth is, then we are in for a whole lot of pain. Think about the claims that Kerry and Bush were throwing at each other during the campaign. They were citing things as if they were fact, to back up their arguement, and then people actually believed that what they said was true. This is scary, and frankly, irresponsible on the media's part.

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Yurallnuts, Realpc at Mar 15, 2005 21:18 PM
"Ignorant piss-ant." See -- Hesed has demonstrated exactly what I mean about human nature.

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Shannon, James at Mar 15, 2005 21:12 PM
lol lmfao lol

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Hesed00, Hesed at Mar 15, 2005 21:10 PM
Realpc, no that isn't life...that's YOUR life. I think I can speak for everyone here when I say that each one of us will decide for ourselves what it is about life that we should "get used to". ...and if there are any questions about life that the people here need answering, I doubt very much that you will be the one they turn to. Ignorant piss-ant.

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Hesed00, Hesed at Mar 15, 2005 21:03 PM
Yeah, that's right, Yellow Submarine. Blue Meanies were the music-haters trying to take over Pepperland. Good pop reference, Paul.

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Yurallnuts, Realpc at Mar 15, 2005 21:01 PM
This is life, get used to it. It was never designed to be an ongoing love orgy. And without contrast, nothing exists anyway. Without hate you would not recognize love. Greed and the other sins result from going to far. Greed originates in wanting, and wanting is normal and healthy -- if we didn't want anything we would not survive a minute.

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Yurallnuts, Realpc at Mar 15, 2005 20:59 PM
Paul Street, You are typical of utopianists. In your view, there are bad greedy individuals in control, and without them most people would get along quite well. You are absolutely wrong, and this should be obvious if you observe what goes on around you the least bit objectively. Of course not everyone is an outright bully, but subtle bullies are everywhere. And we all, every one of us, form those nasty little alliances called cliques. We like some people better than others, we have friends and enemies. Depending on the context we find ourselves in at any moment, we will be nicer or nastier.

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Occupy_iowa_city_rally

Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Street, Paul at Mar 15, 2005 20:56 PM
Maybe it was in the Ramones but my recollection (and maybe theirs if they used it) was the animated Beatles movie that came out in the Sixties: "Yellow Submarine" (do I have that title right?). I guess in retrospect they weren't necessarily "greedy;" they were just basically cops (but I'm reaching...haven't seen it since I was 9 or something like that).

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Hesed00, Hesed at Mar 15, 2005 20:45 PM
Greed blue meanies? What's that from? Isn't that a line from a Ramones song?

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Hesed00, Hesed at Mar 15, 2005 20:41 PM
(to realpc)

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Hesed00, Hesed at Mar 15, 2005 20:39 PM
I'm sure that was an attempt at being clever. If you thought about the varied implications of love and then compared them with fear and greed you would see just how clever you aren't.

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Shannon, James at Mar 15, 2005 20:37 PM
You can think and believe whatever you want. History proves attempts to control GREED have always failed! Manifest Destiny!

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Occupy_iowa_city_rally

Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Street, Paul at Mar 15, 2005 20:36 PM
Most people are at core fair-minded and against the greedy blue meanies. They do not support schoolyard bullies who steal weaker kids' lunches and rub their faces in the dirt. But many perhaps most Americans are incredibly misinformed about local and world events and so end up not being able to make out who the bullies are. This misinformation is not accidental: it's a predictable reflection of the with the fact that the really big and rich bullies (the living elite social class embodiments of "money rules the world") own the key sources of mass information and imagery. Look at the foreign policy coverage, which leads no small number of Americans to be amazed that our troops are getting shot at when after all "we're trying to help them." Americans' all too common cluelessness and indifference and their false sense of knowing something is cultivated by those who are positioned to really cash in on the greedy side of "human nature." The notion of bad selfish "Human Nature" is one of the most frequent things I hear from often very clever and knowledgeable people looking to justify their refusal to struggle substantively against empire and inequality.

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Occupy_iowa_city_rally

Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Street, Paul at Mar 15, 2005 20:34 PM
7Natures certainly money rules the world to no small extent (if we specify the money-enabled power of concentrated wealth and the people who possess such wealth) and it certainly reflects the power of greed but I respectfully disagree with you on "human nature." I am a radical anti-capitalist. This means that I have a different image of how key social institutions should and could be best constructed by associated citizens to cultivate the more cooperative, altruistic, democratic, and egalitarian aspects of "human nature." It probably means that I think that "human nature" is at heart cooperative and democratic.....

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Yurallnuts, Realpc at Mar 15, 2005 20:30 PM
I think we can blame as many or more of our troubles on LOVE. LOVE is what makes people crazy, even more than money. I suggest we abolish love altogether.

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Shannon, James at Mar 15, 2005 19:01 PM
Paul - I admire your honesty. Truth fills your observations. We are all indoctrinated by whatever process that is used by humans to cause our intensely personal development. Methods that are used to cause our survival. Manipulated and brainwashed and indoctrinated and programmed to accept our rightful station in life. Human nature is to blame. GREED is the destroyer - the great devide of humanity. Greed is the master and commander the manipulator of mankind. FEAR is the fuel stoking the fires of GREED which will never allow GREED to burn out and stop its' strangle hold on Humanity! Recorded history proves that human nature makes it impossible to stop the power of human GREED. Money Rules the World. That is the beginning, middle and end of history. How it does that is for the poor to simply observe and condone.

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Yurallnuts, Realpc at Mar 15, 2005 17:48 PM
The reason moderate liberals like me disagree with you is that we are ignorant and brainwashed? Well that is partly true since all humans, every single one, is ignorant and brainwashed. It is a question of degree. Here is a simple test to find out how washed your brain is: List all the main positions of the party or organization you belong to. For each one, decide whether you strongly agree, partly agree, or disagree. If you strongly agree with all the major positions of your organization you are extremely brainwashed.

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Hesed00, Hesed at Mar 15, 2005 08:44 AM
I think that this story will just end up being another "whoops, he-he" that will have no consequences whatsoever to the people who have pertpetrated this gross undermining of open, honest political discourse. Abu Ghraib, Valerie Plame, WMD's, $9bn missing in Iraq, Iraq period, take your pick, I'm starting to think that these fuckers are just untouchable.

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Occupy_iowa_city_rally

Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Street, Paul at Mar 15, 2005 08:18 AM
Still, that is in interesting point about the psychological price people pay for having to bow to the open explict absurdity of Stalinist or other absolutist methods. There was something very odd in the manner and on the faces of the people I met in Prague and perhaps that was part of it. What's odd in thinking about that though is how much it feels exactly like every paid employment position I've ever had. I've never worked anywhere (and this includes in academic departments) where you don't feel compelled (concerns and fears include job security, health insurance, cordial relations on the job, safety on the job) to act as if the deer is a horse...as if 2+2 is 5...and above all as if the boss isn't a worthless bastard and an incompetent moron (something that is generally understoood by at least 75 percent of employees) to boot. By my experience, the capitalist system replicates its own version of this openly absurd and extreme intimidation (with no small psychological consequences for its victims)in the "hidden abode" (Marx) of the workplace, where western democratic traditions are subordinated to managerial prerogatives and labor market discipline.

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Occupy_iowa_city_rally

Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Street, Paul at Mar 15, 2005 08:13 AM
There may be a similar point regarding "popular culture." I visited "Marxist" Prague during the early 1980s. On their state television there were three channels dedicated to high bourgeois culture in the form of excellent classical music and another station showing transparently propagandistic proletkult sit-coms that were so bad you could break them down even if you didn't know the language. I'm going to guess that most Czechs saw right through them. By contrast, sadly few few Americans would begin to imagine they are being attacked by propaganda when they watch "Fear Factor" or "Oprah" or "The Apprentice" or the Suzy Ormann financial self-help infommercial or "Greg and Dharma" etc., not to mention by the commercials that come with those shows.

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Street, Paul at Mar 15, 2005 08:12 AM
At some point in the late 1970s I took a Russian history class. The professor came in with his latest copies of Pravda, the daily Soviet newspaper paper and showed us the two sets of initials that were at the bottom of the first page of each paper. The initials, he told us, belonged to that day's censors. State censorhip, it turned out, was a common open subject matter for popular comedians in Moscow's nightclubs during the late Soviet era. I imagine a considerable number of people in the laughing crowds were party members. The professor's point was that the Russians at least knew they were being thought controlled and censored. They had the advantage over us of having no illusions as to the freedom of their press....ctd

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Gammon101, Bwong at Mar 15, 2005 03:18 AM
Propaganda in totalitarian regimes are like that. They are often so ridiculous that no one with more than a living brain cell would believe. But that isn't the point. Prolong exposure to such psychological violence can create cognitive dissonace which is very damging to the victim's psychology. It produces very scared individuals with distorted personalities.

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Gammon101, Bwong at Mar 15, 2005 03:16 AM
Let me elaborate.This is a true story in ancient Chinese history. Once upon the time there was a very powerful eunich who played the Emperor like a puppet (the Emperor was brain damaged,--I don't mean like Bush). The eunich was cruel and ruthless. Everyone was afraid of him. One day, in the plain view of all senoir officials the eunich swaggered in with a deer. He went up to the drooling emperor and said he wanted to presented this fine horse to the emperor. The eunich then turned around, facing the officials and asked stoned face, "my colleagues, don't you agree this is a fine, fine horse!". As expected, everyone expressed agreement and praised the eunich. Except for the emperor who was an idiot of course everyone knew it wasn't a horse. But the eunich was not trying to convince his colleagues that the deer was a horse. This was not his point.It didn't matter to the eunich what the officials really thought. What is important is they had to ACT as though they believed in his lie even though it was so absurd that they could all see through it. This is an extreme form of intimidation.

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Gammon101, Bwong at Mar 15, 2005 03:15 AM
There is a fundamental difference between propaganda in totalitarian countries such as the former Soviet Union and propaganda in nominally democratic countries such as U.S. Chomsky observed that propaganda in totalitarian countries are usually "crude" by comparison. But I think he was missing the point. "Propaganda" in totalitarian countries are not always meant to believed(hence they are "crude")It is often a form of psychological rape aimed at instilling fear and obedience.

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Occupy_iowa_city_rally

Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Street, Paul at Mar 15, 2005 02:09 AM
Hesed, I think the Times' audience is the top quintile (20 percent) at most. The article won't be read much outside the "elite." I suppose it could lead some people to falsely assume that they aren't already being propagandized even without direct state forward vertical integration into story production. I used to often hear it said on the left that in the Soviet Union it was state propaganda but here in the capitalist world it's primarily private propaganda (which tended to be seen as much more effective and subttle than the Stalinist counterpart). This story provides an especially graphic example of state/private collaboration in making propaganda. Seems to suggest the corporate-state alliance that lay at the heart of most definitions of fascism. I think the "we" should be broken down a little: many Americans have had it pretty bad and their problem is more just despair and exhaustion than failure to see a threat.

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Re: A New Stage in Forward State-Propagandistic Vertical Integration

By Hesed00, Hesed at Mar 15, 2005 00:28 AM
Even with the article in the times, there is still a large portion of people who do not recognize the extent to which we are being propagandized. What's more disconcerting is the portion of people who know and don't see the problem with it. We've had it so good for so long in this country that the majority of people don't even recognize a threat when they see one.

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