Memory Holes and the Internet (updated)

blamanj writes "As reporters and researchers depend more and more heavily on the Internet as a research tool, manipulation of the net becomes a serious problem. A recent Slashdot article discussed this in regard to the White House. Now, The Memory Hole has noticed that Time magazine has pulled an article by Bush, Sr. on why it was a bad idea to try and overthrow Saddam. How can we keep corporate America honest?" Update: 11/11 22:16 GMT by T : Declan McCullagh (former Time, Inc. employee, among other things) writes in with the non-conspiracy explanation for the change, below.

Declan writes "It is silly to claim that Bush Sr. and Scowcroft would strong-arm Time Inc. into removing an article from time.com -- when that article was an excerpt from their book that you can buy today from Amazon.com for $21.

Another explanation is more likely. And, yes, a quick search turns up a May 2003 article from Slate that debunks this rumor. It turns out that Time Inc. only had permission from the publisher to post the content for a limited time."

Comments

"Keep" them honest?

[heironymouscoward]

The White House relies more than many previous administrations on the power of "top secret", and it should surprise no-one if they extend legislation like the Patriot Act into civil domains such as the Internet.

Re:"Keep" them honest?

[Zocalo]

Interesting that you should bring up Stalin, another big fan of revising the "official" records to expunge subjects and persons out of favour from the official records. Stalin's first efforts of media control were in the printed media too, but editing of photographs and the other media followed fairly quickly.

I don't think Stalin went so far as to edit his own family though...

Re:"Keep" them honest?

[knobmaker]

In that vein, here's an interesting piece on the so-called liberal media.

This is a study of the bias of sources used by the major broadcast media in the run-up to the Iraq war. FAIR classified sources as pro-war or anti-war on the basis of their affiliation with the administration, publicly expressed opinions about the war, and so on.

What I found surprising was that not even PBS gave equal time to those who opposed the war.

An excerpt: "The FAIR study found just 3 percent of U.S. sources represented or expressed opposition to the war. With more than one in four U.S. citizens opposing the war and much higher rates of opposition in most countries where opinion was polled, none of the networks offered anything resembling proportionate coverage of anti-war voices. The anti-war percentages ranged from 4 percent at NBC, 3 percent at CNN, ABC, PBS and FOX, and less than 1 percent--one out of 205 U.S. sources--at CBS."

Wishes

[handy_vandal]

How can we keep corporate America honest?

Wish as hard as you can. Maybe click your heels three times, for luck.

The Excerpt

[ndunn]

Excerpt from "Why We Didn't Remove Saddam" by George Bush Sr. and Brent Scowcroft, Time (2 March 1998):

While we hoped that popular revolt or coup would topple Saddam, neither the U.S. nor the countries of the region wished to see the breakup of the Iraqi state. We were concerned about the long-term balance of power at the head of the Gulf. Trying to eliminate Saddam, extending the ground war into an occupation of Iraq, would have violated our guideline about not changing objectives in midstream, engaging in 'mission creep,' and would have incurred incalculable human and political costs. Apprehending him was probably impossible. We had been unable to find Noriega in Panama, which we knew intimately. We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq. The coalition would instantly have collapsed, the Arabs deserting it in anger and other allies pulling out as well. Under those circumstances, furthermore, we had been self-consciously trying to set a pattern for handling aggression in the post-cold war world. Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the U.N.'s mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasio route, the U.S. could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land. It would have been a dramatically different--and perhaps barren--outcome.

Re:The Excerpt

[TGK]

As a historian, nothing irritates me more than the neo-conservative hogwash that Regan or Bush Sr won the Cold War. The Cold War lasted from 1945 (actually 47 if you ask most historians) to 1991. As such, I don't find it unreasonable to assume that Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, and Carter also had something to do with that victory.

That said anyone who's studied the Soviet Era can tell you exactly how much sense the "Regan won the Cold War" theory makes. The X Telegram (George Kennan) stated in no uncertain terms that the Soviet Union must expand or collapse from within. Based on this document, it was the official position of the United States to contain the spread of communism. This was not a four or eight year process, but a stand which took decades. If Regan won the cold war for what purpose did our servicemen give their lives in Vietnam? In Korea?

All this aside, the argument I hear most frequently is that Regan's "genius" in backing the Star Wars program forced the Soviet Union into a spending spiral that caused internal collapse of the economy and thus the collapse of the Soviet Union itself.

Unfortunately, this is totally unsubstantiated. First off, the Soviet Union consistently spent huge sums of money on the military. Many will toss figures at this argument quoting between 40% to 70% of Soviet GDP in the late 1980s. Realize two things when you see this argument. First, as a (officially) communist State the USSR has no GDP. No numbers were every kept to this extent in the USSR and any numbers we have are based on the (somewhat) biased estimates of the US armed forces and defense contractors (who have a vested interest here).

Secondly, earlier estimates from the Kennedy, Eisenhower, and Johnson administrations indicate Soviet Military spending at around 40% of the countries production capacity (think Civilization shields here, since we still don't have a real GDP here). Unfortunately I've been unable to locate decent links for this data. Apparently it only exists in dead tree media.

So what did cause the collapse of the Soviet Union? The answer is pretty obvious once you think about it... The Soviet Union caused it. Khrushchev started the ball rolling when he gave The Secret Speech at the 20th Party Congress in 1956. When Khrushchev released political pressures in the Soviet Union the result was what you'd expect. Give them an inch they take a mile. Khrushchev tried to clamp down on this movement, but was only able to stem its tide. Hard-line elements in the Soviet Government were less than pleased with this, and this was one of the factors that pushed Khrushchev to the now infamous military aggressiveness exhibited during his tenure.

After Khrushchev hard-line elements regained power in the Soviet Union and by instituting a Geritocracy favoring those who followed in the traditions of Stalin these elements kept the dissidents in perilous check.

Gorbachev changed all that. His policies of Glasnost and Perestroika snowballed. These policies were intended to allow some of the internal pressures to abate while keeping the Soviet system in power and the country under control. However, much like punching a hole in a dam, the tiny valve soon became a rushing torrent. Civil War erupted and on December 25 1991 the Soviet Flag was lowered over the Kremlin for the last time.

What caused it? More than anything else it was the tide of political conservatism in the Soviet Union. This tide wasn't encouraged by Star Wars or Stealth Technology. It was the result of Coca Cola and McDonalds, the product of Ford and General Motors. The Soviet people wanted what the United States had... prosperity.

And just as Kennan said, the Soviet model couldn't maintain a decent standard of living without expanding.

So my apologies to Regan and his crew. And in answer to your question "what was Regan's legacy?" The answer is as follows. Regan was in the right place at the right time and managed not to screw it up to badly. It's a foreign policy the right has been following ever sense.

Corporations dont have an interest

[nurb432]

They dont 'have to keep honest'. There is no law that says they have to keep a story in place forever..

Its their resources they use to do so... when they are finished with the story they can dump it..

As long as what they report is the truth ( or with a disclaimer that its opinion and not fact ) then they are within their rights to do what ever they want with THEIR data...

Now when the government does this, thats a different issue...

Silent protest

[infolib]

Please everyone: Follow the link to the pulled article. When it returns the 404 page, type "George Orwell" into the search box.

Someone at Time should take notice. (And no, we have never been at war with Oceania...)

Re:Do they sell tin-foil hats at Thinkgeek?

[Walterk]

Unfortunatly, thinkgeek doesn't sell tinfoil hats. However I was able to find instructions on how to make one yourself.

Instructions are here.

BEWARE OF COMMERCIAL AFDBS: Since you should trust no one, always construct your AFDB yourself to avoid the risk of subversion and mental enslavement. Sometimes, AFDBs will be sold on places like eBay. Do not purchase these pre-made AFDBs, even if the seller seems trustworthy. They may contain backdoors, pinholes, integrated psychotronic circuitry or other methods that actually promote mind control.

The "Liberal" Media

[heironymouscoward]

The "Liberal Media" is a myth. It used to be like that, but over the last 10 years the bulk of the media in the US, and in fact many countries has ended up in the hands of a small group of very wealthy men.

It should not be surprising that these men have a rather more conservative point of view than the press owners who they bought out.

By and large, today's media speaks for the establishment, and in the US the establishment is a Republican one.

Re:Education?

[Zemran]

Education has changed a lot of the past decade. It used to be about educating someone to think about the problem but now we teach them how to pass an exam. 10 years ago you would study a subject and after a long period of study you would get questions that required you to apply knowledge. Now all the courses are modularised. You study a module and at each stage you do a question that is practically an example of what you have been given.

In the old system, people were taught to think and they could think for themselves. In the new system people are taught to remember what they have been told recently and to recite it.

The new system appears to get better results and colleges and universities are measured on results. The client (student) is not interested in any more than the bit of paper that will get them a better wage. So US/UK society is dumbed down.

Ironically Russia and China etc. still respect true education and the client in those countries (and most other Eastern block/Asian) still appreaciate deep learning.

The problem wijth this

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that archive.org will remove pages from the index if you ask, and will dutifully respect robots.txt files.

If robots.txts are carefully used, a file can be kept out of archive.org and robots.txt forever.

And it isn't really like archive.org, if it saw these as a problem, could ignore robots.txt files, since the most common reason for robots.txt is to keep a crawler from falling into a CGI script containing something that, from a crawler standpoint, is a bottomless pit of randomly generated links to itself.

Proof the article existed

[Kinniken]

If, like me, you have a two-way tinfoil hat and hesitated to believe Memory Hole without proof, have a look at this PDF. It's a "teacher-aid" document from the Times (some sort of coursework on actuality based on Times article), and it mentions the "disappearing article".
Not only is the Times playing at Big Brother, they are not even competent when doing this... A simple Google search restricted to the times website found that in 2 sec.

Re:Archive.org

[Catbeller]

It's the principle of the thing, for one. It's Orwellian. Secondly, Time readers searching the archives of Time will never find the article; it is now un-printed, nonexistent. And thirdly, how many other writings are being "un-printed" that are not favorable to the King? We can't look everywhere, all the time. And lastly, it's not beyond imagining that eventually the King's men will require Google and others to un-remember things they don't want remembered. A few laws here and there, and it's done. Hell, Scientology has tried it a few times, and actually succeeded in some cases in suppressing reality. They even did it to Google for a time; they really did it to Slashdot -- a thread critical of the Hubbardians that mentioned Xenu is now un-happened.

The Idiot chills out for five minutes

[Threni]

http://www.thememoryhole.org/911/bush-911.htm

Look at this page, and as you are looking, reflect upon it, asking yourself if any other leader of any other country at any point in history would have reacted even remotely similarly.

If this doesn't convince you that The Idiot isn't in charge of the country - or worse, that the 9-11 attack was expected, which is the obvious conclusion from the hundreds of reports from the CIA, FBI and other intelligence reports from around the world which were wilfully ignored - then I'm not sure what will.

Re:Archive.org

[xedd]

Corporations can't put you in jail for things (courts and juries do that.)

Courts and juries should be following the laws.

If the laws are written by politicians who are beholden to corporate donors, then the laws will reflect the interests and needs of those corporations.

If a law reflects the interests and needs of profits of corporations, then, indeed, a corporation can put you in jail.
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/11/10/1 0683294 88834.html

When there is too close a relationship between business and government, then the political rights and freedoms of citizens will take a back seat to profit-seeking, and whatever group of powerful business men currently controls the politicians will write the laws to their whim and fancy.

It's called facism. And its back with us, even worse than before!

The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.
- Milan Kundera

Re:Archive.org

[Catbeller]

You're right. Corporations can't do what governments can do.

They can't put you in jail -- directly. They can command government leverage to do that. Think Elcomsoft. Think RIAA. Think Scientology. They can jail you anytime they want by picking up a phone and getting their legal staff on the job. It's up to you to raise millions to defend yourself.

Corporations can't die. They can come after you for all eternity. Governments can be unelected.

Corporations are just collections of men, with their own agendas, but they pretend to be faceless artificial people who are therefore untouchable.

You can't pick and choose news corporations to find the best news for you. IF THEY ARE ALTERING THE HISTORICAL RECORD, HOW WOULD YOU EVER KNOW??? Informed consent is necessary to make a decision in a free market.

Corporations can collude in secret to remove articles that a partisan mindset shared among managers deems unsuitable. Governments cannot, at least not until this administration, hide what they do for very long.

People do pick and choose governments with ease, every four years. Try firing Microsoft.

Corporations, though "persons" with constitutional rights, have absolutely no personal accountability whatsoever for their actions. Want to talk to Time Warner about erasing the record? What is "Time"? Can you schedule an appointment with it? Make it do jail time?

Corporations now are the government. What do you call that form of government, komrade? "Police state" is a question begging term. Who owns the cops? Apparently the Secret Service has been ordering all the local law enforcement around the country to round up protesters in the President's path and detain them. Who owns the cops? Skylarov was yanked by cops on the sayso of Adobe; who owned the cops? Kevin Mitnick spent years in prison without charges because the corporations he insulted wanted him to rot, period. They seem to own the courts, don't they? The RIAA now can issue its own subpoenas and ruin people financially without ever talking to a court or the cops.

When the corporation becomes the law, you have a real police state. All the trappings of a democracy run by immortal, untouchable god-kings, who do whatever they like to whomever they like.

Re:Archive.org

[Catbeller]

I do know. The Bush administration, on reaching office, immediately sealed the records of the Reagan and Bush Sr. administrations, as well as all future records of the current adminstration. Clinton's are wide open, though.

This administration has ordered government agencies to hinder Freedom of Information Act requests.

This administration now has effectively refused to honor Freedom of Information Act requests.

This administration has ignored subpoenas regarding its energy polices meetings.

This administration has refused to cooperate with 9/11 investigators RE what the President's briefings said about the possibility of attacks just prior to 9/11. Simply hindered and refused.

This is what I know.