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US Military Explored Hiring Bloggers As Propagandists
Zeinfeld writes "Wired reports that one time Clipper Chip supporter Dorothy Denning wrote a report on using blogs for information warfare in 2006 (a report available from cryptome). Amongst the proposals were hiring bloggers directly as propaganda agents and using military media resources to 'make' a blogger posting favorable material. Notably, and most unfortunately absent from the report, is the very real question of whether the military should be manipulating domestic media." Is meme warfare just another battleground, or is this dirty pool?
So there will finally be propagando to counter the countless other bloggers who spew out nonsense about the war.
Blogging is just another form of published media - it can be used for any reason. People have just been lured into believing blogs are personal posts from individuals.
Someone is going to be very busy...
Since there are so many sites that will do it for free:
Free Republic
LGF
Michelle Malkin
Etc.
While we think propaganda is bad, the alternative is almost always worse. Gandhi never thought we'd rid ourselves of conflict, but instead envisioned wars in his utopia being fought by "propaganda armies". In the same way, would we prefer the army to use propaganda on its own citizens to convince us of its message or perhaps we would prefer being thrown in a secret prison for descent? Also, would anyone really have a problem with this if said bloggers were clearly labeled rather than astro-turfing?
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
Most bloggers on the right do it for free.
not the age of information. there are so many conflicting opinions out there that people are either becoming zombies of one opinion or distanced from any opinion due to the confusion. this type of over saturation of information I think is only leading to the complacency of the people.
In the end this is an excellent propaganda machine.
How on earth anyone could be shocked by this at this point is beyond me. This kind of stuff is fairly benign next to the kind of stuff they do in SECRET. It's when they actually start talking about killing reporters to silence dissent that they REALLY get nasty.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
This is just basically an updated version of dropping propaganda phamplets from air planes, just it's a digital format instead of analog.
I don't know what country you guys are from, but this would never happen in my beloved U.S. of A. We're above that kind of thing.
C'mon folks, if you're getting your "hard facts" from blogs, you're already toast. Everybody has an agenda, it's just that some folks get paid for it. Don't think of them as military propaganda arms, think of them as paid public lobbiests (aka astroturfers) . Whole different form of slime, but slime nonetheless.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Notably, and most unfortunately absent from the report, is the very real question of whether the military should be manipulating domestic media.
The rest of our media is manipulated...why not blogs? Compared to the other forms of media, blogs are notoriously easy to manipulate. With the ever-growing cacophony of voices on the internet, it's more and more difficult for Joe Sixpack to adequately fact-check a given story...so they increasingly just believe what they hear from their mouthpiece of choice. I personally have to debunk all of the ridiculous stories my wife's family mindlessly forwards around to each other without question....the latest was that Obama is Muslim.
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~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
I don't see what this is front page news.
Information warfare and propaganda have always been a vital and necessary component of military planning. It's much easier if you can get your enemy to surrender rather than shoot them.
I applaud the US military for doing everything they can do in this field. I know this is not a popular view here, but its what needs to be done. How is this news for nerds again??
Did you think Dailykos.com endorsed candidates just because Markos thought they were decent people? Nope. Democratic candidates send him payola.
Of course, it might not be a good idea. Every candidate endorsed by dailykos has gone down to defeat.
Insert meme here.
In Soviet Russia, Military makes memes about you! ummm... wait...
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm
And just what makes you think they're doing it for free?
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~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
If the military hired bloggers post mostly postive news stories that's fine, because typically those stories are completely ignored by main stream media.
The problems begin if they start putting heavy spin on bad news to make it sound good, fabricating stories, or pretend there is no bad news and not report it, then we have a problem.
When the "enemy" is doing it, you need to do it to some extent as well.
"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
This doesn't seem to compare to "Operation Mass Appeal" which was a programme by M16 to plant stories in the British media in the run up to the Iraq War. They needn't have bothered really though since the Mainstream Media is quite capable of printing flimsy government accusations as fact without the intervention of the Secret Service.
Is this kind of the same as when they used Jeff Gannon or was he just lucky?
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. indymedia
"blogs are a continuation of war by other means"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_von_Clausewitz#Cultural_References
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Very well said. Please mod parent up.
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~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
. . . to place their propaganda on the internet (ahem, Huffington Post, DailyKos, etc, ad nauseum), then why can't the military use bloggers to post its point of view?
Seems like another double-standard to me.
What?
All your ammo are belong to us.
And your RPG are up Cheney's ass.
ALLAH-AKKBBAARR!
And it wouldn't surprise me if the mongs at pajamasmedia, LGF et al were paid by the gov't, especially in the run-up to the war up until the whole "mission accomplished" fiasco started biting the administration in their ass.
And just what makes you think they're doing it for free?
Well, dailykos.com is on the record saying that they take money to endorse candidates.
to shape conflict into less arbitrary and deadly tactics. not prevent conflict. as gandhi implies, this is impossible. mankind will always live in conflict. but does he resport to bombs? or resort to airing his grievances in words and a court system? obviously the latter is better than the former, and the whole point of progress. so, in a perverse way, resorting to ideological blogs and propaganda is superior to real warfare, and a GOOD development, not a nefarious one
i would rather someone lie to me than kill me. so bring on the propaganda, from all directions. let it flow freely. beats suicide bombs and bombs from the sky
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Who needs the military to issue propaganda? Our own media and news outlets are nothing more than commentary and propagandists. I can't remember when I've heard anything of substance in the news. It's stories of alligators on the freeway or a couple of political stooges arguing over some irrelevant issue that doesn't benefit anyone. Or... better yet it's some vicious talk show host arguing with a guest which climaxes with the host telling the guest to "SHUT UP!" This isn't news; it's propaganda. If you think the US media companies give news then I have a bridge I'd like to sell you. America is fast becoming a fascist police state and the media is doing their part in providing an outlet for the propaganda the government and special interests would like to shove down your throats and, by God, aren't the good American people opening wide.
Is, to some extant, against the tenants of democracy. My reading on democracy is that there are rules about what people are allowed to do to eachother physically, but no rules about memes. I think it's questionable as to whether using physically coercive means such as taxes to further memetic warfare directed at our own citizens is at all valid within this framework. The government here is trying to enforce rules about memes on its own citizens.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
The blurb didn't say. If they are trying to propagandize in the origin country, then no that isn't a good thing but it probably happens.
i just wonder at the point of criticizing the usa alone for what every country does, has ever done, and will always do
american?
american?
american?
american?
all of your complaints are valid in the context of bad HUMAN nature. they are invalid in the context of bad AMERICAN nature. what is the intellectual value in your mind of prosecuting the usa alone for crimes all of humanity is guilty of?
you need to be morally and intellectually honest. or you are just another useless pointless partisan. the world has enough of those and their tribal venom
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The enemies of the US military have been manipulating domestic media for their benefit since at least the 60s, so why should one side have all the fun?
"the very real question of whether the military should be manipulating domestic media.""
You can't be serious. Of course the military should have a media relations group: media relations is all about language and manipulation of the facts. That is normal and reasonable.
Bribing the media, however, is the "real question". This is a question of ethics, and has less to do with the military than it has to do with freedom of the press. When government is bribing the press, free press is put on notice.
Analogies to Fox news cheapen the weight of this discussion. While Fox is a mouth piece for US government, it is not paid to do this, and that is a significant distinction. They operate within the market, and make alot of money as a propaganda outlet. If the market had been fundamentally altered such that only propagandists could be successful, again you'd have a fair comparison.
It goes back, formally, at least to Woodrow Wilson and his Committee on Public Information. They recruited 75,000 - 100,000 (called Four-Minute Men) volunteers to give four-minute speeches supporting the case for war against Germany - including before hostilities between the nations.
Notably, and most unfortunately absent from the report, is the very real question of whether the military should be manipulating domestic media.
Not to mention the legality... The Hatch act still exists, to the best of my knowledge. And although people generally interpret it somewhat more liberally than intended, this seems like exactly the form of corruption targetted thereby... The executive branch, using federal funds to make the war look better, to improve the chances of McCain getting in come November.
Then again, since when has the current administration bothered with obeying all those pesky little laws? "Four more years - Why should the constitution matter this time?"
I think my eyesight is getting worse.
I read the headline as "US Military Hired Exploding Bloggers As Propagandists" !
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
I thought it was illegal for the military to distribute propaganda domestically.
Not that legality has ever stopped the government. Especially this one.
You'll upset the fragile sensibilities of a leftard.
You think the Free Republic is on the side of the government? Do, please, go back to your universe ... you aren't welcome here.
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
Slashdot is every bit propaganda for a dozen or so issues. We shoud not be offened by this. Especially if some of us constantly do anti- military and US propaganda.
During the Kosovo crisis Serbian State TV (equivalent to the BBC) was showing the effects of NATO bombing on civilians. To stop this NATO bombed the Serbian State TV station killing 15 civilians. NATO justified this by saying that the station was a tool of propaganda. By this rational, if the US/UK go to war with Iran, the BBC and many American news outlets will be viable targets. General Wesley Clark was confronted with this war crime during a conference and he seemed very sheepish about it and resorted to saying that his orders had come from the top.
taking advice on how to be funny from the unfunny is like ...
finish the quote from the original source, asshole xoxoxoxox
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Puh leeze, the spooks/dotmil have been using reporters as long as I can remember, JFing google for it, overtly and covertly. Look at the 2004 election when they got to the NYT to sit on the "no weapons of mass destruction" story-among others- until after the election (and the neocon/freepers/dittohead loons thinks the NYT is "liberal", what a buncha idjits, the NYT is the military industrial complex mouthpiece along with the WSJ) Using "bloggers" is just saying the same thing under more modern parlance. On the net, anyone who has run mailing lists or forums since..there's been those things..knows that various "agencies" and other employees of different clothing styles have had a long and established presence in disseminating propaganda, although now a days they tend to use proxies a lot more, and do a lot of copy and pasting across the "blogosphere" (easy way to see which are the plants and FUD spinners who are on the taxpayer payroll). And they not only type shit up, the more active wet work mercenaries they use-no, they are not "heroes", they are chump change mercenaries- have a long history of offing reporters that are trying to work against mil/industrial complex dictators they support all over, you name it, the americas, africa, middle east, asia. Again, JFing google it, it's out there.
The main stream media-print and broadcast- is by and large a full tool of the globalist wall street pirates and their hired muscle boys in "service". They are only jumping on blogs because the internet started slipping out of their complete control, and it is about the only way to counter it outside of the "great firewall of everywhere" model they want to introduce.
I'm sad to say it, but if this Hatch Act is a law against military or government propagandising its own people, it's a law that doesn't amount to squat, given the evidence lately.
And Obama sure can afford them this fall.
Dark Reflection
This doesn't surprise me at all considering the US Army still has propaghanda units, they just call them Psychological Operations.
Shills are shills. They have always been with us. We know how to deal with a guy who stands up and takes a position because he's being paid to -- we expose his bias and smart people stop paying attention to him thereafter.
What is not OK is lying. (1) Making a false statement about whether he's accepting funds or (2) making up a fake person to be the speaker are both impermissible.
"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
The big difference is that on the Internet, everything you read is true.
The other difference is on the Internet, nobody can tell that the government is a dog.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
c'mon... we all know about that FUD is just about the same...
"Notably, and most unfortunately absent from the report, is the very real question of whether the military should be manipulating domestic media."
What does it matter whether or not the military thinks they *should* be doing this? They are, and have been for a long, long time.
I hate printers.
And I'm glad to see that they finally declassified my third military occupation, so now the world can know we milbloggers have been on the front lines in the War On Terror.
Every time you see a foreign propaganda piece in the Saudi Times and read a comment by Al Rashid, that was our brave comrades in arms, fighting the real fight for Democracy.
Every time you read the Pakistani Journal of Objective Theological Criticism and read the online commentary by Pashtun seperatists, it was Chief Petty Officer Nunzia writing that post.
The few, the proud, the frequently anonymous - Blog Warriors!
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
mankind will always be in conflict. all you get to choose is the manner of the conflict. words or bombs. take your pick
an ideological battlefield of lies, demagoguery, propaganda, half-truths, manipulations, etc., is superior to bombs and guns
blood on the streets or lies in the mind. you choose
because choosing no conflict whatsoever is not possible, if you truly understand the human condition as it always was and always will be
i subscribe to the theory of catharsis: when you scream your vile emotions, you are purging yourself of feelings and desires that would otherwise result in you stabbing or killing someone. if you have a bad feeling, and bottle it up, it doesn't go away, it explodes at some later point. so i would rather that vicious screeds and crude language come in buckets than one drop of blood be spilt. because according to the theory of catharsis, those vile words serve as a real world replacement for spilt blood
of course you can say lies incite violence. i would reply to that that you can only plant a seed. if lies turn into violence, those lied to are already predisposed to murder and maim. so there is nothing created by the lies. furthermore, you lie to enough to people, and they become deadened and exhausted to the calls for action in the name of lies
in other words, let it all out: all of the vile monstrous words. no censorship of any thought, no matter how vile. and thereby deaden the world to actual physical violence, through exhausting the demagogues, and vaccinating people from their lies through constant exposure
so yes: give me propaganda. buckets of it. from every point in the spectrum of ideology. in the name of reducing violence
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Meme warfare? Is that like Gaia stealing Longcat?
the very real question of whether the military should be manipulating domestic media.
[Following message is US centric. My apologies to non-US citizens, and hopefully similar sentiments work for you in your country, but trying to make this generally applicable weakens the message.]
The very simple answer is another question: Is the government the subject of the people or are the people the subjects of the government? If the government knows better than we then the military should engage in information manipulation to control the perceptions of the public.
Which leads us to a more interesting question: Are there any politicians who appear to believe that they know better what is right for America than we? I think that answer is an unqualified yes. And, for example, I hold that view in some cases: I believe that the first amendment supercedes the will of the people in those cases where the people wish to censor undesirable information.
Which leads us to a deeper question: Given that most people, and probably all people who have a desire to govern, believe that there are certain issues on which they know better what is right than the people, answer the following: Which people with a desire to govern seem to have the fewest such positions, or hold those views in most congruence with your views? Help to get them elected.
But that is not enough. Can you present a rational position supporting your view? Can you present it pursuasively? If not, learn how.
Then grab yourself a soapbox. They are available free of charge from YouTube, MySpace, and many others. The ballot box may be working, but not very well. The jury box has been closed due to national security. And it will suck if we have to go to that other box. So get out there and establish national opinion. If you think the initial question at the top of this post (in the more general form, "Should government representatives manipulate the public perception?") has not already been answered in the extreme affirmative by most people in government, you are sorely mistaken.
It is an information war, it has been going on in this country since we were a British colony and a few truly heroic men and women decided to risk everything for freedom, starting with broadsheets. Your duty as a US citizen (see Declaration of Independence) is to fight that war to the best of your abilities. If we can use these new media to defend our country from all aggressors, foreign and domestic, then we won't have to choose between the ammo box and the loss of the ideals on which this country was founded. Nobody will benefit from reaching that decision point (except Blackwater and a handful of others, and screw them).
Your country needs you in the service of liberty. Not just now, but ten years ago, and ten years from now, and everywhen else. Your country needs you to stand up for our ideals. When things are going right to keep them right. When things are going wrong to put them right. Start a blog. Make a video mashup. Write a song about the founding ideals. Dig into congressional records and publish processed information. Or just write posts like this. Animate the public to defend our nation from all aggressors, arm them with the information to make the right decisions, and build in them the belief that we can win.
We are a huge portion of the media. We may not always be - many forces are seeking to control the Internet. Now is the time to act (and it always will be). Don't kid yourself, we are at war and it will be hard. Now is a volatile time, and we have the greatest information distribution tools in history at our command. You can do this.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
manipulating domestic media
Crappy media outlets are easily manipulated. Some media outlets are masters at manipulation. How about good old honest reporters and media outlets that actually research and verify stories, and actually do their best to be unbiased and fair? Is that too much to ask?
Half these sites have regular folks providing "news items" via video, text msgs, blogs etc. For the military to hire bloggers to "manipulate" the media, well...more power to them.
As tempting as it is to try to classify all blogs as good or all blogs as bad, the reality is that not all blogs are the same.
Some "folks", paid and unpaid, have an agenda of presenting hard fact and some "folks" don't. I don't generally have a problem with the military making the public aware of actual facts. The thing is, though, that the military already has channels and resources for making the public aware of actual facts. That the military is considering using paid blogs (that, presumably, would not disclose the payment) suggests an intent to obscure (certain) actual facts rather than to promote the actual facts (in their entirety).
This is news? Given that CNN's "in the field" correspondents on the war in Iraq might as well be employees for the Department of Defense, I can't believe a propaganda-based blog is that far fetched at all. Pick your source of information, from movies and music to the evening news and tell me you don't find some sort of agenda-pushing going on behind the scenes.
The only difference with the US Military is that they're admitting they looked at it as an option. Give them credit for that, you certainly don't see anyone else owning up to it.
Don't pin this on McCain unless you have evidence of his involvement.
When you hand your kids over to the government for 8+ hours a day, 5+ days a week, for an entire child hood of propaganda and social conditioning, it is a bit silly to worry about the government manipulating bloggers as an effective means of propaganda.
The government says jump, you *WILL* jump. The government says something is good, you *WILL* believe it is good. The brainwashing is too strong.
The only reason there is any sort of anti-war movement at all, is because there are brainwashed citizens of countries whose government finds it in their interest to tell their citizens to oppose U.S. interests. i.e., it is in the interests of countries like France, Germany, China, etc. who had pre-war oil interests in Iraq, to oppose the war. Those governments are therefore able to call on their own brainwashed citizens to universally oppose the war, and some of their propaganda and brainwashing will naturally carry over to an America already made vulnerable by years of conditioning by the U.S. government. (Consider it "propaganda blowback")
However, if other powerful countries didn't happen to have conflicting interests over Iraq or other conflicts, and didn't neutralize U.S. propaganda with their own counter-propaganda purely for their own purposes, few government-education people of any nation would have the intellectual ability to oppose the war.
You just can't hope to have a free-thinking critical democratic non-brainwashed society, and at the same time turn over the most trusting and vulnerable of our society, our children, to the government that wants to brainwash them. Much in the same way a free society needs a strict separation of church and state, a free society also needs a strict separation between education and state.
Arguing over the most insignificant forms of secret propaganda, when most nations have multi-billion dollar compulsory indoctrination programs operating right in the open, is a bit silly.
Because we ARE the United States of America. We're not supposed to sit in the basement masturbating over tentacle porn and screaming, "But, but, France did that too!"
We're supposed to be better than everyone else. We're not supposed to be just like all those horrid Eurotrash countries who did nothing but wage war after war since Rome fell.
We set out to show the rest of the world how government by and for the people is done.
How miserably we've failed.
If the Hatch Act bites the republicans in the ass over this, I will laugh and laugh and laugh... yet another example of the laws passed by "upstanding Christian Republicans" to punish "immoral democrats" coming back to haunt them, up there with their "Republican Revolution" ethics laws taking DeLay down for the count.
And of course there will be wailing and gnashing by the thousands once the shoe's on the other foot, despite the fact that people were warned time and again that the unconstitutional powers they give themselves to abuse will be just as abused when the next party's in power.
Paid for by your taxes.
The military should not have to *pursuade* anybody, let alone spend our money to do it.
Paid for by our taxes, served for by our children.
Why shouldn't they be allowed to do what those that oppose them do?
Why shouldn't they be allowed to use the same tactics that the military-haters and anti-war crowd use?
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
I always had a sneaking suspicion that the icanhascheezburger cats were just TOO pro-America to be real. Now I understand.
Airplane Photos, Airline News, Planespotting Guides
and the usa never was better than anyone else
and the usa never will be better than anyone else
and thinking it should be, for any rationale, is stupid
and thinking you can make the usa better than anyone else, with language and rhetoric that emphasizes how the usa is especially bad (for doing what everyone else does already, but not mentioning that), is doubly stupid
you don't make the world a better place by focusing all of your attention on the usa
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
All is fair in love and war. If you don't think blogs and internet public forums have already been used for US government propaganda you are completely naive.
You're overlooking the irony that the candidate who might need the most help (Hillary) can't afford it. Of course, even if she could, would the endorsement of dailykos actually be of any practical value?
I only post comments when someone on the internet is wrong.
Hell, one of them is an editor right here on Slashdot; Pudge is the epitome of a Kool Aid drinking wingnut. The GOP has done backflips on party standards, but usually over the course of a decade, like how important military service is to serve as president when Bill Clinton was running against George H.W. Bush, vs when George W. Bush was running against McCain, Gore, and Kerry. If you think preferential treatment to get W into an Air Guard unit that would never see action and not bothering to show up for duty counts as "service", compare the wingnut response to Ruby Ridge (H.W. had been president for 3 1/2 years and in the White House for 11) to Waco (where Clinton had been in office for 38 days). But Pudge makes old school Republican hypocrisy obsolete - he can change standards between Republicans and Democrats so fast it would shatter the spine of Gumby:
One day he'll bitch about homosexuals "shoving gay marriage down our throats" and the next he'll bitch about regulations on home schooling. There's no libertarian Republican like a selective libertarian Republican. He'll call Barbra Boxer a liar for saying the invasion of Iraq was about "WMD, period" because the invasion was also based on violated U.N. Resolutions - even though almost all of said resolutions dealt with...WMD's. Yet less than a week later he'll talk about the Social Security crisis, nevermind that the "crisis" wouldn't come for almost 40 years, would still pay out 75% benefits, and could be completely prevented by as little as a 1% change in the tax code.
The media manipulates the military.
Now, assuming I haven't entirely misunderstood this article,
we are paying the government to create one sided propaganda promoting their cause. A cause that the vast majority of voters and tax payers do not support. We are paying them to do these things. Is this an april fool's joke?
all countries think they are the best in the world. everyone is ethnocentric. every nationalist looks outside his borders and sees worse, on whatever arbitrary measurement. they may not say 'land of the free, home of the brave' but they say something else with the same meaning: we are the best country in the world
as for the age of my examples, i leave it to your intellectual discovery as to whether or not there are contemporary non-american examples of american crimes noted in the comment i was repsonding to. or if only the usa commits these crimes
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
We've got the two best propagandists for both major parties right here in the US! Ann Coulter (the Devil, herself) and James Carville can spin ANYTHING!
I think the Pentagon really abandoned the plan because they realized wingnut bloggers will work for free.
C'mon folks, if you're getting your "hard facts" from blogs, you're already toast.
Not when your blog likes to back up statements with facts.
The tactics are not the same.
Bloggers who are anti-fascist aren't airing their opinions for a paycheck, nor are they pretending that they are broadcasting their opinions of their own volition when really there is a man behind the curtain giving direction. One system is honest while the other is structured on an attempt to deceive. There's a big difference. If you align yourself with falsehoods, then that is the kind of world you will inherit.
It would be different if members of the military were blogging their opinions and were open about their affiliations. --Of course, that actually does happen; there are certainly military professionals who post their opinions on line, but while many disagree with those opinions, nobody is accusing them of propaganda since they are not being dishonest about who they really are.
-FL
"Notably, and most unfortunately absent from the report, is the very real question of whether the military should be manipulating domestic media.""
No the military does not need to manipulate media, the media itself in concert with left wing liberals do a fine job of it on their own.
the government used to hire what they called "two minutemen" to go out into the street dressed like a normal citizen and then give a (roughly) two-minute long speech about how terrible communism was and how great America was. The only thing that has changed is they're now using the internet.
Bad? Yes. Unexpected? No.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Want to see NPR's government funding pulled, want to see the NEA money dropped, and any other public money that goes to causes that are typically slanted to one side of the political spectrum dropped?
Getting your side of the story out is THE MOST IMPORTANT part of any conflict. Ask any good marxist, it's all about the story.
While we're on it, maybe we should pull down YouTube for hosting so many pro-jihadi videos? A lot of people connected to our enemies are posting propoganda there, that our people and others are seeing.
You can't depend on a media that has been anti-conservative, anti-military, and anti-American for decades to print or say anything to help the U.S. military cause. They (big media) have admitted on multiple occasions to manipulating the news. It would be the height of stupidity our conservative politicians or our military to *not* respond with their own media initiative.
I suppose the burning of pro-military and pro-conservative books is next up...
democracy and propaganda don't mix? not theoretically, but in the entire history of democracy?
and why do think men like Clausewitz, Machiavelli, Sun Tzu, or Tokugawa have no place in a democracy? i could just as easily as add patton, or washington, or grant to those names, and no meaning has changed
you don't have an enlightened view of the way the usa is or should be. you have a cotton candy naive view. you need to take a harder look at the world you actually live in and the real nature of the human beings that populate it. you seem very sheltered, and your opinions don't seem informed, they seem magically wishful and escapist
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I am fully in support of exploding bloggers. They could be drafted based on what they've written about the war effort. It would force bloggers to put their money where their mouth is ;)
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
That's the first non-vapid argument I've seen in support of homeschooling. So far I've only seen a bunch of silly excuses which attempt to hide the fact that the child's parents are trying to breed a pack of (right/left) wing zombies because they're worried about the (liberal/conservative) influences the child might pick up at school, and actually have to consider MULTIPLE VIEWPOINTS, ZOMFG!!! I was being extremely PC with that summary, but in my experience the variables in the parentheses are just about always the former.
However, in the end I'm still for a McEducation. Better to pick up a lot of viewpoints, most of them being downright stupid, than to pick up only one which may or may not be good (depending on your point of view). Give everyone a sporting chance at forming their own opinions, I say. That might sound like a dangerous idea to some, but I'm sticking to it.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Every military base, and most larger units (and some small ones) have a public affairs officer. The DOD has a huge public information department.
Why should the DOD or any other organization let someone else frame the entire discussion?
Is buying a Harley Davidson as your first motorcycle since you were 16 at age 49 a midlife crisis issue?
You're the second person to make a post to that effect. It seems the opinion that it's okay to counter an argument by a bunch of privately-funded or nonprofit bloggers with a secretly-government-funded blogger army is a popular one. I could sit down and write a wall of text about what a fucked up opinion that is, but I should really get back to work, so hopefully someone else will take up that effort.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
The money probably spends pretty good, too. Sign me up!
I for one think the military is doing a great job!!
It's just all the commies and and terrorists that detract from the great wealth of information that the military is able to bring us through the use of blogs and online posts.... hey does this pay by the word, or by the paragraph??
once more into the breach
I take EVERYTHING I read with a kilo of salt.
The internet, with its spoofable IPv4 addresses and its "Nobody knows you're a dog" attitude, means that I don't take anything at face value, least of all anything important.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
I may not like the military hiring propaganda, but really, how is it different from corporate lobbying unto the general public instead of congress?
Lobbyists are full of crap, but I would rather have them over censorship any day.
Explored, eh? I guess they didn't actually do it? ;-)
When they open their mouth, they lie.
It's that simple.
They should be forced by law to have "ombudsmen" embedded in every office who can tell the real story without any risk of being disciplined because they're outside the chain of command. The same should apply to every other government office. Of course, the next problem is how to get the "ombudsmen" to tell the truth...
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Yes.
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
Moulitsas is a pompous idiot that in between bouts of manufactured outrage is busy slapping himself on the back, so this isn't surprising at all.
Ahh John Yoo, where's a bullet when you need one.
While they toyed with the idea of hiring people, they obviously found that finding Chickenhawks willing to carry water for them, for free, was far cheaper.
actually, it is illegal for US governemnt agencies to spread lies in the media if there is a risk of those lies reaching the American public. This is written in a law since 1970 sometime.
In Congress, July 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the consent of the governed, -- That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new guards for their future security -- Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. -- The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our People, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Stan
Superbly put. For this reason, lying to the public should be treated as seriously as purgery in a court of law. Except it isn't treated as remotely as seriously as that. It's just allowed to go unpunished.
While we are at it, why don't we make all government services a la carte? If I don't want Social Security / Medicare, I can skip out and not pay the associated tax. For those that don't want Socialized Medicine when it arrives, let them skip out and not have to pay higher taxes.
Fair enough that some of them were given "favorable access", and driving out dissent.
One more strike is they(Pajamas Media) failed to game Digg. They did get filtered out of there(Yes, they have their own corner. That corner is not easily found in a search.), and complain to this day.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
It was under Clinton and it was under Bush. I call the Bush/Clinton/Bush/(Clinton?) era the Clintush Dynasty. It must end and Hillary Clintush must be defeated to restore some semblance of law and order in our government.
These folks would be most likely to make a deal.
Free Republic
LGF
Michelle Malkin
A group that would probably receive some sort of funding( and a holder of the previous two )
Pajamas Media
The only problem with these is that one of them's misfired themselves off of Fox. Another has trouble carrying the message outside of their choir. As for freerepublic, their message seems to only reach the loyal and converted.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
After the Kennedy Tax cuts, Tax receipts went up.
After the Regan Tax cuts, Tax receipts went up.
After the Bush Tax cuts, Tax receipts went up.
Empirical evidence says your head is up your ass.
It's the Spending Stupid.
McCain will keep them out of jail and continue the "some people are above or below the law" perversion that we have to some extent.
The Hatch Act of 1939 prohibits Federal employees from certain political activities.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatch_Act_of_1939
You can't take the sky from me...
... China
They already did - it's called FOX NEWS
WTF?!?!?
Are you kidding?!?!?
This is the government that runs the FCC - the F**king Censorship Comission?!?!?
so, you are telling me that you are shocked they would hire someone to lie for them?!?!?!
Andy Out!
Of course the pool is dirty, it has AIDS.
My post is not a "troll".
It's an opinion about the morality (or lack thereof) of journalists/bloggers who lie to their readers. An opinion. Learn to know the difference.
The government is not your daddy. Its purpose is not to raid middle-class neighbors' wallets and give it to you.
What is far beyond irony is the number of people in this thread proliferating propaganda for the other side.
(Astroturfing being making up fake grassroots movements)
It seems a habit of the neo-con regime in Washington to attempt this kind of thing. Normally, because they are as incompetent as they are evil, it falls flat on its face. It tends to be more successful when the CIA do it in developing countries - those who believe the so-called 'colour revolutions' were spontaneous are laughably naive.
Its a tactic they learnt straight from what Mao did during the cultural revolution. Make it sound like a popular revolt against government bureaucrats, when in fact it directly serves the interests of the leaders of those very bureaucrats.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
The article does not mention domestic media, never, not at any point. That's the submitter's or editor's own minor assumption (or exaggeration).
Actually, when I refer to anti-fascists, that's exactly what I mean. People who are opposed to fascism. --For you to call everybody who is opposed to fascism a "totalitarian Leninist" is both unsupportable and rather hysterical-sounding.
-FL
"Now it's clear that..."
You're a loser fanboy who pretends that acting tough on the internet makes up for the wasted empty life lived in his mom's basement.
Fuck boy, that's been clear since you started posting.
"You've chosen the company you keep and the fact that they are sociopathic treasonous scum says much about you, none of it good."
Funny you should spew that considering what your posts say about you loser fanboy. Pot, kettle, loserassfanbitch, all black.
I think you'd appear less stupid and pathetic were it not for your continued posting.
You're shooting at shadows because I was not implying anything. Why imply when I have no qualms about simply saying plainly what I mean? Your brain is still revving a little on the over-active side methinks.
You can not support that this has anything to do with fascism. You are, in fact, a lying hypocrite.
Well, it's hard to tell from your posting style what the 'this' is that you are referring to, but if I am to take it that you are saying that I cannot support that covert military funding of propaganda through supposedly independent bloggers with public tax dollars has anything to do with fascism, I think that you are entirely mistaken. Do a little research on 'Fascism' and see what you find. --Though I suspect that the real challenge in your case might be in looking squarely at the facts you come across and not in the finding of the facts themselves.
-FL
Sorry, but the grocery store was all out of bitch-treats. Maybe next week.
Anyway:Darby and I are still waiting for you to explain who Lorn is. Lorne Green? No, asshole - the was Battlestar Galactica (the good version).You just don't get it do you? I told you, believe what you want. I'm not going to waste my time caring whether, or not you believe that I am not Darby.I know your new here, UID# 1244154, so lemme 'splain sum'n to ya - EVERYONE ON THIS SITE IS POSTING FROM THEIR MOM'S BASEMENT, so we don't really take that as an insult.No. Any chance that you'll accuse me of being Darby (for the sixth time) and ordering me to reply to you? Oh, wait, what the hell am I talking about - if it wasn't for that, you'd have nothing else to say. Well, at least nothing intelligent to say, which is you do nothing but troll. First of all, I've got you chasing him around, so there's no argument that you are his fanboy. Second, we're all geeks here, which implies that we are all virgins. See, I can admit it. I'll even shout it from the hills - WE ARE ALL VIRGINS POSTING FROM OUR MOTHERS BASEMENTS!! If you weren't such a fucking n00b, you would realize that.The male prostitute Darby hires is for your mom, cuz she said your dick is so small, she can't tell when you're in her. Besides, she got a little creeped-out when you told her that you wanted her to ram that 10-inch dildo in your ass, and then asked, "How come I never get to play with Daddy's pee-pee?" To which she replied, "As soon as I be figger out who yo' Daddy am be, y'alls gonna gits a turn, bitch!! Now lifts up my belly an' eats mah pussy!! Yeah, lick on' dat stank, muthafucka!! Yeah, gives big momma summa dat!! Mmmm!!"
So, c'mon bitch. ** SNAP SNAP ** Yeah, you know what that means.
"So, c'mon bitch. ** SNAP SNAP ** Yeah, you know what that means."
You're right, it means when I ask "Any chance you'll troll me AC and lie about it again?" the answer is yes.
I own you. And you hate it, but know you can't do a fucking thing about it.
Free Republic
LGF
Michelle Malkin
A group that would probably receive some sort of funding( and a holder of the previous two )
Pajamas Media
The only problem with these is that one of them's misfired themselves off of Fox. Another has trouble carrying the message outside of their choir. As for freerepublic, their message seems to only reach the loyal and converted.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.