Simply Naive – Moon of Alabama

March 13, 2005

Simply Naive

Last October a Reality Based News (RBN) piece, "Strategic Campaign Extended", was published here. It reported about the obscure "European Security Advocacy Group" that puts millions into terrorizing ad campaigns in 10 European countries. My RBN piece quoted a Senior Administration Official.

Bjørn Stærk, a Norwegian blogger, complained that the quotes were of a reality different than his and warned that people could get confused.

Now some more folks have picked up my RBN piece and today Bjørn complains again.

There were hundreds of stories in major news outlets citing Senior Administration Official confirming the reality of huge WMD stocks in Iraq. For two years a reality in the White House press room wrote anti-gay news for a fake GOP news agency while advertising himself as a gay male prostitute. Today’s NYT has a long piece about reality news. Actors payed by the administration claiming to be journalists report administration friendly news which is proliferated through hundreds of local TV stations. That is news reality!

Bjørn says I did lie in my piece. I did not. I highlighted the modus operandi of the US administration and the US media using the appropriate rhetoric tool of imitation.

In Bjørn’s reality ESAG’s claim to be "advised by a diverse group of communications professionals and academics from six countries" without naming one of them is a different reality than my RBN piece claim of a Senior Administration Official.

It is not. To think so is simply naive.

Posted by b on March 13, 2005 at 16:57 UTC | Permalink

Comments

Wow, it seems that Trevor Stanley does not have a very high opinion of us over here at the Moon.
It is curious that Bjorn would take ESAG as his Holy Grail. Why is he so interested in this?
dan of steele

Posted by: linguistically and logically illiterate cretin | Mar 13 2005 20:13 utc | 1

Colbert said it:

“one of the greatest tricks… the Right..has played on the American public is that journalism doesn’t exist.”
On Fox News, they’re asking questions, and so it must be journalism. “The form is the thing,” Colbert says the Right implies.
At its best, Colbert said, journalism is a “liberal event:” questioning of power.

Posted by: MarcinGomulka | Mar 13 2005 21:21 utc | 2

Hey Bernhard, do you think “a linguistically and logically illiterate cretin being cheered on by his peers” applies to you or to me?
😉
I am very impressed that Moon of Alabama is “creating reality”. Well done!

Posted by: Jérôme | Mar 13 2005 22:54 utc | 3

@Jérôme – I will take the honour of being a a linguistically and logically illiterate cretin though I can not speak for any “peers”.
Let`s create more realities like this. It seems to wake some folks up.
We have no credibility – all we have are facts. So let´s Judith Miller them.

Posted by: b | Mar 13 2005 23:36 utc | 4

Speaking of facts, does anyone have the ability to check up this phone number:
00 352 26 49 32 32
352, that is Luxembourg right?
Of course it happens to be ESAGs contact number…

Posted by: A swedish kind of death | Mar 14 2005 2:51 utc | 5

J or b,
which link did those qoutes come from? The ones you just commented about?

Posted by: A swedish kind of death | Mar 14 2005 2:57 utc | 6

Big Arnie under fire over manufactured ‘news’ videos

Posted by: Hasta la vista baby! | Mar 14 2005 7:05 utc | 7

@ASKD – a comment on Bjoern’s site

Posted by: b | Mar 14 2005 7:21 utc | 8

Mwahahaha
Now I’ve made it, my comments have been quoted by Bjoern 😀
Pretty amusing Bjoern complains that Norwegia doesn’t allow comments, yet is just fine with having no-comments-allowed Instapundit in his links. Yep, that “EU is waging a proxy war against the US by financing Arafat and his war on Israel” Glenny Reynolds – which of course wasn’t making stuff up when he said this, wasn’t he.
This whole stuff is, imho, a complete waste of bandwidth, but if these guys want to make a fuss about this.
Why should we care what Bush-lover Trevor Stanly and Bush-lover Bjoern Staerk seems to think? They’re on the wrong side of history, and this won’t change it. Their whole world is crumbling and dying, and all they can do is bitch about the Moon. LOL, who knew Bernhard was such an influential person, that he could convince a whole continent that there were no WMDs in Iraq and that Bush was out to get them?

Posted by: Clueless Joe | Mar 14 2005 9:07 utc | 9

Go Bernhard!
When you’re famous, debauched (more than already), a young strumpet (or strumpeter–you choose) on each arm (maybe one of each?), drawling your words, half drunk, remember this: (and I’m guessing this applies to you and maybe paraphrasing somewhat)
Knowing others is intelligent.
Knowing yourself is enlightened.
Conquering others takes force.
Conquering yourself is true strength.
Knowing what is enough is wealth.
Forging ahead shows inner reslove.
Hold your ground and you will last long.
Die without perishing and your life will endure.
—-
Alfred Brendel wrote poetry, too. Think Beckett, think the eternal expectation for the mysterious Godot. Well…
When Godot finally arrived
it was a let-down
That he was limping
became evident from a distance
a small man with an outsize beard
over which
at times
he stumbled
cursing softly
Explaining himself
did not suit him
Accounting for his deeds
was not his style
So he’d rely on puns
something he was good at
Children thought him amusing
When he threw them sweets
they caught them in mid-air
like bears in a zoo
But no one ventured near him
for that
he was too unkempt
and his gaze
betrayed the evil eye
Had it not been for his luminous tail
he might yet have gone unrecognised
It kept moving through the village
long after its master
had vanished behind the hills
————————
Me, I still can’t get my head around Schubert or Haydn.

Posted by: Aroog | Mar 14 2005 10:17 utc | 10

Manufactured news? More from Joe Bageant. (pdf)

Posted by: beq | Mar 14 2005 15:17 utc | 11

On April 1, lots of local papers and even some national ones print fake news stories in the U.S. Even if you’ve grown up in the States, April Fools Day is a subtle holiday, and the news feels incredible till you remember what day it is. Very few papers call these stories “fake,” although the editorials will often comment on the fake stores on subsequent days. Why? Because satire has to be experienced as true – it has to shock – before it can do any effective work on how people think, on how they believe or do not believe each other’s lies and tall tales.
Moon of Alabama has done just what is normal in the U.S. for April Fools’ Day. The appellation of “Reality Based News” to the story is the equivalent of doing a story on April Fools’ Day. And, yes, every year people from other cultures are stunned or scared when they read the news. And they learn to read the news better. Writing “false” at the top only removes the teeth that satire needs.
And now I think Bjorn has good reason to apologize. Not for pointing out that the news was a fake – sometimes others have to inform people that is was only April Fools Day. Bjorn should apologize for pretending that the Moon is not doing its best to improve people’s standards for discourse in the U.S. My country’s people desperately need to be awakened from reading endless reams of fake news as if they were true. Can Bjorn awaken these sleepers? Is strong satire somehow an unfair weapon for ordinary citizens?
I see Bjorn’s position to be that of someone who decides to protest against anyone slapping a helplessly sleeping woman, yet who stays religiously silent about the fact that this woman is driving her car toward the edge of a cliff. We are all passengers in this vehicle of official lies, Bjorn. It is society that drives – and she is sleeping soundly.
Why is Bjorn so quiet about that cliff?

Posted by: Citizen | Mar 14 2005 20:44 utc | 12

White House defends video ‘news releases’
WASHINGTON – The White House on Monday defended the administration’s use of video news releases that are sent to television stations across the country and frequently used without any acknowledgment of the government’s role in their production.
In an opinion last week, the Justice Department concluded that the practice was appropriate as long as the videos presented factual information about government programs. The memo was sent to heads of federal departments and agencies.
“The prohibition does not apply where there is no advocacy of a particular viewpoint, and therefore it does not apply to the legitimate provision of information concerning the programs administered by an agency,” according to the Justice Department memo.
The advice conflicts with the opinion of the Government Accountability Office, which is the investigative arm of Congress. The GAO says that video news releases amount to illegal “covert propaganda” when they fail to make plain that the government is behind the releases. ….
Manufacturing ‘reality’ – it’s the American way!

Posted by: Vignir Olaf Tarje Sven Lars Tryggvi Gandalf Tiostel Per ‘Thor Luther’ Gunnarsson-Blix | Mar 15 2005 5:55 utc | 13

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