This is beautiful stuff, babe. Like my grandpa always used to say, “An expert is someone from 50 miles away, with a briefcase.”
And he was right.
Take that yellowcake uranium scam we ran outta Italy. No one would have believed it if we didn’t funnel it through “European intelligence agencies.”
HAR! European intelligence! Only the intelligence of the average American would swallow such an oxymoron.
But swallow they did, and we’ve been on a roll ever since.
Now, we put these gold-plated articles in the Arab press, and some yeshole reporter back in the States gets to read it, steal it, quote it and cite it as expert and popular opinion. You can declare wars won this way, you can win elections on this kind of good news.
The readers of USA Today swallow it. And the little tickers on CNN and FOX scroll past, quoting our little lies as facts.
The perky little tarts behind the newsdesks repeat our lies with a straight face; the women sitting beside them repeat it, too.
I tell ya, if this ain’t yer line of work yet, ya need to get started. The money’s great, beyond great, and the future for this looks rock solid.
Everybody likes good news! Come on down to the office on Monday; I’ll introduce ya to Bernie!

Posted by: Antifa | Dec 1 2005 1:25 utc | 4

Yeah that’s the way amerikans. Make it all about yerselves. Fuck the ragheads, we’ll just kill em and take their oil, because everyone knows the only issues of importance in this world is whether I get beans bricks and liveable wages.
Let’s face it our country has become so decadent that we can’t feed ourselves unless we steal from others, so rather than taking a good hard look at what it is we are all doing that has brought this about we’ll whine about our leadership.
We’ll whine that they are wasting the assets that we helped em steal from the poor of the planet, we’ll whine that 2000 of our dead to 100,000 raheads is 2000 too high, but we won’t get angry unless someone threatens our right to spread our fat asses across our naugahyde swivel chairs and spend the day posting outre pronouncements on the dime of the taxpayer we profess to care so much about.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Dec 1 2005 4:11 utc | 6

Debs,
There are ways of saying things that everyone will agree with that will still make them want to kick you in the teeth. I doubt any Nazi sympathisers were ever persuaded to re-think their position because some self-righteous foreigners called them a “Good Germans”.
All I was saying was that every single time a story in the MSM appears that indicates we are being lied to, or that Bush doesn’t care about the lives/feelings/opinions of others, we gasp and act like it is the first time we are hearing this. The specifics change, but it is still old news.
I don’t know what it’s like in New Zealand right now, where you can afford the luxury of standing around on a pedestal, but I damned well do know what it is like to be involuntarily unemployed for years in a crashing economy and no sign that my leaders (yes, the leaders of the land of my birth) have any interest in anything except killing poor people. As broke as I am, I helped some folk from New Orleans as best I was able which is more than the federal government I am “whining” about has done. Iraqis aren’t the only ones being harmed by the Bush administration… but maybe we obnoxiously self-absorbed “Amerikans” would do well to stop thinking about heating our homes or putting food in our bellies and just roll over and stop “whining” about how unresponsive our leadership is being.
I’m not trying to be combative, Debs, but you’ve reminded me that “Amerika” does not have a monopoly on self-righteous ugliness.

Posted by: Monolycus | Dec 1 2005 4:58 utc | 8

The ‘real’ US Capitol went down on Sept. 11, 2001.

Posted by: pb | Dec 1 2005 6:59 utc | 10

NYT on the Lincoln group in Iraq:
U.S. Is Said to Pay to Plant Articles in Iraq Papers

In addition to paying newspapers to print government propaganda, Lincoln has paid about a dozen Iraqi journalists each several hundred dollars a month, a person who had been told of the transactions said. Those journalists were chosen because their past coverage had not been antagonistic to the United States, said the person, who is being granted anonymity because of fears for the safety of those involved. In addition, the military storyboards have in some cases copied verbatim text from copyrighted publications and passed it on to be printed in the Iraqi press without attribution, documents and interviews indicated.

Tsstsstss – breaking copyright laws…

Posted by: b | Dec 1 2005 7:53 utc | 12

wow. you guys rock. thanks everybody.

Posted by: annie | Dec 1 2005 10:42 utc | 14

Well I’m sorry you feel I’m being self rightous and ugly here Monolycus. I suggest you scroll up and see what I was reacting too. I don’t have time for idiots who pull on a persona with their shoes. I don’t want to read something and then spend half an hour trying to work out whether someone meant what they posted or if they are just trying on a new angle and nym like a fucking raincoat.
It seems that every other amerikan apart from the one my post was directed at chose to feel offended and I’m sorry because it wasn’t directed at anyone else.
And I’m ashamed to see that you feel that you are doing it hard, cause neither you nor I will ever do it hard Monolycus. You want to see doing it hard, drop by Niger where the only use for that country is to supply uranium to the North. Oh one other use. They can be framed to make it look like they are selling 50% of their output under the table. A plain impossibility cause the people of Niger don’t have control of their own uranium. The people of France do that. But fuck it we’ll believe it anyhow. Right now moment! If anyone has read this far, children are still dying in Niger. You would hardly know it though. Take a look at the media right, left and in the middle. Niger has been talked about this year. But far more column inches have been devoted to what the New York Times thought Niger was about or whether some CIA agent’s husband was in Niger 3 years ago, than have been wasted on millions of people dying. What does it matter? Well Niger like Pakistan has found that genorosity only lasts as long as the media interest. Even worse because aid never comes without strings there is some really complex game going on between the Niger government and the Aid suppliers as they battle each other for control. Those who may care to blame the Niger government for this should remember that european corporations have more say in who governs Niger than it’s people do. However friends working there tell me that there are still many children in a bad way who will die from the diseases that shadow famine. That the delay in getting aid into Niger has meant that crops have been planted too late to be confident that next year won’t be as bad if not worse.
Don’t tell me you’re doin it hard ask the people of Baghdad about hard.
I’m not saying that because I think I’m better than any Amerikan or Brit or Frenchman. We’re just as complicit down here and I’m not going to pretend it’s hard but I have seen hard, and hard is like a couple of weeks in New Orleans were, every week, week in week out and the knowledge that the cavalry is never coming.
I flew off the handle earlier because it was time someone flew off the handle. When people imagine whether or not they are going to be able to gas up their car to go to work is more important to them than some kids getting their asses shot off. Particularly when you consider that there may well be something more they can do to try and stop the killing but don’t because it may take them out of their ‘comfort zone’.
Of course the level of discomfort they may expose themselves to is nothing like the kid living in Syria (Syria! what did the Syrians do?) whose gonna get his head blown off tonight because someone thinks a terrarist may have been past.
You’ve heard me say before not to get personal and I have done my best to keep silent while Tante has used this forum as some sort of platform to display his/her ‘dazzling’ intellect. I just can’t stay shut up when someone comes in here as smug as the fucking cat that ate the cream and disses everyone else the forum and the postings others have made. Of course most others have tried to talk from their hearts not from their icy cold egos. And over what? Over whether or not the death of that Syrian kid is going to wake the world up to the real issue which is “Beans, bricks and liveable real wages,
These are the true core issues for US.” I read that as US not U.S. in other words it’s not even all the rest of you over there that matter a hill of his/her beans just the plurals of him/herself.
You guys can wear that shit if you want I’m not going to read self obsessed claptrap like that and leave it uncommented.
I don’t feel better than anyone that’s for sure. I spend a good portion of my existence trying to ensure that my petty needs don’t obstruct others far more pressing concerns. If I buy that will it encourage the country it came from to sell it all and leave nothing for their own people? Like are they are going to eat? Whether what I’m going to eat is at their expense and all the daily conundrums most of us face just to exist in the fucked up reality that we have all worked so hard to create. Mostly I don’t succed because the joint is so fucked up. There is no correct answer, just shades of less wrong. Even after you’ve made sure that the kids haven’t eaten any chocolate cause it stuffs their teeth and more importantly the cocoa was picked by a kid younger than yours who was sold into slavery about the same time yours got his/her first I-Pod, you haven’t changed anything.
You’ve still got kids pissed at you that you don’t want to let them poison themselves. None of their mates have to go through that shit. Even worse the other kid is still a slave and part of you wonders if he/she wouldn’t be better off if everyone just bought all the chocolate.
Nothing to feel self righteous about there mate.
All the alternatives are either morally corrupt or impractical but that’s not doing it hard. I’ve still got a choice over which way I’m gonna impact upon this planet today which more than about 2/3rds of people on it do.
As I said I’m sorry that other Amerikans felt it was directed at them because it wasn’t; not unless they really feel that whether they get their Xmas bonus is a bigger issue on this earth than whether or not that Syrian kid gets his head blown off tonight. And even then it’s not really directed at them unless they care to boast about it. Cause none of us ever get it right all the time or even half the time. However if someone is going to consistently flaunt their egoism in here then they better wear some of the consequences of that which is other people are going to find their self obsession a bit hard to take. Especially if there appears to be the stink of hypocrisy about it.
Chances are though Monolycus my comment about Nuremberg in the other thread was probably what wound your clock. I don’t know I haven’t been over there yet. Even if it was although I’m sorry it did crank you up I’m not sorry I said it. I’m sure I’m not the only person who watched that appalling piece of low propaganda and thought that CNN musta signed up Leni Riefenstahl. Anyway now that the literati have decided that her artistic ability outweighs her moral repugnance it can’t have been an insult to compare the thousands of young people in black uniforms saluting Bush with the thousands of young people in black uniforms saluting Hitler. Can it? I can’t keep up with it anymore. I was under the impression that most MoA habitues eschewed the ‘values as a fashion statement approach to politics’ and would share my disgust at BushCos plagiarism of Nazi images.
Anyway it’s 2.00am and I’m raged out for the day.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Dec 1 2005 13:16 utc | 16

Good article as usual by billmon, good thread here, but what jj said (i.e. I agree) – American or not, still believing the U.S. is the richest country in the world, etc. is believing the MSM that we are usually railing against.
Re When people imagine whether or not they are going to be able to gas up their car to go to work is more important to them than some kids getting their asses shot off. False dichotomy. The working American is funding the good and the bad that’s going on, and when s/he cannot get to work, more will be lost than the family home.
Syria and Niger are on a nearly endless list of dire needs in the world. Hurricane Katrina and Pakistani earthquake victims remain homeless, torture continues in many different places, rivers and lakes are poisoned, the climate is changing, and so on ad frustrateum. We absolutely must put research before reproach, information before invective. As they say, we are all in this together.

Posted by: dus7 | Dec 1 2005 16:00 utc | 18

I think there’s a basic misunderstanding here. There isn’t that much of a difference between Debs and tante aime’s ideas, only a level of focus. Many American leftists use the concept that we should focus on on domestic issues not because they believe that Americans should ignore the problems of the world, but because that is an argument that they believe will be respected by our narcissistic government and general population. It also attempts to shift the focus of the government’s responsibility from having a strong military to aiding its population. The true lefist might believe that creating a government dedicated to social justice at home will espouse the same values overseas, and stop killing the ragheads.
I don’t think it’s a particularly effective tactic in the USA – this isn’t Russia 1917 – but it’s not as ignorant of the world’s ills as it might appear to someone who’s not American.

Posted by: Rowan | Dec 1 2005 20:32 utc | 20

U.S. military pays Iraqis for positive news stories on war

U.S. Army officers have been secretly paying Iraqi journalists to produce upbeat newspaper, radio and television reports about American military operations and the conduct of the war in Iraq.
U.S. officials in Washington said the payments were made through the Baghdad Press Club, an organization they said was created more than a year ago by U.S. Army officers. They are part of an extensive American military-run information campaign – including psychological warfare experts – intended to build popular support for U.S.-led stabilization efforts and erode support for Sunni Muslim insurgents.
Members of the Press Club are paid as much as $200 a month, depending on how many positive pieces they produce.
…
A Knight Ridder investigation has found that the American military’s information operations have been far more extensive.
In addition to the Army’s secret payments to Iraqi newspaper, radio and television journalists for positive stories, U.S. psychological-warfare officers have been involved in writing news releases and drafting media strategies for top commanders, two defense officials said.
On at least one occasion, psychological warfare specialists have taken a group of international journalists on a tour of Iraq’s border with Syria, a route used by Islamic terrorists and arms smugglers, one of the officials said.
Usually, these duties are the responsibility of military public-affairs officers.
In Iraq, public affairs staff at the American-run multinational headquarters in Baghdad have been combined with information operations experts in an organization known as the Information Operations Task Force.
The unit’s public affairs officers are subservient to the information operations experts, military and defense officials said.

Which means that ANYTHING coming from the “multinational” headquarter is propaganda.

Posted by: b | Dec 1 2005 21:15 utc | 22

I’m not going to get drawn into an extended game of “holier-than-thou”, Debs. I knew to whom your remarks were directed and I stand by my response. I’ve been annoyed by some things that Tante Aime has written in the past, and I’ve been one hundred per cent behind some things that you have written in the past. On this occasion, that situation was reversed. I read and respond to these comments for the ideas that they contain and do my best to leave my ad hominem opinions about the individual posters at the door.
I know I harp on and on about enantiodromia (things becoming their opposites), but your hateful anti-Americanism above is absolutely no different in quality than any other harmful racism… and it did piss me off. People everywhere have the same basic needs and the same capacity for suffering, even if you do not like them politically.
I could write all day about my personal experiences, and it is not going to change your opinion of the “Amerikans” you have objectified. I could cite references about how the upper two per cent of Americans control all the wealth in this “Land of Opportunity”, how the overwhelming majority of us have no means to see the inside of a hospital when we are hurt or sick, how we have the shortest life spans of any citizens in any developed nation, how there is more daily violence in our cities than exists anywhere on Earth, how our sizeable demographic of poor and homeless have no opportunity to escape their miserable despair except to simply die. You won’t accept it. Because you have so completely embraced the “Amerikans are privileged” paradigm, you will not grant that they are also capable of suffering.
I’m sorry that you do not see images of the truly poor in America on television and in our newspapers. It upsets that 2% of the wealthiest to acknowledge that reality, but many, many of us live under bridges and in boxes. We are poisoned by the air we breathe and the water we drink because those evil American corporations you so despise are right here. But we are “Amerikans”, and it is far more glamourous to you to feel empathy towards a poor Nigerian or a poor Haitian or a poor Australian aborigine. Those are people you can see pictures of, you can interact with, and you don’t have to talk to if you don’t want to hear from them. Since you feel neutral towards them, you can admit that they are capable of suffering. “Amerikans”, to your mind, just aren’t the right sort to allot any of your finite compassion, and you’re tired of hearing from them anyway.
Well, we do suffer. And we suffer profoundly. Yes, it would more “glamourous” if we starved to death in a desert in Ethiopia rather than in the gutter of a bustling city… but you know we “Amerikans” have no sense of proper aesthetic. You wrote once, Debs, about dentistry. I have no idea about these things since I am uninsured, have had no income for over a year and am not related to a dentist. I didn’t know the specifics about how the teeth that are rotting out of my head are probably responsible for my cardio problems. But I am an “Amerikan”, so I’ll be okay. I’m “privileged”, after all. Anything I have to say on the topic of suffering is suspect because, after all, how would I know?
Now Tante Aime wrote that we need to address the problems of “…Slavery, AIDS, corporatism, militarism, etcetera.” rather than living, eating, drinking or dropping bombs on Iraqis and Afghans. I can see where you would have a problem with that, since your agenda is simply that “Amerikans” should stop dropping bombs on Iraqis… and then presumably curl up and die so you can go off to fight the good fight without hearing any more about them.
I’m not raged out, but since I have sincere doubts that anything I have to say about this is going to make an iota of difference to you by dint of my national citizenship, I’ll leave off here.

Posted by: Monolycus | Dec 1 2005 23:02 utc | 24

anti-Americanism has got to be one of the most ridiculous phrases ever devised. disappointed to hear it used by fellow barmates, but not necessarily surprised. way too many assumptions being thrown around the room at the moment.

Posted by: b real | Dec 1 2005 23:57 utc | 26

Sometimes I appreciate snark. Sometimes civility.
But I never appreciate the cry of anonyminity in the fervor of conflictual discourse.

Posted by: Anonymous | Dec 2 2005 1:21 utc | 28

Bravo anon @ 8:21:16 PM
It’s kinda like the (probably)neurotic
tradition -at least in the South- of
“I can fight within my family” But, I’ll be damned if I stand by while someone else jumps in kinda thing. So butt out, “all cried out”.
It just burns my arse when someone butts in whom have never contributed here much…

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Dec 2 2005 1:57 utc | 30

Iraq War: Faking the news
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER EDITORIAL BOARD
While the White House was busy distancing itself from the controversy — “We are seeking more information from the Pentagon,” said spokesman Scott McClellan — a senior military spokesman in Baghdad struck a bit closer to the mark.
Major Gen. Rick Lynch reminded reporters that terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi had been told by an al-Qaida superior, “Remember, half the battle is the battlefield of the media.”
Who’s supposed to be teaching Iraqis journalistic ethics — us or al-Zarqawi?
U.S. Sen. Hiram Johnson had it right in 1917: “The first casualty when war comes is truth.”
Here’s a journalism lesson: If they’re buying fake news, the real news must be really bad.

and

Senate Summons Pentagon to Explain Effort to Plant News Stories in Iraqi Media
New York Times
By ERIC SCHMITT and DAVID S. CLOUD.
WASHINGTON, Dec. 1 – The chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee summoned top Pentagon officials to explain a reported secret military campaign to plant paid propaganda in the Iraqi news media…

Posted by: Outraged | Dec 2 2005 4:35 utc | 32

@Tantalus
I’ve actually been too viscerally offended to write for most of this afternoon. Yes, I am a hothead. But…
If you want to criticise my government, I will stand next to you and out-shout you about their crimes against humanity. But if, in that criticism, you suggest that the the American people are as culpable as those Beltway sociopaths that hoard all the capital… or worse, are some kind of üntermensch who are incapable of experiencing human suffering, I’m drawing a line. If you suggest that non-Americans who had the good fortune to be born into systems that are more responsive to their needs and are more humane are therefore more “enlightened”, than I will suggest that you have revealed that you are cut from the same racist cloth that gave rise to the Neocons.
I’m not trying to squelch debate here. But I was under the naïve impression that progressives were about eliminating or minimising human suffering… not just “exotic” suffering. I have no problem with non-Americans pointing out the moral deficits of my people, but what has been said so far has been the worst kind of hypocrisy and it’s been an unwarranted, very personal attack on a people who have already been very, very marginalised. The American people are victims of their government, just as Iraqis, Afghans, Somalis, almost the entirety of Central and South America, et cetera are victims of the American government. It undermines our collective solidarity against those policy-makers when we suggest that there is only one kind of person living in America… a rich, privileged, unfeeling bastard.
Of course your opinion is not disallowed, Tantalus. At least not here. If any of us were happy with my government, we would be finding another watering-hole to spout those views. I’m just asking for some balance and realism with the vitriol. Otherwise, spouting and driving off our allies is all we’re doing.

Posted by: Monolycus | Dec 2 2005 5:16 utc | 34

What’s Lincoln Group?

It’s tough to follow the history of Lincoln Group, a contractor that won a $100 million contract with the Special Operations Command to assist with psychological operations. The common denominator to the firm’s history is Christian Bailey, listed on its Web site as executive vice president, capital markets.
…

Posted by: b | Dec 2 2005 9:52 utc | 36

And if I could, before we forge ahead…correction: cortisol is produced by hate, not cortisone.

Posted by: jm | Dec 2 2005 13:10 utc | 38

Warning: Virulent New Sexually Transmitted Disease
The Center for Disease Control has issued a warning about a new virulent strain of Sexually Transmitted Disease.
The disease is contracted through dangerous and high-risk behavior.
The disease is called Gonorrhea Lectim and pronounced “gonna re-elect him.” Many victims contracted it in 2004, after having been screwed for the previous four years.
Cognitive characteristics of individuals infected include: anti-social personality disorders, delusions of grandeur with messianic overtones, extreme cognitive dissonance, inability to incorporate new information, pronounced xenophobia and paranoia, inability to accept responsibility for your own actions, cowardice masked by misplaced bravado, uncontrolled facial smirking, ignorance of geography and history, tendencies towards evangelical theocracy, categorical all-or-nothing behavior.
Naturalists and epidemiologists are amazed at how this destructive disease, which originated only a few years ago from a bush found in Texas, has spread throughout the country.

😉

Posted by: Outraged | Dec 2 2005 15:11 utc | 40

Ignorant lurkers should know when they’re outclassed, but:
Did: your first post had a lot of ‘we’s in it that seemed just like the ‘we’ in ‘We must stay the course’, ‘We can’t cut and run’ and so on. I thought that particular ‘we’ belonged to the other side’s vocabulary.
TA’s original post was more poetic than precise, capable of many readings. But I don’t think ‘as long as we’ve enough beans, bricks and bucks, nothing and nobody else matters’ is a fair presentation of his position. One might criticize him for seeming to suggest that the material struggle only matters – why concede all non-material issues to the enemy? – but politics of the belly is a sound tactic most of the time.

Posted by: lurker | Dec 2 2005 21:08 utc | 42

I wonder how many internet trolls the Lincoln Group employs?

Posted by: kelley b. | Dec 2 2005 22:16 utc | 44

The truth is a wily character. It will find its way around the blockage and get out somewhat. It’s not altogether the propaganda, which is a selling tool everyone uses to convince others, but the ability of the receiver to recognize the truth. I’ve seen stories circulate around cyberspace that are completely false yet consumed readily by many intelligent searching people without taking the time to verify. So the spread of false information is a complicated beast. People leap for information that verifies their beliefs, true or false. The critical faculty, even when there, can be neglected in this enthusiasm to share beliefs. Of course, this faculty has atrophied in many people if it ever was present. I agree, Tantalus, that American education contributes to this. And the adoration of advertising.
It’s gotten to the point in America, I think where the people expect lies from this administration, so the propaganda machine is working at full tilt but failing, as compared to the beginning of this war. It’s an interesting journey to witness when you stand back and look. The public sees a loss. The stepped up efforts as in the newly planted stories actually indicate to me the magnitude of the military failure. The military families are desperate and outraged now. They know a lot of the truth. I think there is a creeping illness in the military machine. There’s no war without morale, and everyone can see this steep decline.
So I think we are seeing a losing game with this group that were on a roll, but can’t get back on top of the game. One true thing that is being said now in the American public is that they believe the country was falsely led into this war and that the administration can’t be trusted. So it looks like a huge waste of money, manpower, and energy to keep propagating the fantasy. Everyone reaches his limit sometimes.
I think it is our job to talk to people and try to find the truth ourselves. To wean ourselves from authoritative expertise and instant news gratification. And continue these discussions that so many are tuning into. The truth has its own power and is always looking for a vehicle. The decision is how much energy to put into attacking the lies, and how much into speaking the truth.

Posted by: jm | Dec 3 2005 0:28 utc | 46

..We waited for a light moment.
~Johara

Posted by: Enough | Dec 3 2005 2:26 utc | 48

Because the million or so people in this country that are truly interested in the truth don’t have any money.
-Jeb Bush
Somehow, b real, I’m not convinced here.

Posted by: jm | Dec 3 2005 9:35 utc | 50

And I would only add that herein lies the essential monad of their only vestage of culture, the reification necessary for consciousness, circumvented, as it were, to rob the innate human social impulse of its survival instinct.

Posted by: Anonymous | Dec 3 2005 11:16 utc | 52

Anna m…I’m not convinced they can really do it. It seems like everyone ends up confused no matter what anybody does. Who really believes what? If they have to spend trillions on their propaganda machine with temporary results at best, then how much power do they have over the truth in the end? How can we be sure the truth isn’t playing games with them, only to reappear? Lies are the truth’s perfect foil.

Posted by: jm | Dec 3 2005 12:42 utc | 54