Billmon:
"A slow sort of country!’ said the Queen. "Now, HERE, you see, it takes all the running YOU can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!"
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October 20, 2006
WB: The Looking Glass War
Comments
Good one billmon, here’s another…
US Gvt Office of Countermisinformation
The very idea kinda seems surreal at this point, donnit?
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Oct 20 2006 4:53 utc | 1
Cheers Uncle $cam
I had no idea there is actually a “ministry of truth.gov”
Following excerpt from web page made me laugh so hard I cried.
“How can a journalist or a news consumer tell if a story is true or false? There are no exact rules, but the following clues can help indicate if a story or allegation is true.
Does the story fit the pattern of a conspiracy theory?
Does the story claim that vast, powerful, evil forces are secretly manipulating events? If so, this fits the profile of a conspiracy theory. Conspiracy theories are rarely true, even though they have great appeal and are often widely believed. In reality, events usually have much less exciting explanations.”
What a useful standard! Being the doubleplus-goodthinker that I am, I gave the analysis a whirl.
–Most of the posts here claim that a vast, powerful, evil force is secretly manipulating events, like Republicans and NeoCons.
And most of the posts here have great appeal and I often believe them to be accurate. But as Minitrue directs, I took a close look at reality to see if there was a less exciting explanation.
–Turns out, I discovered that a less exciting explanation does exist back in reality land. Mainly, I live in a country comprised mostly of incompetent yahoos to comfortably numb to get up off their asses, to think for themselves, to vote, defend their constitution and make their representatives accountable for our fucked up country. The result of such incompetent yahoo-acracy being the rise of a vast, powerful evil force secretly manipulating events.
Sans hope
Posted by: Fiat Lux | Oct 20 2006 5:53 utc | 2
This is the most hilarious thing Uncle.
“This site is produced and maintained by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of International Information Programs.”
“John Perkins’ popular, but misleading, book, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, is being released in paperback. Perkins claims that the U.S. National Security Agency recruited him to be an “economic hit man,” who deliberately entrapped foreign countries in unmanageable amounts of debt so they would be beholden to the United States. This appears to be a total fabrication. To the contrary, the U.S. government has led a recent initiative to cancel the debt of many heavily indebted poor countries.”
The left-hand sidebar has a heading called Conspiracy Theories. Under that is something like Did the U.S. Create Bin Ladin?
Link to Uncle $cam’s apprently legit US gov’t site: usinfo.state.gov/media/misinformation.html
Posted by: jonku | Oct 20 2006 8:40 utc | 3
Good discussion during The Daily Show and Stephen Colbert on tv:
They aren’t stupid enough yet to reach the general viewer. But they do try.
Posted by: jonku | Oct 20 2006 8:45 utc | 4
Fuck, Uncle $, that is priceless.
Whoda thunk it? Our tax dollars being put to good use yet again – NOT – w/ the exec branch going after John Perkins.
Jesus, I have had enough of this shit.
Posted by: Dismal Science | Oct 20 2006 11:47 utc | 5
Well Sadr has made his latest chess move.
The Shiite militia run by anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr seized control of the southern Iraqi city of Amarah today in one of the boldest acts of defiance yet by the country’s powerful, unofficial armies.
Prime Minister Nouri Maliki dispatched an emergency security delegation that included the Minister of State for Security Affairs and top officials from the Interior and Defence ministries, said Yassin Majid, the prime minister’s media adviser.
Posted by: Cloned Poster | Oct 20 2006 11:58 utc | 6
Some more ‘o that there ‘truth’ …
October 15, 2006 AP
BAGHDAD: The number of embedded journalists reporting alongside U.S. troops in Iraq has dropped to its lowest level of the war even as the conflict heats up on the streets of Baghdad and in the U.S. political campaign.
Local commanders have final say on whether to accept an embed. Getting accepted by a commander into a hot spot like Ramadi, Haditha or Tal Afar can be difficult.
They are subject to being kicked out if the commander finds a story inappropriate, and there is no appeal.
After a story last year that painted an unflattering but accurate picture of violence and conditions in Fallujah, one Marine public affairs officer said he was not approving any more embeds to that city.
In another case, Associated Press correspondent Todd Pitman, who reported this year from Ramadi, said he was ordered by a colonel to pack his bags after writing about tricks that insurgents use.
“One of the colonel’s intelligence advisers advised him that I hadn’t given away anything the insurgents didn’t already know, so the colonel changed his mind and let me stay,” Pitman said.
Antonio Castaneda, who reported from 30 Marine and Army battalions over an 18-month assignment for the AP, had a similar experience. He wrote in April about families fleeing violence in Dora, a Baghdad neighborhood where Sunni-Shiite tension runs high.
“The day after the Dora story was printed, I was visited by a soldier who delivered the message that my coverage was disproportionately negative,” Castaneda said.
Castaneda’s requests for more embeds in the Baghdad area were ignored until a senior U.S. officer interceded.
On his next assignment, Castaneda quoted an Army captain as saying radical Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr appeared more popular than Iraqi authorities in one Shiite neighborhood.
He later learned that the captain had been reprimanded for the remark.
Nope, no premedidated policy, no manipulation of information or its flow, no co-ordinated management of ‘events’, no conspiracies here … move along now, move along !
Posted by: Outraged | Oct 20 2006 12:12 utc | 7
Not only going after Perkins, but doing it badly: he doesn’t as far as I can see from a quick re-scan of the first chapter of the book, say that the NSA recruited him as an EHM, he says that he was interviewed by the NSA and that he suspects that they passed his details on to someone they thought might be interested. If he’d said he worked for the NSA I’d have been rather suspicious because I know they’re mostly sigint.
An historical perpective … no matter how times change, so much is still very much, the same …
Raw source and analysis form the National Security Archive:
U.S. Propaganda in the Middle East – The Early Cold War Version
Posted by: Outraged | Oct 20 2006 13:04 utc | 9
Okay, it is oft said, “the best propaganda has a bit of truth to it”, –for those that do not know–, Perkins book truly is a bit misleading, it is fiction, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, is not real. At least as I’ve come to understand it, however, having sd that -fiction or not– these scenarios resonate and validate our collective rigorous intuition. (Scrow down for this…)
Then there’s John Perkins, the National Security Agency-recruit and author of the favourite liberal limited hang-out Confessions of an Economic Hitman, who is also the author of Shapeshifting: Shamanic Techniques for Global and Personal Transformation, and leads workshops on the subject.
So I question people’s non questioning of Mr. Perkins, however the may ideals resonate.
As a caveat though, the rest of that site –paid for by your tax dollars–is quite real, and it shows how scared they are, as it is an OM (Operation Mindfuck) in reverse.
I’d go so far as to say, anti-discordianism, where discordianism is/was an art movement for culture jamming the man, this gov site seems to be the counter response to it’s effectiveness. They are jaming back the signal.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Oct 20 2006 13:06 utc | 10
I almost choked when this arrived yesterday in an email from the Center for American Progress Action Fund. Clearly, we are in “Wonderland” all right:
President Bush declared this week “National Character Counts Week.” Americans are supposed to remember our commitments to “values such as integrity, courage, honesty, and patriotism” that “sustain our democracy, make self-government possible, and help build a more hopeful future.”
The White House Press Release reads:
NOW, THEREFORE, I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim October 15 through October 21, 2006, as National Character Counts Week. I call upon public officials, educators, librarians, parents, students, and all Americans to observe this week with appropriate ceremonies, activities, and programs.
The same damned week as he killed our Republic by signing the Military Commissions Act. Now that’s a Mindfuck.
Posted by: Bea | Oct 20 2006 14:34 utc | 11
Ideology and beliefs trump reality. Contrary to ABC or President Bush, the Tet Offensive wasn’t conducted to turn Americans against the War. The Vietcong intended to conquer South Vietnam and drive out the foreign colonizers. What Tet destroyed was the credibility of the Johnson Administration because it lied to America. There was no light at the end of the tunnel. Vietnam was a never ending war, and the Johnson Administration knew it.
Iraq is worse than Vietnam because instead of learning the right lesson of telling the truth to Americans, the Bush Administration turned Vietnam lies into Iraqi Agit-prop with Corporate Media enabling. The 21st century sequel of “1984” directed by the Mad Hatter creating his own reality.
Posted by: Jim S | Oct 20 2006 16:04 utc | 12
— the looking glass is the square blue screen
sit and see identify and believe and cheer —
Historical lies have always existed. Personally, collectively, nationally and since post ww2, at least, globally. Not news. Our human and legal arrangements even see to it that with time some lies may be wiped out and excused. Johnny lied about his jail time; the Turks could not face their genocidal past; etc. etc.
However, the close intertwining of fiction and reality – we make reality- in the US reaches new heights. A staged event like 9/11 – indubitably real in its damage, but explained and presented as something quite different from what it was, leads to questioning, alternative scenarios; movies like Loose Change point to mendacity and lies, hinted at or stated alternatives, but without demanding or claiming any rights to investigation or anything whatsoever. Docu-drama fictions well after the event will be taken as ‘real’ by many, sending atrocity down to the well-worn paths of shock, hate, glory and love for the State; those who suffered can speak out but cannot find a path for justice, redress.
Elites – elected! elites – who go down that path are doomed. Not only because they will be found out, but because their reliance on fakery invalidates them absolutely; and people will understand, with time, that they were manipulated and lied to, and not for their own good.
I hope. Well, it is inevitable, but probably – and that is something the PTB count on – when it is too late.
Posted by: Noirette | Oct 20 2006 16:10 utc | 13