Geopolitics

[Sweet Square]

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[Mciahel Goodman]

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It's the "we make mistakes" or "we're not perfect" line that gets trotted out in defense of Western wars time and time again. It's been a thing for seventy years now.

 

[Mciahel Goodman]

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I did say that China was the primary US target about three or four weeks ago and that the US has pursued a policy of simultaneous containment of each, which was met with ridicule. It's entirely true, in case anyone is wondering.

 

[VorZakone]

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Not surprised by Wolff saying this. It remains to be seen how much the US is willing to sanction China.

 

[Mciahel Goodman]

Not surprised by Wolff saying this. It remains to be seen how much the US is willing to sanction China.

What they want is for China to abandon Russia. Russia, post-Putin, will then move into the traditional Western alliance leaving China isolated except insofar as it plays by "international rules" (read: dollar hegemony). The US sanctioned China heavily under Trump after moving in that direction under Obama (Trump's sanctions were an abysmal failure, by the way, with the US trade deficit increasing during that period). It's a lot more complicated to try and isolate China because they are invested in the global economy to an extent that Russia isn't. Flipside is that China doesn't want confrontation either because it makes advancements via economic means instead of military. Control of Eurasia is the name of the game, according to various scholars. China's investments in that region through the BRI amount to ten times the US investment in Europe/Japan under the Marshall Plan and post-War reconstruction more generally.

Only a couple of viable outcomes. One is the above, where Russia moves "West" post-Putin. Another, more likely scenario, is that Russia/China form a grand Eurasian alliance in which the roles are reversed from 1950 (USSR as senior economic partner, China as senior military partner limited to the Korean Peninsula where Korea is now Ukraine). In the second scenario, a new cold war looks very likely but not the same as the first owing to increased globalised markets and a less clear-cut ideological/economic distinction. Offhand, the strength of a potential China/Russia Eurasian axis is that China and Russia are both capitalist countries in all the areas that actually matter (foreign direct investment). Also, Biden's current economic program is essentially protectionist. The building of semiconductor factories for a hightech economy. That is surely preparation for a potential isolation of China. Can only be done by sanctions because capitalism means companies will go wherever is cheapest unless mandated to do otherwise by state dictates. Read also, in this context, the serious attention being given by Western countries regarding a return to something like neo-Keynsian economics, with many acknowledging that neoliberalism has failed (has enriched many at an unsustainable rate while leaving states internally weakened; the entire reason Trump could win an election was because his base had their jobs shipped abroad, many to China, under neoliberal economics on steroids: "great again" just meant "manufacturing industry" that had been gutted). When you hear Biden speaking about building back better, what he means is sourcing the supply materials from America to build in America. He's trying to shore up the supply line in a move to create well paying jobs within the new economy that is emerging around renewable energy. It's not a bad plan, btw. Americans (and potentially Europeans) will benefit if such a legislation is seriously rammed through.

 

[iKnowNothing]

Offhand, the strength of a potential China/Russia Eurasian axis is that China and Russia are both capitalist countries in all the areas that actually matter (foreign direct investment). Also, Biden's current economic program is essentially protectionist. The building of semiconductor factories for a hightech economy. That is surely preparation for a potential isolation of China. Can only be done by sanctions because capitalism means companies will go wherever is cheapest unless mandated to do otherwise by state dictates. Read also, in this context, the serious attention being given by Western countries regarding a return to something like neo-Keynsian economics, with many acknowledging that neoliberalism has failed (has enriched many at an unsustainable rate while leaving states internally weakened; the entire reason Trump could win an election was because his base had their jobs shipped abroad, many to China, under neoliberal economics on steroids: "great again" just meant "manufacturing industry" that had been gutted). When you hear Biden speaking about building back better, what he means is sourcing the supply materials from America to build in America. He's trying to shore up the supply line in a move to create well paying jobs within the new economy that is emerging around renewable energy. It's not a bad plan, btw. Americans (and potentially Europeans) will benefit if such a legislation is seriously rammed through.

So essentially in the next cycle, the US in its attempts to build locally and to try and remove as much dependency on China as possible, will turn into a protectionist state, something which the current populace (boomers and their next generation) were systematically taught to hate?

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I tend to agree with the general sentiment (not in response to the post quoted) that over the next decade, the reliance on US Dollar will wane. The days of US being the big brother or the world police will (rightly or not) come to an end. The way Covid showed people could work remotely and expedited a behavioral change in people, I get a sense that the current situation will play a significant role in expediting various countries looking past the US on a lot of issues.

 

[Mciahel Goodman]

So essentially in the next cycle, the US in its attempts to build locally and to try and remove as much dependency on China as possible, will turn into a protectionist state, something which the current populace (boomers and their next generation) were systematically taught to hate?

Yeah, it's been happening for years though. The Huawei 5g network was an index of broader intent. And I don't think of it as full-on protectionism, just a tilting of the scales according to the new energy economy around which all the best jobs, including manufacturing, will be based (for example, not all materials for this new economy can come organically from the US or EU, so it becomes about securing trade networks in the global south, including oil in Venezuela and other places, but also, crucially, rare minerals in Africa and other places, like Ukraine: China is well positioned in Africa). The GOP have revived their own version of the New Deal, but will obviously not include "green" anywhere within its contents. Transcends GOP/Dem politics as it just makes economic sense. They will bitterly contest the exact meaning of it, though, and are already doing that.

I tend to agree with the general sentiment (not in response to the post quoted) that over the next decade, the reliance on US Dollar will wane. The days of US being the big brother or the world police will (rightly or not) come to an end. The way Covid showed people could work remotely and expedited a behavioral change in people, I get a sense that the current situation will play a significant role in expediting various countries looking past the US on a lot of issues.

Has to happen eventually. Might take decades or could be sooner, but dollar hegemony will be split to reflect the truly bipolar world order that is emerging.

 

[spiriticon]

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I did say that China was the primary US target about three or four weeks ago and that the US has pursued a policy of simultaneous containment of each, which was met with ridicule. It's entirely true, in case anyone is wondering.

I think there is no way the US can sanction China without triggering a worldwide economic meltdown. China pretty much controls supply and manufacturing lines globally. Everything you buy is 'Made in China' these days. There is a need to diversify that sector away from Chinese monopoly before even thinking about sanctions.

Whatever strategy of containment the US economists are thinking about, it must diverge from sanctions.

 

[Mciahel Goodman]

I think there is no way the US can sanction China without triggering a worldwide economic meltdown. China pretty much controls supply and manufacturing lines globally. Everything you buy is 'Made in China' these days. There is a need to diversify that sector away from Chinese monopoly before even thinking about sanctions.

I think the gist is that the US is moving, and has been since Obama, but especially under Trump, to do exactly that.

 

[spiriticon]

I think the gist is that the US is moving, and has been since Obama, but especially under Trump, to do exactly that.

It will take a long time. The lure of cheap labour offered by China since the 00's was too good to ignore and the West has pretty much handed over almost all control of manufacturing infrastructure to China in the last 30 years. It may take another 20 years, if not more, for the West to disentangle everything.

But, with China becoming more and more advanced as an economy each year, you start to wonder how cheap they can keep their labour at. It won't be long before their populace expects higher wages to match an increasing standard of living, and it may give more incentive for Western countries to diverge from China a bit faster.

 

[MTF]

A potential China-US conflict is mutually destructive economically on a scale that vastly outweighs anything we're observing in this conflict. There's all the finished goods the US imports from China, but also intermediate goods that flow in both directions. It would certainly be recessionary for the US and even threaten financial stability. But China is in a way even more vitally exposed because they import both oil and food. Both arrive in China via ocean (not in totality, but in significant amounts) which exposes them to blockades.

China-US conflict is so potentially ruinous to both just in the economic sense that it would be seemingly impossible, but economics has not been sufficient reason to avoid conflicts in the past, notably WWI and Germany's invasion of the USSR in WWII.

 

[MTF]

It will take a long time. The lure of cheap labour offered by China since the 00's was too good too ignore and the West has pretty much handed over almost all control of manufacturing infrastructure to China in the last 30 years. It may take another 20 years, if not more, for the West to disentangle everything.

But, with China becoming more and more advanced as an economy each year, you start to wonder how cheap they can keep their labour at. It won't be long before their populace expects higher wages to match an increasing standard of living, and it may give more incentive for Western countries to diverge from China a bit faster.

This already occurs in several areas. China is far from the cheapest manufacturing option for basic goods these days (such as clothing), the thing is that they are actually a competitive manufacturer in several middle and advanced industries now. That is where they've been gaining incremental share in recent years.

 

[Mciahel Goodman]

It will take a long time. The lure of cheap labour offered by China since the 00's was too good too ignore and the West has pretty much handed over almost all control of manufacturing infrastructure to China in the last 30 years. It may take another 20 years, if not more, for the West to disentangle everything.

But, with China becoming more and more advanced as an economy each year, you start to wonder how cheap they can keep their labour at. It won't be long before their populace expects higher wages to match an increasing standard of living, and it may give more incentive for Western countries to diverge from China a bit faster.

I think that's exactly it. The days of cheap labour in China are drawing to a close, at least it isn't the exponential source of cheap labour it was. Their middle-class even now has risen so far that jobs suitable a generation ago are no longer tenable. The ones to watch are other neighboring Asian states. The Indian economy is forecast to undergo a middle-class leap similar to China's in the next decade or two.

 

[Mciahel Goodman]

This already occurs in several areas. China is far from the cheapest manufacturing option for basic goods these days (such as clothing), the thing is that they are actually a competitive manufacturer in several middle and advanced industries now. That is where they've been gaining incremental share in recent years.

Yeah, exactly. Their high-tech sector is booming and only growing.

 

[Sweet Square]

It's the "we make mistakes" or "we're not perfect" line that gets trotted out in defense of Western wars time and time again. It's been a thing for seventy years now.

Pretty much. Reminded of this “Every empire tells itself and the world that it is unlike all other empires, that its mission is not to plunder and control but to educate and liberate”. - Edward Said

 

[Peter van der Gea]

Yeah, exactly. Their high-tech sector is booming and only growing.

What about their population problem, hasn't the one child policy hamstrung them a bit in the future?

 

[2cents]

Pretty much. Reminded of this “Every empire tells itself and the world that it is unlike all other empires, that its mission is not to plunder and control but to educate and liberate”. - Edward Said

America may also be the first to tell itself it isn’t an empire.

 

[The Corinthian]

https://amp.marca.com/en/football/spanish-football/2022/03/23/623b515eca474194558b462d.html

Hector Bellerin on the war in Ukraine: I think it's racist that other conflicts have been ignored

 

[VorZakone]

https://amp.marca.com/en/football/spanish-football/2022/03/23/623b515eca474194558b462d.html

Hector Bellerin on the war in Ukraine: I think it's racist that other conflicts have been ignored

I wonder if he was even aware of an 8-year ongoing war in the Donbas before the invasion. Surely it isn't surprising that a fresh Russian invasion beyond the Donbas was always going to dominate the news.

That being said, there's valid complaints to be had about differences in how refugees are received, and such.

 

[Raoul]

I wonder if he was even aware of an 8-year ongoing war in the Donbas before the invasion. Surely it isn't surprising that a fresh Russian invasion beyond the Donbas was always going to dominate the news.

That being said, there's valid complaints to be had about differences in how refugees are received, and such.

He probably thinks all wars should be treated equally irrespective of where they are, which obviously isn't the case. Western media service primarily European and North American audiences interested in news that pertains to their geographic, demographic, and cultural interests.

 

[Sweet Square]

America may also be the first to tell itself it isn’t an empire.

Good point. I've even seen it on here with some put forward the idea America it's isn't a real empire in the traditional sense(Whatever that means). It's a very odd and american argument.

 

[MTF]

Good point. I've even seen it on here with some put forward the idea America it's isn't a real empire in the traditional sense(Whatever that means). It's a very odd and american argument.

I think you have to make a much more nuanced argument about it being an empire, because its political configuration doesn't match up with any other past empires.

 

[VorZakone]

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[Simbo]

This part I don't agree with. I agree media literacy is a problem, but that it is a problem for the West with respect to the West. Then outside actors must be taken into account. The collectivizing narratives (and narrative strategies) pursued by the US and other western governments gives me as much cause for alarm, primarily because despite what people think, the West is in actuality far better at propaganda than the Russians or the Chinese. The axiom is that the freer the society the more heavily propagandized its people.

But overall, yes, the Russians are obviously running propaganda campaigns. Consider Israel's courting of far right anti-Semites in America. They do it because they've lost support among left and left-leaning voters and so promote different images of what Israel is depending on who they want to sway. Most countries do it, really, but those which engage in war do it more often and with more sinister purposes.

Like others, I don't know where to begin, bonkers thing to say.

But then, If we wern't in an irrelevant football forum, I'd be convinced you yourself were some sort of Russian propaganda tool, whether you know it or not. Since even before this war kicked off the vast majority of your posts in here aim to divert attention from Russia and critisise 'the west'/US or suggest some sort of equivalence. This post is just one of a hundred examples. You toned it down a bit when a couple others questoined your status as a mod, even left the thread for a while, then occasionally you come back and see how far you can push it...

At the very least its just weird

 

[MoskvaRed]

Like others, I don't know where to begin, bonkers thing to say.

But then, If we wern't in an irrelevant football forum, I'd be convinced you yourself were some sort of Russian propaganda tool, whether you know it or not. Since even before this war kicked off the vast majority of your posts in here aim to divert attention from Russia and critisise 'the west'/US or suggest some sort of equivalence. This post is just one of a hundred examples. You toned it down a bit when a couple others questoined your status as a mod, even left the thread for a while, then occasionally you come back and see how far you can push it...

At the very least its just weird

It’s trying to show that you are the smartest guy in the room (or rather 2nd smartest after Chomsky) while spouting counter- intuitive “wisdom“ from the safety of a Western liberal democracy. The vast majority know fouth-fifths of feck all about Russia or the Soviet Union (and don’t speak a word of Russian). That is the only explanation I can proffer for why they would seek to compare irritating, trashy and (yes) corrosive media in the West to the wall to wall, disorientating disinformation in the East.

 

[Rajma]

Like others, I don't know where to begin, bonkers thing to say.

But then, If we wern't in an irrelevant football forum, I'd be convinced you yourself were some sort of Russian propaganda tool, whether you know it or not. Since even before this war kicked off the vast majority of your posts in here aim to divert attention from Russia and critisise 'the west'/US or suggest some sort of equivalence. This post is just one of a hundred examples. You toned it down a bit when a couple others questoined your status as a mod, even left the thread for a while, then occasionally you come back and see how far you can push it...

At the very least its just weird

It’s fascinating how a person can be so wrong on pretty much every topic he engages in this thread. Borderline phishing/trolling.

 

[MTF]

This guy... Is going to be a fun/interesting/tragic twitter account to follow.

Stumbled on him somehow when he had 200 followers bragging that he's heading out to Ukraine. Probably doing him a massive disservice here, fair play for going etc, his life is on the line... but he comes across as yer stereotypical american atention seeking military dumbass war tourist type.

Hopefully he doesn't get people killed with his twitter posts or forgetting to turn off location services. He's just reached the front lines...

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What a character . I read a description recently that one way or another - some for worse reasons than others - nearly all foreign fighters in these conflicts are lost souls. He seems to fit the bill also, but brave of him to go out there and get in the fight.

 

[Simbo]

What a character . I read a description recently that one way or another - some for worse reasons than others - nearly all foreign fighters in these conflicts are lost souls. He seems to fit the bill also, but brave of him to go out there and get in the fight.

He makes me nervous! Seems like someone has had a word though and he's deleting some tweets.

 

[Mciahel Goodman]

Like others, I don't know where to begin

You don't really know what you're talking about but as for substance (comments in context), conversation evolves over a span and then you come in, as usual, and do a hit and run where you take one post and try to erase all context. I'm used to that by now, though, so all good (the context from earlier):

A common tactic. Israelis are expert at it. Internal consumption versus external consumption with external consumption atomised into different grades of propagandistic likelihood of effectiveness.

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This part I don't agree with. I agree media literacy is a problem, but that it is a problem for the West with respect to the West. Then outside actors must be taken into account. The collectivizing narratives (and narrative strategies) pursued by the US and other western governments gives me as much cause for alarm, primarily because despite what people think, the West is in actuality far better at propaganda than the Russians or the Chinese. The axiom is that the freer the society the more heavily propagandized its people.

But overall, yes, the Russians are obviously running propaganda campaigns. Consider Israel's courting of far right anti-Semites in America. They do it because they've lost support among left and left-leaning voters and so promote different images of what Israel is depending on who they want to sway. Most countries do it, really, but those which engage in war do it more often and with more sinister purposes.

Yes, to the extent that many in the west don't even perceive the propagandistic value behind their information. This has been well understood for a century, when propaganda underwent its rebranding in the form of "public relations". The old adage that people in totalitarian societies are less likely to believe their government's propaganda (political correctness versus reality in the USSR) holds true.

Historians and sociologists are well-placed to provide media literacy classes and they should be on every syllabus.

Useful links:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Lippmann
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent

Israel is a democracy, really, it's just not democratic in those areas (WB) which are de facto Israeli but de jure Palestinian, hence apartheid. The Knesset is really a model parliament if there weren't an apartheid situation in WB/Gaza (and so Israel as a whole, or "Greater Israel, from the Jordan River to the *Med Sea" which includes the Palestinians under Israeli occupation/siege but excludes them from representation). The myth, or propagandistic value, being that the situation of apartheid is reinforced via omission (selectivity).

That's the condensed history of Western propaganda from which Chomsky and Herman formulated their propaganda model.

You can watch that in an easy to engage with 3hr format here (covers most of the territory):

https://archive.org/details/manufacturing_consent

Information on state of deployments and casualties (read via confirmed equipment losses):

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Many arguing that the "leaked" casualties are likely bogus but definitely uncertain.

https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-documenting-equipment.html

A comprehensive list of confirmed losses on each side.

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Also a map made by Kofman which has aged well regarding the likely scope and positioning of Russia's invasion (February 24th).

Compare it to the current state of affairs modeled via Google Maps by Ukrainian/Russian scholars:

https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1V8NzjQkzMOhpuLhkktbiKgodOQ27X6IV&ll=49.068443179501074,32.816406818474945&z=7

Let's just keep it on topic.

 

[tomaldinho1]

This part I don't agree with. I agree media literacy is a problem, but that it is a problem for the West with respect to the West. Then outside actors must be taken into account. The collectivizing narratives (and narrative strategies) pursued by the US and other western governments gives me as much cause for alarm, primarily because despite what people think, the West is in actuality far better at propaganda than the Russians or the Chinese. The axiom is that the freer the society the more heavily propagandized its people.

You’re going to have to explain the logic behind this one.

 

[Mciahel Goodman]

You’re going to have to explain the logic behind this one.

In a different thread. I'll make a post, in depth, tomorrow maybe. Don't want to derail this one (but other posters have hit upon the general point underlying it in the quotation above, like Nimic, though he argues a slightly different line).

 

[NotThatSoph]

https://www.bistandsaktuelt.no/bist...e-a-drive-bistands-og-utenrikspolitikk/306202

Norwegian article, use google translate if you're interested.

Norway has, for two weeks for now, stopped foreign aid payments while investigating the need Ukraine and other countries currently receiving aid. They want to investgate if they can stop any current aid and divert it to Ukraine. Jan Egeland, a big international player on the topic of foreign aid and of Ylvis fame, says that the needs in places like Yemen, Sahel, Afghanistan and other areas have exploded because of the increase in price of fuel and food, that this is crazy, and that he hopes it's just miscomunnication.

 

[Mciahel Goodman]

From Democracies and War Propaganda in the 21st Century


In general academics, politicians and publics do not have a very strong grasp of the role of propaganda within democracies. Indeed, across elite groups in society, which include politicians, journalists who work for the corporate media and major public service outlets and academics, the idea that propaganda is central to democratic societies is usually met with laughter or anger. The idea that the public mind is being manipulated by powerful actors is sometimes treated as absurd or simplistic. At the same time, those people who are a part of the elite political centre ground perceive themselves as free from the influences of propaganda, uniquely positioned to understand what is true and what is false in the world around them. Propaganda might be something that the extreme right or the extreme left partake in, or it might be a problem with respect to foreign interference (witness the claims regarding alleged Russian meddling in Western politics), but it is not a problem vis-à-vis ‘mainstream’ media and political discourse.


This chapter takes issue with this belief so far as it applies to war and conflict and argues that war propaganda is central to contemporary democracies and, in fact, so central that democratic credentials of those states is in doubt. The chapter starts by defining what is meant by the term propaganda, describing its historical roots and helping explain the current lack of awareness of propaganda. The chapter then explores the case of the 2011-2019 Syrian war in order to highlight some of the key features of propaganda activities in contemporary democracies (focusing on the United Kingdom). This exploratory case study, based upon on-going research, indicates the multiple sites at which propaganda can be seen to be generated and, more broadly, helps us to understand how and why publics have been misled as to the reality of Western government involvement in the Syrian war. In conclusion, it is argued that it is untenable to see the Syrian War propaganda as an aberration or unique case and that, instead, it is indicative of a malaise in contemporary democracies. Until these propaganda activities are properly addressed, genuinely democratic politics involving honest and consensual debate will remain out of reach.


What is Propaganda?


Over time the term propaganda has come to be understood to mean highly manipulative and deceptive persuasive communication that occurs mainly in authoritarian political systems or, in a democracy during the exceptional conditions of war. The academic study of propaganda reflects this understanding with a large volume of literature exploring propaganda during wartime (especially World Wars One and Two, and now increasingly the Cold War era) or exploring propaganda in non-democratic states. As argued elsewhere (Bakir, Herring, Miller and Robinson 2019) this perception is incorrect. In fact, propaganda has been an integral feature of democratic political systems since the early 20th century. Propaganda, or non-consensual organized persuasive communication (Bakir et al 2019), involves organized attempts to promote particular agendas through a complex array of communicative techniques which are principally manipulative in nature and involve various forms of deception as well as incentivization and coercion. For example, deception can occur through straightforward lying but also, and more commonly, through omission, distortion of facts and misdirection (Bakir et al 2019). As such, the promotion of one-sided interpretations of an issue can be profoundly deceptive via omissions and distortions. At the same time when sources present themselves as independent and neutral, whilst actually being funded and supported by particular political actors, this is also a form of propaganda through deception. Propaganda can also include incentivization and coercion. An example of the former is the promise of tax cuts during election campaigns. An example of the latter is the dropping of surrender leaflets in battle zones whereby the threat of lethal force is part of persuading combatants to surrender (Bakir et al, 2019). The latter two propaganda tactics also highlight the fact that propaganda is about more than just messaging via linguistic and visual communication but can also involve action in the ‘real’ world and so-called ‘propaganda of the deed’. The common thread throughout all of these persuasive communication techniques is that they involve a non-consensual process of persuasion: people are persuaded to believe something or to act in a particular way either through deception or because they have been incentivized or coerced. In short, their beliefs or actions are not freely chosen. Propaganda, then, is primarily manipulative in nature and, in general terms, incompatible with democratic requirements pertaining to free debate and citizen autonomy. Citizens who have been deceived, incentivized or coerced cannot be accurately described as having formed their opinions freely.


A reason why contemporary elites and publics have insufficient awareness of quite how undemocratic their supposedly democratic political systems actually are is that propaganda has been obfuscated by a euphemism industry which has sought to relabel propaganda as public relations (PR) or strategic communication, to name two of many examples. Indeed, the 20th century propagandist Edward Bernays recollected that ‘propaganda got to be a bad word because of the Germans … using it [during the First World War]. So what I did was to … find some other words. So we found the words Counsel on Public Relations’ (Bernays cited in Miller and Dinan, 2008: 5). Philip Taylor noted how a euphemism industry has prevailed across Western democracies whereby terms such as public relations, strategic communication and perception management have come to be used to label activities that would have historically been referred to as propaganda (Taylor 2002). He states that this rebranding exercise has been used to conceal the fact that democracies use propaganda. With respect to ‘business propaganda’, otherwise known as advertising, Carey (1997) notes that its success ‘in persuading us, for so long, that we are free from propaganda is one of the most significant achievements of the twentieth century’. In short, although ubiquitous to modern democracies, awareness of propaganda has been largely erased from our collective consciousness.


Running hand-in-hand with this lack of awareness is a relatively weak understanding of the number and range of institutions in modern democracies that can and do become involved in propaganda activities. Often, when people think of propaganda, they think of governments and states as its primary source. However, as detailed recently (Miller and Robinson 2019; Robinson 2018; 2019), many institutions can become involved in either the production or relaying of propaganda. For example, Herman and Chomsky (1988) have famously described how mass media function largely as propaganda tools for powerful political and business interests whilst universities, for a similar set of reasons, can also become a part of propaganda activities (Herring and Robinson, 2003). Both journalists and academics work within large organisations with commercial imperatives and shared interests with other powerful actors (e.g. government and big business) and this inevitably creates a broad structural-level constraint on their activities. Both are also frequently reliant upon ‘official sources’ for information and, when putting forward arguments that challenge power, can be subjected to unfair criticism or ‘flak’. Think tanks (Parmar, 2004; Scott-Smith, 2014) and NGOs (non-governmental organisations) can also be involved in propaganda, pushing manipulated and deceptive information into the public sphere in order to promote particular agendas. Finally, across popular culture, propaganda and ideological imperatives have been identified, which include associations between the intelligence services and media industries (Schou 2016: Secker and Alford, 2019). None of this is to say that all of these institutions are inherently propagandistic. Only that they can and do become caught up in propaganda activities and in ways which are incompatible with normal and justified expectations regarding their roles in a democratic society: we reasonably expect mass media to relay truthful and accurate news, that our universities are places for independent and rigorous research and teaching free from the influences of power, that think tanks and NGOs when promoting an issue do so in a way that avoids manipulative communication (such as deception, incentivization or coercion). Examples of propaganda across some of these ‘sites of production’ will be highlighted in the subsequent section that explores propaganda and the case of the 2011-19 war in Syria.


As is in all wars (Taylor, 1992), the Syrian conflict has been accompanied by sharply differing perspectives and extensive propaganda. The focus of this exploratory case study is to identify some of the key mechanisms through which Western public perceptions of the war have been shaped. However, before doing so it is necessary to briefly describe the war and the predominant ways in which it has been presented to Western audiences.


Background to the War and Western Political and Media Narratives


Civil disturbances and violence started in Syria in 2011 and occurred against the backdrop of the so-called ‘Arab Spring’. By 2012, violence had escalated and a leaked US Department of Defense report stated that the conflict was taking a ‘clear sectarian direction’, that ‘the Salafist, the Muslim Brotherhood, and AGI are the major forces driving the insurgency in Syria’ and that multiple external actors were involved: ‘The West, Gulf countries, and Turkey support the opposition; while Russia, China, and Iran support the regime’.[ii] One important element of the war, at least from the perspective of understanding the position of Western governments, is the US-Saudi covert operation known as Timber Sycamore. The operation was described by the New York Times as a ‘$1 Billion Secret C.I.A war in Syria’ (Mazzetti, Goldman and Schmidt, 2017) and involved an agreement between the CIA and Saudi Arabia aimed at supporting groups seeking to overthrow the Syrian government (see also Berger 2016 and Porter 2017). Recent work published by investigative journalist Maxime Chaix (2019) claims that Operation Timber Sycamore can actually be traced as far back as October 2011 when the CIA was operating via the UK’s MI6 intelligence service in order to avoid having to seek Congressional approval. Today, after eight years of war, it appears that the Syrian government is close to regaining control of most of its territory although the future dynamics of the conflict remain uncertain.


In broad terms, Western politicians and mainstream/corporate media have largely presented the war as a simple struggle between pro-democratic rebels and a ruthless regime. This representation of the war has emphasized allegations of war crimes against the Syrian government (alleged use of chemical weapons against civilians and torture) and downplayed both the sectarian nature of opposition groups and the extensive involvement of external actors other than Russia and Iran. Other perspectives have remained marginalized across Western media. For example, Syrian, Russian and Iranian claims that the Syrian government has been engaged in a legitimate fight against domestic and foreign-backed ‘terrorists’ have been well within the ‘sphere of deviance’ (Hallin 1986), rarely articulated in Western mainstream media and political debate. A recent study (Frohlich, 2018), based upon an extensive analysis of media reporting, government ‘public relations’ and NGO communications across a series of conflicts including Syria, confirmed that Western media reporting tended to reinforce government positions (Frohlich and Jungblot, 2018: 103). One chapter in this study noted the absence of Russian media and Russian perspectives from European parliamentary debates responding to the alleged use of a biological weapon in Syria, 2013 (Berganza, Herrero-Jimnez and Carratala, 2018). Another recent study, on war correspondents, noted how coverage of the death of journalist Marie Colvin by CNN ‘focused heavily on the apparently ahistorical evil of the Assad regime, glossing over any tough questions about the international politics that may have contributed to the war in Syria (Palmer, 2018: p. 152). Palmer also notes the political bias in Colvin’s own reporting:- ‘Colvin herself was also aligned with western political sentiments in this report … Rather than serving as an objective eyewitness, then, in death Colvin was linked to a very distinctive political perspective’ (Palmer 2018: 154 & 157).[iii]


That Western media have aligned themselves with those of Western governments should come as no surprise. Academic works have repeatedly and consistently evidenced the close proximity between media and government positions especially during war (e.g. Paletz and Bennett, 1994; Hallin, 1986; Robinson et al 2010) as well as the prevalence of war propaganda (Taylor, 2002) in which conflicts are cast in simplistic and dichotomous terms, good vs. evil. It would be very surprising if future studies of western media coverage of the Syrian war would find any evidence that significantly diverges from the two studies described above.


But what has contributed to the dominant ‘narrative’ regarding Syria? What follows is a preliminary outline of what we understand to be important elements of how the information environment has been shaped with respect to the war in Syria and the focus here is on elements associated with the UK.


https://www.researchgate.net/public...racies_and_War_Propaganda_in_the_21st_Century

Interesting chapter for any with time to read it and bears directly on the current situation insofar as you see people's heightened hysteria regarding "Russian propaganda".

...What I didn’t know then as a schoolboy was the extent to which the Pentagon was paying to be cast as America’s savior. By the time my own kids were growing up, it was Jerry Bruckheimer’s blockbuster film Top Gun—created with Pentagon assistance and equipment—that boosted civic pride in the military.

Now it’s my grandkids’ turn to be awed and overwhelmed by child-focused military propaganda. Don’t even get me started on the war propaganda churned out by the toymakers. Even reality TV shows have gotten in on the gig, with the Pentagon’s entertainment office helping to sell war to the American public.

It’s estimated that U.S. military intelligence agencies (including the NSA) have influenced over 1,800 movies and TV shows.

And then there are the growing number of video games, a number of which are engineered by or created for the military, which have accustomed players to interactive war play through military simulations and first-person shooter scenarios.

This is how you acclimate a population to war.

This is how you cultivate loyalty to a war machine.

This is how, to borrow from the subtitle to the 1964 film Dr. Strangelove, you teach a nation to “stop worrying and love the bomb.”


As journalist David Sirota writes for Salon, “[C]ollusion between the military and Hollywood – including allowing Pentagon officials to line edit scripts—is once again on the rise, with new television programs and movies slated to celebrate the Navy SEALs….major Hollywood directors remain more than happy to ideologically slant their films in precisely the pro-war, pro-militarist direction that the Pentagon demands in exchange for taxpayer-subsidized access to military hardware.”


Why is the Pentagon (and the CIA and the government at large) so focused on using Hollywood as a propaganda machine?

To those who profit from war, it is—as Sirota recognizes—“a ‘product’ to be sold via pop culture products that sanitize war and, in the process, boost recruitment numbers….At a time when more and more Americans are questioning the fundamental tenets of militarism (i.e., budget-busting defense expenditures, never-ending wars/occupations, etc.), military officials are desperate to turn the public opinion tide back in a pro-militarist direction — and they know pop culture is the most effective tool to achieve that goal.”

The media, eager to score higher ratings, has been equally complicit in making (real) war more palatable to the public by packaging it as TV friendly.

This is what professor Roger Stahl refers to as the representation of a “clean war”: a war “without victims, without bodies, and without suffering”:

‘Dehumanize destruction’ by extracting all human imagery from target areas … The language used to describe the clean war is as antiseptic as the pictures. Bombings are ‘air strikes.’ A future bombsite is a ‘target of opportunity.’ Unarmed areas are ‘soft targets.’ Civilians are ‘collateral damage.’ Destruction is always ‘surgical.’ By and large, the clean war wiped the humanity of civilians from the screen … Create conditions by which war appears short, abstract, sanitized and even aesthetically beautiful. Minimize any sense of death: of soldiers or civilians.”

This is how you sell war to a populace that may have grown weary of endless wars: sanitize the war coverage of anything graphic or discomfiting (present a clean war), gloss over the actual numbers of soldiers and civilians killed (human cost), cast the business of killing humans in a more abstract, palatable fashion (such as a hunt), demonize one’s opponents, and make the weapons of war a source of wonder and delight.

“This obsession with weapons of war has a name: technofetishism,” explains Stahl. “Weapons appear to take on a magical aura. They become centerpieces in a cult of worship.”

“Apart from gazing at the majesty of these bombs, we were also invited to step inside these high-tech machines and take them for a spin,” said Stahl. “Or if we have the means, we can purchase one of the military vehicles on the consumer market. Not only are we invited to fantasize about being in the driver’s seat, we are routinely invited to peer through the crosshairs too. These repeated modes of imaging war cultivate new modes of perception, new relationships to the tools of state violence. In other words, we become accustomed to ‘seeing’ through the machines of war.”

In order to sell war, you have to feed the public’s appetite for entertainment.

Not satisfied with peddling its war propaganda through Hollywood, reality TV shows and embedded journalists whose reports came across as glorified promotional ads for the military, the Pentagon has also turned to sports to further advance its agenda, “tying the symbols of sports with the symbols of war.”

The military has been firmly entrenched in the nation’s sports spectacles ever since, having co-opted football, basketball, even NASCAR.

This is how you sustain the nation’s appetite for war.

Reposting the above here it's a good starting point re subtle forms of propaganda and narrative-setting/control pervasive in western contexts where there is a free press. Will come back to it but the second quote will interest people if you've followed the whole TikTok/social media influencers being invited to the White House to "understand" the context (read: stay on message).

 

[Mciahel Goodman]

...creating consent via secondary media (films and so on). Easy listen. Speakers are a PhD in media studies and an investigative journalist who have studied the role of American intelligence agencies regarding their cooperation with film productions.

https://historicly.substack.com/p/battlefield-hollywood-with-tom-secker?s=w

Also the above in relation to Whitehead's writing.

 

[tomaldinho1]

In a different thread. I'll make a post, in depth, tomorrow maybe. Don't want to derail this one (but other posters have hit upon the general point underlying it in the quotation above, like Nimic, though he argues a slightly different line).

No one debates propaganda exists everywhere and it is still an issue in the West but how can you rationalise the idea that somewhere more restrictive on content is more free?

Is that essay you’ve mass pasted by Piers Robinson? If it is you should probably reveal to everyone on this forum his background if you’re going to quote him at length given his Russia ties and less than stellar history of controversies.

 

[Simbo]

From Democracies and War Propaganda in the 21st Century


In general academics, politicians and publics do not have a very strong grasp of the role of propaganda within democracies. Indeed, across elite groups in society, which include politicians, journalists who work for the corporate media and major public service outlets and academics, the idea that propaganda is central to democratic societies is usually met with laughter or anger. The idea that the public mind is being manipulated by powerful actors is sometimes treated as absurd or simplistic. At the same time, those people who are a part of the elite political centre ground perceive themselves as free from the influences of propaganda, uniquely positioned to understand what is true and what is false in the world around them. Propaganda might be something that the extreme right or the extreme left partake in, or it might be a problem with respect to foreign interference (witness the claims regarding alleged Russian meddling in Western politics), but it is not a problem vis-à-vis ‘mainstream’ media and political discourse.


This chapter takes issue with this belief so far as it applies to war and conflict and argues that war propaganda is central to contemporary democracies and, in fact, so central that democratic credentials of those states is in doubt. The chapter starts by defining what is meant by the term propaganda, describing its historical roots and helping explain the current lack of awareness of propaganda. The chapter then explores the case of the 2011-2019 Syrian war in order to highlight some of the key features of propaganda activities in contemporary democracies (focusing on the United Kingdom). This exploratory case study, based upon on-going research, indicates the multiple sites at which propaganda can be seen to be generated and, more broadly, helps us to understand how and why publics have been misled as to the reality of Western government involvement in the Syrian war. In conclusion, it is argued that it is untenable to see the Syrian War propaganda as an aberration or unique case and that, instead, it is indicative of a malaise in contemporary democracies. Until these propaganda activities are properly addressed, genuinely democratic politics involving honest and consensual debate will remain out of reach.


What is Propaganda?


Over time the term propaganda has come to be understood to mean highly manipulative and deceptive persuasive communication that occurs mainly in authoritarian political systems or, in a democracy during the exceptional conditions of war. The academic study of propaganda reflects this understanding with a large volume of literature exploring propaganda during wartime (especially World Wars One and Two, and now increasingly the Cold War era) or exploring propaganda in non-democratic states. As argued elsewhere (Bakir, Herring, Miller and Robinson 2019) this perception is incorrect. In fact, propaganda has been an integral feature of democratic political systems since the early 20th century. Propaganda, or non-consensual organized persuasive communication (Bakir et al 2019), involves organized attempts to promote particular agendas through a complex array of communicative techniques which are principally manipulative in nature and involve various forms of deception as well as incentivization and coercion. For example, deception can occur through straightforward lying but also, and more commonly, through omission, distortion of facts and misdirection (Bakir et al 2019). As such, the promotion of one-sided interpretations of an issue can be profoundly deceptive via omissions and distortions. At the same time when sources present themselves as independent and neutral, whilst actually being funded and supported by particular political actors, this is also a form of propaganda through deception. Propaganda can also include incentivization and coercion. An example of the former is the promise of tax cuts during election campaigns. An example of the latter is the dropping of surrender leaflets in battle zones whereby the threat of lethal force is part of persuading combatants to surrender (Bakir et al, 2019). The latter two propaganda tactics also highlight the fact that propaganda is about more than just messaging via linguistic and visual communication but can also involve action in the ‘real’ world and so-called ‘propaganda of the deed’. The common thread throughout all of these persuasive communication techniques is that they involve a non-consensual process of persuasion: people are persuaded to believe something or to act in a particular way either through deception or because they have been incentivized or coerced. In short, their beliefs or actions are not freely chosen. Propaganda, then, is primarily manipulative in nature and, in general terms, incompatible with democratic requirements pertaining to free debate and citizen autonomy. Citizens who have been deceived, incentivized or coerced cannot be accurately described as having formed their opinions freely.


A reason why contemporary elites and publics have insufficient awareness of quite how undemocratic their supposedly democratic political systems actually are is that propaganda has been obfuscated by a euphemism industry which has sought to relabel propaganda as public relations (PR) or strategic communication, to name two of many examples. Indeed, the 20th century propagandist Edward Bernays recollected that ‘propaganda got to be a bad word because of the Germans … using it [during the First World War]. So what I did was to … find some other words. So we found the words Counsel on Public Relations’ (Bernays cited in Miller and Dinan, 2008: 5). Philip Taylor noted how a euphemism industry has prevailed across Western democracies whereby terms such as public relations, strategic communication and perception management have come to be used to label activities that would have historically been referred to as propaganda (Taylor 2002). He states that this rebranding exercise has been used to conceal the fact that democracies use propaganda. With respect to ‘business propaganda’, otherwise known as advertising, Carey (1997) notes that its success ‘in persuading us, for so long, that we are free from propaganda is one of the most significant achievements of the twentieth century’. In short, although ubiquitous to modern democracies, awareness of propaganda has been largely erased from our collective consciousness.


Running hand-in-hand with this lack of awareness is a relatively weak understanding of the number and range of institutions in modern democracies that can and do become involved in propaganda activities. Often, when people think of propaganda, they think of governments and states as its primary source. However, as detailed recently (Miller and Robinson 2019; Robinson 2018; 2019), many institutions can become involved in either the production or relaying of propaganda. For example, Herman and Chomsky (1988) have famously described how mass media function largely as propaganda tools for powerful political and business interests whilst universities, for a similar set of reasons, can also become a part of propaganda activities (Herring and Robinson, 2003). Both journalists and academics work within large organisations with commercial imperatives and shared interests with other powerful actors (e.g. government and big business) and this inevitably creates a broad structural-level constraint on their activities. Both are also frequently reliant upon ‘official sources’ for information and, when putting forward arguments that challenge power, can be subjected to unfair criticism or ‘flak’. Think tanks (Parmar, 2004; Scott-Smith, 2014) and NGOs (non-governmental organisations) can also be involved in propaganda, pushing manipulated and deceptive information into the public sphere in order to promote particular agendas. Finally, across popular culture, propaganda and ideological imperatives have been identified, which include associations between the intelligence services and media industries (Schou 2016: Secker and Alford, 2019). None of this is to say that all of these institutions are inherently propagandistic. Only that they can and do become caught up in propaganda activities and in ways which are incompatible with normal and justified expectations regarding their roles in a democratic society: we reasonably expect mass media to relay truthful and accurate news, that our universities are places for independent and rigorous research and teaching free from the influences of power, that think tanks and NGOs when promoting an issue do so in a way that avoids manipulative communication (such as deception, incentivization or coercion). Examples of propaganda across some of these ‘sites of production’ will be highlighted in the subsequent section that explores propaganda and the case of the 2011-19 war in Syria.


As is in all wars (Taylor, 1992), the Syrian conflict has been accompanied by sharply differing perspectives and extensive propaganda. The focus of this exploratory case study is to identify some of the key mechanisms through which Western public perceptions of the war have been shaped. However, before doing so it is necessary to briefly describe the war and the predominant ways in which it has been presented to Western audiences.


Background to the War and Western Political and Media Narratives


Civil disturbances and violence started in Syria in 2011 and occurred against the backdrop of the so-called ‘Arab Spring’. By 2012, violence had escalated and a leaked US Department of Defense report stated that the conflict was taking a ‘clear sectarian direction’, that ‘the Salafist, the Muslim Brotherhood, and AGI are the major forces driving the insurgency in Syria’ and that multiple external actors were involved: ‘The West, Gulf countries, and Turkey support the opposition; while Russia, China, and Iran support the regime’.[ii] One important element of the war, at least from the perspective of understanding the position of Western governments, is the US-Saudi covert operation known as Timber Sycamore. The operation was described by the New York Times as a ‘$1 Billion Secret C.I.A war in Syria’ (Mazzetti, Goldman and Schmidt, 2017) and involved an agreement between the CIA and Saudi Arabia aimed at supporting groups seeking to overthrow the Syrian government (see also Berger 2016 and Porter 2017). Recent work published by investigative journalist Maxime Chaix (2019) claims that Operation Timber Sycamore can actually be traced as far back as October 2011 when the CIA was operating via the UK’s MI6 intelligence service in order to avoid having to seek Congressional approval. Today, after eight years of war, it appears that the Syrian government is close to regaining control of most of its territory although the future dynamics of the conflict remain uncertain.


In broad terms, Western politicians and mainstream/corporate media have largely presented the war as a simple struggle between pro-democratic rebels and a ruthless regime. This representation of the war has emphasized allegations of war crimes against the Syrian government (alleged use of chemical weapons against civilians and torture) and downplayed both the sectarian nature of opposition groups and the extensive involvement of external actors other than Russia and Iran. Other perspectives have remained marginalized across Western media. For example, Syrian, Russian and Iranian claims that the Syrian government has been engaged in a legitimate fight against domestic and foreign-backed ‘terrorists’ have been well within the ‘sphere of deviance’ (Hallin 1986), rarely articulated in Western mainstream media and political debate. A recent study (Frohlich, 2018), based upon an extensive analysis of media reporting, government ‘public relations’ and NGO communications across a series of conflicts including Syria, confirmed that Western media reporting tended to reinforce government positions (Frohlich and Jungblot, 2018: 103). One chapter in this study noted the absence of Russian media and Russian perspectives from European parliamentary debates responding to the alleged use of a biological weapon in Syria, 2013 (Berganza, Herrero-Jimnez and Carratala, 2018). Another recent study, on war correspondents, noted how coverage of the death of journalist Marie Colvin by CNN ‘focused heavily on the apparently ahistorical evil of the Assad regime, glossing over any tough questions about the international politics that may have contributed to the war in Syria (Palmer, 2018: p. 152). Palmer also notes the political bias in Colvin’s own reporting:- ‘Colvin herself was also aligned with western political sentiments in this report … Rather than serving as an objective eyewitness, then, in death Colvin was linked to a very distinctive political perspective’ (Palmer 2018: 154 & 157).[iii]


That Western media have aligned themselves with those of Western governments should come as no surprise. Academic works have repeatedly and consistently evidenced the close proximity between media and government positions especially during war (e.g. Paletz and Bennett, 1994; Hallin, 1986; Robinson et al 2010) as well as the prevalence of war propaganda (Taylor, 2002) in which conflicts are cast in simplistic and dichotomous terms, good vs. evil. It would be very surprising if future studies of western media coverage of the Syrian war would find any evidence that significantly diverges from the two studies described above.


But what has contributed to the dominant ‘narrative’ regarding Syria? What follows is a preliminary outline of what we understand to be important elements of how the information environment has been shaped with respect to the war in Syria and the focus here is on elements associated with the UK.


https://www.researchgate.net/public...racies_and_War_Propaganda_in_the_21st_Century

Interesting chapter for any with time to read it and bears directly on the current situation insofar as you see people's heightened hysteria regarding "Russian propaganda".

If you can't ignore a troll, its better to just check their sources than actually waste your time reading and responding to their nonsense.

This particular wall of crap is authored by a conspiracy nut known for pushing alternative 9/11 theories, denying chemical weapon use in Syria, alleging the Sripal poisonings were the work of the UK and arguing there's no evidence of Russian involvement in the 2016 US elections

So strangely pro-Russian. I, for one, am shocked.

"He was a regular guest on Russian state-backed channels such as Sputnik and RT where he defended the Russian regime, claiming the Kremlin was being “demonised” over the poisoning of Sergei Skripal in order to distract from the West’s “aggressive regime change strategy” in the Middle East."

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/piers-robinson_uk_5cb5d5b5e4b082aab08c953f

 

[Mciahel Goodman]

Is that essay you’ve mass pasted by Piers Robinson? If it is you should probably reveal to everyone on this forum his background if you’re going to quote him at length given his Russia ties and less than stellar history of controversies.

I'm assuming you've clicked the link, noted the author, and are asking rhetorically, or you have an uncanny appreciation of the man's academic idiom. Feel free to McCarthyise him if you're in the know. I'll use incontestable (state-approved) sources next time.

No one debates propaganda exists everywhere and it is still an issue in the West but how can you rationalise the idea that somewhere more restrictive on content is more free?

That's not my argument. I'm not saying totalitarian societies are more free, I'm saying that, in general, their propaganda apparatuses are not as sophisticated as those in the West which have to navigate freedom of assembly and freedom for dissent. If you can jail your political opponents and dissidents, you don't have to deal with them either through exclusion or marginalization. In the West, the "legacy press" both excludes and marginalizes that which runs absolutely contrary to the prevailing orthodoxy (because it has to deal with its dissidents entirely by democratic means, which usually amounts to slander and caricature). You can test that, too, even taking partisanship into account (on matters military, there is overwhelming consensus in the US that would be the envy of totalitarian states; and not because politicians are forced to vote a certain way, but because the system works to reward those who will vote a certain way).

 

[Mciahel Goodman]

If you can't ignore a troll, its better to just check their sources than actually waste your time reading and responding to their nonsense.

This particular wall of crap is authored by a conspiracy nut known for pushing alternative 9/11 theories, denying chemical weapon use in Syria, alleging the Sripal poisonings were the work of the UK and arguing there's no evidence of Russian involvement in the 2016 US elections

So strangely pro-Russian. I, for one, am shocked.

"He was a regular guest on Russian state-backed channels such as Sputnik and RT where he defended the Russian regime, claiming the Kremlin was being “demonised” over the poisoning of Sergei Skripal in order to distract from the West’s “aggressive regime change strategy” in the Middle East."

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/piers-robinson_uk_5cb5d5b5e4b082aab08c953f

If he thinks aliens shot JFK, it wouldn't invalidate his points in the introductory segment I quoted (you should remember that Newton tried to find the meaning of life in the Bible, followed by Einstein, which means you should discard everything these two people ever did; and that extends into the arts, too, where great historians and sociologists have been found to be less than savoury in ways which would leave them failing your purity test but which would also ruin the foundations of more than half a dozen disciplines if their work was not considered). When the policy is an issue, move to person (that's whtaboutism, ironically). You're free to ignore his argument and treat the other sources but that would mean you'd have to be interested in something besides arguing for the sake of arguing.

Kissinger and Chomsky agreed on this war, by the way. Something you might like to try and understand: people who hold diametrically opposing views on almost every topic may occasionally agree on something and that agreement is not invalidated by one's personality, unless you're infantile.

But it is so much easier to write an argument off if you can write the person off as it means you don't have to try and think objectively, disentangling subjective value judgements insofar as is possible. I can see why this appeals to you.

 

[MTF]

That's not my argument. I'm not saying totalitarian societies are more free, I'm saying that, in general, their propaganda apparatuses are not as sophisticated as those in the West which have to navigate freedom of assembly and freedom for dissent. If you can jail your political opponents and dissidents, you don't have to deal with them either through exclusion or marginalization. In the West, the "legacy press" both excludes and marginalizes that which runs absolutely contrary to the prevailing orthodoxy (because it has to deal with its dissidents entirely by democratic means, which usually amounts to slander and caricature). You can test that, too, even taking partisanship into account (on matters military, there is overwhelming consensus in the US that would be the envy of totalitarian states; and not because politicians are forced to vote a certain way, but because the system works to reward those who will vote a certain way).

That simply does not hold up the test of reality. Withdrawing from Afghanistan was counter to the prevailing thought in 'the blob' and yet it was done because 2 successive presidents ran on it. You could regularly for the past 20+ years find pieces in major US media advocating for both staying and leaving Afghanistan. Another example is the vote in UK parliament in 2013 where PM Cameron's proposal to attack the Syrian govt after they used chemical weapons was also defeated, and consequently influenced the US not to widely strike Syria at the time. A decision that was again criticized by 'the blob' for being a clear non-enforcement of a stated red line.

 

[Mciahel Goodman]

The propaganda model depicts the media system as having a series of five successive filters through which the “raw material of news” must pass, leaving a “cleansed residue” of what “news is fit to print, marginaliz[ing] dissent, and allow[ing] the government and dominant private interests to get their messages across to the public.” In brief paraphrase, these filters are (a) a focus on profitability by an increasingly concentrated industry that has close ties to the government and is in a position by sheer volume to overwhelm dissenting media voices, (b) the dependence of these media organizations on funding through advertising, leading them to favor content likely to appeal to the affluent and making concessions to commercial sponsors, (c) the dependence of journalists who work for the media on information from sources that constitute, collectively, a powerful and prestigious establishment; (d) commercial interests that make the media vulnerable to “flak” and criticism from groups and institutions with the power to generate criticism and protest to which they respond with caution; and, finally, (e) “anti-communism” (or some ideological equivalent) that those who produce content have internalized, thus conjoining them to frame the news in a dichotomous fashion, applying one standard to those on “our” side and a quite different one to “enemies.” Most recently, the “war against terrorism” has served as a non-ideological substitute. Surely, few readers of this journal would seriously dispute the existence of such filters or Chomsky’s contention that they “narrow the range of news that passes through the gates and even more sharply limit what can become ‘big news’ subject to sustained news campaigns.” Far from being autonomous creations, media systems inevitably reflect, however imprecisely, the distribution of economic, political, and symbolic power in the society. Those at the top, and especially the federal government with its huge public relations apparatus, hold a strategic advantage. Their ability to create the “facts” that pass through these filters to become news is far greater than that of the vast public that consumes news but rarely makes it. Chomsky, the political activist, has contributed to the flow of case material that exposes serious flaws in the pattern of media reporting. Seven Story Press, with offices in New York, London, Sydney, and Toronto, has been a major outlet both for his own political writings and for the annual volumes of ProjectCensored, which offer an inventory of newsworthy stories said to have been inadequately covered in the major media, which have shown themselves all too ready to ignore material that would have been available to them had they chosen to pursue it.

For Chomsky to be putting the same spotlight on the media that media claim to beputting on government institutions is all to the good. But what about his interpretative paradigm? The propaganda model assigns to the media system just one major function to which everything else is subordinate. That function is the “manufacture of consent” for government policies that advance the goals of corporations and preserve the capitalist system. To make his case, Chomsky provides a wealth of information focused, almost exclusively, on media coverage of U.S. foreign policy. ...

Kurt and Gladys Lang 2004

That simply does not hold up the test of reality. Withdrawing from Afghanistan was counter to the prevailing thought in 'the blob' and yet it was done because 2 successive presidents ran on it. You could regularly for the past 20+ years find pieces in major US media advocating for both staying and leaving Afghanistan. Another example is the vote in UK parliament in 2013 where PM Cameron's proposal to attack the Syrian govt after they used chemical weapons was also defeated, and consequently influenced the US not to widely strike Syria at the time. A decision that was again criticized by 'the blob' for being a clear non-enforcement of a stated red line.

How many times has the military budget been defeated in the Senate (or House)? How much partisanship is there when it comes time to vote on that one particular item which usually runs to a fifth of total US budgetary expenditure? Almost none.