Brian Eno: Lessons in how to lie about Iraq

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Popmartijn

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Hello,

On another forum I saw this article. It's written by Brian Eno and talks about some new kind of propaganda we're subject to. The Iraq war is an example in this article, but you can of course put it in a bigger context. An interesting read, IMO.

Lessons in how to lie about Iraq

The problem is not propaganda but the relentless control of the kind of things we think about

Brian Eno
Sunday August 17, 2003
The Observer


When I first visited Russia, in 1986, I made friends with a musician whose father had been Brezhnev's personal doctor. One day we were talking about life during 'the period of stagnation' - the Brezhnev era. 'It must have been strange being so completely immersed in propaganda,' I said.

'Ah, but there is the difference. We knew it was propaganda,' replied Sacha.

That is the difference. Russian propaganda was so obvious that most Russians were able to ignore it. They took it for granted that the government operated in its own interests and any message coming from it was probably slanted - and they discounted it.

In the West the calculated manipulation of public opinion to serve political and ideological interests is much more covert and therefore much more effective. Its greatest triumph is that we generally don't notice it - or laugh at the notion it even exists. We watch the democratic process taking place - heated debates in which we feel we could have a voice - and think that, because we have 'free' media, it would be hard for the Government to get away with anything very devious without someone calling them on it.

The rest of the article can be found here.

C ya!

Marty
 
Excellent article, Popmartijn!!! But many ppl living in the US will disagree... They live in the "democracy flagship" after all:)
 
ALEXRUS said:
Excellent article, Popmartijn!!! But many ppl living in the US will disagree... They live in the "democracy flagship" after all:)


I live in the U.S. and I agree with him. Hell, we just can't deny that political shenanigans exist here. There's no president in recent U.S. history who hasn't done certain things to manipulate the polical situation for gain, some of them pretty uncool to many voters, no matter what their political views happen to be. We don't elect saints. I'm not saying that we should but we should be honest about their behavior.
 
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wow, really interesting article.

How exactly did it come about that, in a world of Aids, global warming, 30-plus active wars, several famines, cloning, genetic engineering, and two billion people in poverty, practically the only thing we all talked about for a year was Iraq and Saddam Hussein? Was it really that big a problem? Or were we somehow manipulated into believing the Iraq issue was important and had to be fixed right now - even though a few months before few had mentioned it, and nothing had changed in the interim.

:up: :up: :yes: :|

I'm very impressed w/ this article and want to read some of the books on propaganda he mentions.

Um, i have to ask... is this our Brian Eno? :reject:
 
oliveu2cm said:
Um, i have to ask... is this our Brian Eno? :reject:

Yep, it is the one you keep prisoned in your closet. :D Actually, I found the article on a music forum.

Regarding the actual content, I do agree with it (mostly). You don't have to look any further than this forum. At the moment there's a forum solely dedicated to the Iraqi war. There are regularly posts about Aids and poverty, but, IMO, that has partly to do with the fact that U2/Bono are actively working on these issues. But Congo, or Chzechya (sp?) or Zimbabwe or the huge reliance on corporations like Microsoft, etc.? Those issues are rarely ever spoken about.

However, I haven't made up my mind yet whether or not there is someone to blame (probably not). You just have know this is happening to stay aware what is really going on in the world. Like the third paragraph said, once the Russians knew most of the government information was propaganda they knew they could disregard it as being the absolute truth. The same here. Now you know you have to be aware in which direction some governments (as it will probably be governments who do this most of the time) you may see the wider picture the next time this is happening again.

But life isn't getting any simpler because of this... :|

C ya!

Marty
 
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