Propaganda

The friendliest place on the web for anyone that follows U2.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
melon said:


The U.S. isn't interested in freedom of the press as much as pro-U.S. coverage. And that's a fact.

Melon

First off, I am skeptical of anyone who states an opinion about something and then declares that it's a fact.

And second - "And that's a fact" is a term that Bill O'Reilly usually closes his opinionated statements with. Interesting to see you both have the same mindset. :eyebrow:
 
womanfish said:
First off, I am skeptical of anyone who states an opinion about something and then declares that it's a fact.

And second - "And that's a fact" is a term that Bill O'Reilly usually closes his opinionated statements with. Interesting to see you both have the same mindset. :eyebrow:

Blah blah blah. I don't watch O'Reilly, nor am I familiar with his phrases. This is a deflection of the points of what I wrote with character attacks. Nice try, but you're going to have to do better than that. Try again, but, next time, do it on the merits of the substance of my comments.

And if it will make all of you all touchy-feely inside, I'll retract my "And that's a fact." Now, with that retraction, comment on the substance of what I wrote.

Melon
 
American propaganda has really propelled the United States to war.

Myth tells a nation who they are, what they stand for and attempts to establish good purpose for sending its youth to spill their blood and lose their lives on foreign soil. Propaganda is the means of propelling myth into motion. Propaganda, is all over the media... one sided arguments on CNN, interviewing Iraqis against the regime, but not those for the regime (and there are some)... the gallop polls don't seem to reliable.... and most importantly, the deliberate lack of information given with respect to what I call the WHY factor... That is essentially that the American media seems to investigate the Where, when, how's and what's... without asking Why something is happening...

A common report of those who see European TV (as I do via satellite) or middle eastern tv is those pictures of Iraqi, Palestinian, Afghanistan bodies... devastation. Such horrifying devastation are not shown to Americans. No wonder Europeans oppose this war so heavily. They see the results of America's foreign policy. French media will show us the destruction Iraqi homes, the Americans will not. Only mild death toll numbers are discussed on U.S. stations. But if there are American POW's or bodies, they are almost always shown... the same clips time and time again (God keep the POW's safe nevertheless.)

Further , CNN will mention that a Palestinian suicide bomber did another terrible act, and follow up on that story. However, why doesn't CNN show us the daily destruction of Palestinian homes and stores, the missile attacks on schools and hospitals etc... Watch European tv, and you can see the devastation. However, Why doesn't U.S. media show us. Why doesn't the media discuss why suicide bombers are doing such terrible things. What has driven them to do it. Oppression? repression? Disspossession? American media does not answer such questions.

Why was an American peace activist, who was intentionally run over by an Israel bulldozer (American made mind you) while protecting a home about to be demoloshed, only mentioned on CNN quick news reels? Such acts, which occur on a daily or hourly basis like the demolotion of Palestinian (in favour of new Israeli settlements) homes have never been shown to Americans by their media. Such acts, and many others have been occuring since the conquering of Palestine, and the foundation of Israel (with the support of U.S. policy). Just an example.

There is definitely a one-sided element to American media. They let you hear and see what they want you to. Pushing their ideals through to coincide with government and military objectives.

CNN and Fox will tell us that this is a war on terror. Good versus evil... West versus East.. I think its the flip side, beyond America's quest to economically control the region, the current war is a war not on terror, but on America's enemies, who also happen to be Israel's enemies.

But it is not only the Americn media. Al Jazeera out of Qatar, isn't exactly reporting straight as well. From what I've heard, most of there media, is anti-American as well. Iraqi media claims that they are winning the war in order to keep morale between soldier and citizen high.

My point is, the path of journalism in the U.S. and other countries seems to parellel government policy. Is that journalism, or government propaganda?
 
Last edited:
melon said:


Blah blah blah. I don't watch O'Reilly, nor am I familiar with his phrases. This is a deflection of the points of what I wrote with character attacks. Nice try, but you're going to have to do better than that. Try again, but, next time, do it on the merits of the substance of my comments.

And if it will make all of you all touchy-feely inside, I'll retract my "And that's a fact." Now, with that retraction, comment on the substance of what I wrote.

Melon

Blah, blah, blah is right. I was just making a funny comment that showed that people on both sides of the issue see their view as fact.

I agree with most of what you wrote before. Al-Jazeera shows things in a more pro-Arab way and U.S. tv shows things in a more pro-U.S. way.

You really should watch O'Reilly sometimes. He can be annoying as hell, because I am an Independent, usually on the liberal side of things. He claims he's an Independent but is usually VERY conservative. So usually if I watch him, it's to see what stupid things he is saying. But there are times very few and far between that he is right on the money. IMO
 
I think the only time I, at least, could respect O'Reilly is when he berated and flustered William Bennett, who was on a tirade about how bad it was to allow gay adoption. O'Reilly called him a "religious fanatic," and Bennett was freaking out, thinking he was talking to a "fellow conservative" who would just agree with him. Good times were had...

Melon
 
melon said:
I think the only time I, at least, could respect O'Reilly is when he berated and flustered William Bennett, who was on a tirade about how bad it was to allow gay adoption. O'Reilly called him a "religious fanatic," and Bennett was freaking out, thinking he was talking to a "fellow conservative" who would just agree with him. Good times were had...

Melon


Ha, ha, ha, ha -

That's the stuff I love. that and when he goes OFF about rap music and kids. I think his one crooked eye is going to pop out of his head. :eeklaugh:
 
that fight was rather entertaining

womanfish said:
That's the stuff I love. that and when he goes OFF about rap music and kids. I think his one crooked eye is going to pop out of his head. :eeklaugh:


I love when he goes off about the kids. Oyeah, just makes my life complete. His claims are so accurate and based on so many facts. I can totally see his point of view. In fact, I can't wait until I'm his age so I can whine about the kids and never do anything about it too. :|


Oh if only I could age 25 years overnight.....
 
womanfish said:
But let me ask you this - In past wars, if there was heavy fighting on the front lines, our news reports would pretty much all come from military spokespeople and then written up or reported by journalists. Now, even though they will still have military influence on the, Don't you think we are still going to get a more objective report from somone who is right there on the scene?

in one sense, yes. we have gained in that respect. but the viewer is now made to believe that they see everything when in fact, the military has very specific control over what is seen by the correspondent.

it will take much research in the coming time to answer this question with anything near certainty.

you alluded to it earlier...there are presently as many as 100 foreign correspondents who have embed positions with the coalition. amongst them is an al-jazeera journalist.
 
Well...this was an interesting discussion
and I think, as usually seems to be the case, Melon put it best ;)

Here in Canada there is a big difference. I thing there is more of the picture seen, but that is my opinion. Not only do we see non-critical looks at military briefings from the White House and Quatar, and the stories of embedded journalists. We also see interviews with iraqis in Canada, documentaries on iraqi citizens. I was actually shocked when they interview one Iraqi nuclear scienctist living here in Canada. He was VERY angry with the US, I thought they would cut him off.
But it's alright to have that extreme view and then bring in the opposite extreme view. It makes me more confident that I'm getting a larger picture.

Anyway, it's a topic I've always been interested in. We know the US was partaking in BLATEN propaganda during the cold war...just as bad as what the Iraqi info. minister is doing now....I don't see why people like Womanfish should get angry if someone alludes to the possibility that such propaganda as seen in the 60's is still ongoing.
I mean...yes, there are embedded journalists..but we only see what the gov't wants us to see. Same way they edit survivor to make some look bad and some good....it's real TV but it's skewed.

and just so you know....I don't think the US is using such extreme propaganda this time as 30 or 40 years ago...
however, time will tell. 20 years from now who knows what we will be saying about this war.
 
A friend of mine calls CNN "Censored Network News". Fox is a joke. I won't watch it. There were reports last night that Iraqi TV had been knocked off the air. It's no wonder the military is trying to knock TV off. It's a propaganda tool all over. No doubt there is some real :censored: going on that we're not seeing because it's well, :censored: :censored: :censored:
 
The word propaganda is being thrown around with great gusto. Looking back over history, is the level of "propaganda" or censorship in the US anywhere near what it was in WWII, Vietnam or Gulf War I?

Secondly, what do you expect in coverage? Is there such a thing as pure factual coverage, or is this simply a cry for hearing news in terms that match one's beliefs or position on the war?


I won't address Iraq's Ministry of "Information".
 
nbcrusader said:
The word propaganda is being thrown around with great gusto. Looking back over history, is the level of "propaganda" or censorship in the US anywhere near what it was in WWII, Vietnam or Gulf War I?

I think that the term propaganda is used a little too loosely here. Yes, there is propaganda on both sides, coming from the government (the military debriefings in front of the camera's, the constant press conferences by Rumsfeld, in general everything shown by Iraqi television). But I would not call many reports by CNN, Fox or Al-Jazeera propaganda. In my eyes, propaganda comes from a government, not from a news station.

Secondly, what do you expect in coverage? Is there such a thing as pure factual coverage, or is this simply a cry for hearing news in terms that match one's beliefs or position on the war?

I think this more represents the point of this thread. There is colored news reporting. However, this is always the case, if only because it comes from someone's point of view. Thus, CNN, Fox, etc. report from an US point of view (one maybe more pro-government than the other), while Al-Jazeera reports from an Arab point of view (as pointed out earlier).
As nbcrusader mentions in his post, many watch the news from a source that matches one's beliefs. There's no point for a liberal to watch the news from a very conservative source, if only to get irritated. However, one should keep in mind the position of the source.

The truth is out there

(somewhere I think)

C ya!

Marty
 
Fox News - I don't know whether to laugh or cry. It's pathetic.
Closest thing to balanced and informed is the BBC or Sky News channels. The American ones have the best 'front line' footage, but they're News Entertainment channels, not News Information channels - I don't think its propaganda, I think it's because they are competing for ratings too much, forgeting what they are really there for.

But yes, I certainly agree it's alot better then it could be, from everyone, and it's good they are letting the reporters right in there. Interesting that the first non-Iraqi casualty of the war was a reporter.
 
Secondly, what do you expect in coverage? Is there such a thing as pure factual coverage, or is this simply a cry for hearing news in terms that match one's beliefs or position on the war?

This line is blurred. You could just report the facts of what is going on in the battlefields, but there are two things going on here. First, these facts are coming from military personel a lot of the times, so unless it's seen firsthand you are going to have some bias in the fact telling. But second and the most disturbing is the twisted delivery of these facts. Here's a couple of examples(and I'll use Fox because they are the most obvious at it, but they all do this to an extent.)

When news broke about the grenede going off in the commanding tent Fox jumped on this story and started throwing around the term "terrorist attack" like it was going out of style. They continued to call it a terrorist attack until confirmed otherwise, when all they had to do is report that a grenede had gone off and no one knows any specifics yet. (This would be real news reporting). Another one I saw was yesterday during lunch where Fox just had this bold tag line at the bottom of the screen that read nothing but; IRAQIS HAVE NO REGARD FOR HUMAN LIFE. I couldn't believe my eyes. This is the shit that discusts me, and it's happening all over. And where it may not be directly from the government, the government had everything to do with keeping the fear elevated to high enough levels that people were duct taping their windows and throwing the term "terrorist" around like it was the new en vougue catch phrase. So yes in my opinion it is propaganda.

THE CARTOON NETWORK TURNS INTO THE NEWS...
 
BonoVoxSupastar said:


Another one I saw was yesterday during lunch where Fox just had this bold tag line at the bottom of the screen that read nothing but; IRAQIS HAVE NO REGARD FOR HUMAN LIFE. I couldn't believe my eyes.

Well you shouldn't have believed your eyes because you are wrong. I saw the same line at the bottom of the screen and it was a quote by a Coalition Military official which was clearly stated. I admit it is an inflamitory statement, but it was given after the latest airing from Al Jazeera of two dead soldiers that were being kicked around in the street. This was a quote, not a "tag line" just put out there by Fox.
 
Well you shouldn't have believed your eyes because you are wrong. I saw the same line at the bottom of the screen and it was a quote by a Coalition Military official which was clearly stated. I admit it is an inflamitory statement, but it was given after the latest airing from Al Jazeera of two dead soldiers that were being kicked around in the street. This was a quote, not a "tag line" just put out there by Fox.

But it was placed at the bottom of the screen without any explanation. Regardless if it was a quote or not, the use of it was irresponsible. You can quote the Bible to make people believe some things that are not of God when used out of context.
 
Last edited:
It was placed at the bottom of the screen while talking with the military official who made the statement. I agree, not the best quote to just sit out there, but my point being it was the quote of the guy that they were discussing, not a Fox news statement.

Hey, I commend you for at least watching a little Foxnews now and then. I spread my watching and reading over a wide range from conservative to liberal to see all points of view. Most anti-war people here trash Foxnews but have never even seen it.
 
It was placed at the bottom of the screen while talking with the military official who made the statement. I agree, not the best quote to just sit out there, but my point being it was the quote of the guy that they were discussing, not a Fox news statement.

Ok trust me. It was placed their without and quotes or source. It was there while they were airing the press conference they had yesterday afternoon with the pentatgon. I was out to lunch with many friends and my friends are all Bush supporters and are for this war and even they had to pick their jaws from off the floor at the sight of this.
 
I saw Fox News for the first time last weekend... it was a joke. They'll interview 20 peace protestors, ask them why they're protesting, 13 will give an intelligent answer, 5 will give a half-assed answer, and two will say "um..." or "I don't know." Which will be the two they broadcast.
 
This is from a biased source, but the references sighted are repuable

"It turns out that most of the pro-war rallies have been organized by and sponsored by Clear Channel Entertainment, under the name of "Rally for America(tm)," in a faux-grassroots campaign known as "astroturfing." Writes The Chicago Tribune, "The sponsorship of large rallies by Clear Channel stations is unique among major media companies, which have confined their activities in the war debate to reporting and occasionally commenting on the news." "I think this is pretty extraordinary," said former Federal Communications Commissioner Glen Robinson, who teaches law at the University of Virginia. "I can't say that this violates any of a broadcaster's obligations, but it sounds like borderline manufacturing of the news." In today's New York Times, Paul Krugman has an op-ed piece (free registration required) criticizing CCE for their amazing gall. Clear Channel's intent is clear: supporting the administration can only help reduce government threats against CCE expansion. It helps, of course, that Secretary of State Colin Powell's son, Michael Powell, is the head of the FCC."

www.clearchannelsucks.org
 
Kristie said:
there's a LOT of US citizens that think their news (whichever one they may watch/read) is 100% accurate and not slanted in any way.
Makes me sad.

There are also lots of US citizens that think their news (whichever one they may watch/read) is 100% inaccurate and slanted in every way.
 
Kristie said:
I saw Fox News for the first time last weekend... it was a joke. They'll interview 20 peace protestors, ask them why they're protesting, 13 will give an intelligent answer, 5 will give a half-assed answer, and two will say "um..." or "I don't know." Which will be the two they broadcast.


If they only broadcast those 2 answers, how do you know that they interviewed other people that gave intelligent answers?

When I watched interviews with protestors on Fox, they didn't edit it at all, they went live and the reporter was in the crowd interviewing several people in a row, most gave some sort of reasoning, but none of them that I heard sounded very intelligent. Mostly filled with "war is wrong", "peace is the only answer", "this is just killing for oil", etc...

I don't take those as intelligent, informed answers. They are soundbites.
 
I was creating a hypothetical situation.
The moral of that story is, I know many very intelligent peace protestors, I know there are thousands more out there... but their story deliberately portrays all of them as morons.
 
Kristie said:
I was creating a hypothetical situation.
The moral of that story is, I know many very intelligent peace protestors, I know there are thousands more out there... but their story deliberately portrays all of them as morons.

gotcha. I know what you mean. that's why I was pleasantly surprised when I watched and they were actually just having a women roaming through the crowd interviewing. That way you knew it wasn't a pick and chose thing. I know that the pick and chose thing does happen.
 
Kristie said:
I was creating a hypothetical situation.
The moral of that story is, I know many very intelligent peace protestors, I know there are thousands more out there... but their story deliberately portrays all of them as morons.

well as many 'intelligents' that are out there, the numbers are stacked against them. mostly because it is easy to be 'anti-war'/'anti-establishment'. youth gravitate toward liberalism and idealism (not saying youth are the idiots, but they do make up the majority of passengers in these protests from my experience).

if it wasnt for these passengers however, they're wouldnt be as much interest and thus there is likely to be no news coverage at all.
 
What surprised me after I've read through some posts on various net forums is that apparently some people think that if they listen to the news outside of US they'll get an unflinching, unskewed look at the war. Because IMO there's no such thing as unbiased reporting. It doesn't depend on whether the country participates in the war or not, because it's far from being an only reason for bias when it comes to the way countries view each other.
 
Scarletwine said:
This is from a biased source, but the references sighted are repuable

[...] In today's New York Times, Paul Krugman has an op-ed piece (free registration required) criticizing CCE for their amazing gall. Clear Channel's intent is clear: supporting the administration can only help reduce government threats against CCE expansion. It helps, of course, that Secretary of State Colin Powell's son, Michael Powell, is the head of the FCC."

www.clearchannelsucks.org

For those interested in the NYT editorial, here it is (copy-paste from the Velvet Rope forum):

Channels of Influence
By Paul Krugman - NY Times - 25 March 2003

By and large, recent pro-war rallies haven't drawn nearly as many people as antiwar rallies, but they have certainly been vehement. One of the most striking took place after Natalie Maines, lead singer for the Dixie Chicks, criticized President Bush: a crowd gathered in Louisiana to watch a 33,000-pound tractor smash a collection of Dixie Chicks CD's, tapes and other paraphernalia. To those familiar with 20th-century European history it seemed eerily reminiscent of. . . . But as Sinclair Lewis said, it can't happen here.

Who has been organizing those pro-war rallies? The answer, it turns out, is that they are being promoted by key players in the radio industry - with close links to the Bush administration.

The CD-smashing rally was organized by KRMD, part of Cumulus Media, a radio chain that has banned the Dixie Chicks from its playlists. Most of the pro-war demonstrations around the country have, however, been organized by stations owned by Clear Channel Communications, a behemoth based in San Antonio that controls more than 1,200 stations and increasingly dominates the airwaves.

The company claims that the demonstrations, which go under the name Rally for America, reflect the initiative of individual stations. But this is unlikely: according to Eric Boehlert, who has written revelatory articles about Clear Channel in Salon, the company is notorious and widely hated for its iron-fisted centralized control.

Until now, complaints about Clear Channel have focused on its business practices. Critics say it uses its power to squeeze recording companies and artists and contributes to the growing blandness of broadcast music. But now the company appears to be using its clout to help one side in a political dispute that deeply divides the nation.

Why would a media company insert itself into politics this way? It could, of course, simply be a matter of personal conviction on the part of management. But there are also good reasons for Clear Channel - which became a giant only in the last few years, after the Telecommunications Act of 1996 removed many restrictions on media ownership - to curry favor with the ruling party.

On one side, Clear Channel is feeling some heat: it is being sued over allegations that it threatens to curtail the airplay of artists who don't tour with its concert division, and there are even some politicians who want to roll back the deregulation that made the company's growth possible. On the other side, the Federal Communications Commission is considering further deregulation that would allow Clear Channel to expand even further, particularly into television.

Or perhaps the quid pro quo is more narrowly focused. Experienced Bushologists let out a collective "Aha!" when Clear Channel was revealed to be behind the pro-war rallies, because the company's top management has a history with George W. Bush. The vice chairman of Clear Channel is Tom Hicks, whose name may be familiar to readers of this column.

When Mr. Bush was governor of Texas, Mr. Hicks was chairman of the University of Texas Investment Management Company, called Utimco, and Clear Channel's chairman, Lowry Mays, was on its board. Under Mr. Hicks, Utimco placed much of the university's endowment under the management of companies with strong Republican Party or Bush family ties. In 1998 Mr. Hicks purchased the Texas Rangers in a deal that made Mr. Bush a multimillionaire.

There's something happening here. What it is ain't exactly clear, but a good guess is that we're now seeing the next stage in the evolution of a new American oligarchy. As Jonathan Chait has written in The New Republic, in the Bush administration "government and business have melded into one big `us.' " On almost every aspect of domestic policy, business interests rule: "Scores of midlevel appointees . . . now oversee industries for which they once worked."

We should have realized that this is a two-way street: if politicians are busy doing favors for businesses that support them, why shouldn't we expect businesses to reciprocate by doing favors for those politicians - by, for example, organizing "grass roots" rallies on their behalf?

What makes it all possible, of course, is the absence of effective watchdogs. In the Clinton years the merest hint of impropriety quickly blew up into a huge scandal; these days, the scandalmongers are more likely to go after journalists who raise questions. Anyway, don't you know there's a war on?

C ya!

Marty
 
All rallies supporting the Administration and the Coalition troops are not Dixie Chicks cd burnings. Sure, Clear Channel may have organized such events, but to suggest that all "pro-war" rallies are corporate creations is a cheap way to diminish the message of those rallies.
 
nbcrusader said:
All rallies supporting the Administration and the Coalition troops are not Dixie Chicks cd burnings. Sure, Clear Channel may have organized such events, but to suggest that all "pro-war" rallies are corporate creations is a cheap way to diminish the message of those rallies.

The editorial did not suggest that all pro-war rallies were organised by Clear Channel, nor that all involved CD burnings. And the message of such a rally is clear. The point here is the motives behind organising a rally. It appears that it's not done because of the message, but because of getting favourable treatment later by pleasing the current administration now. Or at least, at the rallies organised by Clear Channel (and in venues owned by Clear Channel where performers are asked not to give political speeches or the concert might be cut short).

C ya!

Marty
 
Secret Videotape Shows Lions Eating Christians In Iraq
Thursday March 20, 2003



By VINCENZO SARDI & BARRY DUTTER

WASHINGTON -- U.N. weapons inspectors searching for nuclear weapons have uncovered something they never expected to find: A hidden rock quarry, dubbed "The Arena of Death," where helpless Christian prisoners are fed to hungry lions!

One of the quick-thinking inspectors had his video camera with him when this horrifying spectacle was taking place, and captured the gruesome scene on tape. The inspectors could only stand by helplessly as three men were torn limb from limb by the voracious beasts.

"It was the most frightening thing I've ever seen," says one inspector.

"They must not have fed those lions for weeks beforehand, because they ripped into those Christians like they were wounded antelopes."

The inspectors were too late to save the three men in the lion pits, but they did find one other prisoner in a cell adjacent to the arena -- an American woman, Alice Semple, 32. Semple traveled to Iraq with seven companions as part of a Christian missionary group.

"We came to Iraq on a mission of peace," she told Weekly World News reporters. "We wanted to help the underpriveleged people in Iraq. But Saddam accused us of being spies and threw us into cages."

The prisoners were taken in groups of two or three at a time to the arena and fed to the lions.

"My friends never had a chance," Semple sobs.

"They were totally defenseless, armed with nothing but their faith in Jesus. I could hear their screams from inside my cell."

Semple was freed from Saddam's prison at the insistence of the incensed U.N. inspectors.

"Saddam was reluctant to let her go," one inspector says, "because he feared it would give the U.S. one more reason to invade.

"He finally relented, convinced that no one would believe her story anyway."

But Saddam was unaware of the secret videotape taken by inspectors.

Semple has since been flown back to an undisclosed hospital in the U.S., where she is undergoing treatment to help her cope with the trauma of what she saw.

"They told me I was to be the next victim of the lions," she said. "And they said after I was gone, they'd go out and kidnap more helpless Americans."

A Vatican spokesman says Pope John Paul II is outraged.

"The Pope feels that this time, Saddam Hussein has gone too far," the spokesman says. "He believes some sort of action must be taken."

A U.S. Defense Department official agrees, saying, "This incident shows why we must take Saddam out now. He is a dangerous, sadistic maniac."

For years, Iraqi defectors have told lurid tales about Saddam's private arena, a stadium-size "athletic facility" located just outside Baghdad.

The twisted megalomaniac reportedly fancies himself a latter-day Roman emperor. In addition to his beloved lions, Saddam also also uses tigers, bears, and other exotic imported animals to dispatch political prisoners.

According to the U.N. inspectors who witnessed the carnage from a hidden alcove, Saddam and his generals sat in a booth, munching on cotton candy, and enjoying the 'show.'

The inspectors note that Iraqi officials had tried to steer them clear of the arena. "We came upon it purely by chance," one inspector said.

Iraqi officials deny any knowledge of Saddam's lions
 
Back
Top Bottom