• TinSoldier said on Apr 02, 2008....

  The US government has been caught astroturfing before. Remember the one guy who was paid to editorialize favorably about No Child Left Behind, or the recent FEMA news conference debacle, or some other stuff?
  
  I'm sure that bloc probably has a few other examples, not that I would agree with him on every single one.
  
  I'm not really disgusted but I'm of two minds about this: on the one hand, propaganda is one of those things that governments do, and have done, since the advent of media. On the other hand, being underhanded or clandestine about it by making the information seem to come from independent sources definitely rubs me the wrong way.
  
  I think that one of the pillars of the "marketplace of ideas", and freedom of speech and conscience, is openness and honesty. It seems like such a basic assumption to me.
  

• andora said on Apr 02, 2008....

  In the beginning of the Bush W administration he hired ex-convict Admiral John Poindexter (convicted of conspiracy, fraud and destruction of evidence in the Iran/Contra affair) to head a little known agency called I.A.O (Information Awareness Office). He had access to a 40 billion $ budget to spy on Americans and Foreigners alike...prior to the so-called "Patriot Act". This was done so very quietly that no one was talking about it in the media - so some internet hacks tailed him and began to post his private information for all to see...I'm not sure if the link below is live, but this is easy to google and the hacks are my hero's.
  
  http://www.g4tv.com/techtvvault/features/41146/Tracking_John_Poindexter.html?article_key=41146
  
  just because our gov hires slime-balls that care nothing about the Constitution does not mean it is acceptable... ex-convicts hardly get any kind of job that isn't flipping burgers....but this guy is well connected to arms cartels/oil cartels and can spy on anyone...these people do not consider integrity to be part of the job description...
  
  I remember the day I heard about the Poindexter appointment...no one raised an eyebrow when I told them about this....I spent the better part of the day crying. I'm not naieve, just hopeful. It still hurts how very many Americans have taken casually the trashing of our gov. So what if this has been going on for ages, it still hurts altruistic people who believe that the US is very close to creating a gov that is truly representative...god this sounds corny but I feel as tho freedom of speech and exposing the truth thru the internet gives us a great advantage over past generations. Thanks for bringing this up ed, appreciated by me
  

• andora said on Apr 02, 2008....

  I wasn't directing my rancor at anyone here, I was just venting mucho frustration about what it seems as tho you folks care about as well
  
  aloha
  

• silverwhisper said on Apr 03, 2008....

  TS: i agree that propaganda is unavoidable. as do you, for me the issue here is a matter of degree, and of basic assumptions of honesty and openness. prosecuting a war is also unavoidable, but how we do so exactly is another matter entirely, no?
  
  andora: i don't think i was aware of adm pointdexter until now--that link does work, btw. like you, i am a big fan of defending my civil liberties, so i'm glad you posted that. :>
  
  and honestly, i didn't really detect any rancor in your comment, so no worries heree. :>
  
  heh...wait until you find another blog entry by me about e-voting machines. that's one of my big hot button issues. :D
  
  ed

• TinSoldier said on Apr 03, 2008....

  TS: i agree that propaganda is unavoidable. as do you, for me the issue here is a matter of degree, and of basic assumptions of honesty and openness. prosecuting a war is also unavoidable, but how we do so exactly is another matter entirely, no?
  
  
  Yes, indeed.
  
  However, another thought occurred to me this morning as well (which probably had something to do with being awake early and watching a documentary on Athenian Democracy on PBS): the need for the use of misinformation campaigns by intelligence agencies.
  
  Well, that was a useful tool in the past, and maybe not so much now. Or maybe just less acceptable.
  
  I think that how we pursue our goals is always a good subject for discussion, neither dismissed out of hand because of our values nor accepted out of hand because it's "my country wrong or right".
  
  Heh. Which is probably why this fence that I sit upon becomes so uncomfortable as I take hits from both sides! :D
  

• TinSoldier said on Apr 03, 2008....

  I guess that my point is this: dishonesty by government is a bad thing. But sometimes it's not.
  
  :D
  

• silverwhisper said on Apr 04, 2008....

  TS: misinformation can be useful, sure. but outright propaganda is where i draw the line. there was a joke back in the days of the USSR how tass would report that in a contest pitting the US vs the USSR that if the US won, tass would report that the USSR came in second, while the US was in next to last. that kind of thing is just plain wrong to me.
  
  ed

• kelly said on Apr 04, 2008....

  I would prefer that the propaganda be used on the enemy, not on me.  It's been going on since forever, I expect.
  
  
  "Many people remember reading George Orwell's "Animal Farm" in high school or college, with its chilling finale in which the farm animals looked back and forth at the tyrannical pigs and the exploitative human farmers but found it "impossible to say which was which."

  That ending was altered in the 1955 animated version, which removed the humans, leaving only the nasty pigs. Another example of Hollywood butchering great literature? Yes, but in this case the film's secret producer was the Central Intelligence Agency."

  From this web page.

• silverwhisper said on Apr 04, 2008....

  that somehow utterly fails to surprise me, i'll confess. :>
  
  ed

• TinSoldier said on Apr 04, 2008....

  I would prefer that the propaganda be used on the enemy, not on me.  It's been going on since forever, I expect.
  
  
  I can agree with this statement, although it seems like a rather new idea in politics and democracy.
  
  I've never seen the Animal Farm movie, and I've only recently (within the last year) read the book so I can't really comment on it. But stuff like that would raise hackles nowadays wouldn't even bat most people's eyes in the '60s and before it seems, since it happened all the time.
  

• silverwhisper said on Apr 05, 2008....

  see, it's about openness. in WW2, the pentagon specifically requested propaganda films from hollywood, and they got 'em. they were open about it, or so i understood.
  
  ed

• kelly said on Apr 05, 2008....

  "But stuff like that would raise hackles nowadays wouldn't even bat most people's eyes in the '60s and before it seems, since it happened all the time."
  
  
  So, perhaps we're making progress after all.

• TinSoldier said on Apr 05, 2008....

  Perhaps we are, my friend. Perhaps we are.

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