Posted on 05/21/2012 9:00:18 AM PDT by JohnKinAK
An amendment that would legalize the use of propaganda on American audiences is being inserted into the latest defense authorization bill, BuzzFeed has learned.
The amendment would “strike the current ban on domestic dissemination” of propaganda material produced by the State Department and the Pentagon, according to the summary of the law at the House Rules Committee's official website.
The tweak to the bill would essentially neutralize two previous acts—the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948 and Foreign Relations Authorization Act in 1987—that had been passed to protect U.S. audiences from our own government’s misinformation campaigns.
The bi-partisan amendment is sponsored by Rep. Mac Thornberry from Texas and Rep. Adam Smith from Washington State.
In a little noticed press release earlier in the week — buried beneath the other high-profile issues in the $642 billion defense bill, including indefinite detention and a prohibition on gay marriage at military installations — Thornberry warned that in the Internet age, the current law “ties the hands of America’s diplomatic officials, military, and others by inhibiting our ability to effectively communicate in a credible way.”
The bill's supporters say the informational material used overseas to influence foreign audiences is too good to not use at home, and that new techniques are needed to help fight Al-Qaeda, a borderless enemy whose own propaganda reaches Americans online.
Critics of the bill say there are ways to keep America safe without turning the massive information operations apparatus within the federal government against American citizens.
(Excerpt) Read more at buzzfeed.com ...
This is just putting reality into law. What have we been getting in the MSM anyway if it wasn’t propaganda?
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/may/15/congressmen-seek-update-propaganda-law/
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/112/hr5736
Anyone else ready to just march on DC and burn the place to the ground?
In an EXTREMELY HOT locale, former Reichminister Josef Goebbels is nodding with a contented smile on his face. Maybe he can nominate a prospective successor or two.
Goebbels would be proud of this !
The strongest approach to anyone, at home or abroad, is that based on Truth. The former Bolshevik regime in the USSR was notorious for their use of propaganda, and what in the long-run was the actual result? They lost all credibility both at home & everywhere else. The German Socialists collapsed in 1945, before Goebbels had become the joke that Pravda became, but he would have eventually achieved the same result. The deliberate use of lies & half-truths will always eventually leave the wrong mark, once enough people realize that the source is not reliable.
But, of course, the Left is all about the denial of reality, the suppression of truth in the pursuit of a make-believe driven new order of things. But these tactics can never be justified by anyone who understands the preeminent importance of Truth, in defense of what is intended to actually encourage, rather than suppress, the best dynamics in the human experience.
William Flax [Truth Based Logic]
America was grounded on Experience & Reason. If we are to be true to our Constitutional heritage, there is no benefit, ever, for us to spread Leftist propaganda. Only someone who does not understand the real power of the Truths that made America possible, will fail to understand this.
And frankly, if enough, here at Free Republic would openly challenge the notion that America needs to lie or distort truth to anyone, the folks in Washington might just back away from this sort of tactic. Think about it! Are not the truths of the human experience, the most profound arguments for our traditional way of life?!
William Flax
From my perspective, the MSM is 90% responsible for misleading all who can read or hear....the other 10% have no voice loud enough to be heard or simply just don't care, totally out of touch or don't understand. Propaganda coupled with Political Correctness is one massive weapon used daily on the United States by the enemy within and without. Lt. Col.Davis tried to get your attention and like Lt.Col. North, was ridiculed by the MSM using various 'quotes' etc. It amazes me that Americans would rather believe the lies from John Kerry than those who were fighting at the same time in the same place...propaganda at its most damning.
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