Posted on 07/15/2013 3:53:18 AM PDT by Makana
For decades, a so-called anti-propaganda law prevented the U.S. government's mammoth broadcasting arm from delivering programming to American audiences. But on July 2, that came silently to an end with the implementation of a new reform passed in January. The result: an unleashing of thousands of hours per week of government-funded radio and TV programs for domestic U.S. consumption in a reform initially criticized as a green light for U.S. domestic propaganda efforts. So what just happened?
Until this month, a vast ocean of U.S. programming produced by the Broadcasting Board of Governors such as Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and the Middle East Broadcasting Networks could only be viewed or listened to at broadcast quality in foreign countries. The programming varies in tone and quality, but its breadth is vast: It's viewed in more than 100 countries in 61 languages. The topics covered include human rights abuses in Iran; self-immolation in Tibet; human trafficking across Asia; and on-the-ground reporting in Egypt and Iraq.
The restriction of these broadcasts was due to the Smith-Mundt Act, a long standing piece of legislation that has been amended numerous times over the years, perhaps most consequentially by Arkansas Senator J. William Fulbright. Fulbright was no friend of VOA and Radio Free Europe, and moved to restrict them from domestic distribution, saying they "should be given the opportunity to take their rightful place in the graveyard of Cold War relics."
(Excerpt) Read more at thecable.foreignpolicy.com ...
This really isn’t news.
All Americans who had access to short-wave radios could listen to the garbage for years and years. I can sit and listen to Russian or Chinese government-made news if I desired.
And what exactly do we think NPR is putting out? Independent stuff? Oh please.....it’s all approved and government-sponsored.
Committee on public information (Creel commission)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_on_Public_Information
Walter Lippman newspaper man and advisor to Woodrow wilson.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Lippmann
Though a journalist himself, he did not assume that news and truth are synonymous. For Lippmann, the “function of news is to signalize an event, the function of truth is to bring to light the hidden facts, to set them in relation with each other, and make a picture of reality on which men can act.” A journalist’s version of the truth is subjective and limited to how he constructs his reality. The news, therefore, is “imperfectly recorded” and too fragile to bear the charge as “an organ of direct democracy.”
To his mind, democratic ideals had deteriorated, voters were largely ignorant about issues and policies, they lacked the competence to participate in public life and cared little for participating in the political process. In Public Opinion (1922), Lippmann noted that the stability the government achieved during the patronage era of the 19th century was threatened by modern realities. He wrote that a “governing class” must rise to face the new challenges.
More Nazi BS from the Obama administration.
Bagdad Bob, here we go. This is blatantly anticonstitutional, but, hey, whatever.
Might as well call it America’s army psyops occupation channel, because it is what it is, a militarization of our bedrooms.
So what? NPR already is the "Official" Pravda or Amerika, but EVERY Major Network gets their "news" (aka, Talking Points) directly dictated from the DNC/White Hut, and if they didn't, the FCC would come down on them BIG TIME....that's how it's done with ALL business/info today, by government Regulatory (un-elected) Czars who just ignore Congress, and do the Bidding of the Messiah.
So Obamugabe already has all commercial tv....or nearly all of it, 95% of radio news, a monopoly on print and the online versions of print, 99% of academia.....NOW a new method to cram propaganda down our throats.
More sinister......
like the man said..... if that boy in the whitehouse don be carful, he’ll git hung
Complain all you want, but until somebody DOES something about it, it will only get worse. Dictators only stop when the people rise up, individually and collectively, to say “Enough”. Does anybody think that the Founding Fathers would have let King George III go this far? Would Patrick Henry have waited this long?
I don’t think so.
And for the NSA trolls, FU.
The Enemy of this Administration and its docile
treasonous Congress is the American people.
The Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012 that legalized domestic propaganda was part of the 2013 National Defense Authorization Act which was passed overwhelmingly by the GOP controlled House.
(muppets singing to Soviet national anthem)
Obama, Obama, we love you Obama.
Repeal the 22nd so Big Bird won't die.
...
Please. The MSM has been the functional mouthpiece of progressive government for more than a generation.
You need look no further than the coverage of the Zimmerman trial to see sustained government propaganda in action.
Raised during the Cold War, I once counted myself lucky that I lived in a country with a free press. A military stint including time at the NSA, of all places, disabused me of that notion.
The media lies mostly by omission. By far the biggest lies it told during the Zimmerman trial is what it didn’t report. That’s their MO.
Any ban on government propaganda beamed towards Americans has been nothing more than window dressing, at best. The fourth estate is a fifth column.
More competitors for MSNBC and CNN to fall behind.
What average evening news viewer could tell the difference?
The content will begin to evolve, global warming, recycling, gun control, special rights for homos, etc. etc.
So it was passed by Boehners GOP, that makes it right?
It’s wrong. A lot of what the GOP is doing is wrong, they are as bad as the Democrats, we need a real party,
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