Posted on 05/20/2012 10:40:55 AM PDT by thouworm
“I just don’t want to see something this significant – whatever the pros and cons – go through without anyone noticing,” “ says one source on the Hill, who is disturbed by the law. According to this source, the law would allow "U.S. propaganda intended to influence foreign audiences to be used on the domestic population."
The new law would give sweeping powers to the State Department and Pentagon to push television, radio, newspaper, and social media onto the U.S. public. “It removes the protection for Americans,” says a Pentagon official who is concerned about the law. “It removes oversight from the people who want to put out this information. There are no checks and balances. No one knows if the information is accurate, partially accurate, or entirely false.”
Currently, bipartisan, favored constituents sponsor the media and control government at every level. Why make the government pay for that?
;-)
On through default. Enjoy the slide.
There’s a Democrat in office. Why not just make it official?
Right, but don’t we need to be more like Europe?
the law would allow "U.S. propaganda intended to influence foreign audiences to be used on the domestic population." The new law would give sweeping powers to the State Department and Pentagon to push television, radio, newspaper, and social media onto the U.S. public.The Demwits in and out of media already do this.
Here is the “Student Dictionary” at M-W. It’s under a link named “See propaganda defined for kids »” on the main page of propaganda.
http://www.wordcentral.com/cgi-bin/student?book=Student&va=propaganda
Doesn’t it seem curious that we are constantly warned of the dangers of the “fascists” on the Right, but that THEY never proposed such a clearly unscrupulous bill? >>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Q.E.D., History shows that fascism has its roots in liberalism , socialism and nationalism.
Thats what Obama is and has been, a nationalist ( black /minority ethnic power nationalism)socialist ( redistribution of wealth suppoed to have been ill gained by the “wealthy”, whoever they ARE?)
Look, its time to really attack Obama as a nationalist socialist and reveal the truth to America.
GOOD READ:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/05/barack_obama_the_quintessentia_1.html
In case you didn’t go to the link to the other place this was posted, it was a bi-partisan amendment sponsored by Rep. Mark [Mac] Thornberry from Texas and Rep. Adam Smith from Washington State.
This is the Rep. Mac Thornberry I am running against in the Republican Primary (May 29th).
Propaganda is against the law? Sure coulda’ fooled me.
My same reaction. The barn door is already wide open. All the more reason to scrutinize this legislation (not to mention the fact that it was a "hidden" amendment).
Check out # 21.
Thanks, thouworm.
How is this different from the revisionist history pushed by Clinton and later Obama administrations everywhere in American lives from the Post Office stamp subjects to the White House website and school educational plans?
As it stands right now, the lamestream media ALREADY colludes with the DNC on news stories.
Sandra Fluke's war on women was a coordinated attack on the Catholic Church and conservatives. "Don't take my contraceptives!".
Don't bitch about being too poor to spend $20 a month on "the pill" and then take a high dollar vacation in Spain and Italy.
Actually, there will likely be a major difference.
The “conservative” argument in favor of this change is that this will allow the Department of Defense to get its story out to the public more effectively via nontraditional media which, unlike a traditional newspaper or magazine or television or radio station, have an audience which isn't clearly defined by geography. A ban on using propaganda on US citizens makes it difficult to use certain types of social media (at least in English) to communicate anything that is not “fair and balanced” and actively promotes the United States position while being sure the target audience does not include United States citizens and domestic media. The people advocating this change believe the military should be more assertively promoting its message and mission.
I believe that argument is fundamentally flawed.
If the Department of Defense has a story to tell, that story can (and should) be told truthfully and accurately to **ANY** audience, either foreign or domestic. There's no need for a PR operation — truth sells itself to those who care about honest facts.
The core of what is being advocated is a fundamental shift in the purpose of Army Public Affairs (and also the other services, some of which, from what I am told by people in uniform, effectively moved in this direction long ago) from being an impartial provider of truth to becoming a public relations operation. While there is a very important difference in theory here, I'm not sure much will change in actual practice since PAO has been perceived — wrongly — as being in the business of “public relations” for a very long time.
Nevertheless, this is a critical difference in theory and mission. How that will work out in actual practice is not at all clear.
The conservative argument for this change is that the military needs the freedom to promote its own story, and that this doesn't open the door to lying because any falsehoods directed at a United States audience will quickly be detected and attacked. My best argument against this change is that the PAO is already perceived by the news media as being less-than-credible and as being a biased source of pro-military information, and now that PAO is officially embracing propaganda as a tactic, it will be much harder to argue against the claim that military public affairs people lie.
There are liberal arguments against this change as well, some of which make sense to me as a conservative but are not as important to me as the fundamental question of whether public affairs is in the business of providing unbiased facts or doing public relations.
Again, while I do not see a major change in actual practice, this is a bad change in principle. The Department of Defense has a legitimate goal to get its message out to more people, but this was the wrong way to accomplish a legitimate goal. Credibility counts, and perceptions can quickly become reality.
They do that now. I am curious as to the specifics. Would it ban non approved messages?
That is by far the best and most succinct analysis of WHY this is so wrong that I have seen. It’s the old “ends justifies the means” argument that will lead us down a very WRONG path.
Do you have this on a blog somewhere so that I can quote you -— or, may I use your quote either attributed or anonymous to help people better understand why this is so wrongheaded??? Please let me know, either here or by FReepmail if you would prefer.
Thanks!!!
What I wrote is opinion but it's not uninformed opinion. I've spent two decades in the media, and am a reporter who now deals with Army Public Affairs regularly in my work outside Fort Leonard Wood and previously outside Cannon Air Force Base. Also, I've seen the inside of how things work; after 9/11, I was a civilian working in PAO in a contract reporter role for one of the post newspapers.
For many years, Army PAO models in dealing with external media have included phrases such as this: “bad news does not improve with age.” The concept has been that the military has a good story on its own and doesn't need to resort to PR models of communication to tell that story. Furthermore, in dealing with internal communications to servicemembers and civilian personnel, the approach since before World War II has been that if soldiers don't trust their commanders to tell the truth, they may not be confident following orders, so telling “the good, the bad and the ugly” has been crucial in publications such as Stars and Stripes as well as internal command information publications such as post and base newspapers.
Will that change? Not necessarily. Much will depend on implementation. But I have concerns.
I need to emphasize that my concerns are more about a change in theory than a change in actual practice. My read of the situation is that when PAO and external media have a decent working relationship, the words on paper don't make much difference and this will have minimal if any impact on how PAO deals with most reporters who cover the military on a regular basis. Mission statements are intended to set a general tone, and the specific policies and procedures exist not primarily to deal with day-to-day relationships but rather to outline how to handle things when something goes wrong and formal rules have to be pulled out because informal relationships have fallen apart.
My guess (note that I'm deliberately using language with a lower level of certainty) is this change in mission will be most significant in dealing with the “Big Army” level — i.e., how public affairs deals with the national news media — and not on the local level where most military reporting gets done anyway.
I know my local PAO people. I know their background, I know why they decided to go into PAO and what motivates them at a personal level, I know their track record of dealing with media, I know that they won't lie to me, and I know that if I don't ask the right questions it's not their fault that they didn't volunteer potentially damaging information I didn't think to ask about. I also know them well enough to know when they're avoiding answering my questions and that I need to start digging somewhere else. If PAO gets a new mission of public relations (i.e., acting like a corporate communications department) that won't affect how I deal with them because I know them on more than a merely business level. On the other hand, reporters who don't routinely cover the military or who don't know the local PAO personnel have generally thought all along that PAO was doing a “corporate communications” type of PR anyway, in other words, spinning things to their benefit, trying to kill bad news, pushing “good news” even if it wasn't newsworthy, and other forms of damage control. I don't think we need to worry about Pentagon PAO personnel deliberately lying to reporters in the United States; anyone dealing with the attack-dog approach of reporters on the national level knows already that lying to a reporter is a good way to get publicly exposed as a liar, and that's not good for the career of anyone who wears a uniform or is a senior GS civilian employee.
Bottom line: I'm worried about where this could lead, and the devil is in the details, but the practical effect is likely to be minimal — for now.
PLEASE LET ME KNOW IF YOU DISAGREE -— HERE IS EXACTLY WHAT I PLAN TO POST:
The Thornberry Propaganda Amendment may look on the surface like it is something that is needed right now, but it’s the old “ends justifies the means” argument that will lead us down a very WRONG path.
Here is an opinion I read that is by far the best and most succinct analysis that I have seen of WHY this is so wrong, and explains my feeling on this matter:
“Actually, there will likely be a major difference.
The ‘conservative’ argument in favor of this change is that this will allow the Department of Defense to get its story out to the public more effectively via nontraditional media which, unlike a traditional newspaper or magazine or television or radio station, have an audience which isn’t clearly defined by geography. A ban on using propaganda on US citizens makes it difficult to use certain types of social media (at least in English) to communicate anything that is not ‘fair and balanced’ and actively promotes the United States position while being sure the target audience does not include United States citizens and domestic media. The people advocating this change believe the military should be more assertively promoting its message and mission.
I believe that argument is fundamentally flawed.
If the Department of Defense has a story to tell, that story can (and should) be told truthfully and accurately to **ANY** audience, either foreign or domestic. There’s no need for a PR operation — truth sells itself to those who care about honest facts.
The core of what is being advocated is a fundamental shift in the purpose of Army Public Affairs (and also the other services, some of which, from what I am told by people in uniform, effectively moved in this direction long ago) from being an impartial provider of truth to becoming a public relations operation. While there is a very important difference in theory here, I’m not sure much will change in actual practice since PAO has been perceived — wrongly — as being in the business of “public relations” for a very long time.
Nevertheless, this is a critical difference in theory and mission. How that will work out in actual practice is not at all clear.
The conservative argument for this change is that the military needs the freedom to promote its own story, and that this doesn’t open the door to lying because any falsehoods directed at a United States audience will quickly be detected and attacked. My best argument against this change is that the PAO is already perceived by the news media as being less-than-credible and as being a biased source of pro-military information, and now that PAO is officially embracing propaganda as a tactic, it will be much harder to argue against the claim that military public affairs people lie.
There are liberal arguments against this change as well, some of which make sense to me as a conservative but are not as important to me as the fundamental question of whether public affairs is in the business of providing unbiased facts or doing public relations.
Again, while I do not see a major change in actual practice, this is a bad change in principle. The Department of Defense has a legitimate goal to get its message out to more people, but this was the wrong way to accomplish a legitimate goal. Credibility counts, and perceptions can quickly become reality.”
Will the current commitment to such things as “maximum disclosure, minimum delay” change under the new policy? I don't think anybody knows the answer with certainty down the road. However, I do believe some of the people on this thread who worry the new policy will authorize lying to the American people have misunderstood the policy's intent.
The current policy is good. It is a fact-based approach which recognizes that the strength of our all-volunteer force, and more broadly, the role of the military in a democratic system of government, both depend upon the support of the American people for the work of those who wear the uniform. It recognizes that while some things cannot and should not be disclosed due to national security concerns, the voters **ARE** the bosses and have a constitutional right to know what the military is doing.
Current DOD policy trusts that the military has a good story that tells itself and doesn't need “spinmeisters.” That may no longer be realistic in an environment where the vast majority of Americans have never worn the uniform and don't even have any family members or close friends who have worn the uniform.
I have no doubt whatsoever that the military has very effective “corporate communications” resources at its disposal. Winning the “infowars” against Islamic radicalism on the internet, and more broadly, correcting false statements and misrepresentations of military policy, are important goals. I suspect that there is some really, really, really good material out there which is currently being directed to non-US readers, and which most people on Free Republic would be extremely happy to see put out to an American audience. That could be a very good thing.
But perceptions count. It would be an extremely bad thing if Americans got the idea that the policy change authorizes our government to lie to its own people.
Feel free to use if desired. What I write is public.
If you need identification, feel free to use this sig line. Not necessary; your choice.
Darrell Todd Maurina
Pulaski County Daily News
FWIW, here's an article on my work about a year ago by “Editor & Publisher” magazine:
I was also a finalist last year, along with reporters from the Washington Post, New York Times, and about 30 other national and regional media, for a national religion newswriting award for my coverage of the successful campaign of a “tea party” Republican who defeated Ike Skelton, the Democratic chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.
https://rna.site-ym.com/?page=2011_winners
I didn't win — if I had won, I might have died of a heart attack due to shock, considering the competition — but that along with the “Editor & Publisher” article should indicate that I might just have a certain amount of credibility.
Not all of us in the media are liberals ;-)
Are you using the term "liberals" as a synonym for "liars?" Here is what I posted, a little while ago, in a parallel thread:
The utter stupidity of this proposal can hardly be exaggerated! Rather than allowing the Government to use deliberate misinformation--or distortions of the truth--to be used domestically, as well as internationally, why not stop the use of any misinformation (i.e., in the form of propaganda), to any civilian population, anywhere.
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.
I really consider the underlying issue here to come down to two questions; one goes to the moral, the other to the practical; and the answer on each is the same. Truth is both the moral & pragmatic answer for the America we believe in.
William Flax [Truth Based Logic]
Fair question, Ohioan.
I would not say that “liar” and “liberal” are synonyms, but I certainly do believe lots of liberals are liars because their ideology is wrong and can only be defended by wrong arguments. On the other hand, I do believe there is such a thing as being sincerely and honestly wrong, and some liberals fall into that category. Also, as we’ve all found out the hard way, some conservatives lie, too.
The issue is broader than ideology. The government of a free republic has no business lying to its people because the people, as the voters, are supposed to be the bosses.
Posted here:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Dr-Pam-Barlow-for-Congress/146322055382308
exactly as shown above with attribution added -— it was too good not to give you credit for it!!!
Thanks for letting me share it!!!
Glad to be of some help!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.