RT

[brekin]

Christ on a cracker, yes Fox News, NYT is the same as RT a state run and owned entity. Really? There is a difference between degrees of collusion and outright management.

I can't speak to the degree of collusion in the production of RT's content, but the degree of collusion in corporate managed Western media is massive and quite well documented. As this thread demonstrates, that documentation does not prevent the propaganda's effectiveness. On the contrary, the lack of the appearance of direct draconian censorship lends itself to a mindset in the populace that believes its own bullshit.

Degree of collusion in the production of RT's content with its government or prb? It is not a secret, it's a fact that its a 100%. I mean they aren't even hiding the fact it is state owned, stated runned. This isn't a conspiracy, but more of a mystery why people consider it a truly independent or alternative news source. And is anyone not saying that there isn't collusion on the US side? Of course not, but it is not the same, no way. I don't know why people have to keep out trotting out the biggo surprise that the US has corporate, military and state propaganda masquerading as news, entertainment and advertising. For fuck sake, again, no kidding. Even if Trump's battle with the press and hostility is mostly theatre, that he even has to go to such lengths, and they have to go to such lengths (in pretending to be hostile to the Trumpheur) shows how completely different RT is with Putin picking up the phone and nodding or shaking their head whether things get run or not.

People, especially Americans, tend to think that propaganda is a government run enterprise for the purpose of presenting the government view. This may be the ultimate purpose of, say, RT, I dunno, but this model for analysing Western media content is flawed. It ignores the fact that in the corporate states of America and elsewhere it is big business which manages state propaganda, even if publicly funded entities like the CIA influence much of the product. And given the presence of the same individuals in positions of appointed public influence and the boards of the wealthiest private institutions in constant revolving door access pedalling, any distinction in the Western world between propaganda pedalling and the work of entertainment & advertising industries is foolhardy -- likely representing the mind of someone under the greatest influence of the most sophisticated propaganda yet developed.

Yes any distinction between propaganda pedalling and the work of entertainment and advertising industries means you are one of the sheeple pod people. Because to discriminate, make distinctions, look at exceptions, degrees and differences, is the mark of the unthinking. Much better to stagger around shouting "CNN-CIA-DISNEY-FOX NEWS-COCA-COLA!"

So PBS is propaganda (or will be until the next budget privatizes it or puts it out of business), but NYT and FOXNEWS are not. German ARD is a propaganda channel, but RTL is just a commercial venture and therefore more trustworthy. Etc.
At least I've reduced your non-responses to a shorter form.
Present definitions of your terms or rant, but keep it short if the latter.

I'm a fan, but PBS is already propaganda, their agenda and battles over content are more transparent in their production and after broadcasting, and of course NYT and FOXNEWS obviously are, but their agenda and battles are much more secretive and veiled. The same to differing degrees probably with ARD and RTL based on their funding and laws. But none of those are the same type and degree of propaganda as RT, because they aren't a PBS, funded and completely controlled by a despotic ruler, targeting a foreign nation in their language, censoring news critical of its own institutions, hiring and inviting speakers of that native language, with a particular radical viewpoint, with the purpose of undermining the targeted countries leaders and institutions.

I am in a truly foul mood now and will not be coming out of the romper room for a really long time!

[Morty]

This fits here (as well as all the Trump threads, but I'll just leave it here):

January 13, 2017
Why Ridiculous Official Propaganda Still Works

by CJ Hopkins

For students of official propaganda, manipulation of public opinion, psychological conditioning, and emotional coercion, it doesn’t get much better than this. As Trump and his army of Goldman Sachs guys, corporate CEOs, and Christian zealots slouch toward inauguration day, we are being treated to a master class in coordinated media manipulation that is making Goebbels look like an amateur. This may not be immediately apparent, given the seemingly risible nature of most of the garbage we are being barraged with, but once one understands the actual purpose of such official propaganda, everything starts to make more sense.

Chief among the common misconceptions about the way official propaganda works is the notion that its goal is to deceive the public into believing things that are not “the truth” (that Trump is a Russian agent, for example, or that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, or that the terrorists hate us for our freedom, et cetera). However, while official propagandists are definitely pleased if anyone actually believes whatever lies they are selling, deception is not their primary aim.

The primary aim of official propaganda is to generate an “official narrative” that can be mindlessly repeated by the ruling classes and those who support and identify with them. This official narrative does not have to make sense, or to stand up to any sort of serious scrutiny. Its factualness is not the point. The point is to draw a Maginot line, a defensive ideological boundary, between “the truth” as defined by the ruling classes and any other “truth” that contradicts their narrative.

Imagine this Maginot line as a circular wall surrounded by inhospitable territory. Inside the wall is “normal” society, gainful employment, career advancement, and all the other considerable benefits of cooperating with the ruling classes. Outside the wall is poverty, anxiety, social and professional stigmatization, and various other forms of suffering. Which side of the wall do you want to be on? Every day, in countless ways, each of us are asked and have to answer this question. Conform, and there’s a place for you inside. Refuse, and … well, good luck out there.

In openly despotic societies, the stakes involved in making this choice (to conform or dissent) are often life and death. In our relatively liberal Western societies (for those of us who are not militant guerillas), the consequences of not conforming to the official narrative are usually subtler. Despite that, the pressure is still intense. Conforming to the consensus “reality” generated by these official narratives is price of admission to the inner sanctum, where the jobs, money, professional prestige, and the other rewards of Capitalism are. Conforming does not require belief. It requires allegiance and rote obedience. What one actually believes is completely irrelevant, as long as one parrots the official narrative.

In short, official propaganda is not designed to deceive the public (no more than the speeches in an actor’s script are intended to deceive the actor who speaks them). It is designed to be absorbed and repeated, no matter how implausible or preposterous it might be. Actually, it is often most effective when those who are forced to robotically repeat it know that it is utter nonsense, as the humiliation of having to do so cements their allegiance to the ruling classes (this phenomenon being a standard feature of the classic Stockholm Syndrome model, and authoritarian conditioning generally).

The current “Russian hacking” hysteria is a perfect example of how this works. No one aside from total morons actually believes this official narrative (the substance of which is beyond ridiculous), not even the stooges selling it to us. This, however, is not a problem, because it isn’t intended to be believed … it is intended to be accepted and repeated, more or less like religious dogma. (It doesn’t matter what actually happened, i.e., whether the “hack” was a hack or a leak, or who the hackers or leakers were, or who they may have been working for, or what whoever’s motives may have been. What matters is that the ruling classes have issued a new official narrative and are demanding that every “normal” American stand up and swear allegiance to it.)

The ruling classes are not exactly making it easy for their followers this time. Their new official narrative (let’s go ahead and call it “The Putinist Putsch to Destroy Democracy”) is so completely fatuous that it’s beyond embarrassing. The plot is more or less what you’d expect from a mediocre young adult novel or a Game of Thrones-type fantasy series. And if that wasn’t already humiliating enough for the liberals being asked to pretend to believe it, the PR folks in charge couldn’t even be bothered to assemble a new collection of liars to market their childish fairy tale for them. Not only are they insisting that liberals take the word of the “Intelligence Community” and the mainstream media that sold the world the “Saddam Has Secret WMDs” hoax, they actually dispatched James R. Clapper to sit there, in more or less the same spot he sat in the last time he lied to Congress, and do his dog and pony show again.

Meanwhile, the ruling classes’ papers of record, which cosmopolitan liberals rely on to provide a simulation of “serious journalism,” highbrow “arts and culture,” and so on, have descended to the level of the National Enquirer. Among the recent highlights was The Washington Post‘s “Russians Hacked the Vermont Power Grid” story, which it turned out involved neither Russians nor hackers, nor the Vermont power grid’s actual computers, and was basically just another made-up story, like the one about Putin’s Fake News Army. The New York Times, which has also been dutifully rolling out the new official narrative, has taken the leash off Charles M. Blow (aka “The Withering Gaze”), who is accusing Trump of being Russia’s appointment” and proclaiming his election “an act of war.” And now, as I was writing this piece, they hit us with the “Golden Showers” story, in which Trump paid a bunch of Russian hookers to pee on the bed where Obama slept. Any day now we are going to be told that Elvis is secretly working with Putin to deploy a Zhirinovskian gravitational weapon in a UFO disguised as Jesus that Assange and Snowden will personally pilot across the Atlantic to sink America. It’s like some kind of loyalty test in which the ruling classes are trying to determine just how far they can go with this crap before liberals refuse to salute any more of it.

The point of all this propaganda is to delegitimize Donald Trump, and to prophylactically reassert the neoliberal ruling classes’ monopoly on power, “reality,” and “truth.” In case this wasn’t already abundantly clear, the neoliberal ruling classes have no intention of giving up control of the global capitalist pseudo-empire they’ve been working to establish these last sixty years. They’re going to delegitimize and stigmatize Trump (and any other symbol of nationalist backlash or resistance to transnational Capitalism), bide their time for the next four years, and then install another of their loyal servants … after which life will go back to “normal,” and liberals will do their best to forget this unfortunate period where they pretended to believe this insipid neo-McCarthyite nonsense.

If I wasn’t worried that Trump is going to launch an all-out War on Islam, or that one of “our boys” in the tanks Obama has theatrically ordered to the Russian border was going to go bonkers and try to “git some” for Clinton, I’d be looking forward to seeing just how batshit crazy it’s going to get.


C. J. Hopkins is an award-winning American playwright and satirist based in Berlin. His plays are published by Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) and Broadway Play Publishing (US). He can reached at his website, cjhopkins.com, or at consentfactory.org.

[divideandconquer]

^^^^ Great article!

The point of all this propaganda is to delegitimize Donald Trump, and to prophylactically reassert the neoliberal ruling classes’ monopoly on power, “reality,” and “truth.” In case this wasn’t already abundantly clear, the neoliberal ruling classes have no intention of giving up control of the global capitalist pseudo-empire they’ve been working to establish these last sixty years. They’re going to delegitimize and stigmatize Trump (and any other symbol of nationalist backlash or resistance to transnational Capitalism), bide their time for the next four years, and then install another of their loyal servants … after which life will go back to “normal,” and liberals will do their best to forget this unfortunate period where they pretended to believe this insipid neo-McCarthyite nonsense.

As Willow said:

He [Trump] is functioning as their anointed scapegoat. He has become the great beast onto whom all fear and blame, conscious and unconscious, can be safely projected. He is the great mouthpiece out of which any criticism of the US empire and its corrupt institutions is immediately rendered dubious, while the Deep State marches in as savior, maneuvering itself into trusted ally status. Brilliant, actually.

[Elvis]

Excellent article, Morty, thanks. One thing that irks me about all this is this bit:

It doesn’t matter what actually happened

Are real events, truths, misdeeds etc. being covered up by the crafters of the threadbare Official Narrative? Or is it just to fuel war fever?

Elvis is secretly working with Putin to deploy a Zhirinovskian gravitational weapon in a UFO disguised as Jesus that Assange and Snowden will personally pilot across the Atlantic to sink America.

I can explain that!

[SonicG]

Putting aside the Russian stuff,

They’re going to delegitimize and stigmatize Trump (and any other symbol of nationalist backlash or resistance to transnational Capitalism), bide their time for the next four years, and then install another of their loyal servants

Can I steadfastly refuse to believe that Trump will put up even an ounce of resistance to transnational Capitalism? TPP aside, which Clinton also ended up being against, I don't think there will be an ounce of resistance against t-n cap., especially since so much Trump junk is made abroad, including Ivanka's crap now being peddled on the WH site...Not that I give a shit about the sanctity of the office or whatever, but let's not fool ourselves that Trump will really make any great inroads in disassembling the global economic system. Massive sanctions on Chinese products will do nothing to benefit the US economy or blue-collar US workers...

[Spiro C. Thiery]

Putting aside the Russian stuff,

They’re going to delegitimize and stigmatize Trump (and any other symbol of nationalist backlash or resistance to transnational Capitalism), bide their time for the next four years, and then install another of their loyal servants

Can I steadfastly refuse to believe that Trump will put up even an ounce of resistance to transnational Capitalism? TPP aside, which Clinton also ended up being against, I don't think there will be an ounce of resistance against t-n cap., especially since so much Trump junk is made abroad, including Ivanka's crap now being peddled on the WH site...Not that I give a shit about the sanctity of the office or whatever, but let's not fool ourselves that Trump will really make any great inroads in disassembling the global economic system. Massive sanctions on Chinese products will do nothing to benefit the US economy or blue-collar US workers...

Of course not. But I think the point is that it is about appearances, not reality. The sentence you quoted comes out of that context.

[divideandconquer]

Putting aside the Russian stuff,

They’re going to delegitimize and stigmatize Trump (and any other symbol of nationalist backlash or resistance to transnational Capitalism), bide their time for the next four years, and then install another of their loyal servants

Can I steadfastly refuse to believe that Trump will put up even an ounce of resistance to transnational Capitalism? TPP aside, which Clinton also ended up being against, I don't think there will be an ounce of resistance against t-n cap., especially since so much Trump junk is made abroad, including Ivanka's crap now being peddled on the WH site...Not that I give a shit about the sanctity of the office or whatever, but let's not fool ourselves that Trump will really make any great inroads in disassembling the global economic system. Massive sanctions on Chinese products will do nothing to benefit the US economy or blue-collar US workers...

Of course not. But I think the point is that it is about appearances, not reality. The sentence you quoted comes out of that context.

People are easily baffled by superficial appearances, but in a society governed by superficiality, appearances, and the most trivial of trivial, not to mention, a world that almost always rewards outward signs of merit than merit itself, rewards vice over virtue, is it any wonder that the masses easily capitulate to what seems to be rather than what is, no matter how preposterous?

The scary thing is it's only the very beginning of the 21st century and reality is buried so deep under layers and layers of created confusion and animosity, narcissism and conceit, deception, affectation, pretense, facades--so deep in bullshit--that it's bound to disappear completely if it hasn't already.

“Things do not pass for what they are, but for what they seem."

I would alter that quote to say that things do not pass for what they are, but for what we are told they are, as things don't even need to seem. Does Donald Trump seem presidential? Seem anything but a foolish idiotic megalomaniac?

[brekin]

Guys, no putting aside the "Russia stuff" in the RT (Russia Today) thread to just opine about Trump. There are only a couple hundred threads for that now. Propaganda yes, propaganda and Trump, yes indeed, propaganda and Trump and RT, delicious.

And I loved the article above (mobile right now or I'd quote) claiming to teach about propaganda, but only does so so by being an example of. "No one seriously believes the Russian hacking.." or some such, really, why doesn't he just say instead "This is what you will believe..."?

[brekin]

Guys, no putting aside the "Russia stuff" in the RT (Russia Today) thread to just opine about Trump. There are only a couple hundred threads for that now. Propaganda yes, propaganda and Trump, yes indeed, propaganda and Trump and RT, delicious.

And I loved the article above (mobile right now or I'd quote) claiming to teach about propaganda, but only does so by being an example of. "No one seriously believes the Russian hacking.." or some such, really, why doesn't he just say instead "This is what you will believe..."?

[brekin]

Posting issues