Ah, Propaganda

Byoliveridley

Hidden behind that appearance of objectivity, though, is a Pentagon information apparatus that has used those analysts in a campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the administration’s wartime performance, an examination by The New York Times has found.The effort, which began with the buildup to the Iraq war and continues to this day, has sought to exploit ideological and military allegiances, and also a powerful financial dynamic: Most of the analysts have ties to military contractors vested in the very war policies they are asked to assess on air.

Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand – New York Times

Of course, the word “propaganda” is first used on page 4 of the article, long after most people stopped reading. Not that I am surprised or shocked or anything, it was clear that all those military suits on the screen were spouting propaganda from the very beginning. They said the same things, used the same words, it was always well timed and planned, but apparently, no one in the media bothered to ask them about it. The media must have thought “very patriotic folks them, they wear a lot of lapel pins!”

I fail to see how this meticulously detailed story will have any impact on anything that happens in the States. What would John McCain’s reaction be to this news? Will anyone actually ask him if he would have done the same thing? Will there be any protests, calls for resignations, impeachments, court martials, media boycotts? Maybe a shocked letter to the editor or two, maybe a million blog posts like this one, nothing more.

God Bless America, it has lived up to all my expectations finally!! Pravda, Xinhua and Goebbels have nothing on these guys. It looks like all the president’s people and all the mass media colluded to sell this war to the American people and make each other very rich. Wonderful! Note that a small part of every dollar spent on cable and newspapers goes to support this war effort. Note that a small part of everyone’s taxes go to support this war effort.

Tags:

Similar Posts

  • |

    Obama interview in Indian magazine

    Byoliveridley

    In an exclusive interview, the US presidential hopeful speaks on a range of subjects: the nuclear deal, Mahatma Gandhi, his ability to reconcile Islam with modernity, and how he wouldn’t have put all eggs in the Musharraf basket

    ‘I Am Reluctant To Seek Changes In The N-Deal’ : outlookindia.com

    Interesting interview. Obama says the right things most of the time, so no surprises here. The interviewer also helpfully provides a summary at the top of the interview where he tells us what Obama said and what it means, a little bit of contextualization that goes a long way in helping the reader get perspective on the issues. Western journalists should try this sometime…

    On the nuclear deal

    “I continue to hope this process can be concluded before the end of the year…. I am reluctant to seek changes.”

    His remarks suggest he is opposed to renegotiating the deal, as the BJP has demanded. Should the deal not be sealed this year, Obama as president isn’t likely to impose new conditions, a fear the UPA has constantly stoked to compel its critics to fall in line.

    Now that’s an interesting observation because the proposed India-US nuclear deal will formalize India’s standing as a nuclear weapons power while providing the country with access to reactor fuel and technology. The deal will also mean that India will have to come under the purview of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to ensure that certain nuclear safeguards can be agreed upon and met. The so called communist parties of India are protesting this as an affront to the sovreignity of the Indian State and have withdrawn support to the Indian government, who faces a very delicately balanced vote of confidence next week.

    Both the US and Indian governments are currently in agreement that the deal needs to be done before Bush leaves or else… Obama’s thrown a little bit of cold water over this idea, which will weaken the ruling party’s hand a little. The deal has been ratified by the US, so the only thing standing in the way is the continued stability of the current Indian government.

    What do I think? Nothing much other than it appears that India is getting most of what it wants from this deal, a formalization of its nuclear weapons status, access to more civilian technology and legitimization of its nuclear programme in return for some safeguards (which are good for safety and non-proliferation anyway). It’s just that the opposition BJP cannot possibly support the deal because they are the opposition and recent election results in various states have them reasonably confident of getting back in power in New Delhi if the government were to fall and elections were to be called. The left is trying to remain relevant and is usually reflexively anti-US. So dealing with the US government is like dealing with Satan for the “communist” parties (right, call yourselves communists, insult to the word).

    In other, more personal parts, we find out that Obama was in Pakistan for a few weeks when he was 19, which I did not know, but is apparently common news knowledge.

    Interesting times, he’s not even president yet and still has great influence on happenings far away.

  • | |

    Murray Langdon and the Role of Government

    Byoliveridley

    Murray Langdon of Victoria area radio and news outfit CFAX talks about municipal golf courses and tries to connect the Municipality of Saanich’s role in running a golf course with a much larger question around government, and “money”.

    I’ve already been inundated with a ream of people who have stated that rec centres, garbage pick-up, landscaping, etc, has always been done by the municipality. That may be true. What I’m asking is should cities and towns be doing that. For example, we know that rec centres lose money each and every year…

    via Murray Langdons Comment

    The role of government, whatever level it might be, is to maximise the welfare of the people it serves, not some of its people, but most of them. So, looking at government “costs” alone in deciding the role of government is dangerously incomplete. What you actually have to do is to total up the costs for government and the people being served by the government, and judge whether there is an overall benefit to a municipality providing a service. Trying to be pragmatic about it, here are some of the things I look at:

    1. Is the good/service provided discretionary? Meaning, would I be able to live a reasonably satisfactory life without the service?
    2. If the good/service is non-discretionary ( I need it for a satisfactory life), then does it show characteristics of moral hazard (if some people don’t participate, it affects everyone), and would the provision of the service benefit from risk pooling (it works better if we’re all in it together) and mitigate issues of adverse selection (people who need services most are least able to afford them)?
    3. Is the good/service market amenable? (despite what free market fundamentalists may have you believe, Adam Smith did not think that every good/service could fit into a free market paradigm). If market worthy, is there any additional benefit to having a “public option”?
    4. What parts of a good/service are a natural monopoly, and what parts are amenable to market based competition (highways vs. cars)?
    5. When looking at costs and benefits, it’s not enough just look at direct costs like construction, salaries, etc, but also at more intangible measures like decision fatigue,(after a certain threshold, every decision you take degrades the next one) social capital (community relations, cooperation and confidence), creative capital (the ability to attract people to your community), environmental capital and so much more.

    Immediately, dumping golf, recreation, and water and sewage services into the same pot makes no sense.

    Let’s look at golf, it’s discretionary, and given the proliferation of golf courses in the area, a reasonably competitive good/service (disclaimer: I don’t golf). If Saanich stopped providing golf services, some people would end up paying more, but this would not affect a vast majority of people in the area. So, I wouldn’t shed a tear if Saanich’s golf course was privatised (I would be happier if it became a park, but that’s a different argument!).

    Let’s look at recreation centres – Murray Langdon says this:

    For example, we know that rec centres lose money each and every year. But we have examples of private recreation facilities, (in Langford for example) that are not only affordable but actually make money. For some reason, people assume that if it’s not run by a municipality, it will be expensive. Well, I have news for you. It is expensive and it may be because it’s run by a municipality.

    I am confused, what Langford recreation centre is he talking about? (I don’t live in Langford, or hardly ever visit) The Westshore Parks and Rec Society runs the recreation centres, and it appears to be a joint effort by Westshore communities.

    West Shore Park & Recreation is governed by the West Shore Parks & Recreation Society’s Board of Directors  Each municipalities contribution, through tax requisition, assists in the operation of the parks and recreation facilities.

    Putting Langford aside, clearly, the public health benefits of increased physical activity make exercise a non-discretionary item (some may disagree!) Community based (whether run by the municipality or not) recreation centres have many benefits that are not measured just by their profit-loss statements. They are often the only option for family-centric, community centric (as opposed to individual centric) recreation. I can’t go to a private gym with my partner (real) and kids (hypothetical), and have all of us participate in  activities at the same time. My partner and I would have to schedule different workouts, then enrol the progeny in a separate swimming or soccer class, find/take turns in baby sitting, etc. So, not having community based recreation increases costs to society + government, while possibly (and not always) reducing government “costs”. The social capital of having community recreation centres, the public health benefits of encouraging exercise, I could go on, the intangible benefits are high. The YMCA, which I am a member of, is a non-profit community run recreation centre, and this model works as well.

    Water and Sewer – These are non-discretionary, monopoly driven services not really market based. Construction, some maintenance, value added services, may be amenable to competition, but not the management, oversight and long-term stewardship. While the BC provincial government and various Federal governments have been trying to privatise various commons resources, third-party evidence points to no cost savings.

    Here’s a test: Talk about BC Liquor!

    The job of a public policy analyst is to consider the costs/benefits of the society as a whole. One does not read government balance sheets the same way one would read a corporation’s balance sheet.

    Photo from GibsonGolfer Flickr photostream used under a Creative Commons License.

  • | | |

    White House edits CDC climate testimony – Yeah, again!

    Byoliveridley

    05CEBA38-309B-4086-9DEA-58D522C052BE.jpg

    Turns out that the Emperor did not want anyone to know what the possible health effects of climate change were going to be.

    White House edits CDC climate testimony – Yahoo! News:

    It was eviscerated,’ said a CDC official, familiar with both versions, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the review process.

    The official said that while it is customary for testimony to be changed in a White House review, these changes were particularly ‘heavy-handed,’ with the document cut from its original 14 pages to four. It was six pages as presented to the Senate committee.

    So, is there any point in blogging about this story about the Emperor and his politburo wielding the censor pen on yet another government report? No, because like million other stories like the one above, nothing comes of it. Nobody loses anything, the press does not understand that this behavior is unprecedented and more representative of 1960s USSR than the so called leader of the free world. The people who read about it could not care less. This is small fry compared to the “enhanced interrogation techniques” (call it torture), “private military contractors” (call them mercenaries), “extraordinary rendition” (state sanctioned kidnapping, disappearing, whatever you call it), etc. This country has apparently been outraged to boredom. Where does the “editing” (censoring) of a government report even register on this list of outrages?

    Seriously, the Democratic party has been the most undistinguished of opposition parties. Yes, they supposedly control the Senate and Congress, but they don’t. In this weird undemocratic and archaic presidential system, you can only succeed if you have 60% of the Senate, 67% of the Congress or the president on your side. So, functionally, the Democrats are still the opposition party and do not seem to understand that as the opposition party, they need to oppose, manufacture outrage (in this case, no manufacturing necessary), and keep yelling continuously. Some shrillness is indicated here. Yes, they have some power that comes from the majorities, but the power needs to be used. They have to keep sending bills that the president will veto, they have to keep subpoenaing the politburo members so they can refuse to testify, and they have to keep repeating that they’re outraged, I tell you, outraged!!

    Oh well, I come from the famously fractious politics of India, so none of my rants are going to make sense. If you want outrage, here you go… Mind you, this is the member of the coalition that rules India exerting pressure on it’s ally, not even the real opposition who only yesterday called for the PM to resign because “a resurgent nation like India should not be led by a helpless and sad leader” – Ouch, take that!! All this over a nuclear deal with the US where India gained all kinds of concessions for essentially building a nuclear arsenal on the sly and against the wishes of the international community.

    The democrats needs a master class on opposition politics from the BJP.

    Picture Courtesy Ristocrats

  • |

    Pakistan's Self Interest

    Byoliveridley

    Excellent article on the dynamics of Pakistan and the Taliban (H/T to 3QD)

    Scapegoating Pakistan (Harpers.org)

    Other countries, as former senior CIA official Michael Scheuer reminded me, do not look at the world from the same point of view as the United States. “The first duty of any intelligence agency,” he said, “is to protect the national interest. Pakistan is not going to destroy the Taliban because at some point they would like to see the Taliban back in power. They cannot tolerate a pro-Indian, pro-American, pro-Russian, pro-Iranian government in Afghanistan. They already have an unstable Western border and have to worry about a country of one million Hindus that has nuclear bombs.”

    That’s 1 billion Hindus, kind sir, not 1 million, there are one million Hindus in South Chennai alone, I would guess, your point is well taken, though. Self-interest ought to be the driving force of any country’s foreign policy. But this article oversimplifies the situation. Not all self-interest needs to be couched in, and carried out in purely adversarial terms. It has been in the self-interest of the military ruling class of Pakistan to carry out this hyper militarized foreign policy. It aids and abets the survival of this ruling class. But is it really in the long term self interest of the rest of Pakistan? Being Indian, I might tend to underestimate and undersell the threat that India is to Pakistan, but I don’t see the threat. Yes, India is a large country with hegemonical ambitions of being the local bully, but its threat to Pakistan is overrated. India has huge problems of its own anyway, and is probably not interested in territorial expansion at this point in time! I am guessing that a Pakistan that is a little more accommodating to its neighbors would find its neighbors a little more cooperative, no?

    How does this play out in the real world? Very simply, Pakistan cooperates with the United States when it serves its interests and doesn’t cooperate when it feels that its interests aren’t served.

    Well, I am completely and utterly on board with that. Pakistan should pay much more attention to its neighbors than to the “leader of the free world” thousands of miles away.

    The Pakistan-Afghan border, aka the Durand line, was drawn by some Brit administrator and in a region with thousands of years of history, artificial borders drawn by foreigners means little to the people who live there. Most identities are tribal, and these stupid colonial lines don’t mean that one person living one mile east of the border will think “Pakistani” and the other, one mile west of the border, “Afghani”.

    We’re unfortunately still suffering the consequences of colonial manipulations and divisions, and will continue to do so until regional borders reflect ethic identity more accurately, and are not a function of some ignorant British moron governor’s cartographic skills.

    Rant over, nothing like an ethnic conflict in my neck of the woods to bring out the stream of consciousness rambling. Back to more science based blogging later!

  • The Big O

    Byoliveridley

    obama
    And so, it goes, the US shows the western world how to elect a minority candidate. Amazing, and truly transformational. There will be plenty of time for politics and what will happen next, but tonight, amazing. The US, after a few years, finally has a better president than Canada!

  • Best way to pick legislators? At random.

    Byoliveridley

    While discussing options for Canada’s broken senate, I advocated for making senate selection random, an idea near and dear to many science fiction acolytes.  I believe this to be a superior alternative to the current lot of retired civil servants, failed politicians, washed up broadcasters, privileged elite, and a few decent people that currently make up the Canadian Senate. Here’s a study (pdf) that says a mix of random legislators makes for good policy.

    The Abstract

    We study a prototypical model of a Parliament with two Parties or two Political Coalitions and we show how the introduction of a variable percentage of randomly selected independent legislators can increase the global efficiency of a Legislature, in terms of both the number of laws passed and the average social welfare obtained. We also analytically find an ”efficiency golden rule” which allows to fix the optimal number of legislators to be selected at random after that regular elections have established the relative proportion of the two Parties or Coalitions. These results are in line with both the ancient Greek democratic system and the recent discovery that the adoption of random strategies can improve the efficiency of hierarchical organizations.

    Need to move those people from the bottom left to the top right

    Good policy is supposed to maximize social gain. It is difficult for legislators to make good policy in the absence of personal gain, so everyone needs to be in the upper-right quadrant of the figure. The simulation works by denying any party a majority unless they can appeal to a number of independent, random actors. Since these legislators can’t be re-elected and have little to gain personally, they will make decisions based more on social gain than personal gain, and move things upward and right. The simulation also found that having no parties and complete independence conferred little advantage. The optimum was a little more than half of the legislature to be “independent” and “random”.

    This is only a simulation. In practice, few people are independent and promises of future positions and future prestige will presumably influence independents to vote to preserve privilege rather than maximize “social good”. But the current system of a very small minority (1-2% of Canadians belong to a party) of people of a very specific kind passing policy based on diktats from the prime minister is not a good system anyway.

    So, a senate that is part “elected” and part random would presumably provide the best outcome. A completely lottery senate would be a great, great improvement to the Canadian senate as it exists today. I am glad there’s some research to back my pet proposal.

    via Washington Post – Study Says Pick some Legislators Randomly

One Comment

  1. Hey! You are so right on. I share the bitter frustration with our current war, and the administration´s transparent lies and greed that caused it. That frustration extends to pretty much the bulk of U.S. foreign policy I´ve learned about. The worst of it is not knowing where to start in protesting or putting up a fight. Like Stephen Colbert said about our generation, ¨You don´t protest about it, you blog about it.¨ Heh…

    If anyone´s got any ideas of what to do, let me know! We´ve got voting! Woo hoo!

    Thanks for keeping in touch! You´re in my thoughts!

Comments are closed.