Is Dick Cheney high on drugs???

[alexamenos]

Originally Posted by Usually Lurkin

What I find unreasonable are your leaps of logic: If it can be polled, it must be successful propaganda. If it is propaganda, it must be feared. Dick Cheney (Bush-Military Complex) use propaganda any differently (or more evilly) than anyone else. People don't think the government uses propaganda (that one's hard to fathom even as a leap. What did you leap off of to get that?)

I think you make alot of leaps of logic regarding my ostensible leaps of logic. In reverse order...

People don't think the government uses propaganda....

Yes, lot's of people don't think the government uses propaganda, but more importantly even more people underappreciate the scope and ....ummm.... hegemony of government propaganda.

So let's go back a few years, to the time when Saddam Hussein's statue was toppled. I'm not bragging on myself when I say that it literally took me one viewing of the event to become quite suspicious, two viewings and a quick click on the 'net to be certain. It was as obviously propaganda as when american flag waving Kuwaitis lined the streets in '91 to greet US soldiers. To be blunt, the event was comical in its transparency.

Straight up, how long did it take you to recognize that this was a government staged event? 10 minutes? A day? Five or six years? Never?
How many folks recognized it as propaganda at the time? I'd venture to say a very small minority....point being, people may 'know' that governments engage in propaganda, but if they don't know it well enough to recognize it when they're being slapped in the face with it they may as well not know it at all.

Dick Cheney (Bush-Military Complex) use propaganda any differently (or more evilly) than anyone else.

I don't think I've said anything to this effect other than they're quite good at it...and that's a tactical assessment not a value judgement. I will gladly concede the point that Darth Cheney and Bush don't use propaganda more evilly than Goebbels.

If it is propaganda, it must be feared.

I don't think I've said anything to this effect at all. I'd sooner say that a used car salesman's pitch is something to be feared--I'd say instead that it's something to be recognized. If a used car salesman tells you that a little old lady owned the car and she only drove it to church on Sundays, you might bear in mind that the dude has a vested interest in selling you a car.

What I find unreasonable are your leaps of logic: If it can be polled, it must be successful propaganda.

and this would be your most unreasonable leap of logic in that you wrongly jump to the notion that i've made such a leap of logic.

I base this opinion on months and months of very careful observation, not on some ad hoc leap of faith.

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fwiw....one of my favorite tactics by Darth Cheney et al was this thing where they'd "anonymously" leak a story to a reporter and then go on TV to "admit" that the leak was "true" (in Karl Rove's faith-based world, that is).

You could damn near set your calendar by it -- the senior official would leak the story to NY Times on Wednesday, it'd get a couple of days of play before it was 'verified' on Sunday politico shows, then the story would get shot down quietly on Monday and Tuesday of the following week...damage done.

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...another interesting propaganda tidbit / trivia on Operation Iraqi Liberation....when did the war begin?

If you said February something in 2003 when Comical Ari Fleischer announced that we were ridding the world of the evil yrant Saddam, then I think you're off by a few months. For months before that, including when those twits in congress were pretending to debate the matter, we were flying all sorts of missions into Iraq...knocking shit out, killing people, fighting with Iraq's military...you know, war kind of stuff. The overt kind of thing may have started in Feb 2003, but for all intents and purposes we were waging war on Iraq by October of 2002.

I actually think the full scale attack was delayed for a couple of months for logistical reasons more than haggling at the UN or in Congress....the saud's had to make a show of not letting US attach from Mecca and then the freaking turks did their thing...but that's a whole 'nother story.

sorry for the ramble...just kind of interesting stuff imo.

[Usually Lurkin]

Originally Posted by alexamenos

So let's go back a few years, to the time when Saddam Hussein's statue was toppled. ... american flag waving Kuwaitis lined the streets in '91 to greet US soldiers. To be blunt, the event was comical in its transparency.

that comedy would mean they are bad at it, not good at it. Just because something is staged does not mean it doesn't capture or generate something real. You know the flag raising at Iwojima was staged, right? I think pretty much all flag raising and flag razing is propaganda.

I don't think I've said anything to this effect at all. I'd sooner say that a used car salesman's pitch is something to be feared--

well, you're tales are full of Darth Cheneys and Goebelses and baboon hearts, so I'd say your propaganda is saying exactly what you here are saying you don't say.

For months before that, including when those twits in congress were pretending to debate the matter, we were flying all sorts of missions into Iraq...knocking shit out, ....

I thought we'd been flying missions in Iraq and occasionally bombing stuff since the whole Kuwait thing.

[alexamenos]

Originally Posted by Usually Lurkin

that comedy would mean they are bad at it, not good at it.

It would mean this one instance was transparent. My question was 'when did you recognize that the event was propaganda?' My point is that if a person doesn't immediately recognize their very bad propaganda as such, odds are that person isn't going to recognize their better shots either.

So...ummm....when did you realize the staged event was just some good ole propaganda? This is a rhetorical question, but if the answer is something like 'I've only recently learned that this was a staged army psy-op event?', then you're probably not paying close enough attention to some things.

I thought we'd been flying missions in Iraq and occasionally bombing stuff since the whole Kuwait thing.

yes we had -- in fact I think it's fair to say that Gulf War I never really ended, it just stopped getting much press.

but if we want to break the gulf war into two parts, I'd say that part 2 began in earnest in the spring of '02 -- by this time the decision to go to war had definitely been made and mobilizaiton efforts were in full effect. Like I said, I suspect the initial plan was to really roll things out in a big way by the early fall, but they hit some logistical snags and started with a slower, more covert type of rolling start instead.

lessee if I can find something.....it's been a while, and I'm working from memory.....ok, from our friends in great brit....

THE RAF and US aircraft doubled the rate at which they were dropping bombs on Iraq in 2002 in an attempt to provoke Saddam Hussein into giving the allies an excuse for war, new evidence has shown.

The attacks were intensified from May, six months before the United Nations resolution that Tony Blair and Lord Goldsmith, the attorney-general, argued gave the coalition the legal basis for war....

The Ministry of Defence figures, provided in response to a question from Sir Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman, show that despite the lack of an Iraqi reaction, the air war began anyway in September [2002] with a 100-plane raid.

...Tommy Franks, the allied commander, has since admitted this operation was designed to “degrade” Iraqi air defences in the same way as the air attacks that began the 1991 Gulf war.

I think most people can agree, whether they supported the war or not, that 100 plane raids aimed at knocking out military installations are acts of war. (this was 100 planes on one day, and this sort of thing happened most days between September '02 and March of '03).

Bear in mind that this was happening before congress voted on their 'authorization of force' or whatever that nonsense was about and before Token Powell told his mountain of lies to the UN. We literally started the war before we started the debate about whether to go to war.

My point, bearing in mind that it's tough for me to prove a negative, is that you can scour the mainstream media, or any middle-of-the-road second tier kind of thing, and you'll never, ever, ever find one single contemporaneous statement that the US was at war with Iraq prior March of '03. You will find plenty of statements that read something like:

"Today US government officials worked diligently to convince Saddam not to cause a war...meanwhile US armed forces blasted the crap out of a bunch iraqis."

But these statements are absurd on their face, which is kind of the essence of propaganda -- to make the absurd reality. And I guess I should say that my larger point is that during the early stages of the Iraq war, we were like fish swimming in a sea of absurdities such as these. We were like fish who no longer noticed the water.

[Usually Lurkin]

Originally Posted by alexamenos

So...ummm....when did you realize the staged event was just some good ole propaganda?

I assume that all such things have some element of stagecraft. The statue toppling looked like something supervised by the military. I kinda assumed that was the case because they were standing around, and it was a war zone, and militaries generally are in charge of anything they are standing around, especially in a war zone. The particular extent of staginess for the statue toppling was never too important to me because the only thing I ever got out of it was that Saddam had lost so much power that he couldn't stop it. That the toppling was psy-ops does not mean that Iraqis weren't happy to see it happen. If your stories are saying that there were no Iraqis that wanted the statue down, then that's another level of propaganda (and conspiracy theory).

You're description below was as an either-or sort of thing: either its a symbol of freedom (as was reported by breathless dolts) or it was staged by some mastermind with a baboon heart. I don't see it as an either or.

yes we had -- in fact I think it's fair to say that Gulf War I never really ended, it just stopped getting much press.

I know this because it was publicly reported. By the government. When they applied the word "war" is when they wanted us to start thinking of it as "our war," (ie, when they new we'd as individuals have to start making some sort of commitment to the endeavor). I don't see any problem with them starting to apply the word "war." If they didn't ever apply the word "war" (ie, if they didn't want us to start thinking of it as a war), then I'd have a big problem with them. If you want to think of the decision to start using the word "war" as nefarious propaganda, and belittle everyone and anyone who isn't initiated in the art of conspiracy theory, then so be it. It may be propaganda, it's necessary, and most people think of it as "spin" on one end and "lies" on the other. Id bet that most people would say that the government does indeed spin and lie when they present a case to the public.

[alexamenos]

Originally Posted by Usually Lurkin

IYou're description below was as an either-or sort of thing: either its a symbol of freedom (as was reported by breathless dolts) or it was staged by some mastermind with a baboon heart. I don't see it as an either or.

I know you don't see it as either, but the funny thing is that it was both. It was, in fact:

a) a transparent staged event masterminded by a guy with a baboon heart (ok, maybe the army colonel that masterminded the event didn't have a baboon heart, but the point is the same); and

b) reported ad nauseum by breathless dolts as a monumental event in human history.

It's not either-or, it's both...this is the objective reality....that's what makes it interesting and illustative! Were it not so transparent, it would be understandable that more than a few talking heads in the US news played it up as monumentus. Had the news media presented it is an army psy-ops stage managed event, I could more easily dismiss it as trivia.

But it was both transparent and treated as an awe-inspiring event -- it was very Pravda-esque, in other words, and all that this implies.

(and most certainly, there isn't a middle ground between either-or...it wasn't sort of an army psy-op and it wasn't kind of reported faithfully by some of the media in the US and sceptically by others)

If they didn't ever apply the word "war" (ie, if they didn't want us to start thinking of it as a war), then I'd have a big problem with them.

Which is exactly what happened....

--the war started--then....
--the debate started--then and only then...
--we started calling the war a war because it's inappropriate to say that the US is at war before congress has discussed the matter.

Calling the war a war before we had any sort of a national debate (or the pretense thereof) would lead to all sorts of wrong thoughts about the lawless way our government really behaves (and the chief of the aim of propaganda is to prevent people from thinking the wrong thoughts).

^^^this is what happened. You can call it a crackpot conspiracy theory, but it's nonetheless what really happened.

This is a tough subject to cover...it's kind of like me dropping in from nowwhere and saying that the CPS used false pretenses, routinely acted in bad faith, violated the law and just generally behaved like asses when they grabbed children from monagamous parents, children which they knew to be healthy, well cared for and thoroughly unabused.

Of course that's ^^^ a crazy thing to say because we all know that the CPS protects kids and that fundy mormons diddle lot's of young girl. The problem I have is my lying eyes tell me it's true.

[Usually Lurkin]

Originally Posted by alexamenos

I know you don't see it as either, but the funny thing is that it was both. It was, in fact:

a) a transparent staged event masterminded by a guy with a baboon heart (ok, maybe the army colonel that masterminded the event didn't have a baboon heart, but the point is the same); and

b) reported ad nauseum by breathless dolts as a monumental event in human history.

and c) was an important event.
That you keep avoiding that, and that you misinterpreted my "either or" as an "either" really annoys me. You do a lot of propaganda to get your points across, and it's not needed here.

Which is exactly what happened....

--the war started--then....
--the debate started--then and only then...
--we started calling the war a war because it's inappropriate to say that the US is at war before congress has discussed the matter.

Military action was ongoing. They picked it up in preparation for war. Congress gave up their voice in declaring war decades ago.

Calling the war a war before we had any sort of a national debate (or the pretense thereof) would lead to all sorts of wrong thoughts about the lawless way our government really behaves (and the chief of the aim of propaganda is to prevent people from thinking the wrong thoughts).

blah, blah, black helicopters and mind control. It's easier, simpler, and more accurate to say that it would have confused the debate.

When Cuban and Co. say, "we love our team," do you get all bent out of shape because they love the team, or do you get all rant-filled 'cause they are lying to you, or are you happy they said it because it's better than publicly declaring, "we hate Dampier and are trying real hard to replace him" ?

[alexamenos]

Originally Posted by Usually Lurkin

and c) was an important event. That you keep avoiding that...

sorry...I didn't realize you were saying the toppling of Saddam's Statue was an important event.

It wasn't an important event, it was a simple army psy-ops mission. I'm not avoiding the point, it's just that the event in and of itself wasn't of any significance other than as a piece of propaganda.

Military action was ongoing. They picked it up in preparation for war.

So....military actions which include dropping bombs on another country is not 'war', but preparation for war in your view? In my view dropping bombs on another country is war, but clearly that's a crazy way of looking at things.

It's easier, simpler, and more accurate to say that it would have confused the debate.

Yes, certainly the fact that we were already at war with iraq would have added an element of confusion to the debate of whether we should go to war. I can't argue with you there.

blah, blah, black helicopters and mind control.

I don't think black helicopters are relevant (or any other colored helicopters for that matter), but as for mind control....

Psychological Operations (PSYOP, PSYOPS) are techniques used by any set of groups to influence a target audience's value systems, belief systems, emotions, motives, reasoning, and behavior. ...The use of such euphemisms for what is in effect "mind control" is itself an example of psychological operations, i.e. using psychological techniques to persuade a large number of people to support something that they wouldn't normally support.

Yeah, mind control, call it whatever euphemism you might prefer. As Bernays said (approvingly)...

The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organised opinions and habits of the masses is an important element in democratic society.

It's an interesting thing to study and there's a bit more to it than a maverick owner telling white lies about his ham-fisted center.