Propaganda, How Sweet Thy Name

[kentuck]

Everywhere, propaganda. Television, radio, and Internet. Everyone with an agenda. It's a political world. Distortions, deceptions, and outright lies. All is fair and there are no referees. Each tool of propaganda is a target of another propagandist.

Surely there are those propagandists that would like to target DU and other Internet sites. But our propaganda and our opinions will only be targeted when they become a large enough threat to the status quo. It's nowhere near that yet, is it? :shrug:

[burythehatchet]

1. pretty feisty

for early Sat. am

[Q]

2. Speaking of propaganda...

"...The Bush White House, of course, is clever enough to keep its powder relatively dry on the worst of these attacks. It leaves such dirty work to its loudmouths and crackpots on FOX and in The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Times. But this, too, is cynical and cheap. And if conservatives wonder why liberals have such negative feelings about this White House, they might ponder this: A leader who was actually trying to unite the country after it came under attack and who was actually interested in the nation pulling together behind its troops overseas just might say something to the effect of, "Hey, let's cool it here. Tom Daschle is a patriot. John Kerry proved his patriotism in war. Let's disagree, let's argue and let's even sling a little mud, in respectable measure, because that, too, is a part of politics. But let's keep patriotism out of it. We're all Americans here."

That's something a leader worthy of respect would say. Bush would never say it, though, both because Karl Rove would never permit him saying it and because he benefits so grandly from the bloviators and mercenaries who say the opposite on his behalf. He would never have won without them and he can't be re-elected without them. And when Bush has opened his mouth on matters of national or international unity, it has usually been to take undignified swipes at the French or at the Mexicans or at the senators who oppose his tax cuts or who otherwise have the temerity to disagree with him.

And so on it goes. Fleischer's impenetrable whoppers have stymied even those journalists who are really trying to do their jobs and get actual information (there aren't many, but they do exist), and the rest of the propaganda machinery makes enemies of the state out of anyone who disputes the party line.

Nice work if you can get it. The Weekly Standard's Matt Labash has gotten it, and he made some statements to JournalismJobs.com the other day that were a little too revealing. Asked why conservative media have become more popular in recent years, he replied: "Because they feed the rage. We bring the pain to the liberal media. I say that mockingly, but it's true somewhat. We come with a strong point of view, and people like point-of-view journalism. While all these hand-wringing Freedom Forum types talk about objectivity, the conservative media likes to rap the liberal media on the knuckles for not being objective. We've created this cottage industry in which it pays to be un-objective. It pays to be subjective as much as possible. It's a great way to have your cake and eat it, too. Criticize other people for not being objective. Be as subjective as you want. It's a great little racket. I'm glad we found it, actually."

That's tone change, all right.

http://www.prospect.org/webfeatures/2003/05/tomasky-m-05-21.html

[kentuck]

3. Sums it up pretty well...

"We've created this cottage industry in which it pays to be un-objective. It pays to be subjective as much as possible. It's a great way to have your cake and eat it, too. Criticize other people for not being objective. Be as subjective as you want. It's a great little racket..."

[cestmoi]

5. Blame rests with the FCC for abolishing the Fairness Doctrine in '87

I think your comment is right on the mark however my feeling is that this descent into subjectivity is the result of the abolition of the Fairness Doctine which upheld a certain standard.

The Fairness Doctrine at least held up the ideal that objectivity should prevail on the the public airwaves.

[teryang]

4. David Brock discussed this yesterday

...on the radio. Someone posted the link on DU. He has a new book on it.

Basically, the concentrated media echo repuke and neocon bullet points created by corporatist "think tanks" that are nothing more than propaganda mills. The media do not fact check these stories but mindlessly repeat them day in and day out. They are basically campaigning for the far right 24/7/365 rendering the campaign laws meaningless. The part of the population that doesn't read or fact check for itself is brainwashed.