Talk: BIMBO comment

From Disinfopedia, the encyclopedia of propaganda.

"a BIMBO comment is where the speaker repeats and denies a negative, causing the listener to believe the opposite of what the speaker is trying to say." [1]

"a BIMBO comment is a negative phrase that causes the listener to believe exactly the opposite. ... particularly when another party ... has determined the negative words." [2] Example:
"I don't see myself as an ideological zealot." (Senator John Ashcroft)
This does not look like a case where the speaker intends to deceive the listener; rather more like a case where the speaker fails to persuade the listener.
Re G. W. Bush - "No, he's not a moron at all, he's a friend of mine." - Jean Chretien responding to reporters questioning him about the widely-reported comment by his director of communications re Bush: 'what a moron'.
Looking at Chretien's Cabinet and other friends, this was quite damning. But it may be a better example than the Ashcroft comment.

How about ... "I did not have sexual relations with that woman" ...


Create tension between two or more target groups

From Disinfopedia, the encyclopedia of propaganda.
The phrase create tension between two or more target groups comes from a 1993 book by Paul H. Nitze: Tension Between Opposites: Reflections on the Practices and Theory of Politics. Alleged to be connected with the Council on Foreign Relations, the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University is said to be a spy school.[1]
Creating tension between two or more target groups, perhaps originally a technique more commonly employed for political and military purposes, is often employed as a propaganda tactic. Typical forms this tactic takes include:
  • Creating a dummy or shell group that has no purpose except to advocate a view bystanders will see as compatible with that of another target group and which is also opposed to the view of the manipulating group; Then legitimate groups can be drawn into turf wars, be discredited by visible engagement in unappealing confrontations with the new rival, and ultimately discredit their "shared" view - which is of course the opposite of the manipulator's view.
  • Finding legitimate but incompetent or purist advocates of a view roughly compatible with that of another target group, and funding the incompetents or purists or extremists to become the dominant voice on the issue. Not dealing with the issue is thus easy to excuse, as the dominant view is more extreme than the public's own.
  • Dealing directly with moderates and requiring concessions that will be found unacceptable by purists, thus co-opting the middle and alienating purists. If purists can be simultaneously drawn into dummy, shell, incompetent or extreme groups, preferably many of these, then an entire movement can be splintered.
See also: agent provocateur


Agent provocateur

From Disinfopedia, the encyclopedia of propaganda.
Agents provocateur sometimes try to disrupt a group by creating discord between group members. They may argue for unity, while themselves playing consensus thug. They may argue against factionalism, while consistently advancing the positions or actions of one faction in the group. Disruptive group members might not be agents provocateur if they do not represent an outside interest; the term "agent" usually implies representation of or employment by another interest.

Pre-emptive campaign strategy

From Disinfopedia, the encyclopedia of propaganda.
In her November 23, 2003 New York Times Op-Ed "Scaring Up Votes," Maureen Dowd writes "First came the pre-emptive military policy. Now comes the pre-emptive campaign strategy. ... Before the president even knows his opponent, his first political ad is blanketing Iowa today: 'It would take one vial, one canister, one crate slipped into this country to bring a day of horror like none we have ever known'."
Dowd comments, "Well, that's a comforting message from our commander in chief. Do we really need his cold, clammy hand on our spine at a time when we're already rattled by fresh terror threats at home and abroad? When we're chilled by the metastasizing Al Qaeda, the resurgent Taliban and Baathist thugs armed with deadly booby traps; the countless, nameless terror groups emerging in Turkey, Morocco, Indonesia and elsewhere; the vicious attacks on Americans, Brits, aid workers and their supporters in Iraq, Afghanistan and Turkey?"[1]
She contines: "Yet the Bush crowd is seizing the moment to scare us even more. ... Flashing the words 'terrorists' and 'self-defense' in crimson, the Republican National Committee spot urges Americans 'to support the president's policy of pre-emptive self-defense' — a policy Colin L. Powell claimed was overblown by the press. ... 'Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike?' Mr. Bush says.
"With this ad, [Dowd says] Republicans have announced their intention: to scare us stupid, hoping we won't remember that this was the same State of the Union in which Mr. Bush made a misleading statement about the Iraq-Niger uranium connection, or remark that the imperial idyll in Iraq has created more terrorists."[2]

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Intimigate

From Disinfopedia, the encyclopedia of propaganda.
On September 30, 2003, David Sirota of the Center for American Progress coined the term Intimigate to describe "the well established pattern ... that the Bush Administration has summarily fired, intimidated and defamed anyone who has had the courage to tell the truth about Iraq."[1][2][3]
"The recent story of the Bush Administration leaking classified information in an effort to defame a WMD report is just the latest in a well-established pattern. A look at the historical record shows that the Bush Administration has summarily fired, intimidated and defamed anyone who has had the courage to tell the truth about Iraq. In fact, the Iraq policymakers who have remained in the White House are largely those who parsed and distorted intelligence and misled the American people."[4]
From the October 1, 2003 MetaFilter comes a challenge to "come up with a new name for the CIA-Wilson-Plame business that doesn't include the term 'gate.' Many amusing suggestions have been logged in comments. Entries include The Plame Game, Intimigate, FrogMarch, Novack-aine, and Karl's Bad. Whatever your political persuasion, the name game can be fun." Among the numerous suggestions: Chickenhawk Down, gategate, Neoconned, Plame Out, Karl Rover, Karl Rover, the CIA calls you over, Sucks to be you '03, Follow the YellowCake Road. To Treason, ... and many, many more.
The October 20, 2003 edition of the Washington Post featured "Many Names for a Scandal" ... "And now, the winners in the latest In the Loop Name That Scandal Contest'. This was to name the flap over columnist Robert Novak's column exposing CIA operative Valerie Plame, wife of Bush Iraq policy critic and former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV.
"Weapons of Mate Destruction ... Stinker Tattled, Exposed Spy ... Punditdidit ... Karlsbad Comment ... The Plame Game ... Nom De Plame ... NOC-out Punch (refers to Plame's alleged status as a No Official Cover agent, meaning if she had been nabbed, she would have had no diplomatic protection) ... Spyfinger ...
"Intimigate -- The first entry received, actually entered before we had thought of having a contest, submitted by former Hill staffer David Sirota, who is now working for the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank ... Retaligate ..."

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alerie Plame

From Disinfopedia, the encyclopedia of propaganda.
On July 14, 2003, the name of Valerie Plame, wife of retired Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, was exposed by columnist Robert Novak as a CIA covert operative, writing:
"Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction. Two senior administration officials told me Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate" the allegation.[1]
According to the September 27, 2003 edition of JustOneMinute (JOM), on July 16, 2003, David Corn "started this scandal" when he published the piece A White House Smear in The Nation, wherein:
This is not only a possible breach of national security; it is a potential violation of law. Under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982, it is a crime for anyone who has access to classified information to disclose intentionally information identifying a covert agent.[2]
Corn "had predicted that the investigation would die in the CIA - George J. Tenet would stay loyal to George W. Bush and quash this." JOM adds: "Evidently not. One guess - Mr. Tenet, pondering Bush's declining poll numbers and faced with in-house annoyance, decided to do the right thing. One presumes that, with Congress back in town, Mr. Tenet checked with his suporters on both sides of the aisle before proceeding."
Both Mark Kleiman and Josh Marshall have made recent comments on the matter, according to JOM.
Reverse Timeline
  • Also see JustOneMinute Timeline.
  • 1 October 2003: Novak explains: "My role and the role of the Bush White House have been distorted and need explanation."
  • 1 October 2003: "While Novak's decision to use Plame's name begs a journalism ethics debate, releasing her name to him or any reporter may well constitute a felony.... Sunday [29 Septemer 2003], The Washington Post said that White House officials had contacted six Washington reporters to disclose Plame's CIA identity."
  • 1 October 2003: Wilson told Ted Koppel on Nightline that "Washington reporters told him that senior White House adviser Karl Rove said his wife was 'fair game'." Wilson "plans to give the names of the reporters to the FBI, which is conducting a full-blown investigation of the possible leak."
  • 29 September 2003: "'Nobody in the Bush administration called me to leak this,' Novak said, saying the information was disclosed to him while he was interviewing a senior Bush administration official.... Novak said the administration official told him in July that Wilson's trip was 'inspired by his wife,' and that the CIA confirmed her 'involvement in the mission for her husband.' ... 'They asked me not to use her name, but never indicated it would endanger her or anybody else,' he said, adding that a source at the CIA told him Plame was 'an analyst -- not a covert operator and not in charge of undercover operators.'"
  • 29 September 2003: White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan on Karl Rove: "He wasn't involved,... The president knows he wasn't involved. ... It's simply not true."
Comment from Message Board Entry: "Of course, the only way Shrub could know that Rove was not involved is if he already knows who was involved -- which would make him (at a minimum) an accessory after the fact."
  • 26 August 2003: Wilson participated in a "public panel in Washington" on Thursday, August 21st, and is quoted as having said "At the end of the day, it's of keen interest to me to see whether or not we can get Karl Rove frog-marched out of the White House in handcuffs. And trust me, when I use that name, I measure my words." See transcript of August 21st panel discussion.
  • 8 August 2003: Days after Wilson "publicly voiced doubts about a reported Iraqi weapons program," Wilson says he became "a target of a campaign to discourage others like him from going public.... [and] Wilson's wife was identified by name as a covert C.I.A. operative in a column by the conservative columnist Robert Novak, a disclosure that Mr. Novak has attributed to senior administration officials."
  • 30 July 2003: When pressed, Scott McClellan told reporters: “I’m saying no one was certainly given any authority to do anything of that nature, and I’ve seen no evidence to suggest there’s any truth to it.” ... To date, Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) have called for investigations and any number of other senators have told reporters that some sort of inquiry is probably in order.
  • 17 July 2003: "...some government officials have noted to TIME in interviews, (as well as to syndicated columnist Robert Novak) that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, is a CIA official who monitors the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction."
  • 14 July 2003: "Mission to Niger" by Robert Novak: "Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction. Two senior administration officials told me Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger.... The CIA says its counter-proliferation officials selected Wilson and asked his wife to contact him."
  • 6 July 2003: Wilson's Op-Ed article "What I Didn't Find in Africa" published in New York Times.
Reaction/Response to Plame "Leak"
  • 3 October 2003: "More vicious than Tricky Dick" by John Dean:
    • "I thought I had seen political dirty tricks as foul as they could get, but I was wrong. In blowing the cover of CIA agent Valerie Plame to take political revenge on her husband, Ambassador Joseph Wilson, for telling the truth, Bush's people have out-Nixoned Nixon's people. And my former colleagues were not amateurs by any means."
    • "Regardless of whether or not a special prosecutor is selected, I believe that Ambassador Wilson and his wife -- like the DNC official once did -- should file a civil lawsuit, both to address the harm inflicted on them, and, equally important, to obtain the necessary tools (subpoena power and sworn testimony) to get to the bottom of this matter. This will not only enable them to make sure they don't merely become yesterday's news; it will give them some control over the situation."[3]
  • 30 September 2003: "White House Counsel's Memo on Leak Probe", New York Times: "Text of an e-mail to White House staff Tuesday from counsel Alberto R. Gonzales about the Justice Department's investigation about the leak of a CIA officer's identity."
  • 30 September 2003: "Remarks by President Bush to the Travel Pool After Meeting with Business People" in Chicago, IL:
"I know of nobody -- I don't know of anybody in my administration who leaked classified information. If somebody did leak classified information, I'd like to know it, and we'll take the appropriate action. And this investigation is a good thing.
"And again I repeat, you know, Washington is a town where there's all kinds of allegations. You've heard much of the allegations. And if people have got solid information, please come forward with it. And that would be people inside the information who are the so-called anonymous sources, or people outside the information -- outside the administration. And we can clarify this thing very quickly if people who have got solid evidence would come forward and speak out. And I would hope they would.
"And then we'll get to the bottom of this and move on. But I want to tell you something -- leaks of classified information are a bad thing. And we've had them -- there's too much leaking in Washington. That's just the way it is. And we've had leaks out of the administrative branch, had leaks out of the legislative branch, and out of the executive branch and the legislative branch, and I've spoken out consistently against them and I want to know who the leakers are."
"The first rule of scandal is that the cover-up is worse than the crime. With that in mind, we ought to be looking to see if any effort was made to prevent the CIA from requesting a Justice Department investigation. And we ought to find out who warned the White House Counsel that something was up, so that Alberto Gonzalez could warn the White House staff in his now famous e-mail."
  • 1 October 2003 :The CIA leak" by Robert Novak, Townhall.com.
  • 1 October 2003: "Probe targets White House. Bush ordered his staff to cooperate as the Justice Dept. announced a full-scale inquiry into the CIA leak. Justice left open the possibility of a special counsel] by Ron Hutcheson and Shannon McCaffrey, Philadelphia Inquirer: "The developments raised the prospect of a full-blown White House scandal while Bush is sinking in job-approval polls, struggling to win international help in Iraq, and grappling with Congress over his request for $87 billion more in war-related spending."
  • 1 October 2003, "Iraq puts Cheney in harsh spotlight. Role: His broad influence on White House policy makes the low-profile vice president a high-profile target for Democrats" by Susan Baer, SunSpot.net: "CIA Director George J. Tenet says Dick Cheney was not briefed on Wilson's conclusions. Nor has Cheney been tied to accusations that the White House punished Wilson for his role in forcing the retraction by blowing his wife's cover as a CIA operative."
  • 1 October 2003: "Leak inquiry is a chink in Bush's moral armor" by Warren P. Strobel, Philadelphia Inquirer: "...revelation of a Justice Department criminal investigation into whether administration officials - believed to be at the White House - leaked the name of a CIA officer to get at a Bush opponent."
  • 2 October 2003: "Investigating Leaks," Op-Ed New York Times: "Attorney General John Ashcroft has put himself and the president in a very dangerous position with his handling of the Justice Department's investigation into how Robert Novak got the name of a C.I.A. operative for publication in his syndicated column. After career lawyers conducted a preliminary investigation into the leaking of the officer's name, Mr. Ashcroft chose to proceed with a full investigation within the Justice Department. He did so despite department guidelines that would have permitted him to appoint an outsider, who would serve at Mr. Ashcroft's discretion but could make independent decisions. Instead, Mr. Ashcroft has decided to leave the investigation under the authority of the department's counterespionage office. That office employs career lawyers who routinely investigate this sort of leak and have the security clearances to do so with dispatch."
  • 2 October 2003: "Attorney General Is Closely Linked to Inquiry Figures" by Elisabeth Bumiller and Eric Lichtblau, New York Times: "Deep political ties between top White House aides and Attorney General John Ashcroft have put him into a delicate position as the Justice Department begins a full investigation into whether administration officials illegally disclosed the name of an undercover C.I.A. officer." Names of inquiry figures associated with Ashcroft are: Karl Rove and Jack Oliver.
  • 2 October 2003: "FBI Narrowing List of CIA Leak Suspects" by Curt Anderson, AP.
  • 2 October 2003: "FBI Creates Team to Investigate CIA Leaks", AP: "Overseeing the investigation is John Dion, a 30-year career prosecutor who has headed the counterespionage section at the Justice Department since 2002."
  • 2 October 2003 "Outside Probe of Leaks Is Favored" by Dana Milbank and Mike Allen, Washington Post: "Confronted with little public support for the White House view that the investigation should be handled by the Justice Department, Bush aides began yesterday to adjust their response to the expanding probe. They reined in earlier, broad portrayals of innocence in favor of more technical arguments that it is possible the disclosure was made without knowledge that a covert operative was being exposed and therefore might not have been a crime.... At the same time, administration allies outside the White House stepped up a counteroffensive that seeks to discredit the administration's main accuser, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, whose wife was named as a CIA operative. Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie gave a string of television interviews with the three-part message that the Justice Department is investigating, that the White House is fully cooperating and that Wilson has a political agenda and has made 'rash statements'."
  • 10 October 2003: "Why the Federal Conspiracy and Fraud Statutes May Apply Here" by John Dean.

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Smear

From Disinfopedia, the encyclopedia of propaganda.
A smear is among the simplest of propaganda techniques. It can take the form of repeated, unapologetic, systematic name-calling, or otherwise implying or asserting that opponents "are" bad, evil, stupid, untrustworthy, guilty of reprehensible acts, or part of some undesirable category.
A smear might be conducted subtly or vaguely so the target cannot seek legal action against a slander or libel, which must be specific and believable to be legally actionable. False implications can be masked by otherwise truthful statements. Truth is usually a defense against libel in most jurisdictions.
An archetypal implicit smear is the question, "When did you stop beating your wife?" Whatever the answer, the question accuses the person of prior domestic violence. Smears might use oxymoronic language, broad generalizations, false characterizations, irrelevant information and loose associations. Smears appeal to emotion and discourage reasonable discussion.
Public officials, politicians, media representatives and advocates tend to disagree at times about when accusations of impropriety are relevant and when they are intended to smear.
Examples of smears include:
  • allegations of homosexuality, in institutions which explicitly refuse to employ gays or lesbians, or in cultures with social or legal sanctions against homosexuality - (see also outing)
  • Republican Party smears against Democrats as the "Party of Treason" in the 1950s.
  • allegations that someone is a convicted pedophile (this is an oxymoron - a felon is convicted of specific acts, but a pedophile is a term from psychiatry describing not acts but desires - for which there is no legal liability - although some jurisdictions do define habitual offenders, they do not in fact convict them of "being a pedophile")
Smears don't always work. Straightforward claims that one's opponent is morally bad may sometimes backfire:
  • assertions that choice between one politician and another is a choice between good or evil, as Albert Gore Jr. did against George W. Bush - claiming the mantle of good for oneself while describing one's opponent as being evil. In a close election, dogged by a third party implying both parties are so bad they are about to destroy life's chances on earth, Gore's claim found little purchase.
  • more specific allegations that one's opponent is an evil reptilian kitten eater from another planet - a stunt unlikely to be repeated, given that Ernie Eves (who used it against his opponent Dalton McGuinty) lost that election.
For a moral smear to be effective, the association with evil probably needs to be believable, though like any rule, there are likely exceptions (see big lie). A morally demeaning word merely introduced in an innocuous context might tend to cast a cloud of doubt over an opponent, if the audience is not alert to the device. In 1988, the George H. W. Bush campaign associated the Democrat opponent with an implicitly dangerous criminal released on parole.
Repulsive imagery conveyed in a smear or ritual defamation might extend or reinforce a more general moral appeal. If so, approaches like the "evil reptilian kitten eater from another planet" appeal might be effective if they don't backfire and if other circumstances don't overshadow the effect.
In the United States, Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush have exploited the concept of evil to dehumanize an enemy. Speaking to the nation in a widely broadcast message, Reagan blasted the Soviets as an "evil empire". G.W. Bush presaged aggression in Afghanistan and Iraq with identification of what he called an "axis of evil."
The concept of evil is rooted deeply in religious and secular lore throughout the U.S., allowing the presidents to allege evil both as a direct appeal to supporters swayed by religious propagandists, and to offer a psychological justification for secular listeners who might follow leaders' instructions to dehumanize an enemy that they might not otherwise despise.

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Replacing credible with sensational claims

From Disinfopedia, the encyclopedia of propaganda.
Replacing credible with sensational claims is a common strategy of those seeking to discourage conspiracy theory or any deep investigation of pro-technology propaganda. It also works in electoral polictics or public interest campaigns when attempting to discredit some concern.
One such tactic is to exaggerate valid environmental health concerns into invalid environmental scares deliberately in order that the valid concern not be investigated or liability assigned. A doctor's sober assessment of causes of certain limited child health problems for instance may be drowned out by a large number of provocateur or incompentent advocate complaints blaming seemingly related, but medically not provable to be related.
More blatantly, after the September 11, 2001 events there were rumours spread that Israeli citizens had been warned, and had evacuated the WTC, or that Bush administration figures had bet on a large stock market drop. These easily-disproven rumours distracted from legitimate criticisms that Al Qaeda learning to pilot airplanes, their targetting of the WTC earlier, a related plot to blow up the Eiffel Tower and another to fly a plane into a skyscraper in Milan, Italy, were all well known and publicized realies as of summer 2001. In toto, this intelligence failure could credibly be explained by either regime incompetence, regime complicity or regime corruption. A focus on impossible-to-prove complicity served those who sought to distract from the incompetence or corruption theses.
Weapons of mass destruction is a field particularly ripe for such claims substitution, as most people (happily) have little direct experience or any expertise in dangerous technology.

Repetition

From Disinfopedia, the encyclopedia of propaganda.
If you repeat something over and over, no matter how outrageous it may be, people will come to believe there's some truth in it. A good example of this is the claim that Saddam Hussein was responsible for the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. No evidence has been found suggesting collaboration between Iraq and the Al Qaeda network, yet Bush administration officials have repeatedly mentioned the two in tandem. As a result, a recent opinion survey by the Council on Foreign Relations shows that more than 40 percent of the American people believe that some or all of the attackers on 9/11 were Iraqi nationals, when in fact none were.
Sometimes old propaganda has a way of haunting its perpetrators. In the late 1980s, for example, the United States regarded Iraq as an ally in its ongoing conflict with Iran, even as reports emerged that Saddam Hussein had used chemical weapons against his own citizens - Iraqi Kurds at the town of Halabja. The U.S. at the time argued that Iran was responsible for the atrocity, and the controversy continues today, even though the United States now officially insists that Iraq was responsible. According to Stephen C. Pelletiere, the facts surrounding that claim have been selectively presented and distorted. "I am in a position to know," he stated in the New York Times, "because, as the Central Intelligence Agency's senior political analyst on Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war, and as a professor at the Army War College from 1988 to 2000, I was privy to much of the classified material that flowed through Washington having to do with the Persian Gulf. In addition, I headed a 1991 Army investigation into how the Iraqis would fight a war against the United States; the classified version of the report went into great detail on the Halabja affair." [1]
Kenneth Roth of Human Rights Watch, which has conducted extensive investigations into the Halabja affair, insists strongly that Iraq was responsible for the incident, yet the controversy continues and may never be completely resolved. [2] Instead of leading to definitive answers, old propaganda continues to be repeated long after it has outlived its usefulness to the propagandists.

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Raising standard of evidence

From Disinfopedia, the encyclopedia of propaganda.
Raising standard of evidence is a common propaganda technique used in refuting a convincing and appropriate argument. It is an alternative often used when shifting burden of proof is difficult or transparently unfair, and when professionalism or credentialism is in effect. Someone trusted to define or arbitrate the standard of evidence can often subtly escalate it to make the argument impossible to make.
This is most commonly seen with respect to conspiracy theory. Usually such a theory describes events where there is high motivation to coverup real events, and where reliable unbiased witnesses are hard or impossible to come by, e.g. espionage activities. Because two or more groups are in competition both to influence and explain events as each other's fault, it is necessarily the case that evidence cannot be as reliable as it could be in a scientific or criminal matter. Very often, the only conceivable case that could be made is circumstantial: those who had opportunity, resources, motive, and did in fact benefit from the outcome. But rather than fairly require that all conspiracy theory meet a rigid standard of evidence, propagandists are skilled at lowering it for their own side, and raising it for their opponents, to the point where effectively they are trusted to arbitrate the truth without limit.
A very clear and not politically complex example is found in the philosophy of mathematics, a field dominated throughout the 20th century by mathematicians, who apply the very high standard of evidence called axiomatic proof. By the 1930s it was clear that this standard had serious flaws, as the work of Bertrand Russell and Kurt Godel showed. Several 'schools' of thought evolved regarding the reality of mathematical ideas, all of which were dominated by professional mathematicians, who had an interest in maintaining their "rigorous" standard of axiomatic proof. Despite the clear arguments of Hilary Putnam, Imre Lakatos], Eugene Wigner and others who recognized that less-than-formal arguments in mathematics had always played a role, the curriculum of most modern university courses in this subject focus only on the 'schools'. By the 1990s many had recognized that the standard of evidence was simply wrong, and was retarding the field, by requiring that philosophers be utterly familiar with, and arguing within, the 'rigorous' modes preferred by mathematicians. Often, ethics or ontology concerns that are part of philosophy but which cannot be 'proven' within the standards of evidence of mathematicians are wilfuly censored for not being 'part of mathematics'. As a trivial example of how these dueling standards can stymie debate, see Wikipedia.
With abstract or specialized subject matter, such as medicine or mathematics, it is usually not hard for an expert in related subject matter to pose as an expert in the controversial subject, and censor material they find uncomfortable or unconvincing. In extreme cases, this can lead to considerable harm, e.g. the abandonment of Malaria therapy for AIDS due in part to the difficulty of proving its effectiveness by comparison to more conventional drug therapies. Given the drastically cheaper cost and much higher effectiveness of the less conventional therapy, a somewhat lower standard of evidence should have been applied to proving its worth. But the economics were excluded from the equation, to the direct benefit of drugcos promoting the drug therapy.
The primary defense against arbitrary raising of standard of evidence is to determine what standard is being applied to the competing arguments, using representative cases made by one's opponents. In doing so it can be quite useful to refer to a general scale of standards of evidence themselves:
  • axiomatic proof which is generally thought to be very reliable but narrow.
  • quasi-empirical methods including highly trusted human arbitrators.
  • empirical methods as employed in the 'hard' physical sciences, those focused on prediction, and which employ mathematics for modelling
  • forensic standards
  • statistical standards
  • judicial standards
  • etc. - see standard of evidence
A raising of evidence more than one level usually indicates pure propaganda, especially if time is invested at the lower level of evidence before one is required to then further invest at the higher level. By this means, very often, lawyers and advocates and politicians "burn out" media access or court time or authority's or public's patience. It also serves to confuse journalists and others who usually fail to distinguish the way that the standards differ. For instance, in the O. J. Simpson murder trial, much of the public was quite confused that he could be acquitted in a criminal trial but found liable for damages in a civil trial. Pro-technology propaganda regarding the reliability of DNA evidence did not make this any easier to understand - those who felt that this evidence was infallible were much offended by OJ's release.

Push poll

From Disinfopedia, the encyclopedia of propaganda.
A push poll is a gimic used to pass on information that is not nessicarily correct. It is not a poll, in that no data is collected. It is a vehicle to distribute disinformation. Example: transcribed from Public Opinion Strategies
Next . . .
As you know, elected officials are held to high standards in public life. Here are some reasons people are giving to vote _against_ Dan Morales for Attorney General. Please tell me if each statment makes you much more likely to vote against Dan Morales, somewhat more likely to vote against Dan Morales or if it make no differnce at all? Here's the first . . (RANDOMIZE)
[ASK EAST TEXAS A & B QUESTION SERIES]
MUCH SMWT NO DNR/ MORE MORE DIFF REF 1 2 3 4
(SPLIT SAMPLE A)
24. Morales supports affirmative action. 800 23% 16% 51% 11% 135 28% 16% 47% 10%
25. Morales supports gun control. 800 29% 17% 45% 8% 135 34% 15% 45% 6%
26. Morales' political campaign purchased two tickets to a fundraiser for Louis Farrakhan's Nation of Islam organization. 800 33% 16% 42% 9% 135 40% 23% 33% 4%
27. Juvenile crime has increased by one-third in Texas since Morales became Attorney General. 800 31% 25% 37% 7% 135 34% 26% 35% 4%
28. Conservative political groups rate Morales as a liberal Democract 800 21% 17% 50% 9% 135 25% 19% 49% 6%
29. As Attorney General, Morales has made consumer issues a higher priority than fighting violent crime. 800 33% 27% 32% 9% 135 36% 27% 28% 9%
30. Morales has said that young gang members don't need harsh treatment and prison, but that they need nire recreational facilities, drug counseling and summer jobs. 800 35% 21% 35% 9% 135 35 25% 34% 6%
31. Victims Rights activists say Morales sold out crime victims when he settled a prisoner's lawsuit without even taking the case to court. 800 39% 25% 25% 11% 135 40% 26% 25% 10%
(SPLIT SAMPLE B)
32. Morales asked for $75,000 in campaign contributions from casino gambling interests shortly before issuing a ruling on whether or not to allow gambling in Texas. 800 42% 21% 27% 9% 135 46% 22% 26% 7%
33. Morales regularly flies for free in private planes provided by some of the country's richest personal injury lawyers. 800 38% 25% 30% 7% 135 50% 24% 22% 4%
34. Morales has doubled the amount of money Texas taxpayers spends on outside private lawyers for state contracts, even though he promised in his campaign to use state employed lawyers more in order to save money, 800 42% 28% 18% 12% 135 43% 25% 22% 5%
35. Some of Morales' biggest campaign contributors are wealthy personal injury lawyers. Morales has taken over 340,000 dollars in political campain contributions from them. 800 41% 22% 29% 8% 135 49% 29% 17% 12%
36. Morales awarded millions of dollars in state contract to his biggest campaign contributions instead of using in-house Texas lawyers. 800 45% 26% 19% 10% 135 49% 27% 21% 3%
37. Morales has been criticized by Democracts and Republicans alike for mismanagement and failing to represent state agencies effectively. 800 36% 25% 27% 13% 135 42% 28% 21% 9%

Prophecies

From Disinfopedia, the encyclopedia of propaganda.
Popular form of propaganda during war times and similar exteme emotional situations. Allows convince the masses to the cause. Widely used by Hitler and Allies during the World War II by fitting specific events which already occurred into supposed previous prophecies. Used in many conflicts dating back to ancient times.

Talking points

From Disinfopedia, the encyclopedia of propaganda.
Similar to a white paper talking points are ideas, usually compiled in a short list with summaries of speaker's agenda for public or private engagements. Public relations professionals sometimes prepare "talking points" for executives or other corporate clients to help the client better conform public presentations with advice of the PR counselor.

Vagueness

From Disinfopedia, the encyclopedia of propaganda.
Vagueness is a frequent indicator of propaganda in news reporting. "Remember the following first rule of disinformation analysis: truth is specific, lie is vague," writes Gregory Sinaisky. "Always look for palpable details in reporting and if the picture is not in focus, there must be reasons for it."

External links

Video news releases

From Disinfopedia, the encyclopedia of propaganda.
Introducing a discussion on the topic, host Bob Garfield offers "At least viewers can rest assured that stories they see on the local news are journalistically pure. Or can they? The convergence of public relations ingenuity and broadcast stations' budgetary exigencies has yielded another dubious hybrid: the Video News Release -- a P.R. bonanza, and the news business's dirty little secret." In the discussion:
Larry Moscowitz is the founder and president of MediaLink, one of the world's largest producers and distributors of VNRs: "We determined prima facie and scientifically and electronically that every television station in America with a newscast has used and probably uses regularly this material from corporations and organizations that we provide as VNRs or B-Roll or other terminology we may use."
Former CBS correspondent Deborah Potter is director of the News Lab, the Washington, D.C. nonprofit dedicated to quality local television: "They allow newsrooms to do less of their own work without fear of running out of material before the end of the hour. It's a concern, and it ought to be a concern, frankly, for viewers if much of the material that they're starting to get on the news isn't news."
Candace White, marketing professor at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville and co-author of a 2001 study about VNRs, says the same self-interest that encourages news directors to use VNRs dictates that the material is used responsibly: "I trust news producers to be able to weed out true news value; I give them credit for being able to recognize blatant sales pitches. Our study found that the corporate videos were used the least, and the ones about health and safety were used the most."
John Stauber "believes the use of VNRs amounts to systematic deception of viewers, both by the hidden interested parties behind them, and by news organizations with impure motives themselves": "All public relations is not sinister or evil or bad. But I think the important thing to understand is that indeed all public relations is propaganda."

Politics of personal destruction

From Disinfopedia, the encyclopedia of propaganda.
"The politics of personal destruction--a phrase popularized by Bill Clinton during his impeachment--has been in vogue since long before Monica Lewinsky captured the attention of Clinton's indiscriminate libido. Although the tactic of demonizing the opposition has been practiced with varying intensity throughout the history of politics, this current round of hyper-partisan warfare can be traced back to 1987, when President Ronald Reagan nominated Robert H. Bork for the Supreme Court."[1]

Outing

From Disinfopedia, the encyclopedia of propaganda.
As a propaganda technique, outing has two distinct meanings:
1. Originally, it referred to attempts to shame opponents by revealing their associations with groups, actions or categories that the public disapproved of - homosexuality for instance, or membership in the Communist Party. McCarthyism was a trend towards this kind of identification and very often included claims that were simply not true, pure propaganda.
2. As public disapproval of the things that were traditionally useful to discredit someone for official posts waned, it became more and more common for officials in a position of power and privelege to reveal the names of lower level agents. In previous eras this would have opened them to be prosecuted for treason if they revealed the names of agents on active duty doing security work. This happened at least twice in 2003 in the cases of David Kelly (who killed himself) and Valerie Plame. In this form of outing, the allegations are probably true, the person is no longer effective as a trusted agent, some of their assets are lost to the state, and presumably more "politically reliable" agents take their place. There may be shame involved, but maybe not. It may be of an intense and personal kind - Kelly killed himself.
In both senses, the term outing implies that a selective exposure has been made. If a deliberate and fair-minded effort is being made to expose all people in a certain not-trustworthy category in positions of trust, or to reveal all people who had any contact with certain pieces of information, an outing is simply part of an inquiry. It's the selective nature of it that makes it useful to identify and eliminate possible political and ideological opponents from a power structure, and which makes it extra-judicial and not a part of ordinary oversight activities.
A smear is often portrayed as an attempt at outing, but generally describes a case where the allegations are not true, and not made against a large number of persons with some other affiliation not relevant to the smear itself. A smear is aimed at getting the public to vaguely mistrust someone, not at getting a particular person eliminated from the power structure by specific verifiable accusations as outing is.

Motherhood term

From Disinfopedia, the encyclopedia of propaganda.
A motherhood term is one that is accepted as good in any context. When attached to a specific policy or ideology by propaganda, it tends to reduce the probability of the policy or ideology being attacked, even if the person promoting it is not himself credible as a promoter of the concept referred in the motherhood term.
For example, many proponents of so-called "family values", including Ronald Reagan for instance, had been divorced, and thus arguably had experienced at least one serious failure of such values. Similarly, the Bush League which claims to be "tough on crime" has been closely involved in several large-scale criminal scandals such as the Savings and Loan debacle. The use of terms like "family values" when attached to specific policies on abortion, for instance, are potentially quite destructive to the real values of actual families, but this usually goes quite unexamined, especially as statistics are not usually available, and disputes even on such basic concepts as "family" itself may be at issue.
Given the ease with which motherhood-term based arguments can be turned back on their users, their use may have been declining in the 1990s after heavy overuse during the 1980s in North America. However, the War on terrorism brought a whole new range of motherhood terms such as Homeland Security and the old bromide "freedom" - which somehow justifies anything that compromises freedom in favour of the state's ability to investigate and detain anyone.

Misinformation

From Disinfopedia, the encyclopedia of propaganda.
Misinformation is, simply put, information that is not true. It is sometimes associated with propaganda and disinformation, but there are differences. Propaganda sometimes uses true information, and disinformation is a form of misinformation that is deliberately untrue. Misinformation differs from disinformation in that it is "intention neutral."

External links

Greenwashing

From Disinfopedia, the encyclopedia of propaganda.
"Greenwashing is what corporations do when they try to make themselves look more environmentally friendly than they really are." [1]
“Greenwash” is defined in the 10th edition of the Concise Oxford English Dictionary as the “disinformation disseminated by an organization so as to present an environmentally responsible public image.” Its inclusion in the dictionary indicates the significance and permanence of a growing trend among corporations to take advantage of the many consumers who look for products with negative environmental impact. [2]
"Earthday Resources for Living Green has released this report annually for the last 11 years to call attention to the past year's worst greenwashers, corporations that have made misleading or false claims abut the environmental benefits of their products and industries. "Don't Be Fooled" describes companies' greenwashing attempts as well as the truth behind their misleading claims." Current and past reports are available [online].
The Washington Post has produced a Special Report titled BIG GREEN which as series of investigative articles exposes the corporate infestation of The Nature Conservancy and "documents on the organization's transformation from a grassroots group to a corporate juggernaut."
Frequent PR Watch contributor Bob Burton has prepared a 5 page paper titled "Corporations Will Save the World, won't they?" which describes how corporations lure their environmentalist adversaries into the illusion of cooperative engagements such as Community Advisory Panels which result in a win-win result for the corporations by reducing the energy of their adversaries, and turning the media attention away from environmental advocacy against the evil corporation into an image of the corporation attempting to benefit the environment. [3]
"Several recent incidents show that, when faced with environmental crises attributable to business interests cozy with the White House, the administration has developed an alternative response: Suppress, Ignore, Preempt." [4]

 

Environmental scares

From Disinfopedia, the encyclopedia of propaganda.
One explanation for Propaganda Techniques Related to Enviromental Scares comes from Paul R. Lees-Haley, Ph.D. The following article was copied from the Quackwatch web site:

Psychologists have studied several perceptual factors that help explain how reasonable people can conclude that they have suffered toxic exposures and injuries when they have not. These include social proof, repeated affirmations, appeals to authority, vividness, confusion of inverse probabilities, confusion techniques, and distraction techniques.

Social proof is the tendency to believe what most people believe. If an advocate creates the impression that "everyone knows" that someone is lying and covering up facts, there is a subtle implication that those who disagree are somehow flawed and lacking in credibility. Identifying a few people who believe a proposition, and encouraging them to go public (especially repeatedly) creates the impression that lots of people are experiencing something real. Repeated affirmations create the impression that the assertion is true.

Appeals to authority add weight to these persuasions. If one or more of the people affirming a belief is perceived as authoritative, e.g., a physician or a political leader, more people will be persuaded. It may matter little that the expert is the only one in the universe with that opinion, if he or she is the only one whose opinions we hear. Sometimes politicians are persuaded to join in unfounded but politically advantageous rhetoric. If we like the source of an opinion, we are more likely to believe. So if a popular actor, media figure, politician, or local hero joins the process, more people will endorse the perceived reality.

Vivid examples -- especially dramatic case histories -- often influence judgments more than dull but more accurate quantitative examples. For example, inviting the single child with a birth defect to the town hall meeting may overwhelm the fact that there are fewer birth defects in the neighborhood than in most similar residential areas.

Confusion techniques can create perceptions of toxicity, injury, or disease. For example, illogical but eloquent rhetoric delivered with an air of certainty can create such perceptions if a few clear alarming phrases are woven into the message. If the release of something harmless to humans is announced along with discussions of studies indicating cancer, birth defects, or brain damage in animals, concern or alarm may ensue. A classic technique is to pose an alarming question as the headline of a speech, article, or broadcast, e.g., "Are your children in danger?" We commonly hear announcements that "bad chemicals" or "known carcinogens" are out there, without objective data to clarify whether the type, amount, and location of the substance could actually hurt anyone. When someone questions the plausibility of the alleged toxic exposures, advocates may self- righteously respond that reasonable people have a right to worry, -- as though people who try to alleviate unnecessary worry are violating the rights of others.

Manipulators dramatically announce that people in the community have cancer, birth defects, immune disorders, and other disturbing health problems, as if this were a discovery, or something unusual. Facts about the normal prevalence of these problems are seldom disseminated or compared with the numbers contained in these sensational announcements. Have you ever seen a headline, "Cancer rate and birth defects rates exactly normal in Ourtown, USA"?

Ignoring coincidence and drawing attention to a few sick people can be highly misleading. In any large population, for example, it is simple to find a few people who have various severe diseases, including some relatively rare ones. When confronted with the facts about an alleged environmental toxin, for example, manipulative advocates may respond with confusion techniques such as: "One sick child is too many, and we resent your implying that it's OK to poison our children" or "How many body bags will it take to convince you people?" In other cases they skip over probability and go directly to the impossible -- in the words of a concerned parent at a town hall meeting, "How are you going to guarantee that my children won't have cancer in twenty years?"

Confusion, distraction, and other propaganda techniques may be used to make spurious accusations that inspire outrage against opposing parties. In response to recent criticisms of junk science, antiscience arguments are on the rise. Advocates tell us, "We can't wait on science. We have to act now!" and "The scientists want us to do nothing! How many people have to die before XYZ does what is right?" One such critic ironically declared, "We can't wait on science, we have to act on the evidence!" Certainly we make most of our decisions in life without conducting a scientific study first. However, the allegation that some environmental toxin caused brain damage in a specific group of people is a factual question that can be answered only by looking at the data, not by emotional reactions to speculation, sensationalism, and innuendo.

Manipulators strive to divorce us from the facts. Rather than encouraging us to examine the evidence and reasoning of people who appear to disagree with us, they block communications and openly or indirectly try to persuade us that people who disagree with their views are dishonest, not trustworthy, incompetent, biased, racist, only concerned with money, insulting our intelligence, corrupt, betrayers of the American dream, and so on. The subtext is: "Do not consider alternative points of view. Do what we tell you, without realizing that we are controlling you." Like cult leaders, manipulators encourage us to close ranks and form an in-group suspicious of those who question the party line.

Manipulators often try to control beliefs and actions by exploiting people's feelings. Inflammatory emotional rhetoric hardens attitudes against the opponent, and subtly justifies bending the rules to fight against the evil doer. Rhetoric that characterizes the opponent as a powerful bully (for example, that the AMA is persecuting "alternative" pracitioners) elicits a desire to root for the underdog, and provides emotional justification for bending ethical rules.

Confusion of inverse probabilities is another classic form of invalid interpretation of facts that arouses unnecessary alarm. For example, suppose an announcement of a release of a toxic chemical is accompanied by news that the chemical can cause upper respiratory symptoms, aches and pains, or other common symptoms. Some people with these symptoms will conclude that the chemical was responsible. And this could be true. However, it may also be true that only 10% of persons exposed develop such symptoms, and only 1% of the population was exposed, so that the probability that a particular person has been poisoned is one in a thousand. These important details can be overlooked in the hue and cry following a dramatic toxic spill.

People tend to assume that sensational terms represent reality. Multiple chemical sensitivity and Gulf War syndrome are prime examples. The existence of a name does not necessarily mean that there is a corresponding real event. However, spurious allegations may appear plausible if associated with common symptoms. of human existence, especially if depicted by an expert.

Another misleading technique is the use of categorical terms that lead away from a more reassuring (and more reasonable) quantitative reality. For example, an expert witness in a court case may discourse at length on the effects of severe toxic brain injury when testifying about a mild injury. Or instead of stating that a plaintiff has a subtle cognitive impairment that probably will not affect his life very much, the expert decribes the plaintiff as "brain damaged." And instead of saying that a plaintiff has less than 1/10 of 1 percent greater likelihood of contracting cancer than the base rate, the expert opines that the plaintiff has "increased risk of developing cancer" due to some exposure. Both statements are technically correct but not presented equally. Interruptions, objections, topic changes and ad hominem arguments may also be used to divert attention from science-based facts.
____________________
Dr. Lees-Haley is a psychologist with offices in the Los Angeles area. Researchers conducting studies on related issues can contact him at 21331 Costanso Street, Woodland Hills, CA 91364.Telephone: 818-887-2874 ||| Fax: 818-887-9034 ||| Email plh@ix.netcom.com

This article was adapted from Lee-Haley PR. Manipulation of perception in mass tort litigation. Natural Resources & Environment 12:64-68, 1997.

 

Echo chamber

From Disinfopedia, the encyclopedia of propaganda.

Echo chamber is a colloquial term used to describe a group of media outlets that tend to parrot each other's uncritical reports on the views of a single source, or that otherwise relies on unquestioning repetition of official sources.

In the United States, the Republican Party uses a network of conservative foundations, coordinated by the Philanthropy Roundtable, to support an echo chamber of think tanks, industry-friendly experts and subsidized conservative media that systematically spread its messages throughout the political and media establishment. Typically, the message starts when conservative voices begin making an allegation (e.g., Democratic candidates are engaged in "hate-mongering" with regard to Bush). Columns start getting written on this theme, which spreads beyond the subsidized conservative media, eventually begins appearing in places like the New York Times, and becomes a talking point and "accepted fact" throughout the media.

To influence the media, conservatives have also set up several organizations that serve as recruiting, training and career advancement programs for budding journalists. On university campuses, conservative foundations support several networks of conservative professors, including the National Association of Scholars and the Collegiate Network of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, which links and provides funds to more than 70 conservative student papers. The student papers in turn serve as conduits to the mainstream media, through organizations such as the National Journalism Center that provides training, ideological indoctrination and a job bank that helps conservative student journalists begin their careers with internships and permanent job placements at publications including the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, ABC, CBS, Fox News, Time, Newsweek, and the Associated Press.

Opinion pollsters and image makers such as Frank Luntz, Michael Deaver, Ed Rollins, Wirthlin Worldwide and Zogby International help develop the messages that echo in the echo chamber, by identifying hot-button “cultural” issues such as guns, abortion, family values and the flag that have enabled the party of privilege to position itself as the party with which lower-middle and middle-class voters identify.
Relatedly, see Incestuous Amplification
Part of the "echo chamber" effect relies not only on repeating a given stance through as many separate channels as possible, but on casting alternative sources of information and opinion as doing the same thing in the opposite direction. Long-standing accusations of the "liberal-dominated media", suggesting that the bulk of mass media today forms some sort of liberal echo chamber, denies the idea that the reverse may in fact be the case.
Also, it's notable that the cultural body of music is not experiencing the fresh joy of great new songs about peace and love and anti-war which was so remarkable during the quagmire of the 60's. "It's a hammer of justice; it's a bell of freedom; it's a song about love between the brothers and the sisters, all over this land." Much more diverse and uplifting than "Batttle Hymn of the Republic".

This lack of new music isn't because the musicians are overseas in uniform. It's because at the slightest peep of anti-war lyric, the radio stations blacklist the artists. The reason for this stems from a reduction in the diversity of radio-station and media ownership. Whether motivated by individual politics or by a desire to stay on good terms with the administration that empowered them, media moguls like Clearchannel and Rupert Murdoch are widely believed to place restrictions on the ideas expressed through the media outlets they control.

 

Examples

  • David Brock, a conservative journalist for the American Spectator, received $11,000 in funding from the John M. Olin Foundation and the Bradley Foundation to support attacks on University of Oregon law professor Anita Hill, after Hill testified before Congress that she had been sexually harassed by Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas. Brock wrote an article attacking Hill and later a book, titled The Real Anita Hill. He later regretted writing the book and wrote a mea culpa titled Blinded by the Right, in which he admitted that his writers were "a witches' brew of fact, allegation, hearsay, speculation, opinion, and invective. ... I didn't know what good reporting is. Like a kid playing with a loaded gun, I didn't appreciate the difference between a substantiated charge and an unsubstantiated one.” In fact, Brock stated, "Every source I relied on either thought Thomas walked on water or had a virulent animus toward Hill. I had no access to Hill’s supporters, and therefore no understanding of their motivations, no responses to any of their charges, and no knowledge of whatever incriminating evidence they might have gathered against Thomas that was not introduced in the hearing. ... The conspiracy theory I invented about the Thomas-Hill case could not possibly have been true, because I had absolutely no access to any of the supposed liberal conspirators. ... All of my impressions of the characters I was writing about were filtered through their conservative antagonists, all of whom I believed without question."
  • Brock also says that the "Troopergate" allegations against Bill Clinton were instigated by Peter Smith, a conservative financier and top contributor to Newt Gingrich's political action committee, GOPAC. Brock says he received $5,000 initially from Smith to investigate allegations (later proven baseless) that Clinton had fathered a child with an African-American prostitute in Arkansas. "I was programmed to spring to action like a trained seal," Brock recalls in his book. "Peter offered me $5,000 for my trouble, not through the Spectator but paid directly to me by check; getting by on my Anita Hill book advance, I was a whore for the cash. Although accepting a payment like this was most unusual and unethical for a journalist, in my mind it was no different from taking money from politically interested parties like the Olin and Bradley foundations."
  • During the 2000 elections, the media echo chamber claimed falsely that Democratic Party presidential candidate Al Gore had pretended he invented the Internet, claimed he and his wife were the role model for characters in Love Story, and repeated a number of other false stories about Gore that painted him as someone with a bad habit of telling lies.
  • In the buildup to war in Iraq, the echo chamber repeated and the Bush administration's claims that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, was tied to Al Queda, and that the people of Iraq would welcome a U.S. invasion as "liberation."
  • "News outlets ideologically allied with Bush have been happy to assist in confusing the public" "That half or more Americans think Iraq was involved in the 9/11 attack -- perhaps the most media-covered event in our history -- stands as a horrific indictment of U.S. media today. Such levels of ignorance can't be found in other countries." [1]
  • Newsweek Magazine and NBC television partnered for a week of unbalanced promotion of corporate interests. [2]
  • talk radio

External links

Risk

From Disinfopedia, the encyclopedia of propaganda.

Framing risk poorly or falsely so as to achieve fear is perhaps the single most common of the propaganda techniques. Propagandists often fail to differentiate a risk from threat or more likely, deliberately and selectively confuse the two concepts.

Disinfopedia resources

Correctible resources

Published resources

(stub: need anything on public manipulation after 9/11 with risk claims)

 

Distraction

From Disinfopedia, the encyclopedia of propaganda.
Techniques of distraction are used to suppress information or points of view by crowding them out of the media, or by inducing other people or groups of people to stop listening to certain arguments, or simply by drawing their attention elsewhere.
In a general age of information overload, it is far easier and more cost-effective to simply not discuss an issue, than to spend money on propaganda and spin. Many governments may be discovering that dealing with the public is best achieved through Weapons of Mass Distraction.
There is no doubt that all countries have priorities in news reporting that constitutes a bias, and that many times the bias will favor the administration currently in power. It is controversial, and may be just another conspiracy theory, to say that the government or large corporations are deliberately manipulating the media to distract the populace. But the media does have that effect, and the population is distracted. The only question left is whether it's deliberate or not.
Distracting the media is relatively easy, using some time-tested techniques--Some of the following recent examples helped keep U.S. public sentiment in favor of an Iraq invasion:

 

Distraction by nationalism

A variant on the traditional ad hominem and bandwagon fallacies applied to entire countries. The method is to discredit arguments coming from other countries by appealing to nationalistic pride or memory of past accomplishments, or appealing to fear or dislike of a specific country, or of foreigners in general. It can be very powerful as it discredits foreign journalists (the ones that are least easily manipulated by domestic political or corporate interests).
Example: "You want to know what I really think of the Europeans?" asked the senior United States State Department official. "I think they have been wrong on just about every major international issue for the past 20 years." [1]

Straw man

(see Straw man fallacy): Lumping a strong opposition argument together with one or many weak ones, to create a simplistic weak argument that can easily be refuted.
Example: Grouping all opposed to the 2003 Invasion of Iraq as "pacifists", so they can be refuted by arguments for war in general.

Distraction by scapegoat

A combination of straw man and ad hominem, in which your weakest opponent (or easiest to discredit) is considered as your only important opponent.
Example: If many countries are opposed to our actions, but one of them (say, France) is obviously acting out of self-interest, mention mostly France. Bash the French. Talk about Freedom Fries. Complain about ingratitude from World War II. Forget about the 90% of all other countries who feel the same way.

Distraction by phenomenon

A risky but effective strategy summarized by David Mamet's movie Wag the Dog, in which the public can be distracted, for long periods of time, from an important issue, by one which occupies more news time. When the strategy works, you have a war or other media event taking attention away from misbehaving or crooked leaders. When the strategy does not work, the leader's misbehavior remains in the press, and the war is derided as an attempted distraction.
Example:The fact that Bush Iraq War gets over 2 million hits on Google, while U.S. Economy Bush gets only 1.3 million may be an example of an effective use of "Wag the Dog".

Marginalization

(See Appeal to authority and Bandwagon within the article propaganda): This one is widespread and subtle: Simply giving credence only to "mainstream" sources of information, which are also the easiest to manipulate by corporate or political interests, since they can be owned or sponsored by them. Information, arguments, and objections that come from other sources are simply considered "fringe" and ignored, or their proponents permanently discredited.
Example: "I think there are a lot of people out there who feel the way I do, but haven't wanted to come forward because they're afraid of being identified with a fringe group..." Langley said. "I don't believe in all the things that all the (anti-war) groups stand for, but we all do share one thing in common: I do believe that this war is wrong."[2]

Demonisation of the opposition

(See 'Obtain disapproval' within the article propaganda): A more general case of distraction by nationalism. Opposing views are ascribed to an out-group and thus dismissed out of hand. This approach, carried to extremes, becomes a form of suppression, as in McCarthyism, where anyone disapproving of the government was considered "un-american" and "Communist" and was likely to be denounced.
Example: Recent demonization of any public figure who dared to criticize the Bush administration's motives, including Michael Moore, the Dixie Chicks, etc.

Googlewashing

A newly coined word by Andrew Orlowski of The Register [3] in April of 2003 to describe the alleged practice of changing the meaning of a meme (in this example, w:Second Superpower) by web-publishing a well-linked article using the term in an inoffensive manner, stripped of its political significance.

A few older examples

(again recall that distraction need not be deliberate):
  • Example:
    In 1995 in Poland the tobacco control bill was debated in the parliament. News were spread to media that smoking while driving will be prohibited and punishable, because it impairs driver's ability to concentrate.
    There were no such provision proposed, but news turned away public attention from incredible loopholes, which Philip Morris admits to plant in the bill (in the secret documents in American lawsuits). Incredibly, no jounalist bothered to check the draft first hand. At the time, Burson Marsteller handled PR for Philip Morris in Poland.

Disinformation

From Disinfopedia, the encyclopedia of propaganda.
Groups often produce disinformation to influence opinions related to their interests.

External links

  • French ambassador to US complains about disinformation

    Contrivance

    From Disinfopedia, the encyclopedia of propaganda.
    Generally, a contrivance is an act of inventing something or any new thing that emerges from within a society. As a propaganda technique, contrivance is a scheme invented to deceive or evade. Propagandists use contrivances as a stratagem to throw the audience of a message off the real intent of the Propagandist's messages. Individuals set up the artificial arrangement of details to extend the message of propaganda. Some propagandists are skillful at contriving schemes to problems, which may or may not work. Propagandists sometimes improvise these schemes for temporary use.
The Wikipedia database server has crashed and might remain unavailable for several days. Contributors can use OpenFacts as a backup wiki for creating articles. There is an active IRC channel #wikipedia on irc.freenode.net.

The following is a cached copy of the requested page, and may not be up to date.

 

Logical fallacy

.
A logical fallacy is an error of argument; it is a mistake in the way that the propositions (in the argument) are inter-related. When there is a fallacy (i.e. mistake) in the argument, then the argument is said to be invalid. That is, the conclusion does not follow (logically) from the propositions (sentences) advanced to support it. This structural mistake is not the same as the truth or falsity of the statements being made; the conclusion may be true, but it is said to be invalid because it doesn't follow from the arguments (premises) presented.
Arguments intended to persuade may be convincing to many listeners despite containing such fallacies. The truth of the premises may even significantly increase the probability of the truth of the conclusion. But they are nonetheless flawed. Recognizing these fallacies is sometimes difficult.
Here is an example of a fallacious argument. James wants to argue that all killing is wrong, so James argues as follows:
  1. If one should not do X, all X is wrong. (X can be any action.)
  2. One should not kill.
  3. Therefore, all killing is wrong.
James has committed the logical fallacy of begging the question. In the argument, James says that one should not kill and presents the statement with no qualifiers. But to prove that, he would have to prove that all killing is wrong — which is what he is trying to argue for. A supporter of the death penalty might think that some killing is fine, for example, as punishment for the worst murderers. (In fact, some might maintain that in some cases one actually should kill: it is our grim duty, an unfortunate yet necessary part of justice.) The argument presupposes its conclusion: one of the premises assumes that the conclusion is true. An argument that begs the question should not convince anyone.
Here is another example of a logical fallacy. Suppose Barbara argues like this:
  1. Andre is a good tennis player.
  2. Therefore, Andre is good — a morally good person.
Here the problem is that the word "good" has different meanings, which is to say that it is an ambiguous word. In the premise, Barbara says that Andre is good at some particular activity, in this case tennis. In the conclusion, she says that Andre is a morally good person. Those are clearly two different senses of the word "good." The premise might be true and the conclusion can still be false: Andre might be the best tennis player in the world but a rotten person morally speaking. Appropriately, since it plays on an ambiguity, this sort of fallacy is called the fallacy of equivocation.
Some fallacies are used freely in the media and politics. For example, when one politician says to another, "You don't have moral authority to say X", he is making the argumentum ad hominem or personal attack fallacy — not addressing the argument but attacking the person who made it.
Arguably, the politician is not even attempting to make an argument, but is instead offering a moral rebuke. Identifying logical fallacies as such can be difficult.
In the opposite direction is the fallacy of argument from authority. A classic example of this is the Ipse dixit — "He himself said it" — used through the Middle Ages in reference to Aristotle. A modern use is "celebrity spokepersons" in advertisements: that product is good because your favorite celebrity endorses it.
While an appeal to authority is always a logical fallacy, it can be an appropriate rational argument if, for example, it is an appeal to expert testimony—a type of inductive argument.

By definition, logical fallacies are invalid, but they can often be written or rewritten so that they follow a valid argument form; and in that case, the challenge is to discover the false premise, which makes the argument unsound.

 

An incomplete list of fallacies

See also

External links

Fallacies

Matteo Dell'Amico provides this feature in Italian

 

Index

  1. Ad Hominem
  2. Ad Hominem Tu Quoque
  3. Appeal to Authority
  4. Appeal to Belief
  5. Appeal to Common Practice
  6. Appeal to Consequences of a Belief
  7. Appeal to Emotion
  8. Appeal to Fear
  9. Appeal to Flattery
  10. Appeal to Novelty
  11. Appeal to Pity
  12. Appeal to Popularity
  13. Appeal to Ridicule
  14. Appeal to Spite
  15. Appeal to Tradition
  16. Bandwagon
  17. Begging the Question
  18. Biased Sample
  19. Burden of Proof
  20. Circumstantial Ad Hominem
  21. Composition
  22. Confusing Cause and Effect
  23. Division
  24. False Dilemma
  25. Gambler's Fallacy
  26. Genetic Fallacy
  27. Guilt By Association
  28. Hasty Generalization
  29. Ignoring A Common Cause
  30. Middle Ground
  31. Misleading Vividness
  32. Personal Attack
  33. Poisoning the Well
  34. Post Hoc
  35. Questionable Cause
  36. Red Herring
  37. Relativist Fallacy
  38. Slippery Slope
  39. Special Pleading
  40. Spotlight
  41. Straw Man
  42. Two Wrongs Make A Right

Dr. Michael C. Labossiere, the author of a Macintosh tutorial named Fallacy Tutorial Pro 3.0, has kindly agreed to allow the text of his work to appear on the Nizkor site, as a Nizkor Feature. It remains © Copyright 1995 Michael C. Labossiere, with distribution restrictions -- please see our copyright notice. If you have questions or comments about this work, please direct them both to the Nizkor webmasters (webmaster@nizkor.org) and to Dr. Labossiere (ontologist@aol.com).

Other sites that list and explain fallacies include:

Description of Fallacies

In order to understand what a fallacy is, one must understand what an argument is. Very briefly, an argument consists of one or more premises and one conclusion. A premise is a statement (a sentence that is either true or false) that is offered in support of the claim being made, which is the conclusion (which is also a sentence that is either true or false).

There are two main types of arguments: deductive and inductive. A deductive argument is an argument such that the premises provide (or appear to provide) complete support for the conclusion. An inductive argument is an argument such that the premises provide (or appear to provide) some degree of support (but less than complete support) for the conclusion. If the premises actually provide the required degree of support for the conclusion, then the argument is a good one. A good deductive argument is known as a valid argument and is such that if all its premises are true, then its conclusion must be true. If all the argument is valid and actually has all true premises, then it is known as a sound argument. If it is invalid or has one or more false premises, it will be unsound. A good inductive argument is known as a strong (or "cogent") inductive argument. It is such that if the premises are true, the conclusion is likely to be true.

A fallacy is, very generally, an error in reasoning. This differs from a factual error, which is simply being wrong about the facts. To be more specific, a fallacy is an "argument" in which the premises given for the conclusion do not provide the needed degree of support. A deductive fallacy is a deductive argument that is invalid (it is such that it could have all true premises and still have a false conclusion). An inductive fallacy is less formal than a deductive fallacy. They are simply "arguments" which appear to be inductive arguments, but the premises do not provided enough support for the conclusion. In such cases, even if the premises were true, the conclusion would not be more likely to be true.

Examples of Fallacies

  1. Inductive Argument
    Premise 1: Most American cats are domestic house cats.
    Premise 2: Bill is an American cat.
    Conclusion: Bill is domestic house cat.
  2. Factual Error
    Columbus is the capital of the United States.
  3. Deductive Fallacy
    Premise 1: If Portland is the capital of Maine, then it is in Maine.
    Premise 2: Portland is in Maine.
    Conclusion: Portland is the capital of Maine.
    (Portland is in Maine, but Augusta is the capital. Portland is the largest city in Maine, though.)
  4. Inductive Fallacy
    Premise 1: Having just arrived in Ohio, I saw a white squirrel.
    Conclusion: All Ohio Squirrels are white.
    (While there are many, many squirrels in Ohio, the white ones are very rare).

White paper

From Disinfopedia, the encyclopedia of propaganda.
A document prepared by an interest group detailing arguments related to a particular issue. White papers guide allies in their public and private efforts to argue their interests, and sometimes serve as persuasive documents for presentation to media organizations or to other targets of a persuasive effort.
Viral marketing
From Disinfopedia, the encyclopedia of propaganda.
Viral marketing is a technique that uses word of mouth or email to reach and affect an audience. Some forms of viral marketing have existed for centuries. They are mentioned in annals of Greek Athenian histories and are a common strategy in marketing and media relations techniques.
The goal of a viral marketer is to create "buzz" about a product or idea, so that the idea spreads widely. If effective, viral marketing may require very little effort on the part of the propagandist, as the recipients of the message become the primary agents who spread it to other people. On the other hand, the weakest thing about this form of marketing is that it is hard to control. Like the "telephone game" that children play, the message may change as it passes from ear to ear.

 

Examples

  • Rumours
  • Chain letters with warnings
  • "Leaked" information
  • Gossip
  • Urban myths
  • Secondhand versions of official reports
Case study #1:
Mobility and urbanization of American society at the beginning of 20th century unwittingly helped spread the syphilis, which was a major public health disaster by the twenties. Penicilin was still two decades away. Having the disease almost certain meant a painful death. It was feared and was not tolerated. After the World War I the tobacco companies expanded business into advertising to women, with R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company being at the forefront with its Camel brand. Very fierce competition ensued. Competitors apparently used the following technique of word of mouth and fear to counter advertise:
Two "strangers" would enter an establishment such as pharmacy through separate entrances, and independently from each other. A discussion will "incidentally" commence about Reynolds' cigarettes, and one person would express fear that there is a danger of catching syphilis from smoking Camels, because there is a confirmed epidemic among the factory employees. Discussion would be picked up by bystanders, and fear relayed to others. Radio was in its infancy at the time, and many people were illiterate, with no access to newspapers. Such technique must have been actually used, since at one point Reynolds advertized a $10,000 prize for exposing the perpetrators.

 

External links

A more sinister alternate meaning for the term viral marketing arose when it was revealed that various drugco vending antiviral therapies for HIV had worked to suppress research into the malaria therapy for AIDS. By doing so, some argue, they permitted the spread of the HIV virus to do the marketing of their drugs for them, as there was no effective or cheap alternative therapy.

Censorship

From Disinfopedia, the encyclopedia of propaganda.
Censorship is the use of state power or public body or individual to control freedom of expression. Censorship 'criminalizes' some actions or the communication (and suggested communications) of actions. In a modern sense censorship consists of any attempt to suppress information, points of view, or method of expression such as art, or profanity. The purpose of censorship is to maintain the status quo, to control the development of a society, or to stifle dissent among a subject people.
See also: Media censorship, Raising standard of evidence, UNESCO and the Press

 

External links

Buzzword

From Disinfopedia, the encyclopedia of propaganda.
Buzzword, as Merriam-Webster provides the definition, is "an important-sounding usually technical word or phrase often of little meaning used chiefly to impress laymen".
The use of buzzwords in modern literature, especially in the fields of advertising, computing and information technology, has become de rigeur.
Conventional computing technologies and methodologies such as Java, XML, Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) and more have become buzzwords, used as a form of pro-technology propaganda to act as bait for technically-unsophisticated managers who are responsible for purchasing decisions. Buzzwords in this sense are a commercialized variant of Newspeak, used to reinforce a particular mindset, but one that is economic in nature, rather than political ("We'll cut 20% off our TCO by switching to UDDI and SOAP").
Very often the use of buzzwords extends far beyond any defensible use, such as an exhortation by a manager that a project be "37% Object-Oriented", or that a given project use Java and XML, whether or not these two technologies are the ideal solutions to the problem at hand. The final evolution of this trend is the "buzzword-compliant" software package, a program that makes use of popular or fashionable technologies for no other sake than to inherit their gloss. The Java language is considered by many to be an example of such software, but there are many other, perhaps more apt, examples.
Nor is the phenomenon of "buzzword compliance" limited to software. Deloitte Consulting discovered enough of a correlation between poor performance and the heavy use of business-related buzzwords in a company's public statements that they wrote software to "score" documents based on their "jargon" content.
That buzzwords are not yet universally taken as seriously as their users wish is illustrated by example. At some presentations by PricewaterhouseCoopers Consulting, attendees have been known to give out "Buzzword Bingo" cards, and prizes for anyone who yells out "Bingo!" at the point in the talk when a line of five expected buzzwords (out of a total of 25 on the card) have all popped up in the talk or questions afterwards.

 

External Links

Augmentation

From Disinfopedia, the encyclopedia of propaganda.
Augmentation is the act of increasing a statement or information (especially in size or amount or degree) by addition.
By using this tactic, the propagandist tries to extend, or enlarge, the original statement. The information rides on the exposure of some arbitrary topic (Coca Cola, Earthquakes, the economy, the war, etc.) and, subtely, augments the original message to carry the propagandist's own message along with it. When applied with skill, the recipient will not notice the added part, but only the original message. The augmented message will be accepted uncritically as a basic premise.

Ad hominem

From Disinfopedia, the encyclopedia of propaganda.
An ad hominem argument, or argumentum ad hominem (Latin, literally "argument against the man [or person]"), is a fallacy that involves replying to an argument or assertion by attempting to discredit the person offering the argument or assertion. Ad hominem rebuttals are one of the best-known of propagandist tactics.
Simply, it is a refutation of a proposition, based solely upon some unrelated fact about the person presenting the proposition. Such refutation is said to be "against the person" (ad hominem) and not their proposition. Properly, it consists of saying that an argument is wrong because of something about the individual or organization is in error rather than about the argument itself. Moreover, it is not necessary to insult the individual or organization whose argument is attacked in order to commit the ad hominem attack. Rather, it must be clear that the purpose of the characterization is to discredit the person offering the argument, and, specifically, to invite others to discount his arguments.
Three traditionally identified varieties include:
  • Ad hominem abusive
    • Involves merely (and often unfairly) insulting the opponent.
    • Involve pointing out factual but damning character flaws or actions.
    • Insults and damaging facts simply do not undermine what logical support there might be for one's opponent's arguments or assertions.
  • Ad hominem circumstantial
    • Involves pointing out that someone is in circumstances such that he or she is disposed to take a particular position.
    • Constitutes an attack on the bias of a person.
    • Does not make one's opponent's arguments, from a logical point of view, any less credible to point out that one's opponent is disposed to argue that way.
  • Ad hominem tu quoque (literally, "at the person, you too")
    • Also called the "hypocrisy" argument.
    • Occurs when a claim is dismissed either because it is inconsistent with other claims which the claimant is making or because it is inconsistent with the claimant's actions.
As technique of propaganda, despite its usual lack of subtlety, it is powerful and frequently used (and, sometimes, excessively). Anyone involved in political discourse, and public discourse in general, would do well to become acquainted with it.
See also: fundamental attribution error

Portions of this article were adapted from Wikipedia's Ad hominem article.

 

Pre-emptive campaign strategy

From Disinfopedia, the encyclopedia of propaganda.
In her November 23, 2003 New York Times Op-Ed "Scaring Up Votes," Maureen Dowd writes "First came the pre-emptive military policy. Now comes the pre-emptive campaign strategy. ... Before the president even knows his opponent, his first political ad is blanketing Iowa today: 'It would take one vial, one canister, one crate slipped into this country to bring a day of horror like none we have ever known'."
Dowd comments, "Well, that's a comforting message from our commander in chief. Do we really need his cold, clammy hand on our spine at a time when we're already rattled by fresh terror threats at home and abroad? When we're chilled by the metastasizing Al Qaeda, the resurgent Taliban and Baathist thugs armed with deadly booby traps; the countless, nameless terror groups emerging in Turkey, Morocco, Indonesia and elsewhere; the vicious attacks on Americans, Brits, aid workers and their supporters in Iraq, Afghanistan and Turkey?"[1]
She contines: "Yet the Bush crowd is seizing the moment to scare us even more. ... Flashing the words 'terrorists' and 'self-defense' in crimson, the Republican National Committee spot urges Americans 'to support the president's policy of pre-emptive self-defense' — a policy Colin L. Powell claimed was overblown by the press. ... 'Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike?' Mr. Bush says.
"With this ad, [Dowd says] Republicans have announced their intention: to scare us stupid, hoping we won't remember that this was the same State of the Union in which Mr. Bush made a misleading statement about the Iraq-Niger uranium connection, or remark that the imperial idyll in Iraq has created more terrorists."[2]

Other Related Disinfopedia Resources

External Links

From Disinfopedia, the encyclopedia of propaganda.

Propagandists use a variety of propaganda techniques to influence opinions and to avoid the truth. Often these techniques rely on some element of censorship or manipulation, either omitting significant information or distorting it. They are indistinguishable except in degree from the persuasion techniques employed in social, religious and commercial affairs. Recently persuasion technology has come into common use, in all styles from digital image alteration to persuasive presentation and persistent telemarketing based on repetition, making these techniques impossible to avoid.

 

RhetoricalPropagandaTechniques

During the period between World Wars I and II, the now-defunct Institute for Propaganda Analysis (IPA) developed a list of common rhetorical techniques used for propaganda purposes. Their list included the following:

Other techniques/terms

Logical Fallacies

In order to understand what a fallacy is, one must understand what an argument is. Very briefly, an argument consists of one or more premises and one conclusion. ... A fallacy is, very generally, an error in reasoning. [1]

References on Logical Fallacies

  1. http://www.datanation.com/fallacies/
  2. http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/
  3. http://www.infidels.org/news/atheism/logic.html
  4. Logical fallacy

Persuasion technology arms races

The use of audiovisual technologies in mass persuasion is supported by scientific research, involving use of proprietary databases, audience response measurement, sociological research and a growing understanding of the biological basis for human behavior. Persuasion technology of some form is employed by most groups attempting to change minds on commercial or political matters. Tools like Disinfopedia, Wikipedia, consumerium, act.Greenpeace.org, crit.org and nooron.org are all attempts to equalize information and technology access.

Recommended Books

External links

Published on Thursday, September 11, 2003 by the Toronto Star
Living in 'Apocalyptic Fear'
Americans More Scared Than Ever
by Tim Harper
 

WASHINGTON—Two years on, the shock has dissipated, the memory is more distant, but the fear remains.

Poll after poll released on the eve of today's second anniversary of the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington find Americans more fearful and fatalistic than they were a year ago, when the need to honor the victims supplanted the recurring vision of another attack.

Lewis Lapham
Editor/Harpers magazine
Everything else which spiked upward in the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001 suicide hijackings — support for the government, a return to religion, even a trust of the media — has returned to pre-attack "normals."

"Everything but the `new normal,'" says Carroll Doherty of the Pew Research Center."The prevalent view in this country is that they can strike again, anywhere, anytime, and the government can't stop it.

"The apocalyptic fear is definitely here to stay, at least in the foreseeable future."

That fear returned yesterday when the Arabic television channel Al-Jazeera aired a video of Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahri, who vows to "bury" American troops in Iraq.

If Americans are fearful, says Harper's magazine editor Lewis Lapham, a leading American commentator, it's because they are being sold fear by the government of George W. Bush.

"Pretty well all the Bush administration has got going for it now is this foreign war," Lapham said. "Fear is something this administration has been selling for two years.

"You sedate the populace with the drug of fear and maybe the electorate won't notice what a mess you have made, not only of domestic politics, but also our international relations.

"In order to conceal, disguise, dress up their own incompetence, they beat the constant threat of war and fear."

Bush took that message of fear with him yesterday in a speech at an FBI training Center. in Quantico, Va., where he called for expanded police powers against suspected terrorists.

In so doing, Bush appears to have picked up the torch from his attorney-general, John Ashcroft, who has been accused of trampling civil rights in a growing national debate over his USA Patriot Act, which was passed after the 2001 attacks.

"The enemy is wounded but still resourceful and actively recruiting and still dangerous. We cannot afford a moment of complacency," Bush said.

"The memories of Sept. 11 will never leave us. We will not forget the burning towers and the last phone calls and the smoke over Arlington.

"And we will never forget the servants of evil who plotted the attacks. And we will never forget those who rejoiced at our grief and our mourning," Bush said.

Bush immediately drew the ire of the American Civil Liberties Union for using the tragic anniversary of more than 3,000 deaths to promote tougher police measures.

Lapham said it was just another example of the marketing of terror.

"That's what Ashcroft is doing," he said, "going around the country promoting the USA Patriot Act, saying, `There's a terrorist on everybody's block and unless you give us these Draconian powers, the bogeyman is going to come and get you.'"

"You know, the last two years they've been putting up these warning flags, like heavy surf at the beach. Blue, red, yellow, whatever it is.

"The American public is sophisticated enough to know that there are terrorists in the world and the world is a dangerous place. But it has been dangerous for many years."

Still, when the New York Times and CBS News polled 976 New Yorkers Aug. 31 to Sept. 4, they found more residents are fearful of another attack or report feeling more nervous or edgy than they did a year ago.

Tom Riehle, president of Washington-based Ipsos-Public Affairs, in a poll done for the Orlando Sentinel, found 91 per cent of Americans doubt terrorism will ever be eliminated.

The current Pew survey also found terrorism concerns reached a peak in February, shortly after the terrorist warning was raised to a Code Orange — the so-called "warning flags" Lapham refers to — perhaps indicating the government is sowing fear itself.

Copyright 1996-2003. Toronto Star Newspapers Limited
CounterPunch
February 1, 2003

Bush and Hitler

The Stategy of Fear

by DAVE LINDORFF
It's time to stop trying to explain why a war on Iraq is a bad idea.

The logic, of course, is clear. The administration has no evidence that Hussein has weapons of destruction. If it did, it would have shown it to the American public and the U.N. long ago. It has no evidence that Iraq is in league with Al Qaeda for the same reason. And it's obvious that even if--a big if according to Genernal Norman Schwarzkopf--a U.S. invasion does succeed in easily toppling Hussein, the result of that unprovoked assault, especially if it is carried out by the U.S. without a U.N. endorsement, will be a wave of terror against Americans and American interests that will dwarf anything seen in the past.

This is all self-evident, and even the Bush Administration has tacitly admitted that increased terrorism will be the result of an attack on Iraq: it has had the State Department issue a warning to Americans overseas and to Americans planning to travel that they should be prepared to be terrorist targets.

The point, however, is that this is precisely what the Bush Administration wants to happen.

A permanent state of American panic, fortified by regular doses of terror attacks, hijackings and building demolitions by crazed Muslim fanatics is exactly what Bush needs to stay in power, win re-election in 2004, stack the federal courts, gut the Bill of Rights, and enrich its corporate sponsors.

Don't hold your breath waiting for some politician on the Democratic side of the aisle to stand up and confront the administration about this treasonous plan.

That means it is urgent for the left to address the issue--to insert it into the public debate.

If Bush truly wanted to reduce the threat of terror against Americans, he would not be harassing Arab-Americans and Muslims at random and deporting people for minor alleged visa violations after secret hearings and detentions (a teriffic way to create blood enemies!). He would not be using cowboy rhetoric and threatening to invate Iraq all on his own, knowing that one result will be the political undermining of a whole series of repressive secular Arab regimes, and their replacement by fundamentalist Islamic governments. He would not be holding back funds for legitimate homeland y defense efforts, such as bolstering fire departments and police departments. y And if he was really trying to steel America for a battle against the "forces of evil" in Iraq and the rest of the world, he'd be using Churchillian language, talking about mutual sacrifice and of fortitude under fire. Instead he calls up dire warnings of fanciful nuclear or germ attacks against urban centers, and the spectre of unimaginable horrors--things that can only induce a cowering response.

The sad thing is that Americans, fattened up and soft of muscle from their diet of McDonald's Whoppers and dim-witted from an overdose of "reality" TV shows and entertainment programs posing as news, suck up this kind of fear-mongering (all of which is eagerly played up by ratings-hungry media executives). If one plane gets highjacked, plane travel plummets. If a few letters are found to be contaminated with anthrax spores, people across the land stop opening their mail, or start zapping it first in their microwaves. If a child is reported missing in Arizona, parents across the land clutch their children to their bosoms and begin lecturing them about the evils of talking to "strangers," forgetting that this is exactly what a child ought to do if she gets lost.

In Europe, Asia, Africa or South America, where wars and terrorism, not to mention natural disasters, have been a way of life, the loss of a few hundred, or even a few thousand people, to a bomb, an earthquake, a flood or a civil war, does not induce a national catatonia. People clean up the mess as best they can, count their losses, and go on with their lives.

The other sad thing about us Americans is that we have no notion of the horrors of war, and so are quick to wish it on others (Indian Americans and the MOVE and Branch Davidian organizations aside, the last war on American soil was fought 137 years ago). It's no wonder those people of "Old Europe," as "chickenhawk" Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld disparagingly referred to Germany and France, are more reluctant about going to war in Iraq. They know that dropping bombs from B-52s all across the country and fighting door-to-door in Baghdad will produce horrific casualties and create destruction that will take years to repair (There are still several mountains on the outskirts of Darmstadt, Germany, where I spent a year as a highschool student--the stacked rubble, including many human remains, of a city of 200,000 destroyed in one night by a British fire-bombing. Similar man-made mountains can also be spotted around Berlin.) Europeans also know that if terrorism on a wider scale is the result, in the U.S. and in Europe, it will be a grisly affair.

Americans have only the WTC to look at when they try to contemplate the effects of war, and all in all, that was a pretty antiseptic affair. One second you the towers, another second, they were gone, and within a year or so, the site was all cleaned up and ready for a nifty new building.Indeed, the only institutional memory left of that attrocity is the unseemly battle by survivors of the once high-flying investment banker victims of the attack to get better reimbursements from the government for their unfortunate loss of those six-figure incomes.

The naivity of Americans about the reality of war was brought home to me years ago, when as a young journalism student, I found myself working on a story aout a truck accident and ended up in a local firehouse in Middletown, CT. It was 1970, at the height of the Cold War, and the fireman on duty asked me if I'd like to see the bomb-proof back-up government offices that had been built under the station thanks to some federal disaster funding. We walked down a stairwell through three feet of case-hardened concrete, and through a blast door, into a spare-looking room filled with desks. On each desk was an etched nameplate, identifying the government bureau that would be represented by the official seated there. I saw a sign for "Mayor," another of "Police," and a third for "Fire," but there were also desks for "Welfare," "Assessor" and "Tax Collector," as though, after a nuclear holocaust there would be need for these worthy bureaucrats!

That, of course, is not how wars look--especially modern wars where military planners don't bother distinguishing between civilian and military targets. Vietnam is still recovering from its having been the target of all those bombs, napalm and Agent Orange attacks, not to mention the loss of a generation of its young men and women. Afghanistan may never recover from the relatively minor recent war there.

If we Americans value our society, our polity, our rights and liberties, and our security, we must begin exposing George W. Bush and his War Party for what they are: craven usurpers aiming at nothing less than the undermining of all those things that most of us hold dear.

It's going a bit far to compare the Bush of 2003 to the Hitler of 1933. Bush simply is not the orator that Hitler was. But comparisons of the Bush Administration's fear mongering tactics to those practiced so successfully and with such terrible results by HItler and Goebbels on the German people and their Weimar Republic are not at all out of line.

Dave Lindorff is the author of Killing Time: an Investigation into the Death Row Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal. A collection of Lindorff's stories can be found here: http://www.nwuphilly.org/dave.html

 

Treating dissent as treason

From Disinfopedia, the encyclopedia of propaganda.
The Center for American Progress has coined the term Intimigate to describe "the well established pattern ... that the Bush Administration has summarily fired, intimidated and defamed anyone who has had the courage to tell the truth about Iraq." [1]
Article III of the Constitution states
Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court.
Also see Annotations. Section 3. Treason. Definition and Limitations plus Case Law re Treason, FindLaw.com.

 

Examples

  • Capitol Hill Blue, a political journalism web site based in Washington, DC, reported in January 2003 that President Bush was angry at opposition within the Pentagon to his push for war with Iraq. According to an unnamed White House spokesman quoted in the article, "The President considers this nation to be at war, and, as such, considers any opposition to his policies to be no less than an act of treason.”[2][3]
  • The New York Times reported in November 2003 that the Federal Bureau of Investigation "has collected extensive information on the tactics, training and organization of antiwar demonstrators and has advised local law enforcement officials to report any suspicious activity at protests to its counterterrorism squad. ... But some civil rights advocates and legal scholars said the monitoring program could signal a return to the abuses of the 1960's and 1970's, when J. Edgar Hoover was the F.B.I. director and agents routinely spied on political protesters like the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr."[4]
  • In April 1997, Arianna Huffington, who was part of the conservative movement in the 1990s, complained that Newt Gingrich had become a "Leninist surrealist." She wrote:
Gingrich's determination to squash dissent has simply driven dissent underground and instead squashed the vitality of House Republicans. "The reason why there has been no Jack Kemp emerging in the Republican conference, as in 1978, is because Gingrich is so controlling," a former Gingrich intimate told me. "He pays lip service to the free exchange of ideas but treats the slightest dissent as treason. Had Newt Gingrich been speaker when Newt was a backbencher, Gingrich would never have survived as an insurgent."[5]
  • FTAA Meetings in Miami 2003, by Naomi Klein [6]
    • With the activists recast as dangerous aliens, Miami became eligible for the open tap of public money irrigating the "war on terror." In fact, $8.5-million spent on security during the FTAA meeting came directly out of the $87-billion President Bush extracted from Congress for Iraq last month -- a fact barely reported outside of the Miami press.
    • The resulting media coverage was the familiar wartime combination of dramatic images and non-information. We know, thanks to an "embed" from the Miami Herald, that Police Chief Timoney was working so hard hunting down troublemakers that by 3:30 on Thursday, "he had eaten only a banana and an oatmeal cookie since 6 a.m."
    • also "This is not America" [7]=[8]
    • "A judge presiding over the cases of free trade protesters said in court that he saw no less than 20 felonies committed by police officers during the November FTAA demonstrations" in Miami. [9]
  • A tabulation at the Center for American Progress titled "Right-Wing: When In Doubt, Attack People's Patriotism."
  • Greenpeace: Last year, two of its activists boarded a ship that was smuggling illegally harvested rainforest mahogany and unfurled a banner that called on President Bush to act. But instead of going after the smugglers, the Justice Department went out of its way to file criminal charges against Greenpeace, citing an antiquated 1872 law. It's the first time in our history the government has prosecuted an entire organization for the free speech activities of its supporters. [10]

Relevant quotes

  • "I may disagree with what you have to say, but I shall defend, to the death, your right to say it." --Voltaire
  • "And though the time is always right for an act of conscience, perhaps the best time of all is when the voices of power are howling that dissent is treason. A crowd marching for principle voices a different kind of power, saying what power itself doesn't want to hear: Americans have a right to dissent. Civil liberties are not a village that you save by destroying." -- Erika Munk, adjunct professor at the School of Drama, about her efforts to organize a protest march in her article "Saturday is the Time To Speak Truth to Power," Newsday (New York), March 20, 2003.[11]
  • Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both. -- Benjamin Franklin
  • "In case you haven't gotten it yet, here it is in a nutshell. Criticizing the president is not the same thing as criticizing the troops. Criticizing the president is not the same as criticizing America. And criticizing the president is not 'giving aid and comfort to the enemy,' which is the classic definition of treason, a federal crime that earns felons the death penalty."[12]

Other Related Disinfopedia Resources

External Resources