Monday, June 05, 2006

Blindfold

The real power of the press. What do you think you know?

Rutgers University Professor Judith Apter Klinghoffer claims that major newspapers are systematically playing down unrest in Iran. She says, "Do me a favor try to find MSM information about the ongoing unrest in Iran. You will fail. There is no dearth of articles on Iran but they do not include any mention of the ongoing unrest there. Just view the results of a Google search of the terms: Iran, unrest." The search string in question, done against the Google News search engine "http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&q=iran+unrest" actually returns a different result each day it is run, but the point is taken. At the time of this writing, most the links returned were from The Pakistan Daily Times, British Ahwazi Friendship Society, Gulf News, Caucaz.com -- though there was one from the Christian Science Monitor and another from the Chicago Tribune. But all that proves is that there isn't any unrest in Iran, right? Otherwise the BBC, the Washington Post and the NYT would be all over it.

Well maybe. A week ago I was in Canberra and because I like doing such things, took a walk around town in the pre-dawn darkness. It's a small town and after skirting Black Mountain and Lake Burley Griffin (named after the Chicago architect who designed the city) accidentally found myself in front of an unusual looking place of worship. It turned out to be the Ukrainian Autocephalic Orthodox Church of St Nicholas, of which there are apparently only a handful outside Galcia. Funny what you will bump into walking at odd hours. There was a plaque in front of it surrounded by flowers, just as in this photograph of the exact same site, with these words inscribed:

This memorial was erected in commemoration of the greatest tragedy in the modern history of Ukraine, the UKRAINIAN HOLOCAUST, when in 1932-33 a famine was artificially created by the communist regime of the Soviet Union, causing the death from starvation of in excess of 7 million innocent human beings.

And the amazing thing about the death of those seven million Ukrainians is that they never happened in the New York Times. The Wikipedia entry for Duranty reads in part:

The New York Times hired a professor of Russian history to review Duranty's work. That professor, Mark Von Hagen of Columbia University, says Mr. Duranty's reports were unbalanced and uncritical, and they far too often gave voice to Stalinist propaganda.

In his New York Times articles (including one published on March 31, 1933), Duranty repeatedly denied the existence of a Ukrainian famine in 1932–33. In an article in NYT, August 24 1933, he claimed "any report of a famine is today an exaggeration or malignant propaganda", but admitted privately to William Strang (in the British Embassy in Moscow on September 26, 1933) that "it is quite possible that as many as ten million people may have died directly or indirectly from lack of food in the Soviet Union during the past year."

American engineer Zara Witkin and UK intelligence claim Duranty misrepresented this. Several organizations have called on the Pulitzer Board to revoke his prize, but in 2003 the Board issued a statement announcing its decision not to revoke the prize, although it did state that "Mr. Duranty's 1931 work, measured by today's standards for foreign reporting, falls seriously short". Duranty was also criticized for defending Stalin's notorious show trials.

The English journalist Malcolm Muggeridge, who worked in Ukraine as a journalist for The Manchester Guardian called Duranty "the greatest liar I have met in journalism."

Nixon's cover-up of a "third rate burglary" in 1972 with his puny Presidential prerogatives at the the Watergate apartments was a crime; but the feat of making seven and perhaps ten million deaths disappear was a demonstration of real power, beside which Nixon's was nothing. A lot of indignant ink has been spilled over "media lies" with the breathless expectation that deceivers will someday get their comeuppance; that an hour of reckoning will eventually overtake the editorial room. Unlikely. Liars -- like Walter Duranty -- almost never pay for their lies. Duranty became one of FDR's advisers and even got the final scoop, accompanying the Soviet Foreign minister on negotiations to effect America's recognition of Stalin. Nothing happened to Duranty. The NYT still displays his Pulitzer. The real cost of lies is borne by people who believe them; borne by those who thought -- until the gates clanged shut behind them -- that Uncle Joe was really a nice man.

The real effect of unreliable journalism is that the public is blinded. Impossible? Here's a test. Name a virus which kills hundreds of thousands of babies in the Third World each year. The answer, as per the NIH, is here. In terms of relative deadliness to children under five the disease it causes is listed at number 3 by the CDC. The answer you were probably thinking of is listed at number 6. That doesn't mean that number 6 isn't a problem, but who ever heard of number 3? Why aren't there rock concert benefits to raise money for it? Dunno. But if I never lurked in the obscure corners of the Internet or wasn't given to walking at all hours I might never have heard of the Ukranian holocaust either.

Nor is the answer to this problem simply adding more conservative media outlets to "balance" things out. There's no reason to think that honesty is an attribute of a particular political orientation. Two versions of a story don't necessarily mean that either one is true. What's needed is a way to reform our organs of sight and escape from a world where practically every terrorist attack is prefaced with a denial that a particular community is a threat; or that taxes can be cut and spending upped without consequences. What's needed is some way out of the maze of lies, not to get at the liars, because liars never pay the price, but to get away from the lie.

BTW, is it really true there is no unrest in Iran?

44 Comments:

Blogger Starling said...

Wretchard said, "BTW, is it really true there is no unrest in Iran?"

Well apparently it is, Wretchard. I just checked the politics, society, and culture pages of the Tehran Times online and there is no mention of any unrest, except for that
next door in Iraq.

The only talk of unrest is that which meddling outsiders are trying to create in Iran. And even they are giving up on the idea of using force against it.

According to the Tehran Times, Iran is not only the strongest country in the region its historical enemies, its Arab neighbors, even reject the lies being told about Iran.

Serious world leaders are forging stronger ties with Iran and there is no possiblity of forming a consensus against it.

On the cultural front, Austria's Festival of Nations> is preparing an Iranian film festival and Italy is hosting a of paintings by Iranian female artists. Why even the Tehran Symphony Orchestra is preparing to praise the national soccer team before it heads off to the World Cup.

To be fair, there is a bit of sadness these days in the otherwise idyllic nation. June 4, you see, is the anniversary of the death of the late Imam Khomeini. But even here, the result of the sadness is source of "great national convergence." He is the one which all revere because, you know, " ... Imam Khomeini possessed talents and characteristics that are rarely combined in a single person. He was a skillful politician. He organized millions of people in a short period of time and thus, by following the guidelines of Imam Khomeini, the masses overthrew the monarchist regime. By making use of a logical policy that was based on non-violent resistance, Imam Khomeini overthrew the powerful Pahlavi regime, which was supported by the United States and other Western countries."

How could it possible be that a country so strong and respected by the outside world would not be at peace with itself?

How could it be that a country that poses "no threat" to its neighbors could be seen as a threat to or by its own citizens?

How could an advanced country whose popular culture is embraced by enlightened Western nations not be adored by its own people, the ones who produced it?

How could a government once lead by one of the world's greatest statesmen -and an avowed advocate and practioner of non-violence I might add- be facing violent unrest or popular discontent?

It couldn't happen, I tell you. It just couldn't.

6/05/2006 03:50:00 AM  
Blogger Karridine said...

Wretchard, I have deliberately refrained from writing much here, out of respectful deference to you, but you have opened a legitimate door to questions revolving around the Independent Investigation of Truth.

If Jesus IS 'the righteousness that is Christ', then the Jewish rabbis and other teachers do NOT reflect a valid source of real knowledge as regards His Being. We do not have to invoke conspiracy or malignant thoughts, simply acknowledge that they have access to the same prophecies as we, the same historical records as we, but they choose to read those records as PROOF that Jesus (a human with no physical marks to set him outside humanity) was/is NOT recognizable as 'the righteousness that is Christ'.

Today, IF 'the righteousness that is Christ' has come down from Heaven, in a physical body that every eye could see, speaking with an audible voice that every ear could hear, and subject to the vicissitudes that Jesus of Nazareth was subjected to, THEN the Christian clergy who 'scoff and deny our Lord Who redeems us' has returned are NOT valid sources to guide us aright in our efforts to overcome the objections they place in our path while investigation reality for ourselves.

He comes, and IF He IS God-Made-Manifest for THIS Day, THEN it follows that Christian clergy, without invoking conspiracy or malignant intent, have been blinded by the same human forces which blinded the Jews to the recognition of and obedience to that Holy One.

That He advocates 'the Independent Investigation of Truth' in service of Justice, MAY be, COULD be a contributing factor in 'proving' that this outward human is, inwardly, invested of an authority and a knowledge born of God.

When God passes by, He does so under the full glare of history, especially this time, at the end-point of seven thousand years of anticipation of Him.

Yet He can be denied, belittled in speech, scoffed at and scorned. Any attempt to 'prove' He comes in the Station of the Father, as Jesus came in the Station of the Son, only leads to the question, "What will YOU accept as proof that (He/Jesus) is Who He says He is?"

By leading humankind to ignore Him and try 'real, down-to-earth' remedies, (like Communism, National-Socialism, Islamo-fascism, unfettered materialism or faith in technology uber alles) the high-priests of our collective past have precipitated MASSIVE SUFFERING on a scale previously unknown!

It could get worse, before it gets better, and a tiny minority of believers who bear His New Name, will be heard saying, "These sufferings and maladaptions and untruths and famines and pogroms and holocausts and wars are PREPARING humankind to recognize and obey the Holy One..."

but it STILL comes down to a free-will choice to believe that (....) is a Messenger from God, with knowledge and love applicable to the problems facing us today!

Such as the unrest and renewed persecution of Baha'is, now sweeping Iran. There might be a clue, somewhere in this...

6/05/2006 04:19:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

Steve Emerson will be on Bill Bennet show:
http://www2.krla870.com/listen/

6/05/2006 04:47:00 AM  
Blogger Deuce ☂ said...

" Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
- Albert Einstein

Pollyanna I am not, but I sense something different. I believe we are are part of a growing community that is making slow steady progress in outing their lies. Imagine the feeling if you were living under the Third Reich, or Stalinism or Maoism. This forum and many many more like this is making a difference. Challenge their lies. Call them out. The Left is on defense. The mistake we make is when we defend the indefensible because we see them as being on our side.

6/05/2006 04:58:00 AM  
Blogger RWE said...

As I have said before, we hear about someone urinating on a koran when it never happened, we hear if someone gets upset over female ministers being ordained in some town in the Midwest - but we don't hear a peep about someone coming into a quiet mosque in Canada and converting it into a hotbed of Wahbbist subversion.

The two young men who invented Superman in 1939 made him a hero reporter who had a hero secret identity. What would they have made him today? Especially if they knew about Durante et al.

Maybe a blogger?

At least it would eliminate those embarassing moments in the phone booths.

6/05/2006 05:52:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

Karen Hughes embraces the most EXTREME Islamist Groups in America, and does not even make herself available to people like Emerson.
Domestic threat growing.
This conservative will never again vote for a Texan for dogcatcher.
Embrace Islam! Embrace Fox! Embrace Ted Kennedy!
WTF?

6/05/2006 05:53:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

Not much news from Iran, that's a fact. Not much coverage of the labor unrest in the transportation segment of their Industrial base. Not much discussion of Student protests, either.

Not much discussion of eletions in Colunbia or Peru or Ecuador's nationalization of oil infrastructure.
The Francofada was ill reported, IMO, as is continued funding of Madrossa's by the KSA across the planet. No stories about the continued genocide in Darfur make the cut, on a conitnuing basis, either.
The Border issue, in the US, was unreported for years, until the public outrage could no longer be hidden. Even then it's dismissed as "new" and "unimportant, really", just the "normal" status que.

Ms Rice does not highlight the unrest in Iran, specificly. Nor in Georgia, or Uzbeckistan either.

Before the US media gets involved in a Story, there must be a hook. Iran's only storyline of interest is the BOMB.
That is where the viewership lies, it is all the US Government is concerned about, publicly, the Press follows that lead. While the Press is waiting for a story that bleeds.

If the US were to take action, cross border raids, punitive strikes, those would be covered.
If the Story is not about US, we really don't care about it.

There is little "demand" for Iran's domestic news in the US.
No amount of "force feeding" would change that.

6/05/2006 05:54:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

Toronto filled with Radical Islamists.

6/05/2006 06:00:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

Not much news from Somolia, where the Islamic Court's pokesman says they "captured" the Capital.

The Warlords were whipped on, again?

6/05/2006 06:10:00 AM  
Blogger Oengus said...

Wretchard: "is it really true there is no unrest in Iran?"

Of course not. Everybody in the glorious Islamic Republic loves and revers their supreme beneficent rulers.

And even if there were "unrest", it'd the insidious work of the nefarious Edsel Bushesfalt.

>satire/<

6/05/2006 06:14:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

The photo from Haditha, that cannoneer was so upset about, the one of the fishermen, illustrates papa bear's point, I think.

One aspect of the story is about violence and death in Haditha, a continuing story of civil unrest and mayhem. The other aspect, the hook, is that it is about US Marines. That is why death in Haditha has now made it above the fold.

The death of sailors was not hardly news worthy, just part of the continued death toll, in Haditha and Iraq, but there were file photos of the bodies.

The Marine story breaks, without photos, of course. Well photos are needed, for photojournalism.
The Editor and graphic artists need a picture, now, here's one of Mass Murder in Haditha, it's a different mass murder, no doubt, but it does accurately portray the 1st aspect of the situation, it was taken in Haditha, the folk are dead.
Just not the victims described in the story, and while "accurately" captioned it was never the less misleading.

Cannoneer believes it part of a conspiracy to defame the Marines, when it is, more likely, just "cut and paste" graphic design, using what was available to meet the deadline.

6/05/2006 06:32:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

The story related the other day, where the terrorist were behind a line of children, engaging our troops with small arms fire AND video cameras. Wanting the "shot" of US firing on the children.

Where were the US cameras?
The WWII video I see on the Military Channel was not "shot" by "media". It was done by the Military. Where are the Military video men? Why are the Enemy tactics not filmed?
Either it is not "really" happening, or the Army does not think it an important mission.

Give the video to FOX or any of the others, they'll use it.
It is what the Enemy is doing, why is US so far behind the information management curve, still depending on others to do the real work in this War.

6/05/2006 06:48:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

As Mr Rumsfeld said
"Wrong Skill Sets"

but also, no adaptation of the Force to meet the "new" needs

6/05/2006 06:51:00 AM  
Blogger Mike H. said...

Insidious Journalism another take.

6/05/2006 06:52:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

"Cannoneer believes it part of a conspiracy to defame the Marines, when it is, more likely, just "cut and paste" graphic design, using what was available to meet the deadline. "
---
huh? Even Graphic Designers have "designs."

6/05/2006 06:56:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

Right cannoneer, if the object was to "defame" I'd have cropped the photo from the top, leaving the blood of the bottom two corpses, not the "clean" bodies in the background.

Victims in Haditha, the US is carrying out two inquieries (AP)
That was the caption, accurate, but misleading.

You'll be happier when they finally obtain and distribute the "accurate" pictures of the dead baby and it's mother?

You'll pine for the day's that this was the image, believe me.

6/05/2006 06:57:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

mike h
About time,
Media manipulation is not a one way street, that is the real point.

It is part of the greater War, complaining that it's not goin' your way, won't change the Course...

Constant harping and negativism, without proposing another Stratergery, it's pointless.

I've read that before, now you read it again.

6/05/2006 07:03:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

Are there 200 film crews, cannoneer?
During the Invasion wikipedia says that 600 journalists were embedded with Coalition Forces.
That would be 200 or so crews.

If the Military cannot reach that level of data collection and dispersment saturation, it's half steppin'.
Guarentee you we do not have that kind of Force deployeed, 'cause the Military has the Info War upside down.
Still depending on CNN.
Who's not doing the job?

6/05/2006 07:10:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

You do not believe the photos will be published, or that they exist, or that they will make the fishermen look tame by comparisson?

The Morgue video will eventually, when made public, those images will be captured, believe that. The photos the Lance Corporal took, at the action, will ALL be made public, eventually.
It's goin' to Court, ALL in open public view. It will be ALL reported and worse.

Those images will be devastating, much worse than dead fishermen.

Plus with the "speed" of the Investigation and Trial, General Pace said it'll take months, it'll drag on, dripping like Chinese water torture.

6/05/2006 07:20:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

The Republicans control both Houses of Congress and the White House, if they cannot adequately get the Military funded, who is to blame and who else could get the job done?
'Cause it's time to change to someone that can succeed at the challenges presented.

6/05/2006 07:23:00 AM  
Blogger Mad Fiddler said...

Dear Wretchard,

Advocacy by necessity must focus. There are so many issues, it's impossible to accomplish anything if you attempt to dole your energies out proportionally to each of ten thousand different worthy causes.

My brother and I have noticed for over four decades that most people have had the figure of "Six MILLION JEWS" murdered by Hitler's Nazis, but that very few of those people are even aware that there were any significant numbers of non-Jewish victims.

Part of the reason they are not, of course, is that even though the total number of other victims was almost the same — another six million human beings — they were a mixture of all other races, religions, occupations, sexual orientations, and other categories. This means that there is no monolithic block of bereaved descendants and relatives to remind us.

I have written many times and in many different contexts about the tens of millions of soviet citizens murdered by Stalin in the Ukraine, both before the war to impose agricultural collectivization, and during the war as retribution for collaboration with the Nazi Wehrmacht they greeted as liberators from Stalin's oppression.

So what? I'm nobody, just some guy trying to articulate my own sense of history, and occasionally nagging on other people's blogs. Because I hope to continue teaching in the highly partisan atmosphere of a state college system, I don’t promote my website, and don’t identify myself directly in my posts. (I’ve seen ample evidence of how non-tenured faculty are treated for expressing views counter to the left-dominated PC catechism...)

BUT the real point is that the information is available to anyone who makes the most casual effort to inquire.

I take comfort in the concept of “samizdat” (I think it translates roughly to “do-it-yourself news”) which is the Russian term coined for the underground circulation of news and information in the form of handtyped, mimeographed, and later audiocassette descriptions, testimonies, music, and news that were independent of the official Soviet news organs. In a system where the primary newspaper carried the ironic title “TRUTH” (i.e., “Pravda”) while regularly contradicting itself as Stalin and his successors from time to time reconsidered the official narrative, people became adept at maintaining a facade of credulity for the official view, while surreptitiously trafficking in secret information smuggled from the west.

You may recall that the Soviet system finally was unable to sustain the lies, and collapsed. There is going to be a lot of turmoil, and chaos, and suffering as the inheritors of that system try to sort things out. But evolution nor the human spirit can be stifled forever.

You, Wretchard, are doing a wonderful service to help people sort through the lies. I’m deep in your debt.

6/05/2006 07:23:00 AM  
Blogger Mike H. said...

Cox and Forkum has a cartoon about a broad brush. Those figures could just as easily be journalists and their supporters. On the one bucket we have specious photography and on the other political filter.

6/05/2006 07:34:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

First point from your link, cannoneer,
We still have to move the hardest bunch, though, which is the middle level officers who are just removed enough from the war to be attached to regulations instead of effect, and just powerful enough to throw up bureaucratic walls that can stop things from happening even when the combatant commander wants it (e.g., "well, sir, the lawyers say..."). Once you can get that middle on board, you'll see things start moving fast in the right directions. ..."

So from your link, it's not Congress, but internal resistence within the Military, the reluctance to taking the field in the Info Wars.
Defeatism with in the Ranks keeps US from fighting effectively.

"Additionally, these responses need to understand the process of creating/pushing disinfo, as a lot of these messages are intentionally hostile. Responding to them, and predicting the next enemy message/counterpropaganda, is IO work. That's where the experts are in this field.

So, PA and IO really need to work in integrated closeness. Because they are legally required to be separate, however, the bureaucratic infighting destroys that cooperation and trust. This is a disaster...."


Now the Republicans "Could" change the Law, whenever they wished, it is just another "wall", like Ms Gorlick's in the FBI.
But the "infighting" where cooperation is already allowed, that is the Commanders fault, from Unit to Theater or CiC.
Where does the buck stop?

6/05/2006 07:41:00 AM  
Blogger Mad Fiddler said...

In the context of this post it seems worth relating the issues of MSM credibility to readers' analytical skills....

Several million high school graduates that can't think their way out of an open toilet stall make a very receptive voting block for unprincipled demagogues. Something to keep in mind as you keep track of exactly which groups are determined to resist any change to a public education system circling the drain, and simultaneously obstructing the choices of anyone wanting to opt out .

6/05/2006 07:42:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

The buck stops with Ted Turner & Mr Murdock, if cannoneer is to be believed

6/05/2006 07:45:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

Mr Truman believed the buck stopped at his desk.
Mr Bush believes Mr Truman to be a "guiding light". Said as much at West Point, just last week.

Mr FDR, yeah, I would have been with Mr McCormick's team, most likely. All things being equal, in retrospect.

6/05/2006 07:56:00 AM  
Blogger Karridine said...

Tomorrow marks 06/06/06 on the Common Era calendar (the one which matters or comes to the attention of most Americans, Europeans and mujaheddin fighting to hurt America through the press/media)...

...and it marks the end of the 30-day grace period given by AhmadiNutjob to GWBush to enroll in the Islamic Best-Buy efforts...

So we'll see if anything untoward occurs. (other than this slightly offthread datum)

6/05/2006 07:59:00 AM  
Blogger Grim said...

As the fellow who wrote "the PAO conversation," I'd like to clarify the point about middle-level officers.

It's not that they're defeatist -- I never meant to suggest that. It's that their understanding of the proper way of doing this is set, and they -- like any large body of bureaucrats -- are resistant to change. I certainly think they believe they are doing the right thing, and are both interested in and devoted to victory.

They just haven't "gotten" that we need to make some major changes in our communications structure, or what those changes might be. When someone says, "Let's do X," the first thing that occurs to them is all the rules that would have to be changed, and the difficulty of getting the lawyers to approve it, and the huge amount of work necessary to retask.

I think the DOD could usefully stop communicating with the major press almost entirely, and focus its efforts on communicating with the local press -- both in America and abroad. They will need more resources, though, both in terms of PAOs (it's harder to talk to 500 local papers than to talk to the NY Times and the W. Post), and in terms of translators (so they can be getting their stuff out into the local press in Indonesia, say).

I don't, however, think they're "defeatist." I just think they're bureaucrats, and moving a bureaucracy through a major shift in its focus and mission is always a slow and challenging process.

6/05/2006 08:00:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

Choice, cannoneer, choices, perceptions and as Mr Rumsfeld has said, we are losing the Info Wars because of them.

That is not the fault of CNN or FOX. Those are choices the Army makes, itself. There are consequences, good and bad, to those choices.
We should "Learn to live with 'em?

We cannot match the Enemy on the battlefield, 'cause the Army chooses not to.
Who is the responsible party for that decision, what name do we attach to it?

6/05/2006 08:01:00 AM  
Blogger Grim said...

By the way, bloggers fit in well with that picture. Communicating with major individual bloggers, or group blogs, is roughly the same process as communicating with the local press. Some blogs have readership in excess of that of many local papers.

Folding those things together, and letting more US Federal employees blog the way that MilBloggers have been blogging, would give us a bigger footprint. The other piece is that the DOD should be picking up what those bloggers say, and pushing that message into the Muslim world with translators and its PA structure. When the press -- whether the NY Times or the Tehran times -- reports something at variance with the facts, bloggers often correct it. MilBloggers have been better than the DOD structure at quickly breaking down false charges and answering them.

The DOD needs to learn to engage that, pick up what the blogs are saying, verify the truth of it, and quickly push it out into the worldwide small press. That's a game we need to learn to play.

6/05/2006 08:05:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

Perhaps, grim, but when the SoD says your Division is gettin' stomped, which he has, and the need for massive reorganization is neither seen, acknowledged or implemented, quickly, further defeats will follow. Folks that promote the staus que are promoting further defeats.

To continue to do the same thing, expecting a different outcome is...

6/05/2006 08:06:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

Cannoneer

If the President is not the one responsible for the Military, if the buck stops short of his desk, where does it stop?
At JFKerry's Office?
I think not.
Mr Bush was elected to be the Responsible paty, cause he seemed best suited for the Job.
Now you tell me he is not responsible, why?
Did I miss an entire election cycle?

6/05/2006 08:11:00 AM  
Blogger Grim said...

Well, it is seen and acknowledged, and implementation is under way. The PAO I talked to at I MBC (1st MilBlogs Conference) was very interested in engaging us. He just wasn't yet sure how. He came wanting to work with us, though.

It's happening. It's just slow. Bureaucracies are like that. It's one major advantage al Qaeda has over us, and will continue to have b/c of the nature of the organizations.

If you're interested in economics, the dynamic here was explained by Schumpeter. Small, mobile corporations are able to outperform large, richer ones because their decision structure is faster and looser. That, Schumpeter explained, is why the expected drift-to-monopoly that Marx predicted never happened: capitalism is self-refreshing in that way.

Al Qaeda and similar groups, likewise, will be able to outperform us here. We can only hope to match their speed by pushing the decision/analysis/response function out to private citizens -- bloggers, for example. DOD will have to learn to use what they're being given by the blogs, and others, rather than trying to do it in-house.

That's a hard concept for a bureaucracy, but they will have to learn it.

(BTW, the other thing Schumpeter said was that he also felt capitalism was doomed -- because it would produce a class of spoiled, rich elites who despised the very system that had given rise to them. He seems to be proving out on that point as well. Brilliant fellow -- everyone knows Marx and Keynes, but Schumpeter was the only one of them who was really right.)

6/05/2006 08:12:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

I think that, as grim reports, and has been mentioned by Mr Rumsfeld, the Military is ill equipeed to fight the Info Wars.
That is the "battlefield" we are discussing, where the US is losing.

As papa bear accurately portrayed, the Press prints what it is given.
If the Military is not giving "enough" of what is needed, it's not the "Press's" fault. That is how the 'System' works.

News from the White House is from Tony Snow, it's an established 'System'. If Mr Bush stops the other sources,leaks, then Mr Snow is the only source. The Press may be unhappy, but continue to cover Tony.
In Iraq the 'System" provides little output for the Press. So they search out other means of gathering the "news".
We "all know" the MSM will not leave their Hotel in Baghdad, so a "grey market" has developed to supply their info needs.

If the US Government will not supply the need, others will. It is a market place. The US has allowed it's "Share" to dwindle.

The MSM could be used in the Info War, the Government does not even try, to any signifigent level. We they have tried, as during the Invasion, they were successful in projecting their message.

6/05/2006 08:29:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

6/05/2006 08:31:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

Are the garbage cans dead?

As to the Helicopter crash in Georgia. If caused by faulty training, equipment or illegalities within the tower’s construction or lighting, I would demand the Responsible party be held to account.
If the problem was Systemic, then the head of the System is responsible, not for the accident, but to be sure it does not repeat itself.
If those responsible refuse to admit the cause of the accident was their responsibility, how could they repair it’s cause?

As to Mr Clinton, the bombing of China in Serbia, was his Responsibility, the Sudanese Aspirin factory, the USS Cole, the Barracks in KSA and the pullout, in defeat rather than victory, from Somolia were all his responsibility, even though Les Aspin faded most of the “heat”

6/05/2006 08:55:00 AM  
Blogger Charles said...

I first ran across the Ukranian holocaust story as part of my college classes at Columbia U. From time to time since then I've run across Ukranians who recount the period with bitterness. They're especially angry against the Jews for the role the Jews played in Stalins communist bureaucracy. This is no great secret to the Israelis. I've read Isreaeli commentators--Prepared to let bygones be bygones-recount their mystification in their travels through Germany at the unrelenting guilt of the Germans about the Jewish halocaust. It didn't appear as though the Germans had heard about the role of Russian jewish communists in the various mass exterminations perpetrated by Stalin.


Waves of immigrants who came to the USA from 1880-1920: the poles the italians the irish the jews. Most of them voted for FDR by large majorities in 1932, 1936 & 1940. Today only the jews still vote democratic by hefty majorities. Why?

The first reason is the role of communism. The relationship from the book of Genesis of Joseph in Egypt and the Pharoh was not too dissimliar to that of the Jewish bureaucrats and Stalin. Communism was considered to be a way up and it had a biblical role model.


The second reason for continuing popularity among Jews dates explicitly to the McCarthy period from 1950-54. The reason this is so is because Hollywood still strenuously maintains the communist lie about that era. This lie is maintained by movies in the last years called "A Beautiful Mind," and "Good Night and Good Luck".

There are various reasons given as to why Stalin initiated the Doctor's Plot in the early 1950's before he died. The KGB hated Israel. Many Americans who were enthusiastic supporters of the UN were Jewish.

Edvard Radzinsky in his book "Stalin" argues that while at one time Stalin hoped Jewish financial capital would help rebuild the Soviet Union after the WWII, Stalin hated the prospect of suborning himself to the Baruch Plan and he flat out rejected IAEA nuclear controls--presented in 1946. The Russians were working on their own abomb based on stolen US designs.

Whatever the reason, Stalin fomented the Doctor's plot hysteria and broke off diplomatic relations with Israel. He was within days of preparing to exile the Soviet Jews to the Gulag (as was done previously with various other ethnic minorities such as the Crimean Tatars, Chechens, etc.), and initiate another great purge along the lines of 1938.

The important thing to recall is that the Doctor's Plot happened at the same time as the McCarthy anti communist business from 1950-54

Stalin already had the concentration camps set up. And some of the preliminary accusations had gone out for the Doctor's Plot when he died in 1953.

At the same time the Rosenburgs were tried and executed for treason in the USA in 1953--and this less than a decade after the Holocaust. This naturally caused fear and suspicion in the US Jewish community. This fear and suspicion was played upon by knowledgeable communists and leftists--large numbers of whom were jewish. These folk not only knew about what Stalin had done in the 1930's and was about to do with the doctor's plot--before he died-- but also saw the Rosenburg trials as show trials american style ... that is, a prelude to an american pogrom.

What Stalin had planned to do-- in a brilliant piece of jujitsu --leftists and communists imputed to Americans on the right. But it was done soto voce. Basically a blood libel was perpetrated on Americans without their knowing it. Worse, protestant america were painted as tribal enemies tooth and claw of the US jewish establishment without protestant america even knowing it. Never again! -- Was the battle cry. But there weren't any protestant tribal enemies of Jews in the USA. Meyer Kahane heard the same lie that everyone else heard. There were tribal enemies in the hinterlands. If there protestant tribal enemies tooth and claw in the USA -- Meyer Kahane would have provoked them them to a fight and somebody would have got killed or at least wounded. But that didn't happen. Instead, Kahane married an american woman & helped expedite Stalin's last wish--to rid Russia of Jews. When Kahane died it was at the hands of a Moslem in 1990.

While the American public outside NY/LA were generally given the view that the McCarthy era was an age when innocent men were unjustly tried by suspicious anti semites like McCarthy & Nixon--the NY/LA Jewish establishment was given a different story. They were given to understand that the democrats/liberals had prevented the US from visiting a holocaust on them. And that therefor American Jews owed their loyalty to the liberal democrats because the liberal democrats were the protectors of the Jews.

And this Meme went on untouched for decades after McCarthy.

This dual track story line didn't crack until the early 1990's when the kgb/nkvd/gru opened up their files on the WWII-McCarthy Period. In 1995 the US's NSA agency opened up their Venona files. Both Russian and American spy agency files showed that McCarthy was right. The US government --as well as the Manhattan Project--had been at one time soaked with Russian Spies. The Rosenburgs were guilty. While McCarthy was wrong in most the details he got the general outline of the story right. Why did he get the outline right and the details wrong. The reason is McCarthy's relationship to Hoover was the same as Hoover's relationship to the NSA.The NSA told the FBI about the Venona intercepts but insisted that the FBI could not use NSA intercepts as evidence in court. The FBI had to develop their own leads. As a result most of the spies escaped prosecution. The FBI did not get their man.

(For those who follow these things--the outcome of the Wen Ho Lee case is based on similiar considerations.)

In 1950 J Edgar Hoover began weekly meetings with Joseph McCarthy. Those meetings ended in 1954. The beginning and end of those meetings coincided with the beginning and end of McCarthy star turn in the national spot light. McCarthy got most of the details of the spy story wrong but he got the general outline of the story right. His predicament was the same as that of the FBI. To this day the FBI denies that Hoover told McCarthy anything about the Venona Cables and maybe Hoover said nothing explicit to McCarthy for which Hoover could be liable in court.

Needless to say, an American style shoah was never in the cards.

The reason that hollywood hated Ronald Reagan so much was that he was an anti communist in hollywood during the McCarthy period. During this period to be staunchly anti communist in Hollywood or NYC was to be at least vaguely anti semetic because in the 30's to the 50's communism was considered to be almost a secular form of Judaism in the Jewish communities of NY/LA.

Reagan was among the first wave of FDR democrats to switch parties. Reagan was not exactly black listed from Hollywood. But he couldn't get many acting roles there either after McCarthy. However, his experiences in Hollywood served him well when he went into public service. He always understood the jujitsu of media talk of the age. Something that cannot be said of Nixon.


When I hear American based Moslems talking about McCarthyism being visited on them. I have to laugh. They don't know that they have pronounced themselves guilty in the eyes of many Americans.

As for the democrats, part of the reason for the loss of their inner coherence has been that part their foundational raison d'être steming from the McCarthy era was revealed to be based on a lie. So now the core of the democratic party is the sodomites. Those folks are not just confusing. They are confused.

A month or two back David Horowitz was interviewed by Rush Limbaugh. He talked about how his parents were communists and he was a communist in college. He said when he was in college his views were always treated respectfully by his professors. But he said recently a young christian college student told him that his homosexual college professor had singled him out in class and asked him "Why do you christians hate queers." Asked why he continued to do what he did in the face of all the abuse he gets, David Horowitz said like Rush he took public political positions because he had to. But also he said he did it as a matter of atonement.

He gets it.

Today there is a Knesset Christian Allies' Caucus in Israel.
http://www.take-a-pen.org/International/Articles/Art300304.htm
Venona Historical Writings that include comparisons of venona and russian spy lists and the changing venona story in the academy.
http://www.johnearlhaynes.org/page43.html
http://www.johnearlhaynes.org/index.html

6/05/2006 09:08:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

"...Many analysts view the violence as a proxy war between the United States and Islamic militants. Many Somalis have moved to the Islamic side because of Washington's perceived support for the warlords, residents say.

The sharia courts have also gained popularity by restoring a semblance of order to parts of the chaotic capital.

"The Islamic courts announced they are in control of Mogadishu. They said they would work with residents to improve security in the capital," resident Ali Abdikadir told Reuters by telephone after attending a public meeting.

"This is good news for us because the warlords were always engaged in battles, we are looking forward to a life without fighting," he added. ..."

6/05/2006 09:18:00 AM  
Blogger Ash said...

hmmm, NYT isn't reporting on unrest in Iran? I thought I'd pop over to their site and do a quick search:

Ethnic Tensions Over Cartoon Set Off Riots in Northwest Iran

By NAZILA FATHI (NYT) 334 words
Published: May 29, 2006

TEHRAN, May 28 - Four people were killed and 70 were injured in riots last week in the Azeri region northwest of here, according to local news reports, as tensions spread after the publication of a cartoon that has outraged Iran's Azeri population."

http://select.nytimes.com/search/restricted/article?res=F70910FE345A0C7A8EDDAC0894DE404482

---------------

Iran: Clashes at University Over Clampdown


Article Tools Sponsored By
NAZILA FATHI (NYT)
Published: May 26, 2006

Students clashed with the police in Tehran at protests over restrictions since President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was elected last June. Students threw stones and set fires outside a Tehran University dormitory, the news agency ISNA reported.

http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=12136206&postID=114949801319587613

--------------

Anyway a couple or recent items in the NYTimes.

Speaking of the media amplifying single events which reverberate for a long long time what about the mother of of events which seems to be at the center of most of our conversations? 911! New York City one of the most wired cities in the world gets hit and we are provided with multiple camera angles of the action coupled with enlgish speaking folks that so many of us can easily relate to telling their tales. Talk about reverberation!! Using the same logic that Wretchard applies to the 'non-existence' of unrest in Iran what does this say about the 'existence' of 911 being a world changing event?

6/05/2006 09:57:00 AM  
Blogger Ash said...

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

6/05/2006 09:58:00 AM  
Blogger Solomon2 said...

Great post, Wretchard! My partial answer is to concentrate on the personal failings of dishonest, untruthful, deceitful, or wilfully blind reporters and editors. Ad hominem attacks upon others is generally frowned upon, but why should anyone buy into the words of proven purveyors of perverted ideas? If you can back it up with factual examples, discredit and even insult them by name.

Sure, we risk someone getting angry and taking a swipe at us. The plus is that in the long run this approach should ensure greater personal responsibility and accuracy in journalism, politics, and academia.

6/05/2006 12:02:00 PM  
Blogger Alexis said...

It may interest you, Wretchard, that Stalin's massacre is not forgotten by Ukrainians and Germans-from-Russia from the Upper Midwest (or their neighbors). And this massacre is a major historical reason why the urban American Left and the famed prairie populism of the Great Plains mix like oil and water.

As much as prairie farmers may rail against the large corporations and appear to share the same concerns as the Left, the New York Time's coverup of Stalin's atrocities has lingering effects down the generations that simply will not go away.

I dare say that Stalin's atrocities probably contributed to the popularity of the Isolationist movement in the American interior. Combined with France's cavalier attitude toward American cannon fodder in World War I, this understandably colored America's domestic attitudes, and they continue to do so to this day.

For example, why should Midwesterners trust Thomas Friedman's coverage of his globalist paradise any more than the New York Times's coverage of Stalin's "worker's paradise"?

6/05/2006 02:18:00 PM  
Blogger desert rat said...

Well cannoneer this has been my point all along, that there are many things that must be done, that the Government, the Military in particular is ill equipped and ill suited, mentally, for.

Propaganda and Info Wars is one of those things.

"Can never turn inside their circle"
That my cannon cocking amigo is defeatism, plain and simple.
Tell it "Duke" Cunningham,
we're obsolete and cannot improve, so there!

Just because it may require "new" thinking and tactics does not mean the US should cede defeat to the Islamoids, it means that US must adapt to the new battlefront.

Blaming the opposition just don't get 'er done.
New capacities and capabilites will.
Two hundred combat video teams would be a good start, provide lots of "good footage", action shots of children being herded into crossfires, by Mohammedans.

Let's tell the story right.
Hire contractors for the filming, if the Army can't find the manpower or skill sets.

Things are not going well in this aspect of the War, that's when course should be chamged, to improve performance.
To try to win and not whine that it is impossible,
"cause the System's down"

6/05/2006 03:53:00 PM  
Blogger desert rat said...

No smacko,
The bias is well known and accounted for. It is a given. why fiegn surprise and outrage?

Do something about it.
It is a challenge that is well within reach.

But no change in the Status Que for you. Better to keep losing than to admit error and adapt.

6/05/2006 05:23:00 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home


Powered by Blogger