Showing posts with label Propaganda. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Propaganda. Show all posts

Making War Real

Atrocity propaganda is a term referring to the spreading of deliberate fabrications or exaggerations about the crimes committed by an enemy, constituting a form of psychological warfare.

Similarly to propaganda, atrocity rumors detailing exaggerated or invented crimes perpetrated by enemies are also circulated to vilify the opposing side.

The Emotions of Politics

Emotions  are  a  set  of  physiological  and  psychological  changes  within  the  body  and  brain which  come  as  a response  to  external,  situational  stimuli  (Damasio,  1994;  Lazarus,  1991; LeDoux,  1996;  Marcus,  2002;  Marcus, Neuman, & MacKuen, 2000).

The impact of emotions on electoral behaviour has been shown in a number of studies (Abelson, Kinder, Peters, &  Fiske,  1982;  Conover  &  Feldman,  1986;  Kinder  &  Sears,  1985;  Simon,  1985),  but  a  systematic  theory  of  the political relevance of emotion has only recently been formulated by George Marcus and colleagues; it is referred to as the Theory of Affective Intelligence  (1993, 2000). The theory is based on the neuropsychological approach to  emotions developed by Damasio (1994) and LeDoux (1996).

The  disposition  system  is  responsible  for  “managing  reliance  on  habits  and  previously  learned  strategies” (Marcus, 2002, p. 46).  Relying on sensory information, it performs a comparison: is the plan going as usual? If it is the habit is continued and the emotional reaction is enthusiasm.

Enthusiasm has been shown to stimulate the increase of the turnout intention. 

When you want to quit playing around with sticks and balls, and get into the serious areas of Aggressive Persuasion, this is the area you start in. 

Propaganda - Description and Feel

PROPAGANDA IS EFFECTIVE BECAUSE it works on an emotional level. Most of our decisions are based on a combination between the perceived results of previous experience, the emotions we experience regarding the current situation, and logical analysis of the problem. Inside that mess is also perceived estimations of our skills, probable success, and evaluation of the forces and elements against us, if any.

What motivates us is not logic however, but emotion.

The propagandist uses symbols, attitudes and morals that are embedded in the target audience to control and limit the emotional state of his target. This is desirable because the emotional response is deep, powerful, long-lasting -- and not controlled by rational awareness or evaluation of the situation. An intellectual, rational response is not desired and is not sought.

There is a novel, one of my favorites by Philip K. Dick, We Will Remember It for you Wholesale, which posed a question -- If you remember spending six weeks as a Billionaire touring Europe and socializing among the world trenders. If it is a pure memory, wired into your matrix, did it happen? Did it? -- if it did, if the vacation could be authored, crafted by experienced and expert travelers, and tailored to your preferences and desires, would not that experience (which you could acquire in only a few hours, rather than six weeks) be more appealing than real travel to foreign lands with its reality of bungles and lost luggage and missing reservations, menacing dark streets, and weird toilet paper in the bathroom?

PROPAGANDA TECHNIQUE:
SELF-EVIDENCE.

It's been a long time since I wrote anything on the technique and usage of propaganda. So let's drop down and talk about a common technique used in our media today which has been a standard due to its reliability.

The Self-Evidence Technique has the longest list of methods for use, it is also quite possibly the oldest technique in recorded history, dating back to Aristotle. A list of the commonly known methods for this technique are posted on a page here

In this article the questions and counter view points are to lead you through the methods of countering this technique and understanding the power it has to stop the victim from questioning facts which are likely not presented in clear terms, and often, while the article using this technique may not 'lie', the context and composition doesn't presentt the information in true form either.So whether you agree with the argument or question -- keep in mind that those are the points, not the simply there to be argumentative.

So, what is this technique, and how is it being used by our Government and current Media today?

Sometimes news articles assume US policy statements are true and treat such statements as matters of fact rather than political argument. We can call this self-evidence, as in "We hold these truths to be self -evident."

Propaganda Methods of the Previous Century

The Strongest and most Common Message of Propaganda during the last 15 years has been to persuade the nation that  the only sane response is: "Fuckit, it doesn't matter anyway"  They drive this belief hard, injecting it with a heart needle deep into the soul.
PROPAGANDA
Noun ˌpräpəˈɡandə
propaganda noun; Propaganda noun
1. information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view.: "he was charged with distributing enemy propaganda".
synonyms: information  promotion  ,  advertising  publicity  spin
2. a committee of cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church responsible for foreign missions, founded in 1622 by Pope Gregory XV..


These 50 methods give a good sample of the last century’s method of Propaganda, or Aggressive persuasion

Characteristices of Modern Propaganda


Today's Propaganda is on a different scale than the previous century. Methods are more effective, harder to detect and influence the reader even if you know what you are reading is propaganda. Still, awareness is the most reliable means of minimizing influence into areas you aren't willing to believe. These are some of the detectable  characteristics being used in today's aggressive persuasion methods.



Propaganda and The Christian Enslavement

When you think about Propaganda, 
why do you think WWII?
We've had many military engagements since then (Korea, Vietnam, Nicaragua, The War on Drugs, Egypt, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq), and each of them used propaganda against the enemy. Each campaign from one to the next learned from the last becoming stronger, more effective, complex, sophisticated. How many Propaganda Wars are going on right now, on Twitter, Facebook, in the News Media, and other Social Media sources? How many people died this week from the publication of words on the web?

THERE ARE TWELVE MILITARY LEVEL PROPAGANDA CAMPAIGNS currently active on the Internet. Associating Propaganda,  with military actions isn't a huge leap. There are many other campaigns out there as well. Such as the Campaign to turn Christians into enslaved machines.

Evaluations on the Propaganda Produced by ISIS

ISIS, in contrast, is a publicity whore. While it’s important to keep ISIS’s propaganda and social-media activities in the proper perspective (no one was ever killed by a tweet), it’s clear that ISIS considers messaging one of the most important fronts in its war with the world — and it’s also the primary method by which ISIS extends its influence outside of its physical domain in Iraq and Syria.(On Time.comJessica Stern and J.M. Berger are the authors of "ISIS: The State of Terror."

No one ever killed by a tweet?... I can think of at least 20 people who would disagree with that statement if they were alive to do so. While I have avoided this area during the last several years, with the rising usage by ISIS and the propaganda war between Russia and EU growing steadily I've decided that avoidance is no longer acceptable, since our Nation is getting very little information about an extensive event.

Clarity v Propaganda (?)


On the Forbes website there is an article titled “Moral Clarity Is Needed In Countering Anti-Western Propaganda” -- which is well written and means well, but shows the level of misunderstanding about the effects and grit propaganda possess I find frequently displayed.  I like the author and enjoy her articles but on this one she missed. Again though, the misconception of how harsh the propaganda used today really is on its the victims is about normal

This is what I wrote in response.

The one thing I believe we don't have is a "moral clarity." How would we gather this? From the verbiage or the actions? We have right now a man running for president which is in fact a propaganda campaign. We have churches whose ministers are swearing that they will "Raise an army for the Republican's 2016" even though that is strictly against the 501(c)(3) mandates...and he had no problem with posing for the picture on the NY Times. So, first you would have to figure out, whose morality to use, and then you'll have to figure out how to keep it clear from those who you didn't pick, because in our current political environment the running law is "if we didn't say it, then it is wrong" -- and that's about as bipartisan as we get these days.

But I've personally never seen "clarity" battle propaganda with any success. An easy example is Common Core. A better one is the AP History thing that flared up last Oct. The propaganda stated that the College Board was leaving our History's Heroes out of the US History Course. This line ran so hard and so fast that even members of Congress were on the News Media denouncing the AP Course and the College Board. Another line was that the course was Far Left and taught the US History in dark terms and showed our worst points.

The facts were -- none of that was close to being true. In fact, there was nothing in the AP Course. No, I mean... "nothing". It was a framework. It was up to the teacher of the course to put in the curriculum. This fact was printed on page 2 of the AP History Manual It was also the first thing you read on the AP History Web Page. This was pointed out again and again by several people, including myself ( http://l.h4s.club/aphistory ) Hours, and weeks and days we spent trying to get people to open up a web link or read the source -- propaganda won out every time -- for months. In fact they were still going in February of this year -- well after the teachers were fully into the course and were using their own curriculum -- and people continued to believe this propaganda.

So, even if we did have this "moral clarity" and we all agreed on it (even though we can't even agree on a definition of Democracy) I don't believe it would do much good.

To truly go up against propaganda you have to be willing to use tactics that most people are not willing to do - because you are messing with memories and minds and there is no way to target or limit the effects. Those effects are going to be long lasting too.




Neo-Libertarians
We call them Congress

by Elizabeth Martinez and Arnoldo Garcia, National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights


"Neo-liberalism" is a set of economic policies that have become widespread during the last 25 years
or so. Although the word is rarely heard in the United States, you can clearly see the effects of neo-liberalism here as the rich grow richer and the poor grow poorer.

"Liberalism" can refer to political, economic, or even religious ideas. In the U.S. political liberalism has been a strategy to prevent social conflict. It is presented to poor and working people as progressive compared to conservative or Rightwing. Economic liberalism is different. Conservative politicians who say they hate "liberals" -- meaning the political type -- have no real problem with economic liberalism, including neoliberalism.

"Neo" means we are talking about a new kind of liberalism...

Putting words in the mouth of a Great Speaker

Not much of a post, I know -- it is more of an announcement -- or perhaps, fair warning. I've received several emails from various groups who are urging me to act in particular directions -- because the President is urging us to move in those directions. Not one of them are even close to what the President has been focused on for the last two months. I've reminded each of these parties that the President gives a weekly 'State of the Union' address which goes out on YouTube and can also be seen on the Whitehouse web site -- where he also keeps a running blog. It doesn't take much to find out what is on President Obama's mind.


Razor Ready to Parse and Diagnose A Propaganda Message

This article that we are going to take apart and explore is a good sample of the propaganda currently being pushed out into the Internet. It was published back in October, and it is in reference to the College Board Advanced Placement US History course.

The AP History course has had a consistent single complaint. Every year the teachers have voiced this complaint. For the last 20 years, History teachers across the nation told the College Board that the course was too stringently defined. There was no room in the AP Course for "Teaching." 

The course was laid out completely, with nearly an hour-by-hour description. The teacher's felt that they were unable to explore or contribute. "You didn't even need to be a teacher. A recording would have done," said one teacher.

In 2013 the crew at the College Board working on the AP US History, came up with an idea to solve this problem. They defined a Framework, which had in it the main ideas, the concepts and levels of expectation needed for the students in order to take the test with a reasonable chance of passing. 
There was no curriculum
The teacher would choose the material, and events of history to cover, as well the people of that era to explore. Everything would be covered by the teacher. Obviously, in order to explain this "building of curriculum" some "sample" data was required as "place holders" in the course manual. Larry Krieger saw his chance, claimed that the Sample Data was the True data, and began a Big Lie campaign in an attempt to get the AP to return to the previous format. 
Since this campaign is now mute, and everyone now understands the swindle by Larry Krieger, Jane Robins, Sandra Stotsky and James Milgram we can explore without controversy.
So, before you go further into this, please read this Overview.
To Verify the overview the College Board has published this document to clearly debunk the confusion spread by Larry Krieger, Jane Robins, Sandra Stotsky and James Milgram.
Once done, let's get into one of the Articles, which was posted as an Editorial on the AP History Problem. Oct 4, 2014

The Malleable Variance of What We Call Time

In his Rhetoric, Aristotle acknowledges that it would be better if we could make our case without either browbeating or flattering the audience; nothing should matter except "the bare facts." He laments, "other things affect the result considerably, owing to the defects of our hearers."

Your perception of time does not adhere to "world time." You might have the opinion that I should have said, 'does not always adhere to world time', but that's a lie. Your sense of time is as easily disturbed as a puddle of mud, and just as transparent.

If a man with a bass voice reads a script at exactly the same speed as a man with a tenor voice, the bass voice feels slower, by a notable degree.

When your body temperature is high, your sense of time is also slowed. In one experiment, subjects with fevers were asked to count to 60 at one number per second. Without exception, they counted much faster.

Having a low body temperature  you would count slower, as the sense of time moves much faster.

Under the influence of blue light, time is underestimated -- which is why nightclubs use it, to give you the sense that you really haven't been there that long.

Under the long wavelengths of red light, time is overestimated and every thing feels like it is in slow motion.

So, like Bullshit, OK?

Paul Siegel is a man I've been learning quite a bit about and in doing so I've been distracted into far reaching areas of examination probing references from his fantastic book on the First Amendment of the Constitution and Communication in the US. These are points of interest for me right now, with everything I'm doing with the FTC, and my Law proposal, as well as my book on aggressive persuasion. 

This next bit isn't actually in the book, but he writes on his website that it probably should have been.  And this excerpt is from one of his pages on his web site on the acceptance of a policy which made it mandatory to teach Creationism in public schools. 

An open response to Hank Green, and his insightful Response to Cable News

Written in response to Hank Green's

Holy Shit, I Interviewed the President


Yes, but there’s a little more to it…

Like most things in life, if you scratch the surface of understanding, you are frequently engulfed in the complexity of even the simplest of issues.

Your points are valid and easily verified. Your concerns are as well. News content has a powerful impact on politics, with ideologically diverse content producing socially desirable outcomes. According to the U.S. Supreme Court (1945),

On the Threshold of
Public Debunk
Thugs Choose Violence

The "Expert" the group calling themselves "Citizens for Sound Academic Standards" has chosen to champion for them against Common Core, Dr. James Milgram, is an unstable man. Professors at Stanford report him as unprofessional, and dangerous. http://l.h4s.club/1BE0O0S
AND http://stanford.edu/~joboaler/


Currently, the FBI is looking into his possible use of children in a research project, possibly breaking the laws we have against using children in experiments.

At a Nevada Symposium, where Nevada educators were invited to debate with James Milgram, the teachers were met with violence. Propagandist have been quick to decry this claim by saying that the teachers were not invited to "speak" and that the symposium, despite the meaning of the word "symposium" was always intended to be a lecture instead.

This propaganda claim is shown to be exactly what it is -- a cover-up -- by the efforts of this propagandist group itself,  -- placing an ad on the Nevada Trends Website which expressly challenges the Nevada educators to a debate. And calling the Nevada Journal to tell them of this challenge back on the 7th

After researching this expert of theirs, however, who it appears was "asked to leave" the Validation of Common Core because of his unprofessional actions and disruptive behavior, the reports from those who have worked with him in the past, lead me to believe that it may have been a good thing that the Teachers of Nevada were not allowed to speak at the public debate -- No telling how this Milgram person may have reacted.

It is clear, however, that this group is not an education movement, they are thugs.

Pony Show Drops Its Mask.
The Ugly Face of Propaganda

I've already read the Propagandist Cover up on this -- They are putting out the message that the Teachers were not invited to talk.. when in fact.. on Jan 07th, the Group that was organizing this made a really big deal about this being a discussion.

http://nevadajournal.com/2015/01/08/expert-critics-common-core-face-nde-officials-unique-public-events/

So then today, The Newsrelease is this:

Perspective is So Important - Rape

Last year the Dept of Justice, using data that was gathered by the FBI and from data gathered by direct polling, came up with a report comparing the enrolled college student with non-students, regarding rape. The the result was a graph in the report which seems to show that students currently going to college on University campus were safer from the threat of rape than those who were non-students of the same age group. Here is the the graph.

At Equality Ms. Young is as Obtuse as a Senator

Ms Young, a contributing editor for Reason Magazine wrote an article which Time put on their website, entitled "Sorry, Emma Watson, but HeForShe Is Rotten for Men" If you are not prone to falling down after be assaulted by demagoguery or fall victim to vomiting when experiencing violent twists of logic, then give it a read.

Time, as a company, must be in dire straights. I look at the reactionary and purposeful angst of their headlines lately -- Time is becoming more like the National Enquirer every day. Did you see the one with the Teachers? Soon Time will be publishing articles titled "Emma Watson has Big Foot in her Cellar".

Yes, I understand that Cathy Young, a contributing editor at Reason magazine, came up with the title for this ... what is this? An Essay? or just an Editorial? It is basically bias, and often irrelevant opinion. Is that what an Editorial is these days? It use to be that the editors chose higher roads than the writers and reporters, but that doesn't seem to be the case any longer. Perhaps it is just the way things are at the Libertarian magazine known as Reason.

Finding out that Reason is a Libertarian production, didn't come as much of a shock. If there is one thing that Libertarians both declare affinity to, and show amazing lack of, it is Reason. I offer as citation the Koch brothers declaring that raising the minimum wage will result in Nazism. Yes, Nazism, because that is how seriously out of touch with reality most Libertarians are.

But let's set my personal lack of tolerance aside and look at Ms. Young's Reason-ing.
"Too bad they are belied by the campaign itself, which is called “HeForShe” and asks men to pledge to “take action against all forms of violence and discrimination faced by women and girls” but says nothing about problems affecting men and boys." -- Young

Now, see, this is why Libertarians get such a bad rap. They state something like this, as if no one has access to the speech -- the speech where Emma spends nearly a third of her time addressing exactly this area and bases her ideas on research in that area. She cites -- because of the problems affecting men and boys, there is a disproportional amount of suicides which her research tells her is directly related to issues of the inequality the male population faces everyday of their lives, which no one has really addressed in a meaningful way (which is true) and she proclaims that HeForShe is dedicated to seeing that this changes. So, we haven't even gotten into the article yet and the first proclamation is "Liar Liar Pants on Fire".

The next paragraph, again, the same thing. Now Ms. Young contradicts herself, saying that yes, Emma is addressing it, but Feminism doesn't. Which again, Emma talks about that very thing, and that this flaw that has woven itself into Feminism is based on Hate, rather than equality, and again, she declares that this must be addressed, and that HeForShe intends to be the platform for that issue.

Now, this next bit is so far out of whack that I have to quote it here, so we can take a look at it solidly.

Paul Krugman Sums Obama Up

Paul Krugman, a Nobel Prize winning Economist took a second look at Obama in an article published in Rolling Stones, and then a follow up with ABC News. His conclusion? Obama is likely to be the most effective, and certainly the most successful president we have ever had. 
“Bill Clinton is an incredibly gifted politician,” Krugman told ABC News’ Jonathan Karl. “But, in fact, Bill Clinton was not a consequential president. And Obama, although clearly not the natural politician, is a consequential president.”
With his polls so low right now, it's difficult to get behind this kind of arithmetic, but Krugman shows that the economy is on the rise, unemployment is down, health care has been reformed and significant financial reform is in place. The environmental issues are being addressed.  No, he admits, it might not be everything you wanted, but it is more than any president has accomplished in decades.

Reading this, I felt a bit vindicated. Though I would never have claimed Obama was 'the most successful', he was doing much better than his press. What has always bothered me about his press though, was the amount of it, the shear mass of the machine.

You expect Fox News, and some jabs from the main stream editorials. Then there are the web papers on the far-right like Town Hall, National Association of Scholars, the NRA main sight,
The usual suspects. Also, the republicans in congress, just like the democrats with Bush (expected, and accepted). The Koch brothers were more active, not liking things going the way they were, especially with Obama going directly at the environment and health care.

Likely, Obama was the Koch's worst nightmare - between 1998 and now Koch has been an environmental terror (with one of the few companies I have ever heard of being tried and convicted for double homicide). Obama not only wants EPA powers to increase, he was making it happen. It wasn't going to be a few $10 million dollar fines any longer. Likely, shut downs were on the horizon. So, we also expect some flack from that area.

Some flack. Sure. .. but sweet mercy...

The girl friend video coming out of the Koch, from  Americans for Shared Prosperity should have been the real clue. That was the point the shadows were pulled back. Whether that was a purposeful move or not, it was the beacon that caught my attention. The ad, which I'm sure you have seen, has a woman who is acting like Obama is an abusive boyfriend -- and is warning us to drop him, not to vote for him again. Again? This was published on Sep 21, 2014.

This is the second term. Right? This is Anti-Obama, like two years
too late. Isn't it?

No. Not at all. They just don't appear to care any more that you notice.

I'm not capable of doing the amount of document research that would be required for a true analysis -- I'm just going to put that up front -- but I believe, just from the amount I've been able to do, that no President has been against the continuous demagoguery Obama has over his two terms. There is the slams and the mud during the election, but then people get down to doing their jobs. The sensationalist go back to writing real news, and waiting for someone, normally a Congressman, to do something extremely silly. But that didn't happen with Obama.

  • Crowds of mudslingers continued
  • Torrents of false controversies were created
  • Demagoguery was shouted at every Presidential move
  • Congress took on a culture of obstruction

For example -- despite Obama's pre-election release of his official Hawaiian birth certificate in 2008;[1] confirmation, based on the original documents, by the Hawaii Department of Health;[6] the April 2011 release of a certified copy of Obama's original Certificate of Live Birth (or long-form birth certificate); and contemporaneous birth announcements published in two Hawaii newspapers.[7] Polls conducted in 2010 suggested that at least one quarter of adult Americans said that they doubted Obama's U.S. birth,[8][9] while a May 2011 Gallup poll found that 13% of American adults (23% of Republicans) continued to express such doubts. -- Wikipedia

Hundreds of lawsuits, some filed by GOP leaders, some from Congressman, Senators, and Tea Party members. In 2009 and 2010 the numbers in the South and in the Tea Party are so high, that they are seen as useful to many of the GOP. They under mind anything Obama does, inciting angst toward any decision he makes. A few Republicans openly gaff at the claims that Obama's Presidency is not legitimate, but most do not. Colorado GOP Senate candidate Ken Buck is caught on tape complaining about walking the line between openly agreeing with the "Birthers" and denying the legitimacy of their claim to keep them going.
"Will you tell those dumbasses at the Tea Party to stop asking questions about birth certificates while I'm on the camera," Buck said to the worker while laughing. "God, what am I supposed to do?"

Where the Wild Things Are...

Chess is a Wild game I've only been playing for a short time, but I've gained enough understanding to realize that the angles of ...