I don’t see the essential difference between the US government selling Democracy Inc in Afghanistan and networks in the West using their position to sell the same thing.

The difference is disclosure. When I see a Humvee commercial I know who paid for it and what their agenda is. When I see a news broadcast or read a newspaper I have a completely different expectation of their objectivity. If the US government wants to use our tax dollars to run its own TV network then they least they can do is be up-front about it.

It is surprising, insofar as there are US laws forbidding the US Government from using propaganda.

It is illegal to disseminate propaganda to US recipients: google for ‘Smith-Mundt Act’. It is perfectly legal to broadcast propaganda outside the US.

When you fight a war, you use propaganda. It’s a tactic and a weapon, and, like all weapons, it’s neither good nor evil. And the best propaganda is true. Getting local media outlets to report accurate, even mostly accurate, stories with an anti-Taliban spin is a strange thing to get outraged about. I guess the Taliban’s propaganda operations have been more effective.

U-S-A! U-S-A!

KEEP THE SPOTLIGHT ON!

Philip Wagner

My opinion is this is o.k… and far preferable to shooting people. I put foreign propaganda operations in the same category as espionage. It is not a morally admirable profession and countries would prefer people pretend not to notice, but every country does it, everyone knows every country does it, and it accepted as part of how the game is played. Especially if it avoids bloodshed.

…I’m firmly against the idea that a message of “he who dies with the most shit wins” broadcast by the wealthy (networks and advertisers)in an effort to make themselves richer at the expense of society is any more natural and unforced than “America’s doing a great job in Afghanistan” broadcast by the government.

Except that in this case they aren’t presenting the message as paid ads, they are presenting it as objective journalism. It’s the difference between seeing a BP commercial during the ten o’clock news and finding out that the CBS anchor is actually on the company’s payroll.

The military spends millions on air time here in the U.S. every year. Here the media runs government sourced stories for free.

The reason that military propaganda feels so weird to those of us in the west that are exposed to capitalist, commercial culture on a regular basis is that the techniques they use are less refined than those we are used to dealing with. The reason that Comical Ali during the Iraq war or anything that the Chinese government has produced in the last 30 years makes us giggle is that our bullshit detectors have evolved with the level of sophistication of the bullshit we’re fed every day.

My point being that it seems weird to get upset about the US government pushing its agenda (democratic capitalism) in Afghanistan when it does the same in the US and, via Hollywood, TV, and every other type of media that you care to name, throughout the rest of the world every day.

We’re quick to assume that the values of our society are “normal”, but they’re no more natural or valid than any other society that has ever existed or that exists in the world today. The difference is that we now have a thriving media industry to reinforce and normalise the values that whoever controls it wants to uphold.

But aren’t news broadcasts and newspapers guilty of the same selection biases and agenda-pushing that you see in the sort of propaganda that governments at war push on a regular basis?

If I learned that an American news agency was taking money from a government or private corporation in exchange for running favorable stories I’d find that equally repugnant.

You seem to be of the mindset “there’s no such thing as completely objective journalism, so why even try?” I don’t find that attitude particularly helpful.

It’s good business!

http://lh4.ggpht.com/_8Ck7aU2D1Wc/SxbW9jcvwnI/AAAAAAAADYA/Cz71a_WobrQ/feeling5.jpg

AMERICA EFF’ YEAH!

I guess it just depends on where you draw the line, but I’m firmly against the idea that a message of “he who dies with the most shit wins” broadcast by the wealthy (networks and advertisers)in an effort to make themselves richer at the expense of society is any more natural and unforced than “America’s doing a great job in Afghanistan” broadcast by the government.

And this, ladies and gents, is why I chose my username…

Don’t forget, they do this in the US as well.

“According to the Times, the Pentagon recruited over 75 retired generals to act as “message force multipliers” in support of the Iraq War, receiving special Pentagon briefings and talking points that the analysts would often parrot on national television “even when they suspected the information was false or inflated.”

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3349

It’s disgusting when it happens over here, and it’s disgusting when it happens over there. I just don’t see why people object to it in Afghanistan but will happily lap up pro-corporate shilling when it’s spoon-fed to them via our own domestic media.

You seem to be of the mindset “there’s no such thing as completely objective journalism, so why even try?”

Trying: good. Pretending: bad.

Find the ‘goods’ and I’ll be the first to scream it from the mountain top.

Keep digging.

Well, they do that too.
In fact, the propaganda is complementary to the shooting, bombing, imprisoning and torturing of people. Without the shooting, bombing, imprisoning and torturing of people we wouldn’t need the propaganda in the first place.

“Especially if it avoids bloodshed.”
Again, you have it entirely backwards.