"The Big Lie" Still Works

The Big Lie tactic is a propaganda device often associated with the Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels. Simply, it's this:

If those in authority repeat an outrageous falsehood over and over, and there is no countervailing voice exposing this big lie to the public, or if that voice is censored by the media, the big lie is likely to be believed.











The Big Lie still works, and rather well according to the New York Times. Buried deep in an assessment of Iraq War Withdrawl is the proof:

"... 33 percent of all Americans, including 40 percent of Republicans and 27 percent of Democrats, say Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001."

911 had nothing to do with Iraq, and Iraq had nothing to do with 911. But that's the power of the Big Lie. ~ Spinboydotcom


Americans Feel Military Is Best at Ending the War

By STEVEN LEE MYERS and MEGAN THEE

September 10, 2007

Americans trust military commanders far more than the Bush administration or Congress to bring the war in Iraq to a successful end, and while most favor a withdrawal of American troops beginning next year, they suggested they were open to doing so at a measured pace, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News Poll.

On the eve of what is sure to be a contentious debate on Iraq, the results underscored the benefits to the White House of entrusting the top American commander in Iraq, Gen. David H. Petraeus, to make the case that an increase in American forces this year had been successful enough to continue into next year.

Today, General Petraeus will appear on Capitol Hill along with the American ambassador to Iraq, Ryan C. Crocker, in what has become the most anticipated testimony from a military commander in decades.

The poll found that both Congress, whose approval rating now stands at its lowest level since Democrats took control from the Republicans last year, and Mr. Bush enter the debate with little public confidence in their ability to deal with Iraq. Only 5 percent of Americans — a strikingly low number for a sitting president’s handling of such a dominant issue — said they most trusted the Bush administration to resolve the war, the poll found. Asked to choose among the administration, Congress and military commanders, 21 percent said they would most trust Congress and 68 percent expressed most trust in military commanders.

That is almost certainly why the White House has presented General Petraeus and Mr. Crocker as unbiased professionals, not Bush partisans. President Bush has said for years that decisions about force levels should be left to military commanders, although the decision to send an additional 20,000 troops to Iraq this year and keep them there was not uniformly supported by military leaders. It was primarily made in the White House, and specifically by the president in his role as commander in chief.

Some Democrats took issue with the characterization of General Petraeus as operating free of influence from the administration, suggesting that they would like to diminish his credibility heading into days of intense sparring over how much more time Mr. Bush’s strategy for Iraq should be given.

“I don’t think he’s an independent evaluator,” Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, said on “Fox News Sunday.” A White House spokesman, Tony Fratto, responded sharply, saying, “Attacking him in this way is reprehensible.”

Still, the poll showed how difficult the White House’s task of sustaining support for an unpopular war had become. There is a deepening disillusion over the war’s course and its purpose, with the highest numbers of Americans, 62 percent, saying that the war was a mistake, and 59 percent saying that it was not worth the loss of American lives and other costs.

A majority, 53 percent, said they did not think that Iraq would ever become a stable democracy. Still more, 70 percent, said they did not think the Iraqi government, led by Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, was doing all it could to bring stability.

Nearly two-thirds of Americans said the United States should reduce its troops in Iraq now or withdraw them. Asked if a timetable should be established for a 2008 withdrawal, a position many Democrats in Congress have advocated, 64 percent favored doing so.

But the sense that the country has come to a clear conclusion that the war should come to a swift end was undercut to a degree by responses to a number of other questions.

The poll’s results encapsulated sentiments that at times seemed contradictory, highlighting the complexity of a debate over how to win a war that has had few easy answers. As a result, Americans reflected a nuanced concern about the consequences of a withdrawal, even as they fervently expressed hope for one. The consequences of leaving Iraq hastily or prematurely has been one of the administration’s recurrent themes of late.

Presented with three possible plans, the poll found that Americans favored a measured approach, with 56 percent supporting reducing troops in Iraq, but leaving some in place to train Iraqi forces, fight terrorists and protect American diplomats.

Twenty-two percent favored a complete withdrawal in the next year, and 20 percent favored keeping the same number of troops “until there is a stable democracy in Iraq.”

Just under half favored a decrease or withdrawal of all troops even if the result was “more mass killings” among Iraq’s ethnic groups. The proportion favoring reductions or a withdrawal dropped to 30 percent if Iraq would become a base of operations for terrorists as a result.

The poll was conducted nationwide by telephone from Tuesday through Saturday and included 1,035 adults. The margin of sampling error for all adults is plus or minus three percentage points.

The findings suggested that both parties were paying a price for the way they have handled the war. Six in 10 Americans said in the poll that administration officials deliberately misled the public in making a case for the war; 33 percent of all Americans, including 40 percent of Republicans and 27 percent of Democrats, say Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

The poll found that the edge held by the Democrats this year on the issue had diminished, perhaps because of the inability of the party’s leadership in Congress to push through measures that would restrain Mr. Bush or mandate any steps toward ending the war.

What was an 18-point advantage in May for the Democrats on the question of which party is more likely to make the right decisions about the war has fallen to a 10-point advantage, 42 percent to 32 percent for the Republicans.

The Democrat-led Congress also enters the debate in a weakened position. The popularity of the current Congress reached a new low, the poll found, less than a year after the Democrats regained control of the House and Senate. Only 23 percent of Americans approved of the job lawmakers were doing.

While Congress has rarely scored highly in the public mind, the current Congress’s rating is now lower than that of its predecessor in the months before the election swept the Republican Party from power.

“I think both parties will make the wrong decisions,” one of those polled, John Cross, a lawyer and a Democrat from Greensboro, N.C., said in a follow-up telephone interview yesterday. “I just think they’ll make them differently.”

With barely 16 months to go in his presidency, Mr. Bush has a popularity rating that hovers nears its historic lows, with only 30 percent approving of his handling of the job and 64 percent disapproving. That level — essentially the reverse of his ratings when the war began in 2003 — has remained roughly the same since Mr. Bush announced in January the increase in American troops that became known as the surge.

Only 26 percent approved of Mr. Bush’s handling of Iraq and of foreign policy generally, while only one in four Americans think the country is generally on the right track.

Politically speaking, the poll indicated that Americans favored a flexible approach to Iraq as opposed to unbending positions.

That could prove significant in this month’s debate in Washington and in next year’s presidential election. A vast majority, 94 percent, said that sharing a candidate’s view on the war was important or very important.

And 71 percent said flexibility in deciding on a withdrawal was more important than demanding either an unqualified victory (Mr. Bush’s position) or an immediate withdrawal (that of much of the antiwar Democratic base).

Over the summer, perhaps with such sentiment in mind, Democratic candidates and lawmakers in Congress have softened their demands for a hard and fast schedule for pulling out.

Communication and Control

Is there a limit to how far the media can manipulate public opinion?









Democracy’s Invisible Line

The US writer Noam Chomsky talks about the mechanisms behind modern communication, an essential instrument of government in democratic countries – as important to our governments as propaganda is to a dictatorship.

By Noam Chomsky and Daniel Mermet

DM: Let’s start with the media issue. In the May 2005 referendum on the European constitution, most newspapers in France supported a yes vote, yet 55% of the electorate voted no. This suggests there is a limit to how far the media can manipulate public opinion. Do you think voters were also saying no to the media?

NC: It’s a complex subject, but the little in-depth research carried out in this field suggests that, in fact, the media exert greater influence over the most highly educated fraction of the population. Mass public opinion seems less influenced by the line adopted by the media.

Take the eventuality of a war against Iran. Three-quarters of Americans think the United States should stop its military threats and concentrate on reaching agreement by diplomatic means. Surveys carried out by western pollsters suggest that public opinion in Iran and the US is also moving closer on some aspects of the nuclear issue. The vast majority of the population of both countries think that the area from Israel to Iran should be completely clear of nuclear weapons, including those held by US forces operating in the region. But you would have to search long and hard to find this kind of information in the media.

The main political parties in either country do not defend this view either. If Iran and the US were true democracies, in which the majority really decided public policy, they would undoubtedly have already solved the current nuclear disagreement. And there are other similar instances. Look at the US federal budget. Most Americans want less military spending and more welfare expenditure, credits for the United Nations, and economic and international humanitarian aid. They also want to cancel the tax reductions decided by President George Bush for the benefit of the biggest taxpayers.

On all these topics, White House policy is completely at odds with what public opinion wants. But the media rarely publish the polls that highlight this persistent public opposition. Not only are citizens excluded from political power, they are also kept in a state of ignorance as to the true state of public opinion. There is growing international concern about the massive US double deficit affecting trade and the budget. But both are closely linked to a third deficit, the democratic deficit that is constantly growing, not only in the US but all over the western world.

DM: When a leading journalist or TV news presenter is asked whether they are subject to pressure or censorship, they say they are completely free to express their own opinions. So how does thought control work in a democratic society? We know how it works in dictatorships.

NC: As you say, journalists immediately reply: “No one has been exerting any pressure on me. I write what I want.” And it’s true. But if they defended positions contrary to the dominant norm, someone else would soon be writing editorials in their place. Obviously it is not a hard-and-fast rule: the US press sometimes publishes even my work, and the US is not a totalitarian country. But anyone who fails to fulfil certain minimum requirements does not stand a chance of becoming an established commentator.

It is one of the big differences between the propaganda system of a totalitarian state and the way democratic societies go about things. Exaggerating slightly, in totalitarian countries the state decides the official line and everyone must then comply. Democratic societies operate differently. The line is never presented as such, merely implied. This involves brainwashing people who are still at liberty. Even the passionate debates in the main media stay within the bounds of commonly accepted, implicit rules, which sideline a large number of contrary views. The system of control in democratic societies is extremely effective. We do not notice the line any more than we notice the air we breathe. We sometimes even imagine we are seeing a lively debate. The system of control is much more powerful than in totalitarian systems.

Look at Germany in the early 1930s. We tend to forget that it was the most advanced country in Europe, taking the lead in art, science, technology, literature and philosophy. Then, in no time at all, it suffered a complete reversal of fortune and became the most barbaric, murderous state in human history. All that was achieved by using fear: fear of the Bolsheviks, the Jews, the Americans, the Gypsies – everyone who, according to the Nazis, was threatening the core values of European culture and the direct descendants of Greek civilisation (as the philosopher Martin Heidegger wrote in 1935). However, most of the German media who inundated the population with these messages were using marketing techniques developed by US advertising agents.

The same method is always used to impose an ideology. Violence is not enough to dominate people: some other justification is required. When one person wields power over another – whether they are a dictator, a colonist, a bureaucrat, a spouse or a boss – they need an ideology justifying their action. And it is always the same: their domination is exerted for the good of the underdog. Those in power always present themselves as being altruistic, disinterested and generous.

In the 1930s the rules for Nazi propaganda involved using simple words and repeating them in association with emotions and phobia. When Hitler invaded the Sudetenland in 1938 he cited the noblest, most charitable motives: the need for a humanitarian intervention to prevent the ethnic cleansing of German speakers. Henceforward everyone would be living under Germany’s protective wing, with the support of the world’s most artistically and culturally advanced country.

When it comes to propaganda (though in a sense nothing has changed since the days of Athens) there have been some minor improvements. The instruments available now are much more refined, in particular – surprising as it may seem – in the countries with the greatest civil liberties, Britain and the US. The contemporary public relations industry was born there in the 1920s, an activity we may also refer to as opinion forming or propaganda.

Both countries had made such progress in democratic rights (women’s suffrage, freedom of speech) that state violence was no longer sufficient to contain the desire for liberty. So those in power sought other ways of manufacturing consent. The PR industry produces, in the true sense of the term, concept, acceptance and submission. It controls people’s minds and ideas. It is a major advance on totalitarian rule, as it is much more agreeable to be subjected to advertising than to torture.

In the US, freedom of speech is protected to an extent that I think is unheard of in any other country. This is quite a recent change. Since the 1960s the Supreme Court has set very high standards for freedom of speech, in keeping with a basic principle established by the 18th century Enlightenment. The court upholds the principle of free speech, the only limitation being participation in a criminal act. If I walk into a shop to commit a robbery with an accomplice holding a gun and I say “Shoot”, my words are not protected by the constitution. Otherwise there has to be a really serious motive to call into question freedom of speech. The Supreme Court has even upheld this principle for the benefit of members of the Ku Klux Klan.

In France and Britain, and I believe the rest of Europe, the definition of freedom of speech is more restrictive. In my view the essential point is whether the state is entitled to determine historical truth and to punish those who contest such truth. If we allow the state to exert such powers we are accepting Stalinist methods. French intellectuals have difficulty admitting that they are inclined to do just that. Yet when we refuse such behaviour there should be no exceptions. The state should have no means of punishing anyone who claims that the sun rotates around the earth. There is a very elementary side to the principle of freedom of speech: either we defend it in the case of opinions we find hateful, or we do not defend it at all. Even Hitler and Stalin acknowledged the right to freedom of speech of those who were defending their point of view.

I find it distressing to have to discuss such issues two centuries after Voltaire who, as we all know, said: “I shall defend my opinions till I die, but I will give up my life so that you may defend yours.” It would be a great disservice to the memory of the victims of the Holocaust to adopt one of the basic doctrines of their murderers.

DM: In one of your books you quote Milton Friedman as saying that “profit-making is the essence of democracy”.

NC: Profit and democracy are so contrary that there is no scope for comment. The aim of democracy is to leave people free to decide how they live and to make any political choices concerning them. Making a profit is a disease in our society, based on specific organisations. A decent, ethical society would pay only marginal attention to profits. Take my university department [at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology]: a few scientists work very hard to earn lots of money, but they are considered a little odd and slightly deranged, almost pathological cases. Most of the academic community is more concerned about trying to break new ground, out of intellectual interest and for the general good.

DM: In a recent tribute, Jean Ziegler wrote: “There have been three forms of totalitarian rule: Stalinism, Nazism and now Tina [the acronym from British prime minister Margaret Thatcher’s statement, “There is no alternative” – that is, to economic liberalism and global free-market capitalism].” Do you think they can be compared?

NC: I don’t think they should be placed on the same footing. Fighting Tina means confronting a system of intellectual control that cannot be compared with concentration camps or the gulag. US policies provoke massive opposition all over the world. In Latin America, Argentina and Venezuela have thrown out the International Monetary Fund. Washington can no longer stage military takeovers in Latin America as it did 20 or 30 years ago. The whole continent now rejects the neo-liberal economic programme forcibly imposed on it by the US in the 1980s and 1990s. There are signs of the same opposition to the global market all over the world.

The Global Justice Movement, which attracts a great deal of media attention at each World Social Forum (WSF), is hard at work all year. It is a new departure and perhaps the start of a real International. But its main objective is to prove that there is an alternative. What better example of a different form of global exchange than the WSF itself. Hostile media organisations refer to anyone opposed to the neo-liberal global market as antis, whereas in fact they are campaigning for another form of global market, for the people.

We can easily observe the contrast between the two parties because their meetings coincide. We have the World Economic Forum, in Davos, which is striving to promote global economic integration but in the exclusive interests of financiers, banks and pension funds. These organisations happen to control the media too. They defend their conception of global integration, which is there to serve investors. The dominant media consider that this form of integration is the only one to qualify as globalisation. Davos is a good example of how ideological propaganda works in democratic societies. It is so effective that even WSF participants sometimes accept the ill-intentioned “anti” label. I spoke at the Forum in Porto Alegre and took part in the Via Campesina conference. They represent the majority of the world’s population.

DM: Critics tend to lump you together with the anarchists and libertarian socialists. What would be the role of the state in a real democracy?

NC: We are living here and now, not in some imaginary universe. And here and now there are tyrannical organisations – big corporations. They are the closest thing to a totalitarian institution. They are, to all intents and purposes, quite unaccountable to the general public or society as a whole. They behave like predators, preying on other smaller companies. People have only one means of defending themselves and that is the state. Nor is it a very effective shield because it is often closely linked to the predators. But there is a far from negligible difference. General Electric is accountable to no one, whereas the state must occasionally explain its actions to the public.

Once democracy has been enlarged far enough for citizens to control the means of production and trade, and they take part in the overall running and management of the environment in which they live, then the state will gradually be able to disappear. It will be replaced by voluntary associations at our place of work and where we live.

DM: You mean soviets?

NC: The first things that Lenin and Trotsky destroyed, immediately after the October revolution, were the soviets, the workers’ councils and all the democratic bodies. In this respect Lenin and Trotsky were the worst enemies of socialism in the 20th century. But as orthodox Marxists they thought that a backward country such as Russia was incapable of achieving socialism immediately, and must first be forcibly industrialised.

In 1989, when the communist system collapsed, I thought this event was, paradoxically, a victory for socialism. My conception of socialism requires, at least, democratic control of production, trade and other aspects of human existence.

However the two main propaganda systems agreed to maintain that the tyrannical system set up by Lenin and Trotsky, subsequently turned into a political monstrosity by Stalin, was socialism. Western leaders could not fail to be enchanted by this outrageous use of the term, which enabled them to cast aspersions on the real thing for decades. With comparable enthusiasm, but working in the opposite direction, the Soviet propaganda system tried to exploit the sympathy and commitment that the true socialist ideal inspired among the working masses.

DM: Isn’t it the case that all forms of autonomous organisation based on anarchist principles have ultimately collapsed?

NC: There are no set anarchist principles, no libertarian creed to which we must all swear allegiance. Anarchism – at least as I understand it – is a movement that tries to identify organisations exerting authority and domination, to ask them to justify their actions and, if they are unable to do so, as often happens, to try to supersede them.

Far from collapsing, anarchism and libertarian thought are flourishing. They have given rise to real progress in many fields. Forms of oppression and injustice that were once barely recognised, less still disputed, are no longer allowed. That in itself is a success, a step forward for all humankind, certainly not a failure.

A $2,000,000 PR Stunt

This is what $2 Million Dollars worth of PR looks like. No doubt, YouTube will have 6-figure viewings of the destruction the minute after it happens. The wonderful result is that it will put the Philippine Auto Show on the map.










First Philippine Auto Show, and Five Luxe Models Get the Axe

The Philippine Star

The government is set to destroy five sports cars that were among 25 luxury vehicles smuggled into the country, Presidential Management Staff head Cerge Remonde said Saturday.

The five vehicles include a Lamborghini, a BMW, a Ferrari and two Porsches, all with an estimated value of P100 million [$US 2 million].

Remonde said the five sports cars would not be auctioned off as earlier planned since President Arroyo wanted to set an example by destroying the vehicles – live on national television.

They were among the 25 smuggled luxury vehicles seized by the Presidential Anti-Smuggling Group headed by Antonio Villar Jr. at the Subic Bay Freeport.

Remonde said Mrs. Arroyo is against auctioning the seized vehicles because they could end up in the hands of the smugglers themselves.

“To show that we are very serious about this campaign, destroy these luxury cars on nationwide television,” Remonde said, quoting the President.

He said the President wanted the vehicles destroyed during her visit to Subic within the week.

The discovery of the 25 smuggled vehicles further ignited what has become an apparent turf war between the PASG and the Bureau of Customs (BOC).

Villar claimed some Customs employees were trying to facilitate the release of the vehicles from Subic.

The PASG was created recently by the President to curb smuggling activities across the country.

Villar lamented that the BOC has somewhat ignored the PASG’s authority to go after smugglers.