Paranoid conspiracy theories, disjointed 'logic', and flowery self-worship of your personal beliefs....nice.

Oh no, I guess the machine has got to me, the situation is worse than you thought, defcon 4, defcon 4, tin foil hat on.

Damn, wish I'd had time to write my article on this bit of drivel from the NYT before the head-nodders beat me to it. This piece is almost as bad as Clen Greenwald's article on the topic over on Salon.

Let's consider some hard truth here. There is no actual controversy.


It's completely unrealistic to expect people to be knowledgeable about a subject without forming an opinion, and it's inevitable that those most knowledgeable about a subject are going to be those who have first hand experience in that field. They will therefore obviously be biased by the same experiences which made them experts in the first place.

The media can put on the air people who have experience and knowledge and biases, or they can put on people who know nothing about the subject and probably still have biases. What they are not going to find is people who are knowledgable and neutral. There's no such beast.

When doing its job well the media will present opposing experts with opposing biases, and that's about the best we can hope for. As always we're left figuring out the truth for ourselves.

Dave

Thanks for a thought-provoking and valuable article. I agree with much of it.

One thing: You say, "Not only do the receivers of information have agency and an ability to contextualize and form their own opinions, but propaganda makers are also susceptible to their own deceptions."

I agree in part, but in the absence of accurate news and diverse news analyses and without a nuanced knowledge of history, how can a people like ours, who cannot (or do not) read, form a context?

Germany had one of the most highly developed and educated cultures in the world, and yet they still leaped into the arms of Hitler. The Enabling Act passed with 82% of the vote.

I agree with the import of the Treaty of Versailles, but Kracauer's contention that an ethical-historical feedback loop brought the Nazis to power fails to recognize the economic catastrophe of the hyper-inflation and the ego-shattering power of the Depression (intensified by the Treaty) and the Germans' deeply ingrained xenophobic paranoia, persuasively analyzed by R. G. Waite in The Psychopathic God.

Perhaps most portentous for our times was the Nazis use of cutting edge media technology in many forms to override the masses abilities to "form their own opinions." Today's technology dwarfs the Nazis' ability to manipulate, giving legitimacy to more Orwellian scenarios than the optimistic one you hope for (above).

One more thing, Kracauer's notion that the "one characteristic that separated fascist and democratic propaganda was a complete disregard for truth" is simplistic. Great propaganda always contains a high percentage of truth (even Limbaugh). A careful analysis of Der Volkisher Beobachter and Der Stürmer shows this to be so.

Note, I too am hopeful about the possibilities of new media, and I am not saying all is lost, but we definitely have our work cut out for us as media educators as Big Media is constantly working to extend their oligopoly into new media.

For a compelling look at the Treaty of Versailles and its immense consequences down to the present day, DO have a look at my
fascinating new book -- "A Shattered Peace: Versailles 1919 and the Price We Pay Today" published by Wiley and available at Amazon.com and most bookstores!

The author (myself) -- executive editor of Forbes.com and a veteran foreign correspondent for The New York Times and CBS News is also available for speeches and lectures!

Best,
David A. Andelman

For its own biased points it's a well thought out and a good attempt at logic. However it only focuses on one side of the coin, America. If we are to accept your assertions, answer me this one question.

On the other side of the coin, how do you apply your theory and deal with an enemy that is completely and fully committed to risking its entire civilian population on the bet it can crush you and get you to convert to their beliefs or you will have to parish from the earth. And most important, the driving fores behind the enemy it is own deep seeded education based self-impowering morality that utterly and in the deepest part of its heart destest everything about you and all in the name of God. An enemy that is activly killing people today all over the world in many ongoing conflicts in which the US is involved on only part of those conflits.

Have at it, I have to here this.

Who is the "enemy"?

If you have to ask, your victum of your own propaganda self-deception.

I ask because you assume we have the same assumptions about how to define the enemy, and I bet we don't have the same source of information. For example, I believe the so-called Islamo-fascist term is a way to distort the situation. The "enemy" is often compared to Hitler, and the situation to Germany before WWII. This is completely fallacious and false association. Nothing compares. It's 50 years later, the world is different, the region different, and the "enemy" is not a standing army with an industrial complex. In my story I mention Nazi propaganda not to equate American propaganda with the Germans, but only to point out what happens when your stories distort reality to the point you have difficulty know what is real anymore.

The whole point of my article is that if your intentions don't match claims, then you have a serious credibility problem. If you think Iraq is about fighting AlQaida, there never was any evidence to support that claim. Now that we have invaded and displaced millions of people and killed thousands of civilians and destroyed the country's infrastructure, it has become a fantastic place for the "enemy" to thrive. That was not the case before the war started.

Anyhow, look back at 1952 when the CIA overthrew a demnocratically elected president in Iran and then installed one of the most brutal dictators of the 20th Century, the Shah. The 1979 Mullah revolution was a consequence of that event. So we then armed Iraq and supplied Saddam with chemical weapons to fight Iran, and so on. We are not innocent by-standers, and the claim that we are supporting democracy is not supported by history (after all, look at many weapons we sell to Saudi Arabia, home of the 9-11 hijackers. If you want to be consistent, invade Saudi Arabia-- oh wait, they are good friends of the Bush family, can't do that). The propaganda technique called the Big Lie means that if you say something over and over again, people start to believe it, like there were WMDs is Iraq. But it doesn't make it true.

So do be honest, how am I supposed to respond to a question based on enormous disinformation? I think it will be impossible to ever come to any mutual understanding because we believe in a different set of facts and assumptions.

Anyhow, you don't have to believe me. No empire has ever survived occupying Iraq or Afghanistan. People don't like being told what do to. Probably even you would agree with that.