"THE WAR TO END ALL WARS"

The other day I heard the phrase, "the war to end all wars" referring to World War 2.  Reality is WW2 was "the beginning to perpetual war."


Why?  Profits.  Many corporations made great profits during WW2.  However, at that time it was illegal to profit from the war.  It doesn't seem that it matters today.


"War to end all wars" may be just another term that means the opposite from what it really means.  Examples:  
1.  "Help America Vote Act" was really an act to make it harder for poor and minority people to vote, and it established the requirement to use voting machines that can be "fixed" to steal elections by those who own the proprietary software that run the machines.


2.  "Patriot Act" really is anti-patriotic in that playing upon our fears of terrorism, we give up the basic freedoms that this country stands for.


Do you have any more?

PR Fills Void Left by Disappearing News

My post of April 26th sited a Mother Jones Magazine article "Fact-Free Nation." The article discussed the transition of news of the past where journalists called out people when they lied to news today that is "balanced" where no one verifies the difference between truth and untruth. Also, shrinking journalism departments at universities are merging with public relations (PR) departments.

Propublica posted a news article May 2nd titled "PR Industry Fills Vacuum Left by Shrinking Newsrooms."  It documents the growth of PR and the shrinking of journalism.  PR is a growing and booming business. What if all "news" became PR? What could we count on? Would our lives be better, calm, happy, or fearful in a truly a fact-free nation?  I don't know, we could find out.  


In the former Soviet Union the people knew they were hearing propaganda from their government. In the U.S. people less aware of propaganda.  We are busy trying to make a living and raising our kids. Many people I know don't pay attention beyond the network news programs they watch and hear.to know what is news or propaganda. 

My direct experience comes from a Kiwanis Convention training I attended on how to get news on our club activities into the newspaper.  The best way was to write the article and send it to the paper. The articles are printed with almost no editing.  The explanation was the newspapers with fewer and fewer reporters still want items to report for local news.  But, do you think we are going to tell the community that we sell beer to raise money for kids? No. We tell them what we want them to hear about all of the good projects we do for kids.

Back to the article. The following portions of the article stood out for me. However, please realize these are my preferences that verify my beliefs, my spin or propaganda to convince others of my truth. If you read the whole article, you can tell me how I did.

"The dangers are clear. As PR becomes ascendant, private and government interests become more able to generate, filter, distort, and dominate the public debate, and to do so without the public knowing it. "What we are seeing now is the demise of journalism at the same time we have an increasing level of public relations and propaganda," McChesney said. "We are entering a zone that has never been seen before in this country.""


What's wrong with PR?  Here is a pro statement.

"Gary McCormick, former chairman of the Public Relations Society of America, said that was unfair. McCormick acknowledged that there have been PR abuses, but he said most public relations people try to steer clear of falsehood. And he makes a pretty logical argument: lying does not work, because you are almost always going to get caught. And when you do, it makes it worse for your client.

"If I burn you, I am out of business," said McCormick, whose organization has a membership of 21,000. He concedes that can be a tough message to relay to a client facing bad press. "The problem is when you get caught up with a client, and the business drives you to tell a message differently than you would advise," McCormick said.

McCormick is right: lies are not ubiquitous, and they are not the heart of the matter. The problem is that there is a large gray zone between the truth and a lie."


This sounds fine for PR firms competing in an honest, competitive business world. However, we don't have that.  The major voices are from a corporate world dominated by monopolies.  PR people work within those monopolies and voice the words that they are paid to say.  In politics the PR firms specialize for an ideology viewpoint and clients choose them to spread their biased messages.  They don't worry about those with different beliefs. 


Another quote from the article carries their study to this caution.


"In a vacuum, none of this is bad. Schools need to publicize their research, corporations defend their products, and political groups stake their positions. But without the filter provided by journalists, it is hard to divide facts from slant."


And more.


"It's also getting tougher to know when a storyline originates with a self-interested party producing its own story  ...  evidence that it has not stopped. James Rainey, the Los Angeles Times media columnist, recently won Penn State's Bart Richards Award for Media Criticism for columns last year that showed how local television stations were running paid content in their news programs."


"New York Times...series of stories ... showed how the Pentagon was using retired military officers to deliver the military's message on the war in Iraq and its counterterrorism efforts...the officers' appearances on television were not happenstance, but a carefully coordinated effort of what the Pentagon called "message force multipliers." ...struck by the sophistication of the operation. "In a world saturated with spin, viewers tend to tune out official spokespeople and journalists," he said. "Where they are influenced is when they see people who are perceived to be experts in the subject matter but independent of the government and the media."


Watch and listen to your news to see what you think. Here is the link for the whole article.

http://www.propublica.org/article/pr-industry-fills-vacuum-left-by-shrinking-newsrooms

Does Torture Work?

Torture, or "enhanced interrogation" as described more "politely" by those that use it, is thought by many today to be effective.  This is the case with many boys and young men who currently enjoy the violence in playing video games and watching military movies.  Also, torture was believed to work by the former Bush Administration, Fox "News," and various others. They still believe it is effective in extracting important information when it is critical to do so.  


I watched an interview on Democracy Now by Amy Goodman with "Matthew Alexander, a former senior military interrogator who conducted or supervised over 1300 interrogations in Iraq, leading to the capture of numerous al-Qaeda leaders."  He thinks differently.  The following is a portion of his interview answer to what is the most effective way to get information from a prisoner.
"I don’t torture because it doesn’t work. I don’t torture, because it’s immoral, and it’s against the law, and it’s inconsistent with my oath of office, in which I swore to defend the Constitution of the United States. And it’s also inconsistent with American principles. So, my primary argument against torture is one of morality, not one of efficacy.

You know, if torture did work and we could say it worked 100 percent of the time, I still wouldn’t use it. The U.S. Army Infantry, when it goes out into battle and it faces resistance, it doesn’t come back and ask for the permission to use chemical weapons. I mean, chemical weapons are extremely effective—we could say almost 100 percent effective. And yet, we don’t use them. But we make this—carve out this special space for interrogators and say that, well, they’re different, so they can violate the laws of war if they face obstacles.

And that’s an insult to American interrogators, who are more than capable of defeating our enemies and al-Qaeda in the battle of wits in the interrogation room. And American interrogators have proven this time and time again, from World War II through Vietnam, through Panama, through the First Gulf War. And let’s go back to the successes of American interrogators. You know, American interrogators found Saddam Hussein without using torture. We found and killed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda Iraq, which helped turn the Iraq war, without using torture. And numerous other leaders that we have found and captured—another guy named Zafar, that I describe in my book—all these successes have come without the use of torture."

The following is a link to the video and transcript for the whole interview.
http://www.democracynow.org/2011/5/4/former_military_interrogator_matthew_alexander_despite

I have never been in this type of situation.  However, when I think back to child rearing, building rapport with honesty and understanding worked better than violence (hitting, spanking). It sounds like interrogation may be the same.  Golden Rule.

NPR Report: Wisconsin's Political Split Hardens Into Great Divide

Yesterday I heard the above titled report from NPR and found it frustrating to listen.  After reading the Mother Jones article, "Fact-Free Nation," I found the report a perfect example for current news reporting that does not distinguish between truth and lies.  


I decided to comment to the NPR.  The following are a link to the report and my comment:

http://www.npr.org/2011/04/30/135849389/wisconsins-political-split-hardens-into-a-great-divide&sc=nl&cc=nh-20110430

Michael Herzig (patdem) wrote:

Unfortunately this piece says nothing to me. It is only fluff intended to quote balanced views with no work by the journalist to verify anything said by the parties to be truth or untruth--only "balance." This fits the description of the state of "news reporting" described in the Mother Jones article titled "Fact-Free Nation."

I believe NPR is scared to death about losing federal funding. So, they try to appease the right wing with "balance," and, consequently say nothing. This is right where the right wing wants NPR. However, the right wing would never take away all funding for public media. They control the message from NPR by keeping them in fear and, thereby, force reporting that does not catch the right wing in their well-scripted lies.

May 1, 2011 12:43:09 AM MDT

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Any thoughts?