American Propaganda is Alive and Well

Obama, in the final weeks of his presidency, created the Global Engagement Center under a truly Orwellian name bill - The Countering Disinformation and Propaganda Act.

The Countering Disinformation and Propaganda Act, introduced by Republican Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio, establishes the Global Engagement Center under the State Department which coordinates efforts to "recognize, understand, expose, and counter foreign state and non-state propaganda and disinformation efforts aimed at undermining United Sates national security interests."
Further, the law authorizes grants to non-governmental agencies to help "collect and store examples in print, online, and social media, disinformation, misinformation, and propaganda" directed at the U.S. and its allies, as well as "counter efforts by foreign entities to use disinformation, misinformation, and propaganda to influence the policies and social and political stability" of the U.S. and allied nations.

In 2017 the GEC's budget was increased to $80 million and it's mission was expanded to fighting “foreign propaganda and disinformation directed against United States national security interests and proactively advance fact-based narratives that support United States allies and interests.”

From the 1970's until 2013, this Ministry of Truth would have been illegal. However, quietly, over the July 4 weekend, Obama repealed this long-standing prohibition against domestic propaganda.

In the 1970s, Fulbright was no friend of VOA and Radio Free Europe, and moved to restrict them from domestic distribution, saying they "should be given the opportunity to take their rightful place in the graveyard of Cold War relics." Fulbright’s amendment to Smith-Mundt was bolstered in 1985 by Nebraska Senator Edward Zorinsky, who argued that such "propaganda" should be kept out of America as to distinguish the U.S. "from the Soviet Union where domestic propaganda is a principal government activity."
BBG spokeswoman Lynne Weil insists BBG is not a propaganda outlet, and its flagship services such as VOA "present fair and accurate news."

None other than the CIA disagreed with the assessment that Voice of America was "fair and accurate".
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For most of the Cold War the CIA infiltrated the news media with Operation Mockingbird and everything else with Operation CHAOS.

Three years after Graham decided to go public with the Pentagon Papers, Seymour Hersh revealed a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) program called Operation CHAOS in The New York Times. Hersh cited inside sources who described "a massive, illegal domestic intelligence operation during the Nixon Administration against the antiwar movement and other dissident groups in the United States." Hersh's article on CIA domestic operations is pertinent because, along with earlier revelations by Christopher Pyle, it prompted the formation of the Church Commission.

The news media war against political dissent is alive and well. It's almost as if the CIA was currently running "a massive, illegal domestic intelligence operation against the antiwar movement and other dissident groups in the United States." But this time their mouthpieces are the WashPost and NY Times.

Enter the New York Times and its opinion section, which published an “online conversation” on January 24 under the headline, “Enough Trump Bashing, Democrats.”
...As Jim Naureckas of Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) highlighted in October, the history of the Times newspaper is rooted in a Wall Street effort to protect the Democratic Party from populism—the kind which is prevalent among Sanders Democrats and threatens the “Big Money wing” of the party. The newspaper published an op-ed by Douglas Schoen, “Why Democrats Need Wall Street,” on October 18. It also published an op-ed by Steven Rattner about a week later, “Why ‘Medicare For All’ Will Sink The Democrats.”

Today the news media is running around with their hair on fire about Russian propaganda. The reality is that not only is our own government burying us with propaganda, and no one seems to care, but that Russia isn't even in our league. Russia is a hopeless JV squad going up against the world champs when it comes to indoctrination.

However, although propaganda tools as well as illicit funding routes have changed, Russia can hardly compete with the US when it comes to subverting democracy in far-off nations. In fact, one of the more blatant efforts at collusion involved Russia itself, when in the mid-1990s it looked as though Boris Yeltsin might not prevail against his Communist Party rival. Bill Clinton’s administration secretly pumped PR expertise and other resources into the presidential election, and the strategy paid off.
This was merely one more reflection of a trend that dates back decades, with the first instance recorded not long after a victory, purportedly for freedom, had been won against Nazi Germany. In post-fascist Italy in 1948, when it appeared that communist resistors against Benito Mussolini might win the popular vote, the CIA intervened, surreptitiously but decisively. It was the first of many such interventions in various countries. The Soviet Union may not have been innocent either, but its propaganda was usually clumsy, and it never claimed to be a beacon of democracy.

The average American is so indoctrinated that they will read the quote above and not see anything at all wrong with it. It's OK when we do it.

But what about the hacking?
The Kremlin may have done some hacking. They may not have. But consider what they are up against before any hysterics.

During a House Armed Services Committee hearing on its 2018 budget request, Adm. Michael Rogers, who heads both CyberCom and the National Security Agency, said CyberCom needs $647 million to address three immediate needs: the congressionally mandated elevation to a full combatant command, the building out of the cyber mission force and cyber operations against ISIS.
Rogers said the 6,200-person cyber mission force is on track to reach full operating capacity by Oct. 1, 2018.

We have a massive 6,200 person cyberwar army with a $647 million budget.
Once again, Russia cannot match this. This is a Goliath complaining that David is fighting back.

There is one piece of good news in all of this. Remember the Global Engagement Center?

The chief technology officer at the U.S. State Department’s anti-propaganda center left last week, along with two other members of its analytics team, Defense One has learned. The departures raise new questions about the Global Engagement Center, the two-year-old office that remains leaderless nine months into the Trump administration.
The State Department would not say how many data analysts remain at the Center, but one former senior official described the three team members as “the whole enchilada” and added “things are bad.”

Things are bad at our Ministry of Truth? I just might shed a tear from my one good eye.

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Oh, sorry, that was KAOS

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@QMS

Thanks, I used to love Get Smart!

Although it kinda reminded me of how the North Koreans had to try to fend off the US PTB in the previous major Korean war-crime...

This showed in the options after your video, but gave a blank page; searched under title and found what looked like a partial episode offered at Youtube (dunno if that actually showed the video or not) and the full episode, here - outstanding!

https://leecamp.com/full-episode-war-terror-puerto-rico-privatized-germa...

[FULL EPISODE] War on Terror Is Over, Puerto Rico Privatized, Germany Done With Our Shit

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

Bollox Ref's picture

to prevent the domestic audience from catching on to the fact that, for many millions of Americans, the Exceptional U.S. of A. is something of a shithole.

A shithole that voided Trump.

Who the fcuk listens to VOA/Radio Free Europe (should they still exist)?

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Gëzuar!!
from a reasonably stable genius.

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Check this out:

https://www.thedailybeast.com/source-twitter-pins-releasethememo-on-repu...
IT’S COMING FROM INSIDE THE HOUSE
Source: Twitter Pins #ReleaseTheMemo on Republicans, Not Russia

The charge about the Russians came from Hamilton86 which I believe if memory serves, are partially funded by government grants.

There was a study done at Washington State U. where some researchers found that indeed Russian twitter bots were all over BLM--gave it a patina of "stats". At the end of the paper they list some Naval group as providing the funding. As Gomer used to say "Surpise. Surprise. Surprise."

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Nancy Pelosi to join Debbie Wasserman Schultz for FAU town hall

Money raisers unite!

as Glenn Greenwald commented, it is no surprise to politicians that Trump is corrupt since most of the corporations and politicians are corrupt

and that includes Pelosi and Obama and others making a government for the wealthy

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@DonMidwest maybe they can bring in that clintstone relic and make it a trifecta? More bamboozle for the bucks.

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Meteor Man's picture

I have been using Bing for searches. On a hunch I Binged "criticism of cyber mission force"

http://www.bing.com/search?q=criticism+of+cyber+mission+force+&qs=n&sp=-...

Nothing. Nada. And the same nothing, nothing hits were repeated on pages 2,3 & 4.

Is this essay the first and only critical story of this program on the internet?

The same type of results for "global engagement center". Zero critical search results.

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"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn

snoopydawg's picture

a year ago and guess who was the leading propagandist? Our dear friend Rachel. Yep. The anti war Rhodes scholar Rachel was breathlessly saying that Obama had to send troops to the countries that surround Russia just in case Russia decides to break out of their country. After all they invaded Ukraine and annexed Crimea.

She starts out rambling on and on about how Stalin used to wiretap foreign businessmen a century ago and therefore Putin does the same thing. Never mind that Putin said that when Trump was in Russia back in 2013 he had no plans to run for president. Rachel said that he had been planning on it since the 90's. If anyone had heard him say that would you have taken him serious? I wouldn't because who in their right mind would've voted for him? Amirite?

Caitlyn discusses the US government amended the United States Information and Educational Exchange Act of 1948, commonly known as the Smith-Mundt Act, thereby making it legal to inflict propaganda and psy-ops upon US citizens. Americans live in a corporatist system where corruption is legal and inseparable from the political establishment, and among the most powerful of the corporations entrenched in that system are the five corporate giants who control almost all of the media in the United States. This year the NDAA which Obama signed into law last month allots a portion of the defense budget to government propaganda, so they really don’t have to hide it anymore.

A Year Ago, Maddow Explained How MSM Would Use Russiagate To Escalate Cold War

Two days before Donald Trump’s inauguration, Rachel Maddow did one of the innumerable tinfoil hat Russiagate conspiracy segments that have become the singular distinguishing feature of her career — but this time with a little twist. In an elaborate monologue that was only believable to people who desperately wanted to believe it, Maddow paced her audience through some information about the way the Soviet Union’s KGB used to gather compromising footage of rivals in order to sabotage them politically or blackmail them. Using the hilarious argument that the FSB is only two letters different from the KGB, the fact that Vladimir Putin was in the KGB, and the incredible allegations in the Steele dossier about Trump’s erotic romp with a gaggle of well-hydrated Russian prostitutes, Maddow attempted to make it seem perfectly plausible that this same president whose alleged affair with a porn star is being dismissed with a shrug by most Americans could be blackmailed into treason with a sex tape.

Caitlyn describes the arms deal for the neo Nazis in Ukraine just in case Russia cannot hold themselves off from breaking out of their borders.

To get at the Biggest Story in the Country you have to listen to Rachel ramble on for countless minutes that you will never get back until she gets to the point of why Obama sent troops into countries that surround Russia's borders.

You can skip forward through most of her rambling unless you want to see how far she has fallen since her Air America days.

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

SnappleBC's picture

At this point they can go ahead and publicly create a Ministry of Truth and the public applauds them. They can spy on us so invasively that they literally listen to us within our homes and the public is unconcerned. They can, apparently, say nearly anything and the public will believe.

I think the US is doomed. I'm not sure how that doom is going to play out. I'm hoping it isn't global thermonuclear war. But one way or another, I don't see how this society can avoid collapse.

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A lot of wanderers in the U.S. political desert recognize that all the duopoly has to offer is a choice of mirages. Come, let us trudge towards empty expanse of sand #1, littered with the bleached bones of Deaniacs and Hope and Changers.
-- lotlizard

The Aspie Corner's picture

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Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.

Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.