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Here, I'll start. Sergei Guriev and Daniel Treisman for the New York Times write, "The New Dictators Rule by Velvet Fist". http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/25/opinion/the-new-dictators-rule-by-velvet-fist.html quote:THE standard image of dictatorship is of a government sustained by violence. In 20th-century totalitarian systems, tyrants like Stalin, Hitler and Mao murdered millions in the name of outlandish ideologies. Strongmen like Mobutu Sese Seko in Zaire left trails of blood. Well, right out of the gate the authors refer to Communism as an outlandish idea. quote:These illiberal leaders — Alberto K. Fujimori of Peru, Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, Viktor Orban of Hungary, Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, Mahathir Mohamad of Malaysia and Hugo Chávez of Venezuela — threaten to reshape the world order in their image, replacing principles of freedom and law — albeit imperfectly upheld by Western powers — with cynicism and corruption. The West needs to understand how these regimes work and how to confront them. Of course, the West also tries to reshape the world in their own image, and they're main tool is violence and terror, followed by sanctions for those who they can't hope to justify a war against, which is a pretty small burden given the terror used in Yemen against people who may only one day present a threat to the United States. The west has spent decades confronting countries that don't conform and apparently learning nothing but to use more advanced weaponry and more crippling sanctions to the point that they are severely isolated diplomatically. quote:Some bloody or ideological regimes remain — as in Syria and North Korea — but the balance has shifted. In 1982, 27 percent of nondemocracies engaged in mass killings. By 2012, only 6 percent did. In the same period, the share of nondemocracies with no elected legislature fell to 15 percent from 31 percent. It's very kind of the authors to be so forthcoming to acknowledge they know violence is down and democracy is up worldwide, but then what's the purpose of this piece? It's to keep the rhetoric against non-allies going, those that don't support American supremacy. It's not even about what we might think are western values, democracy and non-violence, no, those are just tricks when used by people without a two party system that both engage in high-casualty drone strikes, such as in the US. quote:This sea change might have started with Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore, who combined parliamentary institutions with strict social control, occasional political arrests and frequent lawsuits to cow the press — but also instituted business-friendly policies that helped fuel astronomical growth. I guess they're saying, well, he's not all bad, he had those "business-friendly" policies, that's Western, credit where credit is due. quote:The new autocrats use propaganda, censorship and other information-based tricks to inflate their ratings and to convince citizens of their superiority over available alternatives. They peddle an amorphous anti-Western resentment: Mr. Orban mocked Europe’s political correctness and declining competitiveness while soliciting European Union development aid. I hope in good faith that these authors have also focused as much attention and scorn on a U.S. or other Western election for the exact same reasons. These sentences could be used verbatim in a piece about oil and gas companies running non-stop television and radio commercials promising jobs and growth in regions they plan to put a new pipeline. But I suspect highly they save words like dictator, corruption and propaganda for non-Western countries. quote:Advertising technology that was devised to sell Fords and cans of Pepsi gets reapplied. Mr. Putin hired a top Western public-relations company, Ketchum, to lobby for the Kremlin’s interests in the West. Others recruit former Western leaders as consultants — Mr. Nazarbayev, for instance, hired Tony Blair — or donate to their foundations. It's a little funny because the Obama logo had a striking resemblance, and equal careful execution, to the Pepsi logo, and he even got a shout-out from Chrysler motors in a commercial. It's a do-what-we-say-not-what-we-do standard that Western media has towards the rest of the world. Then they go on to say they hired some public-relations companies, well they're Western public relations companies and former Western leaders giving them this advice. quote:Above all, the new autocrats use violence sparingly. This is their key innovation. Hitler took credit for liquidating enemies. Mobutu hanged rivals before large audiences, while Idi Amin of Uganda fed the bodies of victims to crocodiles. Claiming responsibility was part of the strategy: It scared citizens. It's an innovation I hope can make it west where we do more than club unarmed protesters, we use sonic weapons, tear gas, rubber bullets or call in the national guard to point guns at protesters and journalists. A non-violent protestor was abducted on live television in Baltimore, of course he was let go and thankfully unharmed. quote:The West first needs to address its own role in enabling these autocrats. Lobbying for dictators should be considered a serious breach of business ethics. Western democracies should provide objective native-language news broadcasts to counter the propaganda and censorship. And because the information-based dictatorships are susceptible to the pressures of modernization and inevitable economic failings, we need patience. Again, I appreciate the admission of Western guilt here, but addressing that they use advanced marketing, social media and consulting in the rest of the world isn't the first thing we should do. The first thing is we should look at how we do it here, in the West. They're learning from us. The authors are saying, stop telling them how to do what we're doing. Then the next bit is a little on the nose, even for an article like this, they're calling for beaming pro-Western propaganda into these countries. Again, this is in the New York Times. And finally they talk about having patience while waiting for the inevitable economic collapse. Well, apparently we have no patience for that in the West because we keep piling on sanctions to speed it up. If it's so inevitable, why the sanctions, why alienate ourselves from the world and hurt our own trade? Well, fear that the West will lose it's degree of global dominance. PleasureKevin fucked around with this message at 11:03 on May 26, 2015 |
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May 26, 2015 10:58
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TLDR: The New Autocrats are less bad than The Old Autocrats in almost every measurable way. The authors then forget what their own point is. And yeah, didn't the '08 Obama campaign get actual industry awards for marketing and advertising?
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May 26, 2015 11:15
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My way of life is better than your way of life. My way of life is also incompatible with your way of life. I also have more guns, sucks to be you.
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May 26, 2015 11:25
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I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!
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King Saud was a moderate and a force for reform. Everyone in the US media and executive branch mourns his passing.
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May 26, 2015 19:27
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In the hit videogame Call of Duty: Black Ops which more people will ever play than read any single propaganda article you go through all of Americas well-known atrocities except reversed. You massacre evil Cuban policemen in order to get to Fidel Castro, who sneeringly hides behind a body double who sneeringly hides behind a fundamentalist socialist woman whom you also have to execute to get to him. You go back to Vietnam and it turns out it was the Vietcong using flamethrowers on the US and burning down vietnamese villages before US soldiers could wrest them from their hands and turn them on the evil foe. Later in the sequel, which primarily features looking into various "other" nationalities' faces as the life drains from their eyes, Cuba becomes an advanced military state which attacks America. Also I think either the most recent or second most recent game begins with evil Russians or something hijacking an american space cannon poised to obliterate people on earth and uses it... to obliterate the WRONG people on earth! There is no mention in the game of the fact that maybe America shouldnt have had the devastating space cannon pointed at Earth in the first place. These games are basically one big advert for future military tech and the DoD's wishlist of toys mixed in with really gross misportrayals of America's enemies, much further than even most Pro-America military films do. Oh also the games are partially funded by the US Military. This is a semi-serious post I didn't put a lot of time into but I genuinely think Call of Duty is one of the most significant peices of blatant pro-western propaganda around at the moment, or was back when people still gave a poo poo about it.
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May 26, 2015 19:42
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This thread brings me no pleasure, Kevin.
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May 26, 2015 20:15
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Everybody remember to thank Reagan, Bush and their merry neocon men for trashing the reputation of liberalism and democracy and giving a huge amount of legitimacy to these dudes from the article's rule
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May 26, 2015 20:29
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Here is my "analys," most of those leaders came to power due to serious economic deficits of the governments that preceded them. Putin came to power easily after the complete disaster of Yeltsin years. Erdogan came to power after economic crisis of the late 1990s and the 1997 "post-modern coup." Chavez's rise to fame (and his coup attempt) occurred after the bloody caracazo riots. Orban slide into position after a very unpopular MSZP government. The mistake the article and most analysis in NYC and DC make is they think is providing access to information, commercial goods or "rock'n roll" that is the key to undermining these regimes when they ultimately have strong popular backing because the public general prefers it (Venezuela is the exception here). In addition, economic decline may not be either because it isn't just economics but a combination of national aspirations largely based on past "national humiliations." Liberal democracy fell apart in these countries for a reason, and in some of them it wasn't even there in the first place (Turkey, Russia).
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May 26, 2015 20:32
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9/11 imagery is everywhere and is incredibly tasteless and done to death (San Andreas), but it still works to capture people's attention / emotions (Avengers). I think we are seeing the last days of post-ideological globalization. Putin has been self defeating with his aggression in Ukraine, but the Eurasian project is admirable. I think the American political class are high on their farts with pan-continental trade zones (TPA with enough discretion to create one multinational playground stretching from Vietnam to Illinois to Germany). Media largely avoids imaginative leaps and alternatives (like 'only' uniting the Americas economically) - it's usually many reiterations from a basket of 'scripted' issues/arguments. They bring on guests from a pool of thinktanks that are funded by specific individuals and interests. These jet-setters can't seem to imagine negative consequences if these global commitments are made.
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May 27, 2015 00:45
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nopantsjack posted:In the hit videogame Call of Duty: Black Ops which more people will ever play than read any single propaganda article you go through all of Americas well-known atrocities except reversed. Forget BlackOps the main series was all scare mongering over Russian nationalism. They literally combine Limonov's national bolshevik party with Al Qaeda into a super boogeyman. As if bringing the Soviet Union back would be a bad thing for the world. More things reek about EA than its poo poo buisness practices.
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May 27, 2015 01:02
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Should we talk about the orginal red dawn vs. its remake?MechaStalin posted:Forget BlackOps the main series was all scare mongering over Russian nationalism. They literally combine Limonov's national bolshevik party with Al Qaeda into a super boogeyman. As if bringing the Soviet Union back would be a bad thing for the world. More things reek about EA than its poo poo buisness practices. The series has shifted it's tone from THE RUSSIANS to THE HISPANICS! The latest antagonist is South America united in a massive federation that seeks to overwhelm the U.S. for... reasons.  Yeah, the latest COD game was a blind buy for me, and I remember when call of duty featured one campaigns for each major power on the allied side in WWII (Russian, American, and British) and ended the game with you raising the sicklce and hammer over the Reichtag. Somehow, I don't think that game could be made today. 
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May 27, 2015 01:16
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So are we unironically sucking dictator cock in this thread or ironically doing so? I have trouble telling sometimes.
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May 27, 2015 01:36
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Fojar38 posted:So are we unironically sucking dictator cock in this thread or ironically doing so? I have trouble telling sometimes. People aggrieved by America and the west in the years after 9/11 came to adopt the 'brand' and mannerisms of al qaeda / Talibs. To oppose their antimodern nightmare and the post-modern dystopia of Revanchist Nationalism, one must become Conservative Russia's worst nightmare - weed-smoking homosexual nazis.  Long Live the New Flesh!
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May 27, 2015 01:46
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Fojar38 posted:So are we unironically sucking dictator cock in this thread or ironically doing so? I have trouble telling sometimes. I think MechaStalin wanting the USSR back is ironic, while most of the other posters are unironic but are making points more nuanced than "Yay, dictators!"
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May 27, 2015 01:57
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I heard Chomsky (pbuh) refer to our current system as "The US Global Project" and it is a very useful term. If'n you ain't on board, you're a dictator.
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May 27, 2015 01:58
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Silver2195 posted:I think MechaStalin wanting the USSR back is ironic, while most of the other posters are unironic but are making points more nuanced than "Yay, dictators!" Actually, now that I read Pleasure Kevin's OP more closely, he does seem to be drawing some pretty asinine moral equivalences, and rejects describing the ideologies of Stalin and Mao as "outlandish."
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May 27, 2015 02:06
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Silver2195 posted:Actually, now that I read Pleasure Kevin's OP more closely, he does seem to be drawing some pretty asinine moral equivalences, and rejects describing the ideologies of Stalin and Mao as "outlandish." Russia has a federal assembly just like the US does yet the US calls Putin a dictator. Plus US police sometimes shoot people who they shouldn't have, making them literally the same as Russian or Chinese cops. Wake up to American hypocrisy people.
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May 27, 2015 02:14
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It does seem sort of weird to be raising a panic over dictatorship sweeping the globe when the big examples are Turkey, Hungary, and Russia, not really countries known for their long history of liberal democracy. Call me when South Korea or Portugal slip back into dictatorship
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May 27, 2015 02:25
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How can USA criticize Russia and China for wanting to create vassals when it has Europe and Canada and Japan as vassals?
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May 27, 2015 02:31
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Fojar38 posted:How can USA criticize Russia and China for wanting to create vassals when it has Europe and Canada and Japan as vassals? Vassals spanning the globe, no less. Other nations are not the world hegemon and so are limited to cultivating vassals in their own back yards.
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May 27, 2015 02:48
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American imperialists are constantly forcing their will on Europe and other places yet criticize Russia and China for doing the same. Anyway did you hear about how all those European countries decided to join the AIIB even though America asked them not to, and America can't do anything about it. Just goes to show how American influence is waning and a new, multi-polar world order is rising.
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May 27, 2015 02:54
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Everybody has a big fun time denouncing Russian military aggression even when comparatively negligible before clicking another thread and falling all over themselves to support whatever invasion or bombing campaign the brass has cooked up this year by throwing a dart at a map.
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May 27, 2015 07:14
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nopantsjack posted:I didn't put a lot of time into but I genuinely think Call of Duty is one of the most significant peices of blatant pro-western propaganda around at the moment, or was back when people still gave a poo poo about it. it seems to be working well, since it's a smash hit with ISIS fighters  Tezzor posted:Everybody has a big fun time denouncing Russian military aggression even when comparatively negligible before clicking another thread and falling all over themselves to support whatever invasion or bombing campaign the brass has cooked up this year by throwing a dart at a map. hello nim chimpsky mother russia can do no great wrong, as evidenced by the fact that other nations do wrong
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May 27, 2015 07:57
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Silver2195 posted:I think MechaStalin wanting the USSR back is ironic, while most of the other posters are unironic but are making points more nuanced than "Yay, dictators!" Not being ironic. If the USSR managed to reform its policies like China the world would be a more stable and prosperous place today. The Soviets would have never let the US get away with the crap they have pulled in the middle east. Things like massive heroin addiction and human trafficking that comes out of the former eastern block wouldn't be a problem. Places like Azerbaijan or Ukraine would be protected from economic colonisation by shaddy western interests. I'm sure I could go on.
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May 27, 2015 11:47
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MechaStalin posted:If the USSR managed to reform So you don't want the USSR back, gotcha, you want anime communism. Although I do agree that if they had reformed like China and opened up to free trade and markets like Hong Kong they'd have been able to keep limping along a bit longer.
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May 27, 2015 14:20
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DeusExMachinima posted:So you don't want the USSR back, gotcha, you want anime communism. Although I do agree that if they had reformed like China and opened up to free trade and markets like Hong Kong they'd have been able to keep limping along a bit longer. WTF is anime communism, did you just call me a human being?
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May 27, 2015 16:38
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that'd be an insult to faggots, commie 
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May 27, 2015 16:52
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blowfish posted:it seems to be working well, since it's a smash hit with ISIS fighters I don't know where you got this idea. I do think however that it is very easy to denounce the crimes of Them Over There and more difficult to denounce the crimes of your own team regardless of any factual assessment of comparative grievousness, and this is true of just about everybody, but particularly privileged career warmongers and the guys who cosplay as them on the internet.
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May 27, 2015 16:53
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The idea that Stalinism was somehow "absurd" seems to always rely on 1) totalitarian purges and 2) policy decisions that resulted in famine. But ideologies and systems of government that Beltway hacks don't consider absurd are in no way innocent of either of those.
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May 27, 2015 16:57
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Remember when the Soviet Union was around and stopped the US from intervening in Latin America and invading Vietnam?
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May 27, 2015 18:53
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A critique of western liberalism, via a review of Dugin: The fourth political theory from the great Alexander Dugin is a collaboration masterpiece also regarding the intellectual leader of la nouvelle droite, Alain de Benoist, whom Dugin reestablished his close relation and enriched intellectual rewards from such a bond. These two thinkers seem to have met for a prolonged period in Moscow to discuss the concept, and in connection with this, Dugin also published a Russian translation of a collection of essays by de Benoist, the title of which, in English, results in being Against Liberalism: Towards the Fourth Political Theory. The Fourth Political Theory is an analytical triumph towards examining the problems we face today, a philosophical inspiration for spiritual warriors, and unrivaled creativity at the highest height, like Evola reborn and a reminder. Dugin wades through the fog regarding modern political theory setting concrete foundations for a political philosophy that will ultimately challenge the global liberal paradigm stemming from western spheres. The book reminds me of our dream and the reality we seek to accomplish for our people: One could say it is like our own choice for a symbol. The dragonfly. It is a result of change yet it is an old idea reborn. This is where Dugin reaches for the historic future and asks us to join him in fighting for a way of life free from oppressive liberal puppeteers. Primarily coming from the corrupt forces, not just in the West, but also some parts of the East. Dugin examines the historical renderings, methods, systems and meanings regarding political theories. 1) Liberalism: This so called oldest and seemingly stable ideology. 2) Marxism: Opponent of liberalism via capitalism (artificial construct). 3) Fascism or National Socialism (Which are ultimately different anyway: Fascism in my humble opinion pales in comparison regarding the depth of NS philosophy): Opponent of liberalism and Marxism. Dugin dissects each of the three ideologies via organic attention. In the process he detoxifies those ideological opposition regarding liberalism. The so called victory of liberalism has defeated and corrupted various western spheres, in fact, in the West it has ceased to be political, or ideological, but a false and decadent visage of modernity gone wrong. Westerners seem to be slaves regarding liberalism, peace has sent these nations into a coma and robbed them of their uniqueness. The academic progressives are the problem. The educational systems in pace in these so called countries are poisoning the youth today and robotizing the majority. Dugin states that liberalism and its historical subject is apparently the individual. The logic attached to liberalism was this strange aspect called “liberation” which the individual sacrifices the old ways towards an uncertain artificial future ( Dugin asks us: Where is faith, tradition, authority? Why is freedom from authority worshipped in many western spheres? Why do they want everyone to live this way of life? Dugin shows us the lies in place from the certain examples regarding oppressors we see in power today. When you eradicate this transcendent, you end up with a world that is entirely rational...material...cold... disconnected. Spanning several chapters, Dugin grants us this typology regarding these different factions placed in the mist of the modern political struggle. fundamental conservatism (traditionalism), Left-wing conservatism (Strasserism, National Bolshevism, Niekisch), conservative revolution (Spengler, Jünger, Schmitt, Niekisch), New Left, National Communism, etc. It is essential that readers understand these so they themselves can wake up to the reality of the current situation. Dugin reminds us as well that victorious liberalism is embodied by blindingly arrogant Americanism; The mental States of Amerika as some of us call it, through those origins as an Enlightenment game, and through its superpower status in the twentieth and twenty-first century, is the global pilot regarding this artificial liberal practice. After the defeat of Marxism, it has created, and sought to perpetuate, a unipolar world defined by American interests, or Atlanticist, a corrupt global liberal hegemony with their own self interest at the heart. This heart needs to be torn out because it is the worst kind of blindness and cancer in our World today: In essence slavery and brainwashing thus polluting the youth and upcoming generations. Dugin reminds us of our ongoing struggle our groups share in this regard. Russia has been a long anti-Western, anti-liberal tradition, and for Dugin and for us this global liberal hegemony is the eternal enemy. Dugin reminds us we want a multipolar entity, with Atlanticism counterbalanced by Eurasianism, and other “isms.” In geopolitics, the need for a fourth political theory arises from the ashes with a thirst to keep liberalism permanently challenged, confined to its native hemisphere, and permanently non-existent in homeland Russia! Dugin’s project may be considered too radical, certainly for the majority, even at this late stage in the game—contemplating it would seem first to necessitate for us rare few who understand the significance. Truly revolutionary thinking, the re-imagining and reinvention of ourselves, ultimately comes from the periphery rather than the enslaved center. The Fourth Political Theory reminds us: We are spiritual warriors. We rare few are all Dugin, in a sense, and he is alive in our hearts, minds... souls. Always. This is a step towards the historic future.
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May 27, 2015 20:03
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If the west is so awful and these dictatorships so wonderful then why is "US foreign policy sucks" the main argument that is used in these discussions? This article is mostly about how lovely and authoritarian the domestic policies in these countries are yet here we are having a conversation about US foreign policy again. Yes, I get it, the country that was the one world superpower for seven decades exerted its power over other countries in an unjust manner, what a shocker. If you really think the domestic policies in these countries can compare favorably to ours then why not actually compare them rather than talking about America being mean?
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May 27, 2015 21:29
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Aleksandr Dugin's Wikipedia Page posted:According to Dugin, the whole Internet should be banned, "I think that Internet as such, as a phenomenon is worth prohibiting because it gives nobody anything good." In June 2012, Dugin in his lecture said that chemistry and physics are demonical sciences, and all Orthodox Russians need to unite around the President of the Russian Federation in the last battle between good and evil, following the example of Iran and North Korea. He added, "If we want to liberate ourselves from the West, it is needed to liberate ourselves from textbooks on physics and chemistry." Thanks to Dilkington's very interesting post in this thread, I've been searching the Internet for information about Aleksandr Dugin and his "Fourth Political Theory" movement. He's a pretty interesting guy with interesting ideas, though the stuff on his Wikipedia page that I've quoted seems kinda wacky to me. I get the impression that Dugin is an anti-liberal conservative ultranationalist kinda dude who tries to appeal to leftists with anti-US/NATO-imperialist and anti-liberal inclinations. Very interesting. I can certainly see why Vladimir Putin and his government would like for some of Dugin's thoughts and ideas to become more popular. Thanks for bringing him to my attention, Dilkington!
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May 27, 2015 21:30
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MaxxBot posted:If the west is so awful Nobody said that, quote:and these dictatorships so wonderful Nobody said that either. Wrest yourself out of the simplistic and reactionary "why don't you move to North Korea then" mindset.
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May 27, 2015 21:32
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Dugin sounds to me like the vanguard of the future.
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May 27, 2015 21:33
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SedanChair posted:Nobody said that, The OP pretty clearly did imply the former, considering how they drew a moral equivalence between the wrongdoings of these countries and the west. I'm still not seeing why the OP, and most of these "gently caress the west" leftists it seems, immediately turn any discussion about bad domestic policies in non-western countries into discussions of US foreign policy.
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May 27, 2015 21:50
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MaxxBot posted:The OP pretty clearly did imply the former, considering how they drew a moral equivalence between the wrongdoings of these countries and the west. Imagine you live in the USSR under the late days of Stalin and are a member of the news media. Obviously you cannot engage in open criticism of the USSR, its foreign policy, or the Party leadership. But you also can't solely publish worship of the Party leadership, as people see through that, need something to direct their frustration to, and it's simply not the way human beings including yourself think. So you need criticism. What are some tacks or targets of criticism that are socially acceptable and available to you? The first is to criticize others for being insufficiently loyal to ideology, Not Staliny Enough, and holding back the good things. These can be liberals, fifth-columnists, foreigners, spies, people losing faith in the government, disloyal apparatchiks, etc. To what extent they are actually efficacious or even existent is irrelevant. Another avenue available to you is to criticize foreign governments, their internal and external policies and scandals. Generally speaking, this is limited to enemy nations, although allies may be acceptable as well should their governments sufficiently go against the wishes of your own. In the USSR, for example, criticism of US imperialism was a common and sincere, as was support for the plight of the Negro in America. Obviously the US has a lot more dissenting opinion than the USSR, and the penalties for deviation from orthodoxy are substantially less severe. But the same general model follows. Criticizing foreign enemy governments is easy. It's easy because there are no consequences. You can say anything you want about enemy countries including publicly advocating crippling their economies, overthrowing their governments, assassinating their leaders, and killing hundreds of thousands of their people and nothing will happen to you. You will not be picketed, boycotted, or fired, and even if the actions you advocate turn out to be disastrous your career will remain wholly intact. You are saying what your government wants you to say. By contrast, apply even remotely similar standards to your government or the governments of strategic allies and see what happens. You will not be hauled off to a Gulag, but you will be fired and/or forced to apologize, if indeed you were ever in the public eye at all, because the media system has spent probably decades vetting you as the kind of person who would never even think such things. Even at lower levels the consequences are lesser. When American nationalists start crying piously about The Things the Bad Guys Are Doing and you have the temerity to point out the vast hypocrisy and violence of US foreign policy and the demonstrable emptiness of its claims of supporting freedom and democracy at home and abroad will get you denounced as a Russia-lovin' weirdo who hates Americuh, even by liberals on a messageboard. Thereafter you will be cried at, mocked, dogpiled and probably banned if you persist. I'll leave you with two quotes that might make you Grok It: Chomsky posted:It is very easy to denounce the atrocities of someone else. That has about as much ethical value as denouncing atrocities that took place in the 18th century. Chomsky posted:The beauty of the democratic systems of thought control, as contrasted with their clumsy totalitarian counterparts, is that they operate by subtly establishing on a voluntary basis--aided by the force of nationalism and media control by substantial interests--presuppositions that set the limits of debate, rather than by imposing beliefs with a bludgeon. Then let the debate rage; the more lively and vigorous it is, the better the propaganda system is served, since the presuppositions (U.S. benevolence, lack of rational imperial goals, defensive posture, etc.) are more firmly established. Those who do not accept the fundamental principles of state propaganda are simply excluded from the debate (or if noticed, dismissed as “emotional,” “irresponsible,” etc.).
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May 27, 2015 22:57
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Tezzor posted:Even at lower levels the consequences are lesser. When American nationalists start crying piously about The Things the Bad Guys Are Doing and you have the temerity to point out the vast hypocrisy and violence of US foreign policy and the demonstrable emptiness of its claims of supporting freedom and democracy at home and abroad will get you denounced as a Russia-lovin' weirdo who hates Americuh, even by liberals on a messageboard. Thereafter you will be cried at, mocked, dogpiled and probably banned if you persist. I'll leave you with two quotes that might make you Grok It: I would disagree with both the nationalist viewpoint and the viewpoint put forward by the OP. I would certainly agree about "the vast hypocrisy and violence of US foreign policy and the demonstrable emptiness of its claims of supporting freedom and democracy at home and abroad" as would most of D&D, that's not a super controversial opinion here. My issue with the nationalists is that they look at a lovely country or one that does something against their own interests and conclude by default that we must work for regime change if not outright military invasion. My issue with leftists like the OP is that they seem to think that our bad foreign policy automatically invalidates any western criticism of their domestic policy. Having a state run media and state censorship is not the same as oil companies being able to buy ads. Police brutality in the US is not the same as having journalists and politicians who oppose the state mysteriously ending up murdered on a regular basis, especially since police brutality is sure as hell a thing in places like Russia too. It's perfectly possible to have these criticisms without trying to use them as a reason for sanctions, regime change, invasion, etc.
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May 28, 2015 00:59
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No it's not the same, that is the point. It is smoother and more effective, and looks like meaningful debate if you are not paying attention. But the criticism coming out of that system has very little value, ethical or otherwise. Any fool can rail against military dictatorships who are not our allies. But how much railing about Egypt is going on? About Saudi Arabia or Israel? e: and I think the point in the OP and the article it cites are very interesting. It shows what happens when media elites get so far into epistemic closure that they begin to mentally segregate "dictatorship" from "democracy" in a very Manichaean fashion, then proceed with a total lack of self-awareness to define democracy as being pro business. woke wedding drone fucked around with this message at 01:30 on May 28, 2015 |
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May 28, 2015 01:24
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nopantsjack posted:In the hit videogame Call of Duty: Black Ops which more people will ever play than read any single propaganda article you go through all of Americas well-known atrocities except reversed. Lol who plays COD signal player? 
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May 28, 2015 01:29
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