Thread: The US Government and Disinformation

Who needs government disinformation when you have FOX news.

Do you think it's safe to post such a question on a public forums? Maybe the government will end you while you're sleeping tonight.

Don't let the matrix know you know about it.

i actually agree with someone here. i think the government (under the control of very very rich banking elite who own most of everything, oil, pharmaceutical, technology, food) is trying to confuse the masses with too much info that contradicts a lot of the time. its the reason to pick a topic and remain focused....something most people have a hard time with, nowadays.

Yes, lots of disinformation. Research everything you want to have an opinion about.

Of course there is. If you actually believe what the government tells you, you are an idiot. They come out often and flat out lie to people. Like how they said the health care bill would save a ton of money, when its mathematically impossible.

I wouldn't go so far as to say "deliberately lie to the populace." But, I do think that it is in the government's interest to keep the people occupied with petty things, rather than what really happens under the table with those of elected office.

Oh, you're from the US? Wow, I didn't realise you were actually connected to the real internet...

Yeah, sorry to break it to you; your country's a nuclear wasteland. I won't go into details but the salient point is that the few who did survive were so mentally scarred that they had to have their memories wiped. Then they were all put in this big computer simulation thing to keep everybody happy.

Oh well... hope you're okay.

I would go that far, I think they lie to people all the time on purpose with full knowledge of what they are doing.

There is a long history of government coverups in military and politics to keep the public happy and unaware. I don't think it's one large conspiracy though, rather just a series of unrelated ones.

Does it matter what anyone says, claims, or believes if one does not have the ability to know for certain how to think or speak in truth?

You present the problem in a way fit for those who desire to be told what is right or wrong, instead of knowing how to come to understand it first hand.

To know means to percieve. Hearing the words of others, or reading them, is not knowing--it is called hearsay.

The best communication one can get from others is not those which record someone else's perceptions, or those constructions which are made to decieve one, but instructions on the fundamentals of logic, grammar, the art of speaking and thinking itself. Too bad it has not been developed reliably in history.

Reason is a craft, and like all crafts one needs to learn it before one tries to live by it.

It is a good place to start by asking the question in its most general form. How does anyone know if what they think, say, read, is true or not? What is truth? One may not find the whole of it in any one place, one might take years learning, but in the end, one will conclude that if one reach the notion that predication is the inverse function of abstraction, they have attained to the rudiments of understanding.

Many people complain that the phrase "Predication is the inverse function of abstraction." is to difficult, that if it were said simpler, they could understand it, however, history has proven this to be false, for it was said simpler once, "We testify to what we have seen and speak of what we have known." Every logic and grammar book written since then testifies to the fact that it is not yet understood. Nor would there be any need for an event known as "The Second Comming", a time when something called The Spirit of Truth, has to come and reveal to man what judgment is, what truth is. It would simply be the foundation of everything taught today, but it is not. Men speak, and speak proudly, a great deal of rubbish because he is not yet mentally developed enough for the language he is attempting to use.

As far as news, one does not have to lie, just simply manipulate the focus. Ever wonder, with all the really needed information about what is going on in our daily life, how much worthless shit is passed off as News? Manipulation of content does not mean one has to lie at all. Secondly, look at the programming, it simply follows a given rule, you feed them what they like to eat. Mass Man determines the social environment--very democratic.

Fortunately, we have the internet which connects people from all over the world. Sure, it si filled with lots of disinformation, too. But most of it is not government created disinformation. Anyone can put stuff up on the internet so no one group can have a monpoly on it's data. This, what we are on right now, is the ultimate anti-propaganda machine. Not to say it is the ultimate enemy of ignorance, not at all, but that it turned people's information flow from a fairly easily controlled river to an untamable ocean.

just look up the gulf of tonkin. one of the main reasons we went to war with Vietnam, the government claimed, was that a navy ship of ours was attacked by the Vietnamese. there was NEVER such an attack. it is fully admitted and almost never talked about. certainly never on the mainstream news. iran contra is another example of government being less than honest and ethical.

Nurse Nayirah back in 1991 is also a good example of very effective war propaganda.

What would government have to gain from lying to the general public? Individuals within the government might have something to gain, but the government as a whole wouldn't gain anything.
The groups that are lying to us are the Media. I'm pretty sure they aren't communicating with each other, but the Media is definitely manipulating information to boost ratings. They aren't lying, per se, but it's not the truth. They also obfuscate the important stories by bombarding us with soft news and commercials so that the main headline lasts about 2 minutes.
This is the problem that comes with a privatized media. And therein lies the riddle: nationalized media is biased to make the government look better, privatized media is biased to boost viewings and ratings. How can we create a system that distributes information without putting any spin on it?
To summarize my statement, the US Government isn't lying to you, FOX, CNN, MSNBC, and CBS are the people who are manipulating information.

Originally Posted by bobobo55585

What would government have to gain from lying to the general public? Individuals within the government might have something to gain, but the government as a whole wouldn't gain anything.
The groups that are lying to us are the Media. I'm pretty sure they aren't communicating with each other, but the Media is definitely manipulating information to boost ratings. They aren't lying, per se, but it's not the truth. They also obfuscate the important stories by bombarding us with soft news and commercials so that the main headline lasts about 2 minutes.
This is the problem that comes with a privatized media. And therein lies the riddle: nationalized media is biased to make the government look better, privatized media is biased to boost viewings and ratings. How can we create a system that distributes information without putting any spin on it?
To summarize my statement, the US Government isn't lying to you, FOX, CNN, MSNBC, and CBS are the people who are manipulating information.

So the government had no reason to make it seem like the My Lai massacre didn't happen or that instances of police brutality a0re somewhat common? They don't need to make it seem as though their policies work?

Uh, the government lying to people is not new. Nixon told people HMO were to help the sick, LBJ said Vietnam was to prevent the spread of communism, Bush told us Iraq was about WMDs, Reagan told us that cutting the taxes of the top 1% in half would boost the economy, the military told us that they don't torture prisoners, the senate told us smoking marijuana and doing LSD would cause incurable psychosis, and helplessly addict us, Nixon said Tom Leary was the most dangerous man alive, Bush told us the PATRIOT act was only to be used on suspected terrorists. Everything I mentioned was later revealed to be a deliberate lie.

You should look up some of the old WW2 propaganda that the government put out. In WW2 they put out so much bullshit, you couldn't step out of your house without getting smacked in the face with propaganda telling you to support the war. With it far behind us we can easily see how the people were manipulated by the government to support the war that most Americans never wanted to be in, in the first place.

The government still puts out propaganda, though its far more subtle today, than it was then.

Originally Posted by Alric

You should look up some of the old WW2 propaganda that the government put out. In WW2 they put out so much bullshit, you couldn't step out of your house without getting smacked in the face with propaganda telling you to support the war. With it far behind us we can easily see how the people were manipulated by the government to support the war that most Americans never wanted to be in, in the first place.

The government still puts out propaganda, though its far more subtle today, than it was then.

They have to be. The internet is a wonderful thing.

Every government in the history of people has been corrupt. Who cares....

Look, some of that stuff is flat out lying, but some of that is good old-fashioned all-american stupidity. I think LBJ and Nixon at least thought that part of the goal was to get rid of communism, Dubya really believed that there were WMDs, and the Senate based their ruling on a few exceptional cases.
It's the media that puts the spin on it. If not for the media, American troops could have marched through Hanoi instead of North Vietnamese troops through Saigon. If not for the media, America as a people wouldn't be so divided.

Originally Posted by bobobo55585

Look, some of that stuff is flat out lying, but some of that is good old-fashioned all-american stupidity. I think LBJ and Nixon at least thought that part of the goal was to get rid of communism, Dubya really believed that there were WMDs, and the Senate based their ruling on a few exceptional cases.
It's the media that puts the spin on it. If not for the media, American troops could have marched through Hanoi instead of North Vietnamese troops through Saigon. If not for the media, America as a people wouldn't be so divided.

If it wasn't for the media and the government lying, nobody would have marched through any city because the people of Vietnam would have elected Ho Chi Minh and the communist party into power. As part of our policy of making sure that any communist government either fails or falls under the influence of an established and corrupt 'communist' government, we went to war with them to make sure that that happened. There was never any need to 'win' the war. We won it just by fighting it. If we had just let democracy take it's course, there would have been no war in the first place.

Originally Posted by PhilosopherStoned

If it wasn't for the media and the government lying, nobody would have marched through any city because the people of Vietnam would have elected Ho Chi Minh and the communist party into power. As part of our policy of making sure that any communist government either fails or falls under the influence of an established and corrupt 'communist' government, we went to war with them to make sure that that happened. There was never any need to 'win' the war. We won it just by fighting it. If we had just let democracy take it's course, there would have been no war in the first place.

How did we win it at all? Our goal was to either A. stop the spread of communism, (which was all the Truman Doctorine really was,) or B. drain the resources of established communist governments. Since Vietnam did eventually become communist we lost goal A and since the war cost the US far more than any of our major enemies, we failed on goal B, as well. We didn't go into Vietnam to make sure Russia or China took control of it.

Originally Posted by spockman

How did we win it at all? Our goal was to either A. stop the spread of communism, (which was all the Truman Doctorine really was,) or B. drain the resources of established communist governments. Since Vietnam did eventually become communist we lost goal A and since the war cost the US far more than any of our major enemies, we failed on goal B, as well. We didn't go into Vietnam to make sure Russia or China took control of it.

Take control of it isn't precisely what I said. I said "fall under the influence of." And, that I've been able to find, there is no overt mention that this was the elite's strategy but reading between the lines, it's clear that it was part C of the strategy that you mentioned. Specifically, the goal was to conflate communism with totalitarian governments. This is accomplished by putting enough stress on independent communist governments to force them to appeal to the USSR for assistance with strings attached. This makes it incredibly easy to point at them and claim that this is what communism inevitably turns into.

The most obvious case of this is Cuba. Remember that the USSR didn't even know who Castro was (they initially thought that he was a CIA agent) and was perfectly willing to let the US have the western hemisphere. It's only after the Bay of Pigs and increasing US sanctions that Castro, at the time a legitimate Marxist, was forced to associate with the Stalinist USSR which was (having much more in common with say, the US), at the far end of political thought from him.

So now the elite in the US can fallaciously point to Cuba as an example of what goes wrong with communism. They have to ignore the fact that Cuba has one of the most educated populaces in the world and a life expectancy just short of the US (keep the embargo in mind when you ponder this) to do so but that's not too hard to do with a brainwashed media and 'academic' elite. So they benefited far more from Cuba remaining a non-capitalist country and being forced into the orbit of the USSR than if they had just rolled up on it with the regular army the week after Castro kicked out our pet dictator, Batista.

Some people think that this is why Che left. He didn't want to be so deep in the pockets of the USSR and went to fight for legitimate Marxism in Africa.

Keep in mind that for the elite to explicitly mention this as a goal, on the same footing as the Truman Doctrine, would require them to at least implicitly admit that communism isn't nearly as bad for the people as it's made out to be and that a functioning communist state would cause people in democracies around the world to opt for that form of economic organisation. This was the real threat. At least with Stalinist governments, they are still dealing with a ruling elite that is just as interested in suppressing freedom as they are. This is why both sides benefited from the Cold War to such a heavy degree. A near permanent enemy is almost necessary for propaganda and fear is great for staying in control.

Remember the scare tactics about marijuana, LSD, and psilocybin in high school? Careful, smoking pot will make you schitzo Almost all of the misinformation there came from the conservative government of the early half of the 20th century.

I think it's very dangerous. When kids find out that most of what they've been told about the harmless drugs like pot and acid is a lie, it makes them want to experiment with drugs that are actually dangerous like meth or cocaine. High school health classes call marijuana a gateway drug. It can be, but it's only because they put those gates. I think that if people had actual education about them, a lot less would migrate to the actual drugs. LSD is lumped in the same category as heroine. Once they take LSD and see that it's not actually dangerous a small few think, well, that must mean heroine isn't as dangerous as people say either. It's the boy who cried wolf idea.