[UnusuallyUsual]

I mean in general, do you believe that even in countries with "freedom of the press" guaranteed by law, and with corporations running the media as opposed to governments, do you believe there is still large chunks of propaganda involved in their coverage? In particular of course I refer to coverage of "foreign" events, and especially those involving potential (or even actual) conflict with the host nation. (I.e., I would say the USA media and British media, being the most war-like countries currently, have media systems which are the worst offenders in this regard)

[Decky]

Freedom of speech in any capitalist nation is the freedom for the rich to talk and the poor to be talked to. You can publish anything you please in a national newspaper as long as you have the money to own one.

[UnusuallyUsual]

Freedom of speech in any capitalist nation is the freedom for the rich to talk and the poor to be talked to. You can publish anything you please in a national newspaper as long as you have the money to own one.

So in that regard do you think it is a positive development, the downfall of traditional "elite journalism" and the rise of "social media"?

[benpenguin]

Political power = share of voice = money. Same with printed news. Rich folks own the major news websites, has biggest budget to spend on Google Advertising, can hire people to influence social media. Non-mainstream viewpoints are marginalized. Majority opinions are manufactured and guided and social media only serves to reinforce it.

Some occasional hiccups could happen, but opinion leaders will be quickly manipulated, utilized or marginalized. It's just the same with printed media with a slightly different game rule.

[kobe]

Isn't all news media, and possibly all media in general, propaganda? Here's how I see it: at any one time there are an uncountable amount of things going on. Whoever gets to choose the 10-15 stories that are reported controls the dialog. For example, the Vietnam war stands as the prime example of a war that certainly could have been won and essentially was won militarily. However it was the media that essentially lost the war because of the way they presented it. Sometimes perception can be more powerful than reality. Another example, the Iraq war. Even though the war was completely unnecessary and extremely destabilized the region, many will still defend it to this day because the media constantly juxtaposed that war to the Afghan conflict, the insurgency to the Islamic extremists. Even though there is little to no evidence of that, it is the story that drives forward the dialog and not the facts.

The narrative that people peddle can be more powerful than any event that they are reporting on. You are far more likely to be killed or raped by someone that you know, yet the odd story of strangers killing someone completely random is considered more compelling and thus more newsworthy and thus the narrative is established. Even though we live in the least violent decade in a long time, there are still people that peddle the narrative of fear. In fact, it is hard to imagine a world in which narratives are not pushed by media for the very fact that it is their intended purpose.

In the whole conception of history up to the present this real basis of history has either been totally neglected or else considered as a minor matter quite irrelevant to the course of history. History must, therefore, always be written according to an extraneous standard; the real production of life seems to be primeval history, while the truly historical appears to be separated from ordinary life, something extra-superterrestrial. With this the relation of man to nature is excluded from history and hence the antithesis of nature and history is created. The exponents of this conception of history have consequently only been able to see in history the political actions of princes and States, religious and all sorts of theoretical struggles, and in particular in each historical epoch have had to share the illusion of that epoch. For instance, if an epoch imagines itself to be actuated by purely “political” or “religious” motives, although “religion” and “politics” are only forms of its true motives, the historian accepts this opinion. The “idea,” the “conception” of the people in question about their real practice, is transformed into the sole determining, active force, which controls and determines their practice. When the crude form in which the division of labour appears with the Indians and Egyptians calls forth the caste-system in their State and religion, the historian believes that the caste-system is the power which has produced this crude social form.

...

The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it. The ruling ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relationships, the dominant material relationships grasped as ideas; hence of the relationships which make the one class the ruling one, therefore, the ideas of its dominance. The individuals composing the ruling class possess among other things consciousness, and therefore think. Insofar, therefore, as they rule as a class and determine the extent and compass of an epoch, it is self-evident that they do this in its whole range, hence among other things rule also as thinkers, as producers of ideas, and regulate the production and distribution of the ideas of their age: thus their ideas are the ruling ideas of the epoch. For instance, in an age and in a country where royal power, aristocracy, and bourgeoisie are contending for mastery and where, therefore, mastery is shared, the doctrine of the separation of powers proves to be the dominant idea and is expressed as an “eternal law.”

...

The division of labour, which we already saw above as one of the chief forces of history up till now, manifests itself also in the ruling class as the division of mental and material labour, so that inside this class one part appears as the thinkers of the class (its active, conceptive ideologists, who make the perfecting of the illusion of the class about itself their chief source of livelihood), while the others’ attitude to these ideas and illusions is more passive and receptive, because they are in reality the active members of this class and have less time to make up illusions and ideas about themselves. Within this class this cleavage can even develop into a certain opposition and hostility between the two parts, which, however, in the case of a practical collision, in which the class itself is endangered, automatically comes to nothing, in which case there also vanishes the semblance that the ruling ideas were not the ideas of the ruling class and had a power distinct from the power of this class. The existence of revolutionary ideas in a particular period presupposes the existence of a revolutionary class; about the premises for the latter sufficient has already been said above.

If now in considering the course of history we detach the ideas of the ruling class from the ruling class itself and attribute to them an independent existence, if we confine ourselves to saying that these or those ideas were dominant at a given time, without bothering ourselves about the conditions of production and the producers of these ideas, if we thus ignore the individuals and world conditions which are the source of the ideas, we can say, for instance, that during the time that the aristocracy was dominant, the concepts honour, loyalty, etc. were dominant, during the dominance of the bourgeoisie the concepts freedom, equality, etc. The ruling class itself on the whole imagines this to be so. This conception of history, which is common to all historians, particularly since the eighteenth century, will necessarily come up against the phenomenon that increasingly abstract ideas hold sway, i.e. ideas which increasingly take on the form of universality. For each new class which puts itself in the place of one ruling before it, is compelled, merely in order to carry through its aim, to represent its interest as the common interest of all the members of society, that is, expressed in ideal form: it has to give its ideas the form of universality, and represent them as the only rational, universally valid ones. The class making a revolution appears from the very start, if only because it is opposed to a class, not as a class but as the representative of the whole of society; it appears as the whole mass of society confronting the one ruling class. ”

I highly recommend the read. Very interesting stuff.

[Decky]

So in that regard do you think it is a positive development, the downfall of traditional "elite journalism" and the rise of "social media"?

What downfall? Sure anyone can publish something on social media just like anyone can scrawl something on a toilet wall or stand on a street corner selling their own manuscript. The rich still own the media bodies that are actually believed.

[blackjack21]

So in that regard do you think it is a positive development, the downfall of traditional "elite journalism" and the rise of "social media"?

I think the upside of social media is that a lot of people don't automatically believe the mainstream media anymore. I think the downside of it is that if they can't control information flow, the media tends to spread more misinformation and disinformation. In that respect, they are accelerating their own demise, because they simply aren't credible anymore. All of them offer more commentary and opinion, and often repeat the opinion of celebrities--as though someone like Kanye West were actually socially relevant. In many respects, I think the social upheavals of the 1960s-1970s inspired certain roles. However, it has become something of a self-parody. For example, Obama yammering on about racist police officers and a racist country while being proven wrong most of the time. It's ironic that he says things that, if they were true, he would not be president.

For example, the Vietnam war stands as the prime example of a war that certainly could have been won and essentially was won militarily. However it was the media that essentially lost the war because of the way they presented it.

The media and the Democratic Party--which is to say, the political left. Communism hadn't yet imploded and the political left was quite sympathetic to communism.

Another example, the Iraq war. Even though the war was completely unnecessary and extremely destabilized the region, many will still defend it to this day because the media constantly juxtaposed that war to the Afghan conflict, the insurgency to the Islamic extremists.

Those of us who supported the Iraq War did so to as part of the Doctrine of Preemption. Iraq was a state sponsor of terror with a history of WMD development and use. We supported that war for the same reason we don't want Iran having a nuclear weapon--it basically means nuclear war, not peace. People like Obama, people like Neville Chamberlain, just don't get it. When Chamberlain returned to the UK from Germany to declare "peace in our time," Hitler was quipping to his advisers, "He seemed like such a nice old gentleman—I gave him my autograph as a souvenir." The mullahs take Obama for a fool, because he is a fool. These political narratives in the press are propaganda. See, if Bush is to blame for ISIS as a consequence of invading Iraq, that logic would only apply to Western Iraq, not Syria, and certainly not Yemen.

While I don't support Barack Obama's every move, I don't criticize his every move either. I prefer a world without Gaddafi. However, I harbor no illusions that Gaddafi played a positive role in crushing Muslim extremists. However, he was also seeking a nuclear weapon.

You are far more likely to be killed or raped by someone that you know, yet the odd story of strangers killing someone completely random is considered more compelling and thus more newsworthy and thus the narrative is established.

Yes, this is true. It's also true that 10k people a year die from AIDS in the United States alone. Yet, there are still proponents of sodomy as normal and safe even though AIDS has killed more Americans in a year than Iraq has in 10. Heck, black on black violence kills roughly 8000 per year. Blacks are only 13% of the US population, but account for about half of all homicides--usually perpetrated by another black. Yet, Obama thinks it's interesting to highlight white police officers in the deaths of blacks, and they are statistically insignificant compared to black on black violence.

The media still has the power to divide people, but I think they've lost the power to unite people.

[One Degree]

The media still has the power to divide people, but I think they've lost the power to unite people.

The last thing any government wants is for the people to be united in a cause.
It is important they keep using the media to keep us divided through race, sexual preferences, or anything thing else that will keep us distracted from what they are doing to us.

[kobe]

The media and the Democratic Party--which is to say, the political left. Communism hadn't yet imploded and the political left was quite sympathetic to communism.

Inconsequential, and also a total lie. The Democratic Party started the war. So please spare me the liberal partisan rhetoric.

Those of us who supported the Iraq War did so to as part of the Doctrine of Preemption. Iraq was a state sponsor of terror with a history of WMD development and use. We supported that war for the same reason we don't want Iran having a nuclear weapon--it basically means nuclear war, not peace.

OP, this illustrates my point that narrative is more powerful than objectivity. Clearly he is still spouting the same false story and the same propaganda that was found to be false a decade ago, furthermore juxtaposing two countries that have fought wars against each other- wars funded by the US Government- as if they were in any way connected.

People like Obama, people like Neville Chamberlain, just don't get it. When Chamberlain returned to the UK from Germany to declare "peace in our time," Hitler was quipping to his advisers, "He seemed like such a nice old gentleman—I gave him my autograph as a souvenir." The mullahs take Obama for a fool, because he is a fool. These political narratives in the press are propaganda. See, if Bush is to blame for ISIS as a consequence of invading Iraq, that logic would only apply to Western Iraq, not Syria, and certainly not Yemen.

Yes, all narratives are propaganda. Just like the one you're peddling right here. Do you see how comparing Obama to Chamberlain is only a propaganda device? How comparing the Mullahs to Hitler is a propaganda device?

As far as my comment about destabilizing the region, the war certainly did.

"The Americans are between two fires," declared Osama bin Ladin’s deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri in 2004. "If they remain [in Iraq] they will bleed to death, and if they withdraw they will have lost everything." Zawahiri’s grim prediction has proven correct. As the United States and its Iraqi allies falter, bin Ladin and the broader jihadist movement are emerging victorious.[1]

Before the United States invaded Iraq, Al Qa’ida was on the ropes. The United States and its coalition partners had rousted it from Afghanistan and toppled the Taliban, while a global manhunt was steadily shutting down jihadist cells from Morocco to Malaysia. Perhaps equally important, many Islamists, including fellow jihadists, harshly criticized bin Ladin for having rashly attacked a super power and, in so doing, causing the defeat of the Taliban, the only "true" Islamic regime in the eyes of many radicals.

The invasion of Iraq breathed new life into the organization. On an operational level, the United States diverted troops to Iraq rather than consolidate its victory in Afghanistan and increase its chances of hunting down Bin Ladin. Today, Al Qa’ida is reconstituting itself in the tribal areas of Pakistan. Politically, Iraq vindicated bin Ladin’s argument that the primary enemy of the Muslim world was not the local Muslim autocrats, but the "faraway enemy," the United States. Today, Al Qa'ida is again on the march.[2]

It was not supposed to be this way. Toppling Saddam Husayn’s regime was meant to usher in an era of prosperity for Iraq and put Osama bin Ladin and his followers on the run. Instead, the tables have turned. Today, Iraq is torn by crime, plagued by a vicious insurgency, and devoid of competent government and basic services. Strife in Iraq continues without end in sight, while the human and financial costs to the United States and its allies mount. With each car bomb and kidnapping, critics urging the withdrawal of troops grow more and more vociferous.

Every additional day that the United States remains in Iraq is a boon for Al Qa’ida and the broader jihadist movement. On the other hand, Al Qa’ida and its allies would also exploit a U.S. withdrawal that left Iraq in chaos.

How then should the United States solve this conundrum? Victory in Iraq cannot be judged entirely or even primarily in light of U.S. efforts against Al Qa’ida. Added to the mix are the importance of a stable oil-rich region, the human costs of a massive civil war, and the moral burden that the United States must bear in the eyes of the world for the carnage it unleashed. But just as counter terrorism was an important justification for the war, so too is it an important criterion for judging the next steps with regard to this bloody challenge.

Iraq, as President Bush has declared, has indeed become a "central front" in the war on terrorism.[3] This "central front" exists in no small part to administration policies, which have created a jihadist problem in Iraq where none existed. But that oft-repeated criticism does not solve the problem of where to go next in Iraq.

Developing a long-term Iraq policy is vital. From a counterterrorism point of view, the problem of Iraq does not go away if the United States abandons the country to strife. Indeed, in many ways it would get worse. By early 2007, the conflict had already generated over two million refugees who could spread instability and terrorism to neighboring states. In Iraq, jihadists from around the world are learning new skills, forging new networks, and otherwise training to fight the next war as well as defeat America and its Iraqi allies.
...
Iraqi insurgents number at least 20,000­—the number becomes well over 100,000 when various local militias are included—but they are far from a unified movement. Fighters include groups such as former regime elements, members of the Ba'ath Party angered by the loss of their perks and privileges, foreign Sunni jihadists, domestic Sunni jihadists, Iraqi nationalists opposed to foreign occupation, and various Shi’a groups. These groups are further divided by tribe and leadership divisions, as well as competition for a share of the black market.

Since the U.S. occupation of Iraq began in 2003, foreign jihadists have flocked to Iraq, making it a new center of jihad – and in the process, they have transformed the nature of the anti-U.S. Iraqi resistance. Iraq’s insurgency is concentrated in the Sunni Arab parts of Iraq, though much of the rest of the country outside the Kurdish regions is convulsed in civil war or confronting the problems of a de facto failed state.

Only a portion of the insurgency consists of jihadists who took up arms in the name of God, but over the years their numbers have grown. A 2006 National Intelligence Estimate found that "The Iraq conflict has become the ‘cause celebre’ for jihadists, breeding a deep resentment of US involvement in the Muslim world and cultivating supporters for the global jihadist movement."[4] Foreign jihadists are capitalizing on, and exacerbating, the strife in Iraq. Between 1,000 and 2,000 foreign fighters are in Iraq, and they carried out most of the suicide bombings. Most are from Arab countries, with Saudi Arabia comprising the lion’s share of those killed. In recent months, however, the number of Iraqi jihadists has swelled. Indeed, this may be one of the most lasting effects of the U.S. invasion and occupation: the growth of a domestic jihadist movement in Iraq, where none existed before.
http://www.brookings.edu/research/artic ... qterrorism

While I don't support Barack Obama's every move, I don't criticize his every move either. I prefer a world without Gaddafi. However, I harbor no illusions that Gaddafi played a positive role in crushing Muslim extremists. However, he was also seeking a nuclear weapon.

Well, from my point of view Barack Obama's foreign policy has been consistent with the United State's policy of being the global police force. Not that he really has much of a choice or was ever going to do anything to the contrary.

Don't get me wrong, it's not like I shed a tear for any dictators, but I'm glad to see there are still people willing to celebrate the gains of global capitalism. It becomes a little boring when people try to distance themselves from the policies that they tacitly encourage out of the corner of their mouth.

Yes, this is true. It's also true that 10k people a year die from AIDS in the United States alone. Yet, there are still proponents of sodomy as normal and safe even though AIDS has killed more Americans in a year than Iraq has in 10. Heck, black on black violence kills roughly 8000 per year. Blacks are only 13% of the US population, but account for about half of all homicides--usually perpetrated by another black. Yet, Obama thinks it's interesting to highlight white police officers in the deaths of blacks, and they are statistically insignificant compared to black on black violence.

The media still has the power to divide people, but I think they've lost the power to unite people.

True, but as long as we are mentioning random things that kill you, 600k people die of heart disease and 400k people die of smoking. So sodomy is still safer than eating or smoking a cigarette. Really your Obama point is exactly what I am saying, media and narrative is propaganda. Whether it is good or bad depends on whether you agree with it or not. Most people are not willing to look critically at their own propaganda, which is why arguments arise on political forums that go on for an eternity.

Finally, I think media can unite a movement, but it will never appeal to a broad range of people. Hearing media you perceive as false will sound vicious, evil, or dangerous. For instance we think of the propaganda of the Nazis or the Soviets and think it sounds so evil, but don't blink an eye at schoolchildren pledging allegiance to a flag and being told about American exceptionalism.

[Conspyre]

[Conspyre]

In this video they say that Americans are taught from childhood in the school that the United States - the most democratic and free state. There is no censorship, but most Americans simply do not realize that the media can lie. And those who doubt those considered abnormal, succumbed to conspiracy theories. Representing the Russian totalitarian country - it is a big lie. Believe me, we have a lot of media criticism of the authorities and Putin personally. There is no censorship.

[RhetoricThug]

This thread ignores almost every thread ever created in PoFo's media section... We've explained Western media & its propaganda. Propaganda is information, of course there can be a Western or Eastern cultural bias.

[Conspyre]

propaganda - it is propaganda everywhere

[Rich]

People like Obama, people like Neville Chamberlain, just don't get it. When Chamberlain returned to the UK from Germany to declare "peace in our time," Hitler was quipping to his advisers, "He seemed like such a nice old gentleman—I gave him my autograph as a souvenir."

What in God's name are you criticising Chamberlain for? Did he argue for trusting Hitler after Munich? Did he argue for cuts in defence expenditure? Why on earth was it Britain's responsibility go to war with Germany in 1938? Why didn't the Americans get off their fat arses to defend Czechoslovakia? Why not the Poles, the Yugoslavs, the Danes, the Italians or the Belgians, all of which had taken German territory after world war I?

[Conspyre]

Nobody accuses Britain. But why blame the USSR in the Molotov - Ribbentrop?

[Decky]

What in God's name are you criticising Chamberlain for? Did he argue for trusting Hitler after Munich? Did he argue for cuts in defence expenditure?

This is a good point. The military Britain fought Hitler with was built up by Chamberlain in preparation for a war he thought was as likely. He was stalling Hitler until he felt Britain's starved interwar military had been built up enough to stand a chance and then when he felt this was the case he declared war. Churchill often gets a hell of a lot of credit for using Chamberlain's army as if Chamberlain had nothing to do with it existing and people operate on this bizarre assumption it would have been better for Chamberlain to declare war when Britain had nothing to fight with.

[blackjack21]

Inconsequential, and also a total lie.

So inconsequential, you needed to respond, eh?

The Democratic Party started the war. So please spare me the liberal partisan rhetoric.

Nixon and McCarthy were right. The Democrats were infiltrated by the Communist Party. Kennedy and Johnson weren't commies, but Alger Hiss certainly was. The other commie tactic of getting into universities started paying off by 1968, as the first wave of baby boomers were able to vote in national elections. The media was funded by advertising dollars, and purchasers were only looking at circulation, not the ideology of the broadcasters. As for the Democrats, when you go from Jack Kennedy to George McGovern in a decade, you're obviously not the same party anymore.

OP, this illustrates my point that narrative is more powerful than objectivity. Clearly he is still spouting the same false story and the same propaganda that was found to be false a decade ago, furthermore juxtaposing two countries that have fought wars against each other- wars funded by the US Government- as if they were in any way connected.

It wasn't "found to be false," which is an alliterative phrase I might add. Obama pulled troops out of Iraq, and he had ISIS almost overnight. He didn't believe they were real--calling them a JV (junior varsity) team, and juxtaposed the JV team to Kobe Bryant, a legendary professional, whose name you presumably use as your moniker. What Obama said or didn't say isn't all that relevant, but rather that he didn't take threats seriously and didn't want others to do so either.

Yes, all narratives are propaganda. Just like the one you're peddling right here. Do you see how comparing Obama to Chamberlain is only a propaganda device? How comparing the Mullahs to Hitler is a propaganda device?

Obama and Chamberlain have a similar political philosophy with respect to the use of force and appeasement. Otherwise, they differ markedly. Hitler and the Mullahs differ substantially in both their political outlook and their capabilities, but they both benefited mightily from the naivete of their adversaries self-critical and obsequious disposition as well as false bravado. For example, Chamberlain pledged to defend Poland, which essentially required Britain to declare war. Obama put a "red line" in the sand with respect to Syria, but he caved. As I've said before, a realist will judge you according to your capabilities, and in that assessment isn't just your material ability to fight, but your moral will to do so. See, while the state yammers on about Snowden, the greater damage was Bradley Manning and the email server, because it gave the enemy deep insight not just into what the US government as an entity thinks, but how they think as well as their attitude and disposition.

Why didn't the Americans get off their fat arses to defend Czechoslovakia?

It was not in America's strategic interest.

Churchill often gets a hell of a lot of credit for using Chamberlain's army as if Chamberlain had nothing to do with it existing and people operate on this bizarre assumption it would have been better for Chamberlain to declare war when Britain had nothing to fight with.

Declaring war was decided by Hitler for all intents and purposes. Chamberlain left office handing the scuttle at Dunkirk to Churchill. It wasn't exactly a success.

I mean in general, do you believe that even in countries with "freedom of the press" guaranteed by law, and with corporations running the media as opposed to governments, do you believe there is still large chunks of propaganda involved in their coverage?

In all sincerity, irrespective of her policy views, I believe that the idea that Hillary Clinton is even a contender for the presidency given her gross incompetence is evidence that our entire political system has been captured by private interests. When I hear people complain about Citizens United and the Koch brothers, what I hear is people who don't want the Democratic Party's machine challenged. See, if it came to my attention that under my watch, Bradley Manning leaked tons of classified communications to wikileaks, but I continued to maintain my own secretive but insecure email server, and then learned what that meant to the country strategically, I personally wouldn't pledge myself to try to secure the White House simply because I don't think I could serve my country. I think Hillary Clinton gets that, but she's not interested in serving her country. She's interested in power. She doesn't give two shits about the United States.

Frankly, I think the Republican field is a comedy. The Democrats have found a way to make as many Republicans run as possible. Most of these people know they have no hope in hell of winning, but they are probably being paid to run simply to fragment the Republican field. They not only don't serve their country, they don't serve their party either. So someone like Carly Fiorina clearly has no hope of winning, and putting her own money into the mix is clearly a waste of her time and money. So she must be getting paid off in some way, because people aren't that delusional. For example, I'm not running for president, because I already know I would not likely be elected to the local city council.

In particular of course I refer to coverage of "foreign" events, and especially those involving potential (or even actual) conflict with the host nation. (I.e., I would say the USA media and British media, being the most war-like countries currently, have media systems which are the worst offenders in this regard)

They are, but they are maintaining the current world order, and that requires military force. In order for the population to accept that idea, they have to be prepped with the moral rationale of why they should sacrifice their sons in a military campaign and pay the taxes necessary to fund that campaign.

However, my entire thread on ISIS executing homosexual men is essentially about the non-coverage of it. They think that ISIS feeds on their coverage. So when ISIS kills Christians, they fan the flames with coverage. When ISIS kills homosexuals, they bury the story. Yet, when a local flower shop or pizza shop doesn't want to cater to homosexual weddings, the media tries to stir up national outrage. Yet, ISIS throwing homosexuals off the tops of buildings and stoned to death if they live is amazingly not covered. It's all propaganda. Not just what's covered, but what isn't covered.

[Potemkin]

because people aren't that delusional.

See, that's where you're going wrong, blackjack. People really are that delusional. You only have to crack open a history book to see that.

[kobe]

So inconsequential, you needed to respond, eh?

Only to the point you are making, otherwise, it's very valid to bring up.

Nixon and McCarthy were right. The Democrats were infiltrated by the Communist Party. Kennedy and Johnson weren't commies, but Alger Hiss certainly was. The other commie tactic of getting into universities started paying off by 1968, as the first wave of baby boomers were able to vote in national elections. The media was funded by advertising dollars, and purchasers were only looking at circulation, not the ideology of the broadcasters. As for the Democrats, when you go from Jack Kennedy to George McGovern in a decade, you're obviously not the same party anymore.

What does that even mean, though? Are you really claiming that there were any international socialists in the Democratic party, let alone enough of them to be considered an infiltration? This is just a very transparent attempt to smear your political opponents, the Democratic party, a liberal partisan battle that socialists have no interest being pulled into. The Democratic party is more than happy taking the same corporate money and the same interventionist, pro-capitalism foreign policy as the Republican party. Ultimately what both parties share is their interest in preserving capitalism and the overarching class hierarchy. Perhaps one party uses collectivist rhetoric and the other party uses individualist rhetoric, but ultimately they are two arms of the same body, that body being the liberal body politic of the United States.

As Coolidge once said, America's business is business.

It wasn't "found to be false," which is an alliterative phrase I might add. Obama pulled troops out of Iraq, and he had ISIS almost overnight. He didn't believe they were real--calling them a JV (junior varsity) team, and juxtaposed the JV team to Kobe Bryant, a legendary professional, whose name you presumably use as your moniker. What Obama said or didn't say isn't all that relevant, but rather that he didn't take threats seriously and didn't want others to do so either.

It's not Obama's fault that Muslim nationalists are truly gutless unless it involves blowing up schools and hospitals. Trust me, not even a dirty Communist like myself wants to see ISIS. But the problem is not that Obama pulled out the ground troops, but rather that you cannot kill an ideology from an external source. The only way for ISIS to die is for Arab nationalists themselves to root them out and destroy them. I mean, as a permanent solution to destroying a counterrevolutionary state. One does not simply invade and turn the country into a client state, or else then one has to deal with the financial burden forever.

Do you honestly believe that if ISIS posed a major threat they wouldn't have already been bombed into the stone age? Clearly the strategy is to allow an Arab coalition to fix its own problems, a solution that I, as an anti-imperialist, obviously support.

Obama and Chamberlain have a similar political philosophy with respect to the use of force and appeasement. Otherwise, they differ markedly. Hitler and the Mullahs differ substantially in both their political outlook and their capabilities, but they both benefited mightily from the naivete of their adversaries self-critical and obsequious disposition as well as false bravado. For example, Chamberlain pledged to defend Poland, which essentially required Britain to declare war. Obama put a "red line" in the sand with respect to Syria, but he caved. As I've said before, a realist will judge you according to your capabilities, and in that assessment isn't just your material ability to fight, but your moral will to do so. See, while the state yammers on about Snowden, the greater damage was Bradley Manning and the email server, because it gave the enemy deep insight not just into what the US government as an entity thinks, but how they think as well as their attitude and disposition.

Chamberlain rapidly increased military spending during his time in office, and was involved in the rearmament process under Stanley Baldwin. Just as Obama continues to maintain high levels of military spending. As far as his policy with Syria, I am not too well-versed on that so you'll have to enlighten me what his position was on Syria, but I doubt he made a promise that he could not keep, which is that he could not have promised to contain the civil war in Syria because that promise would be made to be broken. A spillover of the Syrian conflict was a pretty predictable scenario, especially because of our policy of agitating for liberal democracy. Turns out that when you agitate for revolution, things tend to turn violent. We wanted the positive of Arab Spring without thinking through the consequences of government upheaval, and that is that many of them turn violent and oftentimes it is not clearcut which side of the conflict we wish to ally with. Same as the Congo same as anywhere else where militant factions are vying for power. Agitation for agitation's sake is not useful, it must be revolutionary in nature. For many of these countries, they are the victims of global capitalism and do not see it as a revolutionary system, though from my position that would be the most revolutionary option for these countries. Unfortunately because of many of our own policies of supporting Islamist dictatorships we have created an unsuitable place for a thriving petty-bourgeoisie and bourgeoisie class.

You see there are much more than ideological reasons for things being the way they are now. On my scale of importance it's pretty near the bottom.

[Conspyre]

Democracy - a powerful cover of imperialism.