o/t “Countering Disinformation And Propaganda Act” Thoughts?

[zk]

[quote=CA renter]
I’ve seen far more…propaganda on CNN [than on zero hedge].

[/quote]

And this is what is wrong with our country. People don’t know propaganda when they see it.

[zk]

[quote=CA renter]I’ve yet to see them promote a story that had no basis in reality[/quote]

Is that your bar? A “basis in reality?”

Good god, it’s no wonder you can’t recognize propaganda.

[Anonymous]

It checks out:

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-12-22/sex-robots-are-becoming-thing-and-they-could-kill-human-race

Sex Robots Are Becoming A Thing – And They Could Kill Off The Human Race

[gogogosandiego]

In April 2016, the authors writing as “Durden” on the website were reported by Bloomberg News to be Ivandjiiski, Tim Backshall (a credit derivatives strategist), and Colin Lokey. Lokey, the newest member revealed himself and the other two when he left the site.[1] Ivandjiiski confirmed that the three men “had been the only Tyler Durdens on the payroll” since Lokey joined the site in 2015.[1] Former Zero Hedge writer Colin Lokey said that he was pressured to frame issues in a way he felt was “disingenuous,” summarizing its political stances as “Russia=good. Obama=idiot. Bashar al-Assad=benevolent leader. John Kerry=dunce. Vladimir Putin=greatest leader in the history of statecraft.”[1] Zero Hedge founder Daniel Ivandjiiski, in response, said that Lokey could write “anything and everything he wanted directly without anyone writing over it.”[1] On leaving, Lokey said: “I can’t be a 24-hour cheerleader for Hezbollah, Moscow, Tehran, Beijing, and Trump anymore. It’s wrong. Period. I know it gets you views now, but it will kill your brand over the long run. This isn’t a revolution. It’s a joke.”[1]

[Escoguy]

CA renter

I don’t know what your life experiences are and how many countries you’ve lived in/languages you speak or people you know.

What I can say after living in 8 countries over 20 years and knowing multiple foreign languages is that zero hedge is designed to look real to a person who has a critical eye towards the US but in actuality is little more than sophisticated propaganda. I could take any articles’s “facts” and depending on the direction I want the reader to go, portray the US or Russia as evil/the victim/succeeding etc.

Once you realize that “fake news” is often about how “facts” are used to support a biased view, then you can look at everything more critically and have a happier life as you won’t need to take such sites so seriously. I was a regular reader for years but finally realized that my desire to get an alternative perspective wasn’t worth the negative effects such articles had on my thinking so I just cut it off and get other sources. A good one to consider is Calculated risk as they did a good job of calling the housing bubble but are grounding in facts.

For a while I read the housingbubble.com but they had a hard time realizing there would be a real recovery. If you join the permanent doom camp, it’s like putting on blinders and you won’t be ready when there is a recovery.

ZH is someone like that in the economic/political sphere.

[CA renter]

[quote=zk][quote=CA renter]I’ve yet to see them promote a story that had no basis in reality[/quote]

Is that your bar? A “basis in reality?”

Good god, it’s no wonder you can’t recognize propaganda.[/quote]

I’ve been familiar with some stories that were discussed in mainstream media, and there is no question that our traditional outlets are very biased and are definitely involved in spreading propaganda and intentionally distorting the truth. They also redirect the public’s attention from certain stories and to others in order to push certain narratives.

There are no unbiased news sources. You have to be familiar with all perspectives and biases in order to glean the truth. But you need to have sources that value truth and integrity. Zero Hedge has reported on very important stories that were intentionally not covered by the MSM, this includes the housing/credit bubble issue that we were focusing on here on Piggington. Zero Hedge got it right, the MSM got it wrong.

They were also one of the few media sources who nailed what happened to both the Tea Party and OWS protests (which were both started for the same reasons), and how the establishment infiltrated and/or co-opted these movements in order to neutralize them.

http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2012-09-17/real-meaning-1-year-anniversary-occupy-wall-street

None of this was in the MSM. They did the bidding of their masters and pushed the story that these were opposing “right” and “left” movements, when nothing could be further from the truth.

This is why I prefer alternate sources of information — to compare it to what’s being spread in the MSM so that the truth can be better discerned.

[CA renter]

[quote=Escoguy]CA renter

I don’t know what your life experiences are and how many countries you’ve lived in/languages you speak or people you know.

What I can say after living in 8 countries over 20 years and knowing multiple foreign languages is that zero hedge is designed to look real to a person who has a critical eye towards the US but in actuality is little more than sophisticated propaganda. I could take any articles’s “facts” and depending on the direction I want the reader to go, portray the US or Russia as evil/the victim/succeeding etc.

Once you realize that “fake news” is often about how “facts” are used to support a biased view, then you can look at everything more critically and have a happier life as you won’t need to take such sites so seriously. I was a regular reader for years but finally realized that my desire to get an alternative perspective wasn’t worth the negative effects such articles had on my thinking so I just cut it off and get other sources. A good one to consider is Calculated risk as they did a good job of calling the housing bubble but are grounding in facts.

For a while I read the housingbubble.com but they had a hard time realizing there would be a real recovery. If you join the permanent doom camp, it’s like putting on blinders and you won’t be ready when there is a recovery.

ZH is someone like that in the economic/political sphere.[/quote]

Yes, I’ve lived and traveled overseas, and have lived among immigrants my entire life. As you might imagine, I’ve never shied away from discussions about politics, culture, religion, etc.; and have had many interesting conversations with people from all around the world. These different perspectives have given me a much better understanding about the world and our place in it.

You are absolutely correct about being able to create multiple different (and even opposing) narratives based on the same facts. What I think you and others might be missing is that this is also true of U.S. news sources, history books, etc.

I’ve long been familiar with Calculated Risk, The Housing Bubble Blog (where I was a regular poster for many years), etc. There are biases and social/political leanings no matter where you go. I prefer to familiarize myself with as many perspectives as possible.

You’re wise to wean yourself from sites that create negative thoughts and feelings. I’ve had to do that myself, too. But I still want to be as informed as possible, and I can’t do that just by watching CNN or reading the Washington Post, the NYT, or the Economist (all of which I watch/read, too).

I think that alternative news sources are the lifeblood of a healthy society. As it stands, our media outlets are controlled by too few people, and it’s obvious that they are trying to push certain agendas, often to the detriment of both U.S. citizens and people abroad.

[Anonymous]

I other words, even though it’s been spelled out to you very clearly that Zero Hedge is worthless, you are are still going to cite it as a “credible source” whenever it suits your opinion of the day.

ZK is right. This is how we ended up with Trump.

Merry Christmas!

[zk]

[quote=CA renter]

http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2012-09-17/real-meaning-1-year-anniversary-occupy-wall-street

[/quote]

That article is your defense of ZH?

Wow. You’re kind of making my point for me.

[CA renter]

Harvey and zk, you’re making my case.

The bill was signed by President Obama just before Christmas Eve (odd timing, no?). I searched google (using the search terms “obama signs countering disinformation and propaganda act” and “countering disinformation and propaganda act”) for any news about it among the MSM sources that you seem to indicate are truthful and unbiased, but found no MSM coverage on the first few pages of results.

But, lo and behold, Zero Hedge is reporting on it. Other alternative news sites are also reporting about it. Why no MSM coverage?

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-12-24/obama-signs-countering-disinformation-and-propaganda-act-law

Is this less newsworthy than George Michael’s death?

It’s like how the news was reporting about Miley Cyrus “twerking” a few years back instead of focusing on important issues like the secretive dealings regarding the TPP. I mentioned the absence of this important news at the time, too.

[CA renter]

[quote=harvey]I other words, even though it’s been spelled out to you very clearly that Zero Hedge is worthless, you are are still going to cite it as a “credible source” whenever it suits your opinion of the day.

ZK is right. This is how we ended up with Trump.

Merry Christmas![/quote]

Please quote the post where it’s been “spelled out…very clearly that Zero Hedge is worthless.” Remember, opinions don’t count. Back it up with evidence.

[CA renter]

[quote=zk][quote=CA renter]

http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2012-09-17/real-meaning-1-year-anniversary-occupy-wall-street

[/quote]

That article is your defense of ZH?

Wow. You’re kind of making my point for me.[/quote]

Precisely which part of that article do you disagree with, and why? Please be specific and give us a valid reason — cite sources or give us some personal background information indicating your expertise regarding these movements — for why your position is the truthful one, and why the ZH article is wrong.

For the record, I was actively involved with these movements and can attest to what ZH is saying here. Many of the people who were involved with the original Tea Party (before being co-opted by the Republicans) were the same people who were involved with OWS…and many of these same people were involved in Bernie Sanders’ campaign (and were also involved with the Iraq war protests, etc.). If you have information that would conflict with my personal knowledge and experience regarding this topic, I’d be open to hearing about it.

And prior to the Tea Party and OWS, there was this protest, and never a peep from the MSM about it, either. Again, this is the same movement from this protest, to the (original/real) Tea Party, to Occupy Wall Street, to Bernie Sanders’ campaign. It’s all part of the same movement; it’s the MSM and the government/corporate leaders who have infiltrated and co-opted these movements that are framing these as separate movements in order to divide and conquer the masses who are rightly angered by the antics of our politicians and their corporate overlords.

[zk]

CA Renter, this is normally where I break out the facts and logic and evidence and reason. But that takes a lot of time, and you’ve shown that you’re immune to it anyway.

Remember this?:

https://piggington.com/middle_school_logic?page=9

I spent many an hour countering your ridiculousness, and I proved, using your own words, that you were unambiguously wrong (my assertion was that you imagine people being motivated to segregate girls and boys by fear of feminizing boys. You said you did no such thing. And, right there on that thread, you did exactly that – you imagined me doing it. You accused me of doing it when I hadn’t). Yet you continued to insist that you were right.

So, if you can’t see, even when it’s unambiguously proven to you, that you’re wrong, why would I spend my time trying to convince you?

I will throw this out there, though, because I think it’s kind of funny:

Saying that OWS and the Tea Party protests were started for the same reason is like saying the “Free Mumia” movement and the “Execute Mumia” movement were started for the same reason: They were both angry that Mumia was in jail.

Sure, they both don’t like the state of government/corporate interaction. But if one wants less corporate influence on the government, and the other wants less government influence on corporations, then they don’t want the same thing.

[CA renter]

[quote=zk]CA Renter, this is normally where I break out the facts and logic and evidence and reason. But that takes a lot of time, and you’ve shown that you’re immune to it anyway.

Remember this?:

https://piggington.com/middle_school_logic?page=9

I spent many an hour countering your ridiculousness, and I proved, using your own words, that you were unambiguously wrong (my assertion was that you imagine people being motivated to segregate girls and boys for fear of feminizing boys. You said you did no such thing. And, right there on that thread, you did exactly that – you imagined me doing it. You accused me of doing it when I hadn’t). Yet you continued to insist that you were right.

So, if you can’t see, even when it’s unambiguously proven to you, that you’re wrong, why would I spend my time trying to convince you?

I will throw this out there, though, because I think it’s kind of funny:

Saying that OWS and the Tea Party protests were started for the same reason is like saying the “Free Mumia” movement and the “Execute Mumia” movement were started for the same reason: They were both angry that Mumia was in jail.

Sure, they both don’t like the state of government/corporate interaction. But if one wants less corporate influence on the government, and the other wants less government influence on corporations, then they don’t want the same thing.[/quote]

ZK, the only thing you proved on that thread was that you disagreed with me, and that was based solely on your opinion, not on facts or logic.

So, feel free to actually prove something based on facts and logic, and I will listen. So far on this thread, you’re just pulling more nonsense out of your behind and claiming that it is somehow more relevant or truthful vs. the experience of someone who was actually there.

Yes, OWS and the Tea Party started for the same reasons — to stop privatizing profits and socializing losses, and to get the government to stop favoring Wall Street (and corporations) over people. The story about the Tea Party being about small government or being opposed to Obamacare came well after it had already built a following that was focused purely on the bailouts of the financial sector. The movement gained such strength in such a short amount of time that the PTB freaked out and began infiltrating and redirecting the energy toward things like “big government” and Obamacare. This is very well known among those who were involved. Again, I was there, and you, quite obviously, were not.

[Anonymous]

[quote=CA renter]The bill was signed by President Obama just before Christmas Eve (odd timing, no?).[/quote]

Obama did not sign any bill called the Countering Disinformation And Propaganda Act. There was a bill with that name introduced into congress that never made it very far.

https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/senate-bill/3274

What Obama did sign “just before Christmas Eve” was the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017. This is the law that substantially funds our entire fucking military. The same law that every president signs every year. So that we can have a military the next year.

https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/senate-bill/2943/

(And no, it’s not “odd” for a president to sign critical annual budget legislation at the end of the year.)

Within the nearly thousand-page NDAA there are a few paragraphs that mention a relatively insignificant amount of funding to be directed toward countering disinformation by foreign governments. An effort that I, a card-carrying member of the ACLU, believe is a reasonable use of our military budget. Most Americans would agree with me that no civil liberties are threatened by this legislation.

The reason the “mainstream media” is not reporting on your boogeyman is because it doesn’t exist.

Unfortunately, you lack such a basic understanding of how our government works as well as any ability to critically analyze information, that there’s not much anyone here can do to help you.

[quote]Is this less newsworthy than George Michael’s death?[/quote]

George Michael’s death actually happened.

[Author]

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