Is the USA uncivilised?

[pErvinalia]

There's a certain level of propaganda to all governments and organisations. The key point in the western world is how entwined is the corporate media with conservative/neoliberal politics? I say it's a lot. That's your "propaganda" here in the West. Not the same as the overt propaganda in communist/authoritarian regimes, but I'd argue (and I do) that it's more insidious in our so called "liberal democracies".

edit: ok, so I looked up the definition of "propaganda" and what we experience is not really "organised". Still, I think it's a semantic rebuttal. The effect is the same, whether it is actively organised, or it occurs that way because it is incidentally in the interests of those who have the most power in our societies.

[klr]

One man's propaganda is another man's official line.

[Clinton Huxley]

Hurrah for the (40% owned by NewsCorp) free press in Blighty! Huzzah for the Sun and its completely made up claim about there being 600,000 "benefits tourists" in the UK. Largest daily circulation of any daily paper in the UK, chock full of lies

[pErvinalia]

http://www.smh.com.au/business/murdoch- ... 2wzhs.html

[klr]

Hurrah for the (40% owned by NewsCorp) free press in Blighty! Huzzah for the Sun and its completely made up claim about there being 600,000 "benefits tourists" in the UK. Largest daily circulation of any daily paper in the UK, chock full of lies

What else would one expect from Murdoch and his cronies?

[Pappa]

"Propaganda" is a term used by insular or desperate people. Any fool can point to information he doesn't want to hear and call it propaganda. But the US government does not control the media, and propaganda is thus an incorrect term as it cannot apply here.

A government doesn't have to control the media to engage in propaganda. Simply putting a biased spin on facts, only presenting one side of a story or attempting to influence the public by leaking information are all forms of propaganda.

[Ian]

I have a tighter definition of the word. Spin doctoring and any hype made by a sports or entertainment personality could be considered propaganda if the definition is loose enough. But I think it's too much of an accusation to have a loose definition. Propaganda is what Goebbels and Stalin's information cronies did. If you know you can't control the information but only try to influence it, it shouldn't be called propaganda.

[Seth]

Seth
Expats in Miami are no longer Cubans, so their opinions, well and truly modified by US government propaganda, are irrelevant. I would prefer to hear from the real Cubans, who live in Cuba.

They vociferously disagree with you. Most of them consider themselves to be refugees who long to go back to a free Cuba. You might want to interview some of the ones who survived their harrowing journey from Cuba to Florida recently to get an idea of how things really are.

It sound to me like you choose to keep your head in the sand regarding the evils of the Castro regime merely in order to once again vilify the United States.

Not very rational of you.

[Seth]

Hurrah for the (40% owned by NewsCorp) free press in Blighty! Huzzah for the Sun and its completely made up claim about there being 600,000 "benefits tourists" in the UK. Largest daily circulation of any daily paper in the UK, chock full of lies

How do you know it's "made up?" Do you work for the government visa office or something?

[Svartalf]

Seth
Expats in Miami are no longer Cubans, so their opinions, well and truly modified by US government propaganda, are irrelevant. I would prefer to hear from the real Cubans, who live in Cuba.

They vociferously disagree with you. Most of them consider themselves to be refugees who long to go back to a free Cuba. You might want to interview some of the ones who survived their harrowing journey from Cuba to Florida recently to get an idea of how things really are.

It sound to me like you choose to keep your head in the sand regarding the evils of the Castro regime merely in order to once again vilify the United States.

Not very rational of you.

Like what the descendents of those who left Cuba 50 years ago present themselves as has any direct tie with truth? In a country where FOX News and Rupert Murdoch have such an importance in information dispersal, one would expect better grasp of the difference between facts and presentation (not to mention outright lies and assumed propaganda).

[Blind groper]

It sound to me like you choose to keep your head in the sand regarding the evils of the Castro regime merely in order to once again vilify the United States.

Not very rational of you.

No, Seth.

It is not very intelligent of you to draw this conclusion. I have told you at least three times that we are all aware of the fact that the Castro government is nasty. The issue is not how nasty they are, but whether the embargo is justified. Your argument is 100% straw man.

[JimC]

I have a tighter definition of the word. Spin doctoring and any hype made by a sports or entertainment personality could be considered propaganda if the definition is loose enough. But I think it's too much of an accusation to have a loose definition. Propaganda is what Goebbels and Stalin's information cronies did. If you know you can't control the information but only try to influence it, it shouldn't be called propaganda.

I agree with you in terms of a definition for propaganda, but that should not lead to underestimating the influence that western governments and big corporations can have on public opinion. Being more diffuse, and less patently obvious, it is also harder to counter. However, unlike authoritarian regimes past and present, at least there are alternative narratives about public affairs available as part of the media mix.

[Seth]

It sound to me like you choose to keep your head in the sand regarding the evils of the Castro regime merely in order to once again vilify the United States.

Not very rational of you.

No, Seth.

It is not very intelligent of you to draw this conclusion. I have told you at least three times that we are all aware of the fact that the Castro government is nasty. The issue is not how nasty they are, but whether the embargo is justified. Your argument is 100% straw man.

And I've told you many times that the embargo is justified by the evil nature of the Castro government, which makes your argument 100% evasive and mendacious.

[Seabass]

I would tend to agree with Ian that spin and bias in the news are not the same as propaganda.

However, whether or not the US government engages in propaganda is beside the point I was making in my last response to Blind Groper.

The point I was making was that the US government needn't brainwash Cuban immigrants with anti-Castro, anti-communist propaganda because it stands to reason that Cubans who fled Cuba during or after the revolution probably already harbored ill feelings toward Castro and communism before they ever even set foot on US soil. These people wouldn't have fled in the first place, had they liked what they saw. Why on earth would the US government need to brainwash people into hating a regime they had already risked life and limb to escape??

Honestly, for someone to suggest, as Blind Groper did, that Cuban-Americans are brainwashed idiots who have been indoctrinated by "US government propaganda" is so staggeringly stupid I can hardly believe someone would make such a claim with a straight face.

[Svartalf]

(the advantage of the Int@rwebz, it makes your face straight even if you had to type it over three times because you were laughing too hard to do it proper the first two tries)