Hacker News Reader

Comment by osipov | Hacker News Reader

It is fascinating that this article comes out in context of Broadcast Board of Governors announcing that US is losing the information war with Russia. Surprisingly it does not occur to the media that telling the truth is the best antidote to Russian propaganda. Instead, the government is complaining that "broadcasters are not always in tune with U.S. foreign policy objectives." Frankly, since I'm paying my taxes to US government, I want free and independent journalism, not the one that is driven by advertisers, corporate sponsors, or US foreign objectives. We used to have that before 1990s when just 6 major media conglomerates ate up 90% of the media companies. http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/25/usa-broadcasting-i...

View on HN

I think that almost everyone agrees that a free and independent media is preferred, but I think that you overstate the freedom the press had before. The press is and always has been highly dependent on its patrons. In "The Free Press", Hillaire Belloc describes exactly this relation of dependence as it existed at the beginning of the 20th century and describes the technological innovations of the day that shaped it and made the modern press possible (the locomotive, for instance). The press makes very little from subscribers and must resort to advertising or funding to cover its expenses and as we know, all funding comes with conditions, both good and bad.

You also neglect two additional factors. The first is that during the Cold War, the US was playing an information war that often exceeded the Soviets in sophistication. Why? Because where the Soviets were able to employ physical violence against their own citizens, the Americans resorted to "softer" tactics to maintain the status quo. The press was often that fourth estate. Edward Bernays comes to mind. The second is that the 1990s were also met with an increase in independent internet media. The access to information became greater.

>you overstate the freedom the press had before.

I'm comparing the journalism in US before media consolidation and after. After 1987 repeal of the FCC fairness doctrine, rules of the game changed and companies started to buy up media assets knowing that they can use media to tell just their side of the story. This process finished in 1990s with 90% of media companies owned by 6 media conglomerates.

The other seminal moment in US media space the was 2013 amendment to the Smith Mundt Act, allowing US to employ the same propaganda both inside and outside of the United States.

So, I am not overstating the loss of freedom and diversity that the US media experienced over the past 25 years.

> It is fascinating that this article comes out in context of Broadcast Board of Governors announcing that US is losing the information war with Russia. Surprisingly it does not occur to the media that telling the truth is the best antidote to Russian propaganda.

Is it though? I know that in a business context I've often been told that I have an 'incredible ability to see both sides of a question'; that's actually a problem, because at some point one has to decide for one side or another on a particular question.

Likewise, in real life there often aren't cut-and-dried issues: rather, there are two (or more!) sides, each with valid perspectives, valid grudges, and they can't all win; indeed, in some cases compromise is simply impossible. And yet people must decide between them.

Indeed, the more one learns the truth about an historical conflict, the less obvious is the Right Thing to do in that situation. But what great masses of people need is a clear, obvious Right Thing. You don't win WWII by emphasising that the post-WWI plebiscites were fixed against Germany, or that Japan had some valid grievances against the U.S.

> Japan had some valid grievances against the U.S.

I'm curious what Japan's valid grievances against the Chinese, Koreans, or various Pacific island groups was...

Japan attacked other asian nations to imitate UK and US, and defend against UK and US.

Japan until mid 1800s was happily doing their own thing, and not caring for their neighbours, suddenly they had US metal ships on their docks, and the mighty China falling to UK.

Their solution was outright imitate what western powers was doing, in several aspects (even clothes, mannerisms and cultural trends were copied), with the most important one being to act imperialistic, invade weak countries, and try to build the most strong military that you could, using resources from all the colonies as needed.

Japan was only following a bad example set by the western powers, and trying to not become China.

Well, none (well I mean plenty if you want to go through thousands of years of history, but realistically, none), but modernizing largely meant copying Western ideas and that included having their own colonies and spheres of influence, just like Western powers. It's not as though that is the reason the US went to war with Japan.

> It's not as though that is the reason the US went to war with Japan.

I realize this, but WW2, for Japan, was mostly about taking over much of SE Asia and that would have happened regardless of them going to war with the US.

I think the popular American image of the wartime Japanese doesn't have much to do with that, although they certainly did brutalize the places they took over.

It's a matter of opinion that the masses "need" a simplified, black-and-white view of every historical event rather than a nuanced one.

wtbob's comment being downvoted is kind of proof in itself.

I don't see how.

My train of thought was following: 1. vote result represents opinion of "masses" 2. the comment in question says "masses of people need a clear, obvious Right Thing" 3. the comment itself is not clear and obvious as it contains double bind (asks to consider to be inconsiderate) 4. comment got downvoted which confirms #2

Just our of curiosity I've replied with another double bind "downvotes proof comment worthiness" which seems have reversed the trend.

Speaking on topic, I think that choosing between Right Thing and Full Picture for the "masses" is like choosing between acceleration and breaks for a car: it is better to have both. Right Thing mobilizes masses while Full Picture helps to avoid dumb aggression.

Good break down regarding your own comment

wow your reply is as off topic as it gets...care to connect the dots?

It didn't seem off-topic to me. The fellow he replied to stated he wanted free and independent journalism and the thesis of his reply seemed to me that free and independent journalism would cause confusion to the "great masses of people" and instead a simple narrative would be more effective instead of letting them decide for themselves who's right and who's wrong.

I don't agree with him and he could have perhaps left some bits out of his comment but I don't think it deserves downvotes and to be greyed out.

> that telling the truth is the best antidote to Russian propaganda

The truth sometimes is extremely damaging and narrative is a national security concern. The US works because of a couple of key national advantages - one being that it carries very positive international political capital and soft power. Some truths if widely understood, like the US caused colored revolutions in Ukraine and the Baltics including Euromaiden and its current coup-making and revolution kindling in Venezuela, harm the US's narrative of justified interventionism. It's therefore important that the US and media don't open up about it.

Do you have any reliable proof of the claim that US is responsible for colored revolutions in Ukraine (as opposed to citizens themselves taking matters into their own hands)? By reliable I mean reputable sources, not a random website no one has ever heard before. I'm asking because what you just did here - that is make a backhanded comment suggesting countries opposing Russian agenda don't operate on their own accord, while suggesting they are steered by the US - is a prime example of how Russian trolls operate.

>is a prime example of how Russian trolls operate.

The US has had media operations for nearly a century, from Operation Mockibird to Radio Free Europe, down to the trend of hollywood movies done in co-operation with the army (e.g lending infrastructure etc) to spread official versions of issues etc. There are literally TONS of sponsored NGOs, organisations and news sites operating all around the globe, especially in areas of special interest (regarding oil, resources, etc).

If Russia has some "internet trolls" of their own, so be it. It's as if what the master does, in 1000 times the scale is looked down upon on the lesser countries, and judged as if it was on par, or even worse.

Yes. Thanks for asking. There's plenty of evidence - CSOs/NGOs/USAID/UNITER aside - let's start with CANVAS.

Here's wikileaks documents: https://wikileaks.org/gifiles/releasedate/2012-06-18-08-canv...

These are conversations at Stratfor with and about an 'export-a-revolution' group for hire. If you look through the (ppt) slides in the Introduction to CANVAS you will see them boasting about their role in the colored revolutions. Get back to me on that and if you want more there's more.

Strafor boasts about a lot of stuff, they are after all, a commercial enterprise. It remains to be seen how much of it is bullshit bluster from a bunch of desk jockeys with delusions of grandeur, and how much of it is real.

I get a heavy soldier-of-fortune wanna-bee vibe from them.

US spy agencies are relatively incompetent by historical measure, which is why it the attempts to remove all agency from foreign actors and put it into the hands of manipulations by secret groups is just nutty conspiracy theories.

Even this Russian trolling stuff is probably ineffectiveness compared to what is already forums filled with noisy trash comments. Are they really influencing anything, or just making comments worthless and untrustworthy to the average person?

Is the argument now that the US does this, but that it isn't effective?

I made no claims of particular effectiveness (god knows such efforts have failed - check the Arab Spring), but I'd paint your comment with the bullshit bluster hue before I would Stratfor...

To be more substantive: those with appropriately high levels of interest and low levels of cognitive dissonance can research the history of US spy agencies and their role in winning the First Cold War, of its partnerships with the UK and other nations known for having incredible espionage, to Snowden leaks to see a small fraction of its capabilities, as well as browse Wikileaks files to get more information on the effectiveness of spying operations. Of course they can and should also look at the source documents in question and determine for themselves whether they think the claims are bluster.

I don't think they need to - the larger point that the US is involved in covert regime change in the parent stands - no matter how ineffective you would like to paint it. But if they wanted to understand the relationship between Stratfor and the US intelligence community and the size, budget, role and effectiveness they can - they can also find very good overviews of covert US foreign regime change actions in the last decade and history online. :)

Here's a podcast from a State Department official who discusses some of the more overt (but still on the sly) operations done to start movements opposed to anti-American narratives in the middle east, and them pass them off to the private sector (so called Civil Society).

"In a way its flooding the marketplace with narratives that are 'cool' enough to attract young people... you use voices that are credible but you use images, the music, the sounds, the feel that are modern..."

"The US State Department now has this program to kind of flood social media with counter messages... this center is nothing new... variations have been done since the Bush administration... we also know that the experts in this are not in Washington - they are in Silicon Valley, they are in New York and in Banglor - all of these areas of high tech..."

And others...

http://csis.org/multimedia/combating-violent-extremism

And a DoD program to manufacture Twitter messages based on brain scans of test subjects before they are flooded into the Middle East: http://minerva.dtic.mil/doc/samplewp-Lieberman.pdf

A twitter messaging platform used to try to kindle revolution in Cuba: http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/usaid-effort-t...

So out of curiousity do you have inside information on why all of this activity isn't effective - more information than Stratfor and a company that has been active and claims success in dozens of countries - or is it more of an opinion?

So you think it was the Spy agencies that "won" the cold war?

I encourage you to read this article on Stratfor: http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2012/02/d...

"Stratfor is a sleazy outfit. It was established as a money machine by George Friedman and a former Texas Congressman (now out of the picture) who served at one time on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. His being the co-founder along with the presence in the vicinity of numerous retired military people and civilian officials helps explain the selection of Austin as the company’s home. They hustle; everything they do smacks of a hustle. They exploit the student interns while playing on their desire to partake of the mysterious and the romantic. Those they do hire for regular positions get the skimpiest of wages. Expertise and languages are little valued. Their hallmark tool is an electronic pair of scissors. One student had spent four years as an interrogator for the U.S. Army in Iraq and Afghanistan. He served as an employee of a contract firm there. His first assignment as a junior member of the Stratfor team was to prowl around the Rio Grande Valley looking for stuff on the drug cartels; he never had been there before.

Stratfor cultivates a mystique of secrecy and insider intelligence because in fact they have little to sell that is exceptional. They use open sources and communicate with old pals in and around government to get a feel for what’s going on. The Wikileaks material corroborates this, and it provides the further insight that they pay people for information and/or contacts. Those people include journalists, politicos, the occasional academic and professional tattlers. Sources and clients seem to overlap, i.e. Stratfor plays both ends against the middle. Having been shown a couple of Stratfor reports, I am singularly unimpressed by the supposedly inside information and the quality of the analysis."

Stratfor is just another K-street style retirement house and military industrial money milking machine. There's no evidence they produce any more value than say, Foreign Intelligence magazine. They just charge more for it and claim special abilities no one has seen (and have often been hilariously wrong) Basically the military "intelligence" version of a Gartner Group report.

The Soviet Union primarily collapsed because it was a poorly run system. Hell, if you believe the libertarian/Austrians it was practically inevitable it was going to crash. The story that Saint Reagan ran them into an arms race which bankrupted them, or spy agencies toppled them is a form of massive survivorship bias. You could claim that external events could set a match to fuel that's already there, but the basic weaknesses that put it teetering on collapse were internal economic and political issues that were wholly self made.

If one day North Korea collapses, are you going to claim spy agencies get the credit, or that the basic economic and political system is not sustainable in the long term.

I want to be straightforward here because I respect you: I don't find this line of discussion very interesting and it's unlikely you'll get much substantive conversation back from me, though I may try.

Mostly this is because I think this entire branch of conversation, as interesting it could otherwise be, seems orthogonal to the point and the claim. I don't want to get too far from the main claim and the discussions from the grandparents.

I would not argue that intelligence operations 'ended' the cold war - nor that it was just intelligence that won it. They had an important role in winning the war - by that I mean the cold war was an intelligence war as much as a diplomacy war and an arms war and a proxy war. It's like saying that the intelligence services had a role to play winning WWII. They did. The war wasn't won solely by intelligence. In any case, as you can tell, not an interesting conversation or point - it's mundane.

Factoring out whether someone thinks that Stratfor actually provides something of value to the US government or is mostly a place to couch retired generals who have too many secrets to let loose into the private sector it stands that independent of Stratfor, CANVAS was involved in starting colored revolutions and is today involved in trying to kindle revolution in Venezuela - in those same links for example are documents from 2012 providing analysis about how to do that that reflect very accurately the mobilization and activities happening today (getting students to protest, support for Leopoldo, etc).

What's more, there's far more than CANVAS that the US government uses to accomplish these things.

So if you'll allow me to exit what I'd like to leave while bowing out is that Stratfor's record of efficiency doesn't matter so much - we're only barely talking about Stratfor.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com