The Daily Show on the Pentagon's "Message Force Multipliers"
By SilentPatriot Tuesday Apr 22, 2008 12:30pm
Jon Stewart comes down hard on the Pentagon's manipulative propaganda racket revealed by The New York Times last week.
Download | play 
Download | play
The Iraq War! Remember? Remember when it started, and it was kind of big deal that some journalists were embedded with the troops? Well, this is great. As it turns out, it was more of an exchange program. Because they actually also had troops embedded with the journalists!
As I noted on Sunday, the most striking part of the roughly-7000-word article was that several of the most guilty news outlets -- CBS, NBC and Fox -- just outright refused to answer the NYT's questions about their use of military analysts, what they knew about their analysts' dealings with the Pentagon and the defense industry, and what procedures they use (then and now) to ensure that they don't broadcast government propaganda disguised as independent analysis. Identically, other news organizations not explicitly mentioned by the NYT article but which used some of the tainted sources (such as The Washington Post) have similarly failed to address their role in disseminating this Pentagon-controlled propaganda.
Media organizations simply ignore -- collectively blackout -- any stories that expose major corruption in their news reporting, as evidenced by the fact that no major network or cable news programs have ever meaningfully examined the fundamental failures of the media in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. As Bill Moyers noted at the beginning of his truly superb documentary on the media-government collaboration concerning the invasion: "The story of how the media bought what the White House was selling has not been told in depth on television." Thus, one of the most significant political stories of this generation -- what Moyers described as "our press largely surrender[ing] its independence and skepticism to join with our Government in marching to war" -- has simply been rendered invisible by our largest media outlets. That scandal just does not exist, particularly on television.
Login or Register to post comments.
Obviously, there was no way to foresee this happening when the networks were all bought out by powerful Corporations.
Oh wait, yeah, we did see this coming.
What, me worry?
Obviously, there was no way to foresee this kind of military/media collusion when all the networks were bought out by big corporations with high level Republican links.
Non-biased reporting from huge corporate news networks with commentary from non-biased "retired" generals? That's unpossible.
Things like message force multipliers, stock market prices, miniature golf scores, post-drugged semen levels, and chronic back pain and flatulence can fluctuate naturally and may regress towards the mean and uncalled for, even if you're being nice for a change. The logical flaw is to make predictions that expect exceptional results to continue as if they were the average, a representativeness heuristic if I ever saw one, wouldn't you agree?
People are most likely to take action when dissent, like morning wood, is at its peak. Then after results become more normal or less turgid, they believe that their action was the cause of the change when in fact it was not causal, wherein cohesion between objects of similar silly appearance is assumed, as long as you don't let the pipe go out. While often very useful in everyday life, it can also result in neglect of relevant base rates and volumes, an inability to play funk, and other errors, not to mention a tendancy to cough at embarassing or inconvenient times.
Another snag you may encounter involves describing some occurrence in vivid detail, even if it is an exceptional occurrence, to convince someone that it is a problem, when, throughout say McCain's garbled history, or his campaign to hush the truth about his anal rape, it’s been commonly identified again and again that, if the nuns of the order of Sisters of Saint Joseph are to be believed, he is the one with the “problem”. Though misleading vividness does nothing to support an argument logically, it can have a very strong psychological effect because of a cognitive forceful brainwashing called the availability heuristic. It's at times like these that you need to reload with quality product.
Thank God for Jon Stewart, Amy Goodman and Bill Moyers!
Carl Gordon @ 5:
WTF are you saying? I don't understand what if any point you are trying to make.
Get the message board fixed please.
So I take it that, with all this collusion with MEdia and ME-ILL-atary, valuable time has been dominated by ill-formulated counter-productive pursuits and haphazard knowledge of the stars, black holes and other less recognized operating systems. It all is hanging barely by a thread, a ambiguous metaphor, or a flinging of baloney at clueless people like Laura Booosh trying to figure out which fork to use, as that, what is it, 23%, embrace the promise of reality alienation and it’s various gifts it has bestowed on greedy caulk suckers. What is needed is dissolving boundaries, the latest tome by the Shulgins, ethno-botanical nostrums for all that request it, sensible prepared remarks, the embarrassing throb of the zeitgeist, white trash existence in the indeterminate zone, and the opportunities present after disposal of pindick Cheney and Junior “Tard” Boosh and his corrupt legacy. Wasn’t it Gurdjieff that claimed that people do not perceive reality, as they are not conscious of themselves, but live in a state of hypnotic "waking sleep." My motto: While sleeping, watch your wallet around anybody whose last name is Booosh. I guess I’m disappointed with the revelation of no commonality of perception, and it bites me on the ass every trash night, and guess what people? It’s trash night in America. It’s the voting monkey mind that got us here, post-McLuhanist. No one is in control, absolutely no one. Are you there, however?
WTF is Carl Gordon saying? Am I the only one that thinks his posts read like a spam e-mail? They have some of the right words, but the order! And where is the context/content?
Maybe we are witnessing a new tool of the right-wing haters, a robo-blogging spider!
Rob Riggle is hilarious!
(not that any of it is actually funny)
Except that he's hysterical.
(except it makes me want to cry)
Shoddy journalism revealed by comedy. And the maimed soldiers without faces, arms and legs are chuckling it up the most....SHAME on CNN; SHAME on Msnbc, a POX on FOX
Did anyone else think that Rob Riggle seemed actually angry?
Not that I blame him.
Sorry about the double post, the page timed out on me and I thought it didn't take the first time.
Rob Riggle... that dudes funny ...shut up shut up , i'll dump your ass in yemin, you're just like your mother...
Man just when I was tired of the humorizing of this shit, Stewart and Riggle nail it. Even though it is laced with humor, TDS puts this issue in understandable language that still pisses me off. Mission accomplished.
Message Force Multiplier:
Propaganda spewer
Bullshit megaphone
Paid liar
etc......
I also do not know what Carl is talking about. Is he trying to make us feel ignorant? If you read his post carefully, he is the one who should feel....out of place? Or does he think he is being paid by the word. Come on Carl, tell us what you mean in 500 words or less.
Okay, I apologize! Let me further explain what I'm trying to say....
It’s all projection, based on a history of bad upbringing, poor stimulus retention due to gazing at penguin attired “lay” persons for eight of the most important formative years, abandonment in a town named after the Mexican word for a pass in the hills, and several ill-advised experiments with extracts and tinctures of pineal glands obtained through spurious means trampling beyond the bounds of good taste and legality.
The philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach based his theory of religion and/or politics in a large part upon the idea of projection, i.e., the idea that an anthropomorphic deity or gaud-deemed inalienanable rights are the outward projection of man's anxieties and desires. So gaud is packing nine inches and wants to do the nasty, or McCain feels the need to hide a painful incident that may reflect on his presidential hopes. Fuck it – I’m supposed to avoid the near occasions of sin, although that seems to be one of the few rewarding activities left on this armpit of a planet tucked away in some insignificant corner of a redundant spiral galaxy swirling around what was once thought of as the center of the universe (before Galileo risked getting his own nutsack fried by the Inquisition by telling the Pope it was totally bogus) but later found to be some backwater burg where you can’t even get a decent egg cream. Oops, there’s that Freudian projection again, but everybody knows that Freud was a perv, shtupping his sister or cousin or the nun that taught him in the seventh grade whilst he fantasized on red pencil boxes or trains going into tunnels. Oops! Damn, I did it again! Anyway, you can see I’m affected, but not infected, so keep that in mind. “He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you." I don’t know who said that but damn, it’s hot!
My advice to John - lubricate!
Guys, he's just a prank troll, spewing nonsensical form of 'mad-lib' type drivel with just enough contextual clues to suggest some deeper meaning. There is none. He's just having fun with you all.
Motivation? Maybe to piss us off, maybe to distract us, or maybe just to get a laugh. Either way, anything he's saying is irrelevant, so just let it go
edit: I'm of course talking about carl gordon
Rob is great.
Carl Gordon @ 19:
OK I get it, you are trying to waste my time, by impersonating Uncle Duke from Doonesbury. pineal gland extract, that was a good week from the 80's in Doonesbury!
Glad the right is paying you to post, but what went wrong? Didn't they give you the words to write down as well, so you resorted to cut and pasting the text from your porn spam emails?
Look Josh from Texas, I don;tknow whatbug crawled up yer ass, but let me be blunt:
Please don't say "Fuck you!", say "Hello, I love you!"
josh from texas @ 20:
Great, so you mean we are now going to be showcased on OReilly's show!
To future quote BillO "Can you BE-LIEVE what those lefty-haters are posting! I'd have that clown tracked down by FOX security! I mean we have his IP Address....."
I don't think he's from the right; his vocabulary is too large, and he has at least a fundamental knowledge of the scientific history of astronomy and religion clashing....something most wingnuts couldn't care less about.
No, I think he's just a bored guy who found an open forum that lets any jackhole post and is amusing himself. Just quit paying attention to him and he'll go away.
Sugesting the right is sending people to harass us in such ridiculous ways is a little paranoid sounding.
I'm just trying to make sense of it. That's where I am right now. Laying about with no direction. Sucking up the beer. Focused on how to make it through one day at a time. Looking at a sundial that casts no shadow. Time is what ever it is. And I'm caught in that shadowy equinox. If I paddle my canoe towards you as you are energetically doing the Australian crawl across Lake Okeechobee or perhaps drowning in your own ego-stroking; jump in, the beer is cold and we'll have Nubian slaves to fan the upcoming summer's humidity off our brow.
This is why I laugh whenever I hear people wringing their hands over the supposedly alarming number of people who get their information from The Daily Show. Riggle's response here is the only rational one-and The Daily Show is the only place where you see that.
Carl Gordon @ 24:
Ummm, yeah OK. Look come back AFTER you get your meds adjusted. Right now you are just wasting your caregiver's bandwidth.
hoo hoo giggle giggle smirk chuckle-nuts.
Back to the topic...I'm wondering now if McCain wasn't necessarily having a senior moment when he stated a week or so ago that he'd rely on Betrayus as to Afghanistan and possible incursions into Pakistan. At the time that wasn't Bretrayus' bailiwick and we all thought he was even dumber than we knew him to be, about military matters no less.
Maybe he did know. Maybe he was clued in by the Bushies. Maybe I'm just paranoid, no not rea...maybe just a little. Or a lot.
What I really LOVED was when rob told jon to STFU.......Maybe this means:
A) That was to show the daily show is catching wind of sentiments from people like John Cusack that while providing the ONLY biting commentary, the daily show still kinda panders to assholes by letting them on the show. (not too likely)
B) Rob Riggle feels the same way, and is just fed up (a little more likely)
or
C) I'm just projecting my own sentiments onto his act (bingo).
Whichever it is, damn, but that makes me want to laugh, cry and go ballistic all at the same time.
serge @ 30:
Sorry boys...commenting on the wrong post. D'oh!
As King George the Petulant says you gotta "catapult the propaganda."
serge @ 32:
psh....like this thread hasn't been hijacked yet? ;)
No, I was thinking the same thing about mccain, he just couldn't remember what he was and wasn't supposed to know at what time.
I think its completely likely that stuff like that gets kicked around conference calls all over the place on the hill, not too big a deal really, since petraeus will still need to be confirmed by the senate......right?
If only the real media would catch up with these guys.
Ah! If you take the third letter of every third word, his posts make a lot of sense.
Love you,
Finn
Jim @ 11:
He is very funny probably pretty astute in his analysis of what is going on.
Oh, common now! You don't actually believe that the major corporately owned news media are refusing to publicly examine their own short-comings do you?! It's this sort of left wing conspiracy stuff that is the real terrorist threat to America. Besides, many Americans are morons as proven by my shows ratings and how many people voted for George Bush again in 2004, and they cannot and should not be encouraged to think about policy decisions. These are best left to geniuses like me, Donald Rumsfeld and George Bush. The press' job is to obfuscate the truth where necessary in order to advance the corporate agenda. Why do you think I make $10 million a year? Because I am good at obfuscation via bloviation. OK, on to the next segment: John McCain is a man of the people...
Jon barely got this one off the ground. It is a tough one, after all, it is the complete corruption of the journalistic integrity of Corporate Media on television.
Rob Riggle finally lifts it off, but he seems actually PO'd, aren't we all!
'…now, 7 years and 700 billion dollars later … we're right back where we started. We could have gotten here by doing nothing…'
I say this again and again, this is an abysmal state of affairs that the comedians are filling in for the journalists who are AWOL.
This is a new dark age.
If net neutrality goes down, we have a new iron curtain, made in the USA.
Thank you Rob Riggle. That was a 'fuckwin' of epic proportions. Where were you in 2001?
This really shouldn't be a surprise because when the owners of the major networks have contributed handsomely to Bush's campaign and are government contractors themselves, why wouldn't the news media protect the military and government. Wake up America!!!!
Alfred E. Neuman @ 2:
I`m still livid from the diary on Kos where all the "experts" say that no one from the Bush gang will be indicted for anything even though they shredded the Constitution ,upgraded torture to A-OK status,and spied on me and my cousin even though he`s a fascist Bush supporter.
Alright,Alfred, I`ll stop with the worrying.But I`ve just finished Broken Government by John Dean,whose friend who has been a lifetime Republican says off the record to "never vote for or trust" Rethugs because they`re a bunch of lying thieving rats who will steal your kids lunch money.
Most of the conglomerate Nazi press are Rethug pigs, but do not worry.Just don`t believe a word they say.
Rob was hilarious. And clearly PO'd like the rest of us.
From Rob Riggle's resume on his website:
MILITARY: United States Marine Corps, Major, Public Affairs/ Pilot (Served in Liberia, Kosovo, Afghanistan)
Could that be why he IS really pissed? I know I am, and I'm thrilled that Jon and Rob covered this story. Now if only Conyers and Waxman would get on it. Propaganizing American citizens in the US is illegal. This article is hard evidence of the very "vast right wing conspiracy" a former first lady mentioned a few years ago.
By the way, "message force multipliers" is actually what the Pentagon called this operation. And also mentioned in the NYT article was a certain Ms. Tori Clarke, who oversaw the Pentagon's dealings with the analysts as assistant secretary of defense for public affairs. From the article: "And so EVEN BEFORE SEPT. 11 [emphasis mine], she built a system within the Pentagon to recruit 'key influentials'--movers and shakers from all walks who with the proper ministrations might be counted on to generate support for Mr. Rumsfeld's priorities." Ms. Clarke, I think there is a subpeona with your name on it.
i appreciate this coming to light 5 yrs. LATE(R)...still, biggest non shocker ever...
19 Carl Gordon Says: Okay, I apologize! Let me further explain what I’m trying to say….
It’s all projection, based on a history of bad upbringing, poor stimulus retention due to gazing at penguin attired “lay” persons for eight of the most important formative years, abandonment in a town named after the Mexican word for a pass in the hills, and several ill-advised experiments with extracts...................zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
===================================
Next time, instead of the cheap LSD, buy the good stuff.
It was very funny, about the VERY SAD truth. Will it ever sink in to the 28%? Will those who voted for Bush wise up this time around and vote for the Democrat (whomever he/she may be)?
Rob Riggle is awesome.....
I'm afraid Rob is getting a little disillusioned. Thanks Rob, we share your pain.
Gee, I thought Carl Gordon had a great Firesign-Theater-style riff going there. This:
may regress towards the mean and uncalled for, even if you’re being nice for a change.
is pretty witty stuff.
And yeah, we're back where we started, except that many MANY billions have been transferred from China to Republican-tied companies, and we the taxpayers are left with the credit card bills.
We each owe $10K+++ for George and Dick's big adventure, and we're supposed to be happy about a rebate of less than $1K.
BobD @ 6:
Indeed!
I thought Carl was right on the money. Compared to the US tax code, federal legislation, and George Bush's pithiest speeches, and Fox news analysis (ABC too), Carl's pretty damned lucid. Hey, its the modern world. Attitude is everything.
Mr Grey @ 51:
Amen to that and John Dean too.See Worse Than Watergate,Broken Government
Login or Register to post comments.