View Full Version : Atrocity propaganda
willowtooth
1st July 2017, 00:39
What a coincidence that the imperialists enemy is always beyond normal morality. How we can never apply the same rules to them that we would to our own country's normal citizens, because they are just beyond normal, not even human, almost devil like.
Atrocity propaganda is a term referring to the spreading of deliberate fabrications or exaggerations about the crimes committed by an enemy, constituting a form of psychological warfare (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_warfare).
The inherently violent nature of war means that exaggeration and invention of atrocities often becomes the main staple of propaganda. Patriotism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriotism) is often not enough to make people hate, and propaganda (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda) is also necessary. "So great are the psychological resistances to war in modern nations", wrote Harold Lasswell (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Lasswell), "that every war must appear to be a war of defense against a menacing, murderous aggressor. There must be no ambiguity about who the public is to hate."Human testimony is deemed unreliable even in ordinary circumstances, but in wartime, it can be further muddled by bias, sentiment, and misguided patriotism, becoming of no value whatsoever in establishing the truth.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atrocity_propaganda
Here we have the exact same story from the exact same source Abdullah Al-Malla, of ARA News. I cannot find this person online not even his picture. The ownership of ARA news is completely blacked out. The best I can find is that it's an English speaking pro-western NGO funded through the Netherlands (screams CIA funded)
Same exact story 1 year apart
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2016/06/06/19-yazidi-girls-burned-alive-for-refusing-to-have-sex-with-their-isis-captors.html (June 06, 2016 )
http://www.khaama.com/isis-burns-19-yazidi-girls-to-death-for-refusing-slavery-with-groups-fighters-02900 (Jun 10 2017,)
My question is should we fight fire with fire? What I mean is actively promote propaganda against the imperialists? Make up stories and take the most unbelievable accounts as true no matter what they are, simply because they are against the enemy?
What a coincidence that the imperialists enemy is always beyond normal morality. How we can never apply the same rules to them that we would to our own country's normal citizens, because they are just beyond normal, not even human, almost devil like.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atrocity_propaganda
Here we have the exact same story from the exact same source Abdullah Al-Malla, of ARA News. I cannot find this person online not even his picture. The ownership of ARA news is completely blacked out. The best I can find is that it's an English speaking pro-western NGO funded through the Netherlands (screams CIA funded)
Same exact story 1 year apart
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2016/06/06/19-yazidi-girls-burned-alive-for-refusing-to-have-sex-with-their-isis-captors.html (June 06, 2016)
http://www.khaama.com/isis-burns-19-yazidi-girls-to-death-for-refusing-slavery-with-groups-fighters-02900 (Jun10 2017,)
My question is should we fight fire with fire? What I mean is actively promote propaganda against the imperialists? Make up stories and take the most unbelievable accounts as true no matter what they are, simply because they are against the enemy?
It's funny that you mention that now, seeing as just the other day I advocated a similar thing in another thread (https://www.revleft.space/vb/threads/197620-Three-CNN-journalists-resign-amid-false-anti-Russia-reporting-controversy?p=2884527#post2884527).
What's funny is I don't doubt these stories due to my own fact checking, but they did leave out several important parts of the story.
From https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/04/05/iraq-women-suffer-under-isis:
Airstrikes on health and education facilities where ISIS fighters were present also made women afraid to use these facilities. Women cited the September 2014 bombing of Hawija hospital (http://www.iraqinews.com/iraq-war/urgent-50-killed-wounded-air-strike-hospital-school-near-kirkuk/), by Iraqi government forces according to news sources, and the June 2015 bombing of a market in Hawija (http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-mideast-crisis-idUKKBN0OK27A20150604) by coalition forces, both of which allegedly killed large numbers of civilians, as well as smaller attacks.
Basically my viewpoint is producing it in mass propaganda is a potential issue for us, fact checking movements are a real and serious threat to this tactic and therefor without a major media apparatus to assist us, I think a more useful approach is leaving out important parts of the story such as what was done in the articles you posted. Furthermore,I think using personal anecdotes has far more impact despite the fact that we know personal anecdotes SHOULD not be convincing, they tend to be more convincing on a personal level. Here is a video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7MTM4BKZ_E) that explains why we might do this.
Once someone is involved in the struggle, like I said in the other thread,they have a tendency to form an ethic surrounding that struggle, one that is far more visceral and REAL, and speaks the truth, not only as we know it but as they came to know it through the struggle itself. They come into contact with the actual truth through an actual lie. Of course your stories can't be insane stories of fighting capitalist dragons, but it makes sense to me to use it as a tactic.
We can use this against any enemy- liberalism, capitalism, fascism, managers, corporations, etc... No need to restrict ourselves to imperialism.
willowtooth
3rd July 2017, 09:15
[COLOR=#222222]It's funny that you mention that now, seeing as just the other day I advocated a similar thing in another thread (https://www.revleft.space/vb/threads/197620-Three-CNN-journalists-resign-amid-false-anti-Russia-reporting-controversy?p=2884527#post2884527).
What's funny is I don't doubt these stories due to my own fact checking, but they did leave out several important parts of the story.
From https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/04/05/iraq-women-suffer-under-isis:
Basically my viewpoint is producing it in mass propaganda is a potential issue for us, fact checking movements are a real and serious threat to this tactic and therefor without a major media apparatus to assist us, I think a more useful approach is leaving out important parts of the story such as what was done in the articles you posted. Furthermore,I think using personal anecdotes has far more impact despite the fact that we know personal anecdotes SHOULD not be convincing, they tend to be more convincing on a personal level. Here is a video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7MTM4BKZ_E) that explains why we might do this.
Once someone is involved in the struggle, like I said in the other thread,they have a tendency to form an ethic surrounding that struggle, one that is far more visceral and REAL, and speaks the truth, not only as we know it but as they came to know it through the struggle itself. They come into contact with the actual truth through an actual lie. Of course your stories can't be insane stories of fighting capitalist dragons, but it makes sense to me to use it as a tactic.
We can use this against any enemy- liberalism, capitalism, fascism, managers, corporations, etc... No need to restrict ourselves to imperialism.
Absolutely I agree with you about anecdotal evidence, I try as hard as I can to avoid using it myself. That's great video. The russian hacking scandal in the USA election is being called the largest psychological operation in world history. So using that as an example, we see no real connection to sources, putin was not going around saying things, it wasn't information being released through pravda or Rt directly. What it mainly focused on was quite literally the dumbest of society. Pizzagate for example was insane story about hillary clinton raping children in the basement of a pizza shop. This story wasn't backed by scientific data or released through official sources of anykind. It was an emotive story designed to create shock value, the fact that someone could do it was more important than anything.
For example: "Could someone do this? then we must make it so nobody can ever do it." In same way that nobody will check to see if 19 yazidi sex slaves were actually burned alive, it is only the idea that this "could happen" that's all that's needed. We know this because rather than making a huge effort to rescue the yazidis and bring them somewhere safe, these atrocities are used to argue for banning of all refugees from the country. Because it could happen to me... I might become burned alive in a cage for not agreeing to forced marriage. It's not an issue that it was done, merely that it could be done to you, so the rule of law needs be created and enforced by any and all means. Prevent this from happening to me. I am not worried that these same yazidi girls might be bombed by the US, I could care less, I will just write it off as "collateral damage" since I'm not worried the Us military will send sorties over my city to bomb my house.
So how can we benefit from the rule of law? Can we see and/or demonstrate wall st bankers as lawless rebels, or CIA agents as pedophilic sex traders? This "news" does not need to come from an official socialist or communist site it can be anonymous suorces, on social media, or a vague sounding news site like "independent editorial news.com" It needs to be done in a way that once we discover our audience is smart enough to see through the lies, they then are ignored. The way a fisherman avoids a shark
Lies in common, meaning lies that we all know are fake but the unaffiliated dont. Allow us to say whatever we want and even jokingly agree with eachother, while the uninformed simply thinks we are crazy or liars. the select few, or should I say the select many will believe it.
The flying spaghetti monster for example is an innocent creation by modern atheists, but some people believe that, some people truly believe in the flying spaghetti monster. That its church is real and it's followers devout.
Sorry im going on a bit of a tangent but how can we create atrocity propaganda and who can we target as the devil?
ckaihatsu
3rd July 2017, 12:26
Absolutely I agree with you about anecdotal evidence, I try as hard as I can to avoid using it myself. That's great video. The russian hacking scandal in the USA election is being called the largest psychological operation in world history. So using that as an example, we see no real connection to sources, putin was not going around saying things, it wasn't information being released through pravda or Rt directly. What it mainly focused on was quite literally the dumbest of society. Pizzagate for example was insane story about hillary clinton raping children in the basement of a pizza shop. This story wasn't backed by scientific data or released through official sources of anykind. It was an emotive story designed to create shock value, the fact that someone could do it was more important than anything.
For example: "Could someone do this? then we must make it so nobody can ever do it." In same way that nobody will check to see if 19 yazidi sex slaves were actually burned alive, it is only the idea that this "could happen" that's all that's needed. We know this because rather than making a huge effort to rescue the yazidis and bring them somewhere safe, these atrocities are used to argue for banning of all refugees from the country. Because it could happen to me... I might become burned alive in a cage for not agreeing to forced marriage. It's not an issue that it was done, merely that it could be done to you, so the rule of law needs be created and enforced by any and all means. Prevent this from happening to me. I am not worried that these same yazidi girls might be bombed by the US, I could care less, I will just write it off as "collateral damage" since I'm not worried the Us military will send sorties over my city to bomb my house.
So how can we benefit from the rule of law? Can we see and/or demonstrate wall st bankers as lawless rebels, or CIA agents as pedophilic sex traders? This "news" does not need to come from an official socialist or communist site it can be anonymous suorces, on social media, or a vague sounding news site like "independent editorial news.com" It needs to be done in a way that once we discover our audience is smart enough to see through the lies, they then are ignored. The way a fisherman avoids a shark
Lies in common, meaning lies that we all know are fake but the unaffiliated dont. Allow us to say whatever we want and even jokingly agree with eachother, while the uninformed simply thinks we are crazy or liars. the select few, or should I say the select many will believe it.
The flying spaghetti monster for example is an innocent creation by modern atheists, but some people believe that, some people truly believe in the flying spaghetti monster. That its church is real and it's followers devout.
Sorry im going on a bit of a tangent but how can we create atrocity propaganda and who can we target as the devil?
What do you have against the Flying Spaghetti Monster -- ???
(heh)
Seriously, I don't think 'our side' *needs* to undertake political marketing campaigns, much-less 'atrocity propaganda' of any kind -- obviously the kind of person who would even *be* around far-left politics in the first place would be a *thoughtful* type, one who's picked-through the state of the world today and has some ideas of their own as to what can be done about it.
The problem with blatant, sustained propaganda campaigns is that they have to cater to *dramatic events* too much, and once that drama can't be sustained anymore (with conscious efforts to direct people's attention and continually breathe-life into the propaganda narrative), the story ends, regardless of what *realities* are continuing in the real world.
In other words empirically reality has its own, *inherent* narratives that don't need to be embellished. They may be plain and boring -- and horrific -- but we're not trying to grab attention just to build numbers on-paper -- we're trying to show that the ongoing worldwide social crisis is rooted in capitalism and its elitist power structure, and such a political problem requires a political *solution* -- revolution from below, for the sake of working-class power.
Ckaihatsu-
That is exactly why I'm not in favor of campaigns, but using personal, even false, anecdotes to get people into the struggle so they are immersed in a culture that allows them to adopt the ethical of struggle.
Seriously, I don't think 'our side' *needs* to undertake political marketing campaigns, much-less 'atrocity propaganda' of any kind -- obviously the kind of person who would even *be* around far-left politics in the first place would be a *thoughtful* type, one who's picked-through the state of the world today and has some ideas of their own as to what can be done about it.
The problem with blatant, sustained propaganda campaigns is that they have to cater to *dramatic events* too much, and once that drama can't be sustained anymore (with conscious efforts to direct people's attention and continually breathe-life into the propaganda narrative), the story ends, regardless of what *realities* are continuing in the real world.
In other words empirically reality has its own, *inherent* narratives that don't need to be embellished. They may be plain and boring -- and horrific -- but we're not trying to grab attention just to build numbers on-paper -- we're trying to show that the ongoing worldwide social crisis is rooted in capitalism and its elitist power structure, and such a political problem requires a political *solution* -- revolution from below, for the sake of working-class power.
So, I want to clarify some things. Like I said in the last post, I agree that political marketing campaigns are ineffective for us, however I want to address specifically what I've bolded. My thoughts are to draw someone into the fold to introduce them to the ethic of struggle, or, more appropriately stated, the ethic of anti-capitalist struggle. It's not about numbers- it's about spreading anti-capitalist ethic to folks who were previously apolitical.
ckaihatsu
4th July 2017, 13:48
Ckaihatsu-
That is exactly why I'm not in favor of campaigns, but using personal, even false, anecdotes to get people into the struggle so they are immersed in a culture that allows them to adopt the ethical of struggle.
So, I want to clarify some things. Like I said in the last post, I agree that political marketing campaigns are ineffective for us, however I want to address specifically what I've bolded. My thoughts are to draw someone into the fold to introduce them to the ethic of struggle, or, more appropriately stated, the ethic of anti-capitalist struggle. It's not about numbers- it's about spreading anti-capitalist ethic to folks who were previously apolitical.
This really smacks of the preoccupation with 'optics' (strategic political imaging and marketing to the general public) that I've seen from libertarians.
Please keep in mind that the uninitiated are going to see the political marketing itself as being a core function of what a revolutionary *does*, since that's their first introduction to the overall political culture. I think it's better to 'lead by example' in an uncomplicated way so that the *doing* of revolutionary politics won't seem unnecessarily complicated to any given newbie.
I also think that any elaborate 'marketing' approach is just *circuitous*, regarding the actual issues-at-hand. The advantage we have with our politics is that it actually *corresponds* to the real world, so we just need to *tap into* that personal memory of lived experience in a class society -- *of course* people know what exploitation and oppression are, by having *lived* it, but not perhaps by those terms themselves. As long as people are willing to reflect and come to solid conclusions about *why* the world is the way it is, then we have a direct channel of political communication with them.
My approach isn't an introduction though, but actively getting people to participate in revolutionary practice- committing to some level of action to introduce them to the mechanic of actual intensified struggle.
ckaihatsu
5th July 2017, 14:45
My approach isn't an introduction though, but actively getting people to participate in revolutionary practice- committing to some level of action to introduce them to the mechanic of actual intensified struggle.
Well, my concern would be around the question of if people know what they're really doing -- you seem to be suggesting getting people riled up and emotional, possibly with the use of concocted propaganda, when I think it's far more valuable to have people who are fully *conscious* of *why* they're doing what they're doing in the name of struggle.
The hazard here is that the enthusiasm for 'actual intensified struggle' can easily lead into 'groupthink', and even cult-like dynamics, if activities are *forced* from above, in the interests of just having some kind of activities to *do* -- even if genuinely for the sake of struggle, presumably *class* struggle.
Well, my concern would be around the question of if people know what they're really doing -- you seem to be suggesting getting people riled up and emotional, possibly with the use of concocted propaganda, when I think it's far more valuable to have people who are fully *conscious* of *why* they're doing what they're doing in the name of struggle.
The hazard here is that the enthusiasm for 'actual intensified struggle' can easily lead into 'groupthink', and even cult-like dynamics, if activities are *forced* from above, in the interests of just having some kind of activities to *do* -- even if genuinely for the sake of struggle, presumably *class* struggle.
The concern you have is a valid one and I agree, you have to get people to also understand why they're doing what they're doing. The line here is easy to cross, IMO, as you can be explaining your positioning relative to the action the whole time through. Again it would be a small action, but to serve the purpose of introducing people to the ethic that compelled us to oppose capital.
ckaihatsu
6th July 2017, 13:12
The concern you have is a valid one and I agree, you have to get people to also understand why they're doing what they're doing. The line here is easy to cross, IMO, as you can be explaining your positioning relative to the action the whole time through. Again it would be a small action, but to serve the purpose of introducing people to the ethic that compelled us to oppose capital.
Yes, well said.
*Any* kind of real-world local struggles can be valuable because they'll inherently expose the establishment's power-minded response and positioning regarding that issue, like police brutality, for example.
Powered by vBulletin® Version 4.2.5 Copyright © 2020 vBulletin Solutions Inc. All rights reserved.