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Propaganda Decentralization and the apples/oranges Defense.

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  • Propaganda Decentralization and the apples/oranges Defense.

    The left and the right have different propaganda techniques. The right tends to lean more on centralized propaganda, the left, more on a broad-spectrum, decentralized form of propaganda.

    This provides lots of cover in comparison and lets the left play the "holier than thou" style of card when similar outcomes happen.

    For example, much of the propaganda on the right will come from news service style organizations or political officials themselves, which will then be echoed by a number of followers. On the other hand, the left relies on celebrities, entertainment shows, and then reinforce that with echo-chambers. This lets their politicians offer lighter touches when it comes to direct confrontational comments, which in the end lets the left say "Look, this is different, it wasn't our politicians who said X, we aren't nearly as bad as you".

    Going back to the summer riots, you had tepid condemnation from politicians. At the same time, media influencers, news-personalities, celebrities, etc. were justifying them. By having decentralized propaganda, the claim can be (truthfully) made that the politicians condemned the riots, even though it's not the politicians driving the narrative.

  • #2
    They_Should_All_be_Condemned_Small20210119013404.jpg
    Some may call me foolish, and some may call me odd
    But I'd rather be a fool in the eyes of man
    Than a fool in the eyes of God


    From "Fools Gold" by Petra

    Comment


    • #3
      I see a lot of projection from the left, which is used as propaganda. If some element of the left gets violent, then leftist pundits accuse all of the right as being violent. If someone from the left is caught embezzling, then all of the right is accused of embezzling. This is a tool to put the opposition on the defense as opposed to playing it themselves.

      I assume the left got rather bruised and embarrassed by the summer riots, so they started accusing secretive right elements were involved; stoking the fires. Now the same thing has come up with the capitol riots from the right.

      But anyway, the projection defense is getting rather old and needs to be called out whenever it is used.

      Comment


      • #4
        Classic Alinksy: accuse your opponents of what you yourself are guilty of. What boggles my mind is how many liberals fall for it.
        Some may call me foolish, and some may call me odd
        But I'd rather be a fool in the eyes of man
        Than a fool in the eyes of God


        From "Fools Gold" by Petra

        Comment


        • #5
          My thread on the re-education of Trump supporters is a good example of this, It seems to have suddenly become a talking point among the MSM, how they need to deprogram 75 Million racist Trump supporters. For their own good of course.


          Comment


          • #6
            Bingo with a capitol* BINGO.


            *yes I did
            The first to state his case seems right until another comes and cross-examines him.

            Comment


            • #7
              Originally posted by Sparko View Post
              My thread on the re-education of Trump supporters is a good example of this, It seems to have suddenly become a talking point among the MSM, how they need to deprogram 75 Million racist Trump supporters. For their own good of course.
              If you'll notice, many of the more extreme ideas that float around and get talked about, bubble up from the decentralized area. Originally the 25th amendment concept against Trump, the current push for the 14th Amendment, etc. Those bubbled up through the decentralized propaganda area. The politicians didn't start the ball rolling, which gives cover.

              Comment


              • #8
                A good example of how this decentralized propoganda works.


                Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/06/technology/joe-biden-internet-election.html

                Build a Facebook Brain Trust


                One of the campaign’s goals, Biden staff members told me, was promoting content that increased “social trust” — in other words, avoiding the kind of energizing, divisive fare that Mr. Trump has used to great effect.

                But Mr. Biden’s digital strategy wasn’t all puppies and rainbows. The campaign also joined ranks with a number of popular left-wing Facebook pages, many of which are known for putting out aggressive anti-Trump content.

                They called this group the “Rebel Alliance,” a jokey nod to Mr. Parscale’s “Death Star,” and it eventually grew to include the proprietors of pages like Occupy Democrats, Call to Activism, The Other 98 Percent and Being Liberal. On the messaging app Signal, the page owners formed a group text that became a kind of rapid-response brain trust for the campaign.

                “I had the freedom to go for the jugular,” said Rafael Rivero, a co-founder of Occupy Democrats and Ridin’ With Biden, another big pro-Biden Facebook page.
                Mr. Rivero, who was paid by the Biden campaign as a consultant, told me that in addition to cross-posting its content on Occupy Democrats, he often offered the campaign advice based on what was performing well on his pages.

                During the Republican National Convention, for example, Mr. Rivero noticed that a meme posted by Ridin’ With Biden about Mr. Trump’s comments on Medicare and Social Security was going viral. He notified the rest of the Rebel Alliance group, and recommended that the campaign borrow the message for Mr. Biden’s official Twitter account.

                “It was sort of a big, distributed message test,” Mr. Flaherty said of the Rebel Alliance. “If it was popping through Occupy or any of our other partners, we knew there was heat there.”

                These left-wing pages gave the campaign a bigger Facebook audience than it could have reached on its own. But they also allowed Mr. Biden to keep most of his messaging positive, while still tapping into the anger and outrage many Democratic voters felt.

                © Copyright Original Source

                Comment


                • #9
                  Originally posted by CivilDiscourse View Post
                  The left and the right have different propaganda techniques. The right tends to lean more on centralized propaganda, the left, more on a broad-spectrum, decentralized form of propaganda.
                  Certainly in political science a standard difference between right and left wing politics is that right is typically more centralized and hierarchical versus the left which is typically more grassroots and decentralized. This attracts to the right-wing people who like following hierarchical orders from authorities and people who like being told what to think and believe, and attracts to the left-wing people who don't like authorities and hierarchies and people who want to have their own individual opinions that they think up for themselves.

                  Obviously the ways these people are going to want to receive information will be different. Right wingers are going to look for a media figure or political figure to place their faith and trust in and believe what that person tells them - e.g. Donald Trump, Rush Limbaugh, Tucker Carlson, Alex Jones etc. Left wingers are more likely going to want to follow multiple media sources as well as hear opinions from social media, and make up their minds about what they think after hearing the different sources.

                  I've seen people note that in the US there is quite a difference between how the two parties disseminate talking points. The Republicans have a small group who thinks up the talking points, then emails them out to the politicians and Republican-aligned media entities. Republican politicians are then encouraged to go on as many interview shows as they can and repeat those talking points. Meanwhile the Republican-aligned media entities are encouraged to write articles about those things as much as possible. The result is that those talking points are very rapidly disseminated out to all the faithful voters through the authorities from that central source.

                  A recent example to point is is that the Republicans had to decide how to try and reunite their party after the November loss and the related election fallout, and what their central brains trust choose to focus on was anti-transgenderism. Once the memo went out from the central source, the Republican propaganda apparatus churned away, and the upshot can be seen here on TWeb where we've suddenly got 4 or more threads on the front page that focus on transgenderism when we hadn't previously had any for months. It's the Republicans effectively disseminating the message from that central source that if you don't like transgenderism you should be Republican.

                  The Democratic party, by comparison, has nothing remotely like that. It doesn't have the small and cohesive brains trust inventing talking points, it doesn't have the distribution network to send them out, and it doesn't encourage its politicians to go on TV and talk about party policies. You could say this shows Pelosi and Schumer are both terrible at their jobs, and that they should have a more organized media strategy, and you'd probably be right. Pelosi bizarrely seems to think that if she does a speech that gets almost no coverage, then that's effectively informed the US populace about what the Dem party is doing, and she apparently actively discourages politicians in the party to go on TV and further her talking points. Again, she just seems terrible at her job in this regard. Instead the party seems to think having no PR strategy is somehow a PR strategy, and just leaves it up the all the different media outlets to run whatever stories they're going to run. As a result the Dems lack any sort of cohesive messaging like the Republicans have, and it's up to individual journalists, celebrities, or Dem-leaning groups to give their own responses to the issues of the day. So with something like the BLM protests, the Dems had no clear message. They just left it up to the public to form a view. And the view of most people seemed to be that the videos being released showed the protesters had valid points, and that the police in the various incidents were using too much force too quickly. Insofar as it became any sort of left wing view, it wasn't because the Dem party had done anything to cause it. Pelosi and Schumer could have been asleep for the entire BLM protests for all the use they were. Hence, the they're terrible at their jobs thing again.
                  "I hate him passionately", he's "a demonic force" - Tucker Carlson, in private, on Donald Trump
                  "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism" - George Orwell
                  "[Capitalism] as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of evils. I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy" - Albert Einstein

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Originally posted by Starlight View Post
                    Certainly in political science a standard difference between right and left wing politics is that right is typically more centralized and hierarchical versus the left which is typically more grassroots and decentralized. This attracts to the right-wing people who like following hierarchical orders from authorities and people who like being told what to think and believe, and attracts to the left-wing people who don't like authorities and hierarchies and people who want to have their own individual opinions that they think up for themselves.

                    Obviously the ways these people are going to want to receive information will be different. Right wingers are going to look for a media figure or political figure to place their faith and trust in and believe what that person tells them - e.g. Donald Trump, Rush Limbaugh, Tucker Carlson, Alex Jones etc. Left wingers are more likely going to want to follow multiple media sources as well as hear opinions from social media, and make up their minds about what they think after hearing the different sources.

                    I've seen people note that in the US there is quite a difference between how the two parties disseminate talking points. The Republicans have a small group who thinks up the talking points, then emails them out to the politicians and Republican-aligned media entities. Republican politicians are then encouraged to go on as many interview shows as they can and repeat those talking points. Meanwhile the Republican-aligned media entities are encouraged to write articles about those things as much as possible. The result is that those talking points are very rapidly disseminated out to all the faithful voters through the authorities from that central source.

                    A recent example to point is is that the Republicans had to decide how to try and reunite their party after the November loss and the related election fallout, and what their central brains trust choose to focus on was anti-transgenderism. Once the memo went out from the central source, the Republican propaganda apparatus churned away, and the upshot can be seen here on TWeb where we've suddenly got 4 or more threads on the front page that focus on transgenderism when we hadn't previously had any for months. It's the Republicans effectively disseminating the message from that central source that if you don't like transgenderism you should be Republican.

                    The Democratic party, by comparison, has nothing remotely like that. It doesn't have the small and cohesive brains trust inventing talking points, it doesn't have the distribution network to send them out, and it doesn't encourage its politicians to go on TV and talk about party policies. You could say this shows Pelosi and Schumer are both terrible at their jobs, and that they should have a more organized media strategy, and you'd probably be right. Pelosi bizarrely seems to think that if she does a speech that gets almost no coverage, then that's effectively informed the US populace about what the Dem party is doing, and she apparently actively discourages politicians in the party to go on TV and further her talking points. Again, she just seems terrible at her job in this regard. Instead the party seems to think having no PR strategy is somehow a PR strategy, and just leaves it up the all the different media outlets to run whatever stories they're going to run. As a result the Dems lack any sort of cohesive messaging like the Republicans have, and it's up to individual journalists, celebrities, or Dem-leaning groups to give their own responses to the issues of the day. So with something like the BLM protests, the Dems had no clear message. They just left it up to the public to form a view. And the view of most people seemed to be that the videos being released showed the protesters had valid points, and that the police in the various incidents were using too much force too quickly. Insofar as it became any sort of left wing view, it wasn't because the Dem party had done anything to cause it. Pelosi and Schumer could have been asleep for the entire BLM protests for all the use they were. Hence, the they're terrible at their jobs thing again.
                    If you look how biden coordinated with others, its not so much that they don't get thier points out, but do so in a different way. They tend to bubble thier ideas up through decentralized proxies. Biden let propaganda groups do the negative attacks, and lying, while he projected a clean image. They rely more on indirect proxies.

                    This provides them cover. for example "the other 99%" is a peddler of partisan lies and misinformation. Biden coordinated with them. This would let him rely on the same type of blatant lies as Trump, but his apologists could claim Biden didn't lie, it was this other unaffiliated group.

                    You can see it with the summer riots. Proxies did the unclean parts,, while the politicians avoided comments or offered general condemnation. (The same sort you don't find full throated enough)

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Originally posted by CivilDiscourse View Post
                      If you look how biden coordinated with others, its not so much that they don't get thier points out, but do so in a different way. They tend to bubble thier ideas up through decentralized proxies.
                      Another way of saying that, is that the Dem party lacks a PR strategy, so individual left-leaning journalists, think-tanks and small-groups, put out their own stuff in a way that isn't centrally coordinated or unified. But that's a lack of strategy, not a strategy.

                      for example "the other 99%" is a peddler of partisan lies and misinformation.
                      I've never heard of them. A google search doesn't convince me they even exist - the only web reference to them appears to be a single facebook page by that name with almost no followers.

                      However, there certainly were leftist groups who didn't like Trump and who were frustrated by Biden's lack of aggression, and chose to spend their own money (or crowdsourced money) to create and run aggressive anti-Trump ads. e.g. RebellionPAC to pick an example I know of. In that case the people running it are Bernie supporters who don't particularly like Biden, but who are very anti-Trump.

                      But, again, Biden failing to do decent PR, and failing to have a decent PR network, isn't a good PR strategy, it's a lack of PR strategy. The fact that random leftists felt they had to step in and try to do Biden's job for him because he wasn't doing it, is indicative of failings in the Dem leadership.
                      "I hate him passionately", he's "a demonic force" - Tucker Carlson, in private, on Donald Trump
                      "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism" - George Orwell
                      "[Capitalism] as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of evils. I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy" - Albert Einstein

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Originally posted by Starlight View Post
                        Another way of saying that, is that the Dem party lacks a PR strategy, so individual left-leaning journalists, think-tanks and small-groups, put out their own stuff in a way that isn't centrally coordinated or unified. But that's a lack of strategy, not a strategy.
                        Oh, it's definitely a strategy. It's attacking through proxy. It allows someone else to do the dirty work while you keep your hands clean. The strategy is effective too. By relying on Grass (or astroturf) roots talking points, you can have your message come from multiple places, saturating the airwaves, you also push out your point of view through multiple means. Instead of just news and talking points, you have entertainment shows (SNL, late night talk) etc. echoing your talking points. Like I said, it's an effective way to to get your message out, AND it provides you the cover to actually let others do the dirtier work for you.

                        I've never heard of them. A google search doesn't convince me they even exist - the only web reference to them appears to be a single facebook page by that name with almost no followers.
                        That is my fault. Insomnia and 2am posting does not lead to accurate typing on the phone. "The other 98%" as opposed to 99%. This helps alot on finding them (imagine that, when I use the right name, they exist).






                        Source: https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/the-other-98/

                        A questionable source exhibits one or more of the following: extreme bias, consistent promotion of propaganda/conspiracies, poor or no sourcing to credible information, a complete lack of transparency and/or is fake news. Fake News is the deliberate attempt to publish hoaxes and/or disinformation for the purpose of profit or influence (Learn More). Sources listed in the Questionable Category may be very untrustworthy and should be fact checked on a per article basis. Please note sources on this list are not considered fake news unless specifically written in the reasoning section for that source. See all Questionable sources.

                        • Overall, we rate the Other 98% Questionable based on strong left-wing bias and a very poor fact check record.
                        Failed Fact Checks (Here is a short sampling of a few of them)
                        Overall, we rate the Other 98% Questionable based on strong left-wing bias and a very poor fact check record. (11/18/2016) Updated (D. Van Zandt 11/12/2018)

                        © Copyright Original Source



                        Source: https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/occupy-democrats/

                        A questionable source exhibits one or more of the following: extreme bias, consistent promotion of propaganda/conspiracies, poor or no sourcing to credible information, a complete lack of transparency and/or is fake news. Fake News is the deliberate attempt to publish hoaxes and/or disinformation for the purpose of profit or influence (Learn More). Sources listed in the Questionable Category may be very untrustworthy and should be fact checked on a per article basis. Please note sources on this list are not considered fake news unless specifically written in the reasoning section for that source. See all Questionable sources.

                        • Overall, we rate Occupy Democrats Questionable due to extreme left wing bias, promotion of propaganda and conspiracies as well the publication of fake news as evidence by numerous failed fact checks.

                        A review of the Occupy Democrats Facebook page shows many left wing memes being posted as well as news articles that always favor the left and denigrate the right.

                        A factual search reveals a very poor track record with IFCN Fact Checkers. Below is a list of just a few of their many failed fact checks.
                        Overall, we rate Occupy Democrats Questionable due to extreme left wing bias, promotion of propaganda and conspiracies as well the publication of fake news as evidence by numerous failed fact checks. (5/15/2016) Updated (D. Van Zandt 2/07/2019)

                        © Copyright Original Source


                        However, there certainly were leftist groups who didn't like Trump and who were frustrated by Biden's lack of aggression, and chose to spend their own money (or crowdsourced money) to create and run aggressive anti-Trump ads. e.g. RebellionPAC to pick an example I know of. In that case the people running it are Bernie supporters who don't particularly like Biden, but who are very anti-Trump.

                        But, again, Biden failing to do decent PR, and failing to have a decent PR network, isn't a good PR strategy, it's a lack of PR strategy. The fact that random leftists felt they had to step in and try to do Biden's job for him because he wasn't doing it, is indicative of failings in the Dem leadership.
                        Actually, as the NYT article shows it wasn't "random" it was coordinated.

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Originally posted by CivilDiscourse View Post
                          Oh, it's definitely a strategy. It's attacking through proxy. It allows someone else to do the dirty work while you keep your hands clean.
                          It's obviously possible to use such a strategy.

                          You're just giving the incompetent Dem leadership way, way, way, way, way too much credit to suggest they would have the competence to use such a strategy.

                          "The other 98%" as opposed to 99%. This helps alot on finding them (imagine that, when I use the right name, they exist).
                          Okay, I've still not heard of them, but they do clearly exist according to google. They seem to be a grassroots activist group that tends to get fact-checked for falsehoods a lot.

                          as the NYT article shows it wasn't "random" it was coordinated.
                          All it seems to say is there was a group chat page where people who ran left-leaning sites chatted with people in the Biden team. It not proof of anything sophisticated.
                          "I hate him passionately", he's "a demonic force" - Tucker Carlson, in private, on Donald Trump
                          "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism" - George Orwell
                          "[Capitalism] as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of evils. I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy" - Albert Einstein

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Originally posted by Starlight View Post
                            It's obviously possible to use such a strategy.

                            You're just giving the incompetent Dem leadership way, way, way, way, way too much credit to suggest they would have the competence to use such a strategy.

                            Okay, I've still not heard of them, but they do clearly exist according to google. They seem to be a grassroots activist group that tends to get fact-checked for falsehoods a lot.

                            All it seems to say is there was a group chat page where people who ran left-leaning sites chatted with people in the Biden team. It not proof of anything sophisticated.
                            How sophisticated do you think it needs to be to be coordination?

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Originally posted by CivilDiscourse View Post
                              How sophisticated do you think it needs to be to be coordination?
                              I think there's a bit of a gap between "some leftists talked to other leftists" and "Biden's campaign had an official and deliberate strategy, whereby Biden instructed his own people to be positive in their messaging, but asked them to coordinate with non-campaign leftist groups to run negative attacks on Biden's opponents through unofficial sources."

                              I watched videos on youtube of leftists getting annoying that Biden was being too positive with messaging, and eventually those annoyed leftists created their own negative ads against Trump because they were so annoyed at Biden's failure to go after Trump. You don't need a conspiracy theory about secret coordination to explain what I saw happen in public on video.
                              "I hate him passionately", he's "a demonic force" - Tucker Carlson, in private, on Donald Trump
                              "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism" - George Orwell
                              "[Capitalism] as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of evils. I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy" - Albert Einstein

                              Comment

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