US Journalists Targeted By Pentagon Propaganda Contractors 232
Jeremiah Cornelius writes "While conducting investigative reporting on civilian contractors in the Pentagon's "InfoOps" Internet propaganda operations, two reporters found themselves the subject of a highly targeted, professional media manipulation effort. Reporter Tom Vanden Brook and Editor Ray Locker found that Twitter and Facebook accounts have been created in their names, along with a Wikipedia entry and dozens of message board postings and blog comments. Websites were registered in their names. Some postings merely copied Vanden Brook's and Locker's previous reporting. Others accused them of being sponsored by the Taliban. 'I find it creepy and cowardly that somebody would hide behind my name and presumably make up other names in an attempt to undermine my credibility,' Vanden Brook said. If these websites were created using federal funds, it could violate federal law prohibiting the production of propaganda for domestic consumption."
It could violate federal law (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It could violate federal law (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It could violate federal law (Score:4, Insightful)
In a case like this though, even if it was government funds used to do the work, it will probably come out that it was done by "overly aggressive independent contractors" who "overstepped their bounds" and not by government mandate. ...
Methinks this would be what some call plausible deniability [wikipedia.org].
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It doesn't make any sense though, professional media manipulators don't register stuff in their target's name. Media manipulators are public relations people, the nearest thing to what these investigators are talking about are astroturfers like MS used to let loose on slashdot. What possible advantage would there be to set up accounts as trivially easy to prove as fake like this? The whole thing smells a bit off.
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However the odds that anyone directly employed by the government will take a fall for it are pretty low.
Oh, you saw the GSA hearing on CSPAN today too? I thought I was the only one. What a farce to see grown adults in positions of power playing 'hot potato' to see which dispensable underling will be burnt.
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What's even funnier is, I bet half the members on the investigating committee have paid for a hooker on the taxpayer's dime before, too.
Re:It could violate federal law (Score:5, Informative)
Since when has violating the law deterred the actions of our government?
The Constitution has become a piece of paper that the government uses to wipe the asses of the corporations. All of our laws supposedly spring from this document, so why would they feel any different about these 'lesser' laws?
Re:It could violate federal law (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:It could violate federal law (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem isn't the rich, or corporations, that's just a red herring thrown at you by the REAL problem: The Democrat and Republican parties. The left blame the rich, the right blame the media. None of it is true. The laws are passed by 2 political parties that have the same goal: Power
Which party is trying to enact consumer protection laws, regulations to protect home buyers, regulations to reign in bank fraud?
Which party passes laws protecting the rights of women and minorities or makes environmental protection a priority?
I could go on and on, listing substantial policy differences between the Democratic and Republican parties.
I accept that both parties want power, but it seems like only one party even pretends to have a token interest in using the least bit of that power to protect my interests in even the most minimal of ways.
Re:It could violate federal law (Score:4, Insightful)
Those aren't your interests. All you are seeing is the futures of Orwell and Huxley fighting it out in real time.
One comes via fear, force and ignorance, the other comes with a spoonful of sugar and ignorance. The problem is, they are both well on their way to becoming real.
Liberty will be just as dead if killed through violent oppression (Orwell) or diabetic shock (Huxley).
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The problem isn't the rich, or corporations, that's just a red herring thrown at you by the REAL problem: The Democrat and Republican parties.
That's only one political party... The Federalists opposed the Democratic-Republican party, remember? After getting trade with England re-established the Federalist party was shut out for their "Spirit of the Law" thinking, leaving only the Democratic-Republican party as the dominant party... Today it's the only party available. The term False Dichotomy applies somewhat here, except the falseness is in thinking that a choice exists between two when there is only one choice.
Furthermore, thanks to the
Mod parent up (Score:2)
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It's the big words that are throwing you, isn't it?
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Congratulation, you are an idiot.
Nice try to defend your sacred cows by trying to start an argument about unrelated things that you ALSO wrong about.
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Overthrow what? You don't even know what is written it it! WTF is "regulated militia"? "cruel and unusual"? "interstate commerce"? Every politician "interprets" those things whatever way he wants.
Oh, you mean your government that doesn't give a flying fuck about anything written in your Constitution, its responsibilities or plain common sense? It's a time-honored American tradition to proudly proclaim to the world: "Our tapeworms are longer!"
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"Cruel and unusual" is a lack of a sarcasm tag... or in your case, a troll tag...
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Since when has violating the law deterred the actions of our government? With the wiretapping of people without a warrant, search and seizure of anyone unfortunate enough to require air travel or border crossing, detainment of individuals without due process, to instigating of torture of war prisoners, I'm somewhat surprised we don't hear more stories like this.
Hate to say it but all of those things are legal now.
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Re:It could violate federal law (Score:4, Interesting)
Since when has violating the law deterred the actions of our government? With the wiretapping of people without a warrant, search and seizure of anyone unfortunate enough to require air travel or border crossing, detainment of individuals without due process, to instigating of torture of war prisoners, I'm somewhat surprised we don't hear more stories like this.
Don't forget Asset Forfeiture [justice.gov] -- you don't even have to be charged with a crime, much less convicted.
WARNING:RE::It could violate federal law (Score:2)
>Don't forget Asset Forfeiture [justice.gov] -- you don't even have to be charged with a crime, much less convicted.
Warning: clicking on the link in the RP may subject you to seizure of assets by the "Department of Justice."
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Since when has violating the law deterred the actions of our government?
There'd be a good argument that the law made a difference on August 9, 1974. However, on September 8, 1974 the powers-that-be effectively put a stop to that kind of subversive precedent.
(look it up)
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A fine example of strike fast [watergate.info] while they're distracted [cnn.com].
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However, on September 8, 1974 the powers-that-be effectively put a stop to that kind of subversive precedent.
(look it up)
Ah-ha! i had always though it an accident, but now i can see that it was really an assassination attempt on Evel Knievel.
Earlier, Knievel had wanted to jump the Grand Canyon, however apparently the U.S Department of the Interior would not allow it. so what did the subversive Mr. Knievel do? why he purchased land on snake river canyon.
his downfall was hiring an ex-navy engineer to build the Sky-Cycle. Clearly the government was able to get to him so that he could rig the parachute to deploy early.
Had you rea
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These were contractors for private companies doing the trolling. They were concerned that too much attention to their fat InfoOps boondoggle might kill their golden goose, so they figured they could hassle the journalists into silence or trash their reputations
Astroturfing and paid shilling is not a government innovation. It's good old Free Market Capitalism at its best: Anything to protect profits.
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FTFY.
These United States wouldn't know a free market if it sat on our face and started to wiggle.
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That's because no free market has ever existed, and no free market could ever exist. It's like "free energy". It can't happen.
The "pro-free market" political forces are Utopians of the highest order. And as we've learned reading Leviathan, Utopia, etc, Utopians always bring tyranny.
That's why if you ever hear a politician or a pundit say they are in favor of "free markets" you better run for the hills because they
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None have tried. Free Energy is a joke, a free market is something that COULD exist. And yes, politicians who say anything about free markets are full of shit. If more people realized that, perhaps things would be better. Of course, a close proximity to a free market (as best as we can see these days) is Hong Kong (both pre and post handover...) It's not surprising that China wouldn't change much of how Hong Kong worked after Britain handed it over.... (We'll see how long that lasts of course...)
But you ar
Is it real at all? (Score:3, Interesting)
My suspicious side wonders if these reporters created the fake sites themselves to stir up controversy.
My other suspicious side wonders if it was just spammers copying a bunch of real and popular content to a website in order to do black hat SEO. Even the part about them being "sponsored by the Taliban" could have been stolen from some real comment on their articles.
Re:Is it real at all? (Score:4, Insightful)
The simpler is the lie, the more people believe it. The net result of faking the libel than debunking it is always negative.
Sockpuppets for hire (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Sockpuppets for hire (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Sockpuppets for hire (Score:4, Insightful)
Anytime energy, climate, guns, oil, taxes, nuclear, smoking, pesticides, pharmaceuticals or evolution gets mentioned you can expect to see the sock puppets come out.
From both sides.
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Follow the money, big oil funds only PRO big oil lobby, pharm funds only PRO pharma etc.
It's the usual claim that "well the the side does it too" but it's not true.
The usual claim is correct. People forget that considerable public funds and litigation payouts goes into the other side. Follow the money remains a good rule, you just have to know of these additional sources of money.
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Also, sock puppets are cheap. It doesn't take much money to flood a forum.
It's going to be a record year for sock puppets and robocalls - lots of money is being collected.
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Re:Sockpuppets for hire (Score:5, Funny)
Are they hiring? Sounds like fascinating work for a misanthrope like me.
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Are they hiring? Sounds like fascinating work for a misanthrope like me.
I was musing along the same lines, but even more thinking I could do it a hell of a lot better than what I've seen of the current misanthropes' efforts. TFA sounds pretty scattershot and juvenile, IMO. Sort of like contractors doing it from the bar, once they got drunk enough to build up enough false courage.
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Even with the kinds of services of which you speak, the idea is for them to NOT be obvious, which was the case with these allegations: the web sites in question, which you can still see cached in various places, didn't even pretend to be official or personal sites of the journalists. They just smeared them, and nothing more.
Of course, anyone who appears to hold a position you disagree with (or runs counter to the predictable Slashdot groupthink) is automatically a sockpuppet, right...?
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That's strong claim. I assume it's supported by strong evidence? I only ask because I personally haven't found any. Nor have I been able to come up with a plausible reason why anyone would think it a good investment to pay them to operate here since the negative opinions of MS. At least then, hitting the opinions of the IT crowd could potentially be effective, since they're pretty much exactly the biggest source of MS's reputation, and definitely some of their biggest cust
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Don't trust anyone with a UID over six digits!
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Do they change the little reflector signs on the back of traffic markers?
I've always wanted to talk to those folks.
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This is not really that surprising.
However, having had my debates with Global Warming Deniars, Pro Torture Advocates, People for the Protection of the Rich, and of course, the ever-present Citizens for Oil Company Profits who think that gas prices are about the free market -- I'm not so sure that ALL of this is SEO and Sock puppets.
Some people are just damn idiots putting sock puppets out of a job. There is something wrong with people who are morons for free.
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To call this a Pentagon payback campaign is ridiculous. A "highly targeted, professional media manipulation effort"? What, anonymously registering a web site, social media accounts, and similar in a person's name, and then using them in a way so that even the most casual observer could see they weren't the actual people? Give me a break. Anyone who looks at either of the sites can see they weren't even hiding the fact they were trying to smear the reporters. It wasn't even thinly-veiled: it was as overt as
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IO is one of our primary tools in conflict, and we shouldn't somehow be ashamed of it
Well, I strongly disagree: it doesn't matter what the new label for "lying" is, "lying" is a behavior that I do not want my tax dollars to support. I am ashamed that my government lies to anybody.
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Actually, that's not the purpose of IO in US doctrine. Even MISO (formerly PSYOP) is defined as conveying selected TRUTHFUL information to a foreign audience. That's the whole point.
Not only that, but we're often fighting adversaries that propagandize and indoctrinate extensively, and routinely target US audiences via the media to serve their own purposes.
So you can stop being ashamed, now, since "lying" isn't the purpose of IO. If you want to learn about what IO actually is, see: http://www.dtic.mil/doctri [dtic.mil]
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Whereas my cynical side would be puzzled and even shocked to discover that it wasn't done by unregulated and unaccountable private contractors.
Seems every day I'm reading another shocker (Score:5, Interesting)
Tim Weiner, who did a great book on the CIA, was on Jon Stewart the other day, touting his new book on the FBI. Seems the beginning of the plumbers was when J. Edgar Hoover refused to start tapping the phones of all the friends and relatives of groups like The Weathermen. And now the FBI is being asked to tap even more widely and without warrants. The new Surveillance State is, get this, worse than J.Edgar Hoover would tolerate, because it was so blatantly unconstitutional.
But the FBI tapping is small potatoes. Hit Glenn Greenwald's column at Salon.com for the other day's article on "surveillance state evils"....the NSA, always forbidden to tap Americans, is now tapping, well, everything. Suspicions no longer seem paranoid that the "Total Information Awareness" is indeed being pursued: a new NSA data centre is just hoovering up (pardon the expression) every byte.
The article goes on to detail a great deal more journalist and activist intimidation than this /. item: people who've spoken out for Wikileaks, done journalism, whatever, getting up against the wall every time they pass through customs, lawyer Jesslyn Radack searched EVERY TIME she goes through TSA even domestically, people threatened with jail and jailhouse-rape.
It's just bewildering. Is this really the USA? And are it's citizens just taking it? Some freedom-loving people.
Re:Seems every day I'm reading another shocker (Score:4, Insightful)
It's just bewildering. Is this really the USA? And are it's citizens just taking it? Some freedom-loving people.
I don't have time to get mad. American Idol's on.
Re:Seems every day I'm reading another shocker (Score:4, Interesting)
>It's just bewildering. Is this really the USA? And are it's citizens just taking it? Some freedom-loving people.
Congratulations. You've just discovered the difference between public ideology ("greatest country on earth," "home of freedom and democracy") and actual reality ("bow down to your corporate overlords").
P.S. The journalists' claims are overblown, in the sense that reporting on Apple's manufacturing was overblown. I get interviewed every time I enter the US (because of "leftist affiliations" shall we say). The interrogations are, in the end, professionally and not over the top in a sort of bureaucratically chilling way. If I don't make a fuss or trouble, it's just a series of questions and answers, and they're not going to do an unnecessary invasive search because they're no point / it's inefficient. If you scream and holler and break protocol on your side, I'm sure, you've just set off all the alarm bells and they have to search you, but because you screamed and hollered and they have to search everyone who screams and hollers-- because that's what the bureaucratic playbook says they have to do-- not because you're a journalist who wrote about this or that, but because, in the end, you're making extra trouble.
In short, don't argue with the cop unless you're prepared for the consequences.
Re:Seems every day I'm reading another shocker (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, because ONLY terrorists scream and holler about their rights -- and GOOD CITIZENS capitulate.
What you've just described is a situation where the TSA security theater is merely there to make sure you bend over and say; "thank you sir."
Security doesn't have shit to do with people making jokes, or making a fuss. The guy who want's to mess you up will stay under the radar and be the most polite person up until the moment of truth.
In short, don't argue with the cop unless you're prepared for the consequences. -- Right, because we should all have consequences because we demand a Government and Security system that respects us.
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Yeah, because ONLY terrorists scream and holler about their rights -- and GOOD CITIZENS capitulate.
No, but only annoying people holler and scream when they are in the middle of the line getting through TSA. Which slows down the entire line and takes even longer to get through. It's good to fight for your rights, but do it in a place that is effective.
Those people annoy me as much as the TSA.
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Ah. It seems you're the post of the day that lives up to your 'nick.
You miss the point. The point is simply that the journalists in question make overblown claims (and act inappropriately) in order to get attention, when, if they behaved in a courteous manner, they likely wouldn't have the problems when flying.
Otherwise, I said nothing evaluative about the US's Security Theatre.
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I wonder if we don't need to offer J Edgar Hoover and apology.
I know we all THOUGHT he was keeping documents on everyone -- but who asked him to do it? Was he really running things, or was he pressured to track people by folks like McCarthy or Nixon?
With the prescience of 20/20 hindsight -- I have to wonder about the whole scandal of him dressing in women's undergarments -- because getting caught with some perverse act seems to be MORE of a threat to our CIA or Secret Service organizations than merely assas
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It's just bewildering. Is this really the USA?
Is and always has been. The USA was founded by the upper class for their own benefit and run that way. There's a reason it's a republic and not a democracy.
The new things is that the pendulum has begun to swing back. For a long time, more and more people became a share of the pie, with the blacks and the women allowed to vote, for example.
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Seems the beginning of the plumbers was when J. Edgar Hoover refused to start tapping the phones of all the friends and relatives of groups like The Weathermen.
Hoover just resented them encroaching on his turf.
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Because all the copies left at every hotel room count as a sub. Readership of that crap rag is very little.
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I agree that it's a crap rag. I wish I could agree that readership was low. Advertizers are very careful in their analytics, and they pay for placement in USAToday. Because... middle america sops it up with a straw.
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it's often the #1 selling paper in the US
Not best selling, it's among the top in circulation because they give it away. Almost two-thirds of USAToday circulation is given away to hotels and schools [poynter.org]. And even with that their circulation is dropping; free and still not worth the price.
Does not scan (Score:4, Informative)
Tfs: US Journalists Targeted By Pentagon Propaganda Contractors
Tfa: says that they appear to have been targeted by a misinformation campaign. TFA makes no mention of a connection between the actions and propaganda contractors.
Might be that they are connected - but nowhere is there proof or even a suggestion of proof for the statement.
WTF slashdot...
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but nowhere is there proof or even a suggestion of proof for the statement.
Did you get to the 4th sentence in TFA?
For example, Internet domain registries show the website TomVandenBrook.com was created Jan. 7 -- just days after Pentagon reporter Tom Vanden Brook first contacted Pentagon contractors involved in the program. Two weeks after his editor Ray Locker's byline appeared on a story, someone created a similar site, RayLocker.com, through the same company.
Or how about the 7th and 8th sentences where it is explained that the military talked to the contractors and some of the websites were taken offline "following those inquiries."
"Correlation doesn't imply causation, but it does waggle its eyebrows suggestively and gesture furtively while mouthing 'look over there'"
-xkcd
Identity theft (Score:3)
Reporter Tom Vanden Brook and Editor Ray Locker found that Twitter and Facebook accounts have been created in their names, along with a Wikipedia entry and dozens of message board postings and blog comments.
- I suppose there are criminal laws concerning identity theft and they should be applicable not only when money is stolen from a bank account, but also in these cases, where somebody pretends they are someone else to push agenda.
I can easily see how in the age of the Internet various agencies, government contractors try to disseminate fake and false information in order to confuse the issue. Who can tell on the Internet what is real and what is not? What opinion does anybody actually hold?
After all, quite a number of people believe for example that Albert Einstein was a religious person in terms of following some religion, yet there is plenty of his writing where he specifically states that he does not believe in a god.
Of-course it's easier to steal identity of people who are long gone, so they can't protect themselves and set the record straight, but even with the living it's a huge challenge.
The Internet can be attacked in many ways, and it is.
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After all, quite a number of people believe for example that Albert Einstein was a religious person in terms of following some religion, yet there is plenty of his writing where he specifically states that he does not believe in a god.
I would say Albert was "spiritual", not religious, as many physicists are, though along the same lines as Ayn Rand's "God damn." It's just a figure of speech.
He didn't help dissuade anyone with his "God doesn't play dice" crap. God (or nature) certainly does play dice. Darwin proved that conclusively.
See it all the time on Wikipedia (Score:4, Interesting)
I did some work on the No Gun Ri article on Wikipedia, which is an incident of Americans massacring Korean civilians during the US war in Korea. It was whitewashed [wikipedia.org] by someone, whose DNS PTR records at the time were 214.13.196.180 host196-180.iraq.centcom.mil . CENTCOM by the way is the organization highlighted in the documentary "Control Room".
Or we have Fort Benning whitewashing [wikipedia.org] all the Latin American death squads that were trained there, that IP's DNS PTR back then was doim1-358.benning.army.mil - it whitewashed the WHISC article as well. Of course, with September 11th, we now have death squads and terrorists trained by the US government now not just killing indigenous farmers in El Salvador, but killing Americans in the US as well. Good going, guys!
It's basically like Orwell's Ministry of Truth in 1984. Well not like it, it is exactly that. My tax dollars go to pay the commissars of the US empire to erase the evidence of their massacres from history. Of course, the purpose of making this stuff disappear from history, like the US soldier who went into a village in Afghanistan recently and murdered many civilians, is so that they can portray the US and its military and its multinational corporations as shining white knights out saving the world, not raping and pillaging for plunder, empire and profit.
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Wow they don't even use a proxy? It's like they *know* nobody will care.
Gawker.com says its Leonie Industries (Score:5, Interesting)
USAToday didn't name the people they believe are responsible because they don't have any hard proof linking the smear campaign to them.
Gawker.com, though, is seemingly not burdened by any such journalistic standards :)
Meet the Pentagon Contractor That Ran a Disinformation Campaign Against Two USA Today Reporters [gawker.com]
More on Leonie Industries here:
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Leonie_Industries
anyway, it's libel (Score:2)
Some posts only need the subject line.
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Its probably done during office hours and from ips where you can trace the ips back to them. At least make an effort and if found post all over this is just business as usual and people are starting to realize what their taxes really fund.
Anonymous Source (Score:2)
They should have opened the accounts under the name of "Anonymous Source".
Since that's how the news media goes after people, they couldn't really complain eh?
Re:How Silly (Score:5, Informative)
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....I'm guessing your comment was posted from a .mil/.gov IP address.
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That's just trolling, I've done the same thing to old high school buddies. If this is "InfoOps" then it is simply laughable.
Thus showing the maturity level of this type of thing.
Re:How Silly (Score:4, Insightful)
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And this is precisely the reason I'm glad I left the US a few years ago, likely for good. The government there is no longer in the hands of the people, and likely never will be again.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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Yvan Eht Nioj . . .
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Information Operations is generally a fancy way of saying advertising. Advertising must be thought useful by somebody as it pretty much pays for broadcast television and radio, as well as providing income to many web sites, including this one. I don't think that advertising to try to convince people to not engage in violence is a bad thing. If it is, could you see about getting some of the public service announcements pulled from American and European television?
The overall the US defense budget has been
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Straw-man much? From your link:
It numbered 190,000 soldiers. (It would grow to 8.3 million in 1945, a 44-fold increase.)
So changing hardware procurement policies would result in reducing the number of military personal by 99%?
Lies, damn lies, and statistics (Score:2)
The overall the US defense budget has been declining
You can pick and choose statistics to show whatever you want. That's why there's the expression "Lies, damn lies, and statistics".
It is hard to imagine a scenario where the USA needs to spend as much on the military as the rest of the world combined.
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Well if our spending is only 10% as efficient...
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So we used to be overspending on the military worse than we are now Ans that makes our current militaryindustrialextravaganza OK?
We could cut total military spending 50% and it would sill be out of line with what we need
Re:How Silly (Score:5, Interesting)
The whole thing has gotten batshit thanks to the insane amount of money flowing through the pentagon and military industrial complex.
I'm pretty right wing, at least compared to most posters on Slashdot, but there's one thing I'm pretty much in agreement with liberals on: our military industrial complex is out of control. We can't seem to make a weapons system without breaking the bank, and I'm pretty firmly convinced it's because of our MIC tainted procurement process. Unlike the private sector, where I'm a free market guy, I'd like to see the military return to the military owned-system of production we used partially in the 20's and 30's. Many of the Navy's ships were built by the Navy itself in Navy-owned shipyards. Before the naval aviation industry really took off, the Navy made its own airplanes [wikipedia.org] in their own factory. The Army had various plants producing armor and guns. The military began phasing these systems out in the mid-30's (kind of surprising that this would happen under FDR, but it did), and by the early 60's, almost all military production was done by contractors. Some studies showed that the mix of Navy-owned and private shipyards helped keep the contractors honest and prices down.
Basically, I think that since weapons procurement really isn't a "market" in the US, that they military should simply come up with a requirement for what they need, and then build it themselves with a fixed budget from Congress. Get someone like Lockheed involved, and the price always shoots up stratospherically with all of the subcontractors they bring along.
Re:How Silly (Score:4, Insightful)
I'll just add to this a little story I heard. A certain military base did electronics work for a large section of the US. A different branch of the military was paying a private contractor almost 100 grand a pop to repair modules they were sold for a vehicle. Said modules almost never worked. A maintenance tech at the base was asked by this other branch to look into it, since they'd worked on similiar parts in the past. Long story short, he was able to do the same repair for 1/20th the cost, and after being returned to the other branch it managed to work for multiple times as long as the 'manufacturer repaired' modules.
How did this get handled by the military? The base in question was shut down during the cutbacks 10ish years ago, and turned into a bunch of commercial buildings. The equipment in question got stuck being sent back to the manufacturer under their repair prices which cost 100 grand and often didn't return repaired.
While I agree we wouldn't want the military side of things to rest on their laurels, they *USED* to have a *LOT* of brilliant personnel, lifers willing to work day in and day out to make stuff work and make the repair of it an artform. And you know what we've done? 'Retired' them, outsourced the work to the 'lowest common denominator', who due to their quest for maximum profitability are fully inclined to overcharge and underperform, and thanks to the ever dwindling supply of highly technical maintenance engineers and the common knowledgebase among them, the commercial sector has more and more power in contract negotiations because they don't have competition (Honestly given the consolidation in military suppliers, combined with reduction in military maintenance facilities) they can charge what they want and if there's not someone else you can take it to when it breaks, you're pretty much stuck paying what they'll offer.
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Have you seen the F35 rock video?
So what? It's advertising. Maybe it cost a lot, maybe it didn't. The presence of a rock video neither tells me who paid for it or how much they paid for it.
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That's just trolling, I've done the same thing to old high school buddies. If this is "InfoOps" then it is simply laughable.
So do you work or InfoOps?
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Yes, corporate run death panels are much better. Since they are not part of government they are able to hand out death far more efficiently. If I have to pay for a death panel, it had better produce a massacre damnit! Now, where's my medicare check?
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Go fuck yourself, you right-wing imbecile.
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Palin specified that she was referring to Section 1233 of bill HR 3200 which would have paid physicians for providing voluntary counseling to Medicare patients about living wills, advance directives, and end-of-life care options.
The "death panel" is a doctor asking you if you really want to spend your last 2 weeks on life support drifting in and out of consciousness in extreme pain and too full of morphine to think, which is the default option if you don't specify otherwise.
That is not what they do (Score:3, Insightful)
an insurance company, whose sole purpose is profit, having the power to deny you lifesaving treatment based on your calculated "worth" is better?
Insurance companies do not care how much you are worth. All they care about is pre-existing conditions.
And if you think about it anything else is insane. Insurance is for spreading around costs between a large number of people for events that happen to a few. But if you are already a person with an expensive illness to treat you are 100% sure to be only a drain
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1) So once someone contracts an expensive illness they are "a drain on the system" and they should die. I'll tell my grandfather that; No, better I'll put him on an iceberg and push him off into the sea. That's how the Inuit used to handle 'a drain on the system'.
2) What is this public system to fall back on for a last resort? I guess you are not in The USA because we have no system of last resort here. You get sick, you go bankrupt, then you die. That's how our politicians want it, that's how we want it, a
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Just like forcing banks to take on loans from people who cannot pay them back,
Which would be a major problem if it had ever happened outside of Wall Street propaganda. Do you really think that the government has the power to do that to banks? Or that banks (who have almost limitless lobbying pockets) would allow it? If only.
Insurance companies only care about your revenue/cost ratio. They only care about pre-existing conditions because they are a good predictor of a poor ratio. Anything else which indicates a poor ratio is just as bad. If they were allowed, insurance companies w
Re:That is not what they do (Score:5, Insightful)
The insurance system is still superior though because you are allowed to choose your level of risk, and there will always be a public system to fall back on for last resort for those that did not chose insurance.
Bzzzzzzt! Wrong. There is no "public system to fall back on for last resort for those that did not chose insurance". Read that again. There is no such thing. There is only a subset of medical services that are required, by law, to treat certain conditions regardless of the patient's ability to pay. In other words, emergency rooms, ths single most expensive place to deliver health care. Dude, your understanding of the health care system, and the insurance industry that leaches huge profit from it is badly flawed.
Re:That is not what they do (Score:4, Insightful)
Besides, what the "any of the universal coverage systems used in all the other OECD nations would reduce our freedom!" arguments all seem to ignore is that most people aren't especially free to pick their health insurance or much of anything else about their health care experience. Most get nothing, awful catastrophic-only insurance (and you better believe they'll fight tooth and nail not to pay for anything at all if something bad does happen, leaving you to duke it out with both them and the hospitals, who don't give a shit and will gladly go after you if the insurance companies drag their feet, all while you're sick), or, in the best case, whatever insurance that their job supplies.
There really aren't enough people getting meaningful choices out of our system for it to be a sensible argument against single-payer or, say, a Swiss-style system, especially considering that most who do have choices under the US system would still have choices under most others--even in the UK with its more-nationalized-than-most health care system you can pay for private care and insurance, on top of the basic care that everyone gets.
A slim minority of edge cases might get left out, but almost everyone would see no effective decrease in "freedom" under most UHC systems. It's a 100% bullshit argument but, in my experience, is the one that's gotten the most traction, alongside general (and also bullshit) fear mongering about waiting lists and such. I really don't understand what's going on in people's heads when they throw this out, and they're on their employer's insurance--in those cases they don't seem to me to have a dog in the "freedom" fight, except in some hypothetical abstract way that will never have any practical meaning to them.
Most people don't have any more say in their health care now than they would under a universal system, and we pay more, and we leave lots of people without coverage, and our system is a huge burden on small businesses, entrepreneurs, and independent contractors. What the goddamn hell is worth defending about it?
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Hospitals, health insurance is big business and big money. We have preached capitalism is our new God, and that America is founded on it and you will die in a fire if you say otherwise. It doesn't matter how you make it, as long as you are rich, you are deemed a success and to be hailed as a hero and role model.
There is a sickness in this country that the health care industry can't cure, and that is greed. We've seen the extremes of communism fail, now we get to see the extreme of capitalism fail.
The irony
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Agreed there is probably a bit of room for more shit. Only a nation as incredibly stupid and gullible as the US would believe such a silly lie, death panels indeed, how incredibly docile people who believed such rubbish are!
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I'm sure merely suggesting the above puts you in the "you must be supporting terrorists" camp.
The USA's "Founding Fathers" were considered terrorists. High praise, methinks.
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Hell, these days, Richard Nixon would be considered a Marxist. That's how far to the right the Overton window has shifted in the US. It's truly terrifying.