> Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty is an American government-funded international media organization
The purpose of RFERL is to produce news items that are covertly critical of the enemy. It adds up with other resources to paint a negative image of the enemy.
When doing propaganda, subject selection is the key factor. If you want to do a smear campaign, you just do honest reporting, but only of the things about your target that are negative.
The Russian guys just seemed desperate for a job and most of them lose money with a few striking it rich keeping the cycle going. I would blame the black market in China and Vietnam more, since it also causes the same sort of issue with wild rhino and elephant populations in Africa.
Russia and China are doing it on a much worse level and as the language barriers are quite high we don't see and hear of what they say about the West in their media. The French-German broadcaster ARTE has a good series called Fake News that lifts the curtain a bit https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlQWnS27jXh8H1ej2-Sk0...
There is no curtain whatsoever in modern times. Russian auto-translates excellently. Here [1] is the largest Russian state media site. Chinese is a bit bumpier, but it's also fully readable. [2] There's nothing particularly extreme, except insomuch as nationalism has become a bad-word somehow, and their media does focus heavily on culture, history, and national identity. Granted, Russia is quite negative towards the US, but probably no more than you'd expect if roles were reversed and Russia decided to just join the party in one of our many misguided invasions, upping the ante ever higher each time a game-changer failed to change the game.
> Russia and China are doing it on a much worse level and as the language barriers are quite high we don't see and hear of what they say about the West in their media.
International propaganda behind a language barrier? That doesn't sound right...
They also broadcast from local stations (in their parent countries) in English at high power. I bet you can find Radio Liberty and Voice of America as well. I discovered this accidentally by messing around in websdr:
> Russia and China are doing it on a much worse level
They arent. The two things that crippled the Eastern Bloc's propaganda efforts was 1) Fear of getting caught lying and losing credibility and therefore not lying 2) Doing propaganda by stating facts in dry, formal language.
The US has perfected the lying, smearing emotional manipulation propaganda early in the Cold War and it still keeps doing it. There isn't one single country that does it like that. So, no, Russia and China arent doing it 'on a much worse level' - they are incompetent. The very fact that you have this 'perception' that its not the country that lied about nonexistent WMDs for almost a decade but 'others' who are doing 'worse propaganda' is a demonstration of how far worse the US propaganda is.
There’s an argument to be made that Hollywood is the best propaganda machine in the world at fostering putative or aspirational American ideals if not the reality on the ground. Recently the adaptation of The Sympathizer, this explores from the POV that the guys on the other side are human, too, differently from the book but similar territory concerning depictions of Vietnam War in particular.
> There’s an argument to be made that Hollywood is the best propaganda machine in the world at fostering putative or aspirational American ideals if not the reality on the ground
Indeed. The circulation of video tapes in the early to late 80s USSR, US movies et al, seem to have created a major false perception: People thought that Americans lived like how the rich in Manhattan live. Even in the late 2000s, there were Russian journalists (local) who did not believe that there were homeless in New York, for example.
The radio is now based in Prague, it has a long history here and most people were quite happy to hear some real news during the communism. People tuning in risked prison time just to hear something else. I would not say you needed to be overtly critical, it was enough to just bring real news.
The west is in a war-like situation with Russia. Portraying them as stupid, drunk rednecks who ravage trough the environment certainly fits the narrative. Doesn't mean it's not true though.
Looting of national treasures is pretty typical of Russia.
A large country, the tsar (or the government) is far away, local governors can be bribed ... unless you do something that endangers the entire country/system, you can get away with a lot.
RFERL is a propaganda outlet that was established by the CIA as a weapon against the Soviets during the Cold War. [1] And in 1948, just before this all started kicking off, the Smith-Mundt [2] act was passed which prohibited the government disseminating propaganda domestically. That act was then repealed in 2013, because reasons.
> That act was then repealed in 2013, because reasons
It wasn't repealed, it was amended.
In 2012.
To provide an Arabic/Pashto/Urdu/etc. language source of information for speakers of those languages within the US due to a lack of coverage by domestic US broadcasters. (not "reasons")
For example: You are an Arabic-speaking individual living in the midwest of the US where you were resettled after getting refugee status. There almost no domestically-produced news sources in Arabic.
Al-monitor exists, but they were founded the same year the act was amended, for the same reasons, and unfortunately while many of their articles are written in native language, many others seem to be machine-translated and no matter what the AI/ML hypelords think, that ain't it boss.
You're correct, but rather in the worst of ways. The worst parts of the act, those that specifically enable and fund government produced propaganda were maintained. All the parts that limit its domestic dissemination were removed. So for instance one of the first effects of this change are described here. [1]
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An unnamed Pentagon official who was concerned about the 2012 law version stated: "It removes the protection for Americans. It removes oversight from the people who want to put out this information. There are no checks and balances. No one knows if the information is accurate, partially accurate, or entirely false."[39] The monthly magazine The Atlantic echoed those concerns by pointing out to two USA Today journalists who became target of a smear and propaganda campaign after they reported that the U.S. military "information operations" program spent millions of U.S. dollars in marketing campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq criticized as ineffective and poorly monitored.[36][42] As it turned out, Camille Chidiac, who executed the marketing campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, admitted to be a part of the smear and propaganda campaign against the USA Today reporters.[43]
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It's the same sort of stuff as when the exact same government administration also passed a law enabling the indefinite detention of American citizens without trial (that also remains to this day), again because reasons. [2] Incidentally it was passed in the exact same completely undemocratic way both times - by shoving it into a must-pass defense authorization bill. It's a suggestive pattern of behavior that's quite telling, especially given where we've ended up at today.
> Why exclusively fund RFERL for a foreign audience if you do not fund your national public broadcaster?
Because the US media market is quite saturated and developed (or at least was when any of this was made into law) compared to countries where media is actively supressed.
Quality news reporting is lacking. Investigative journalism is almost dead. The mainstream media is on a war footing. There have been 0 interviews with J Mearsheimer on mainstream US media.
There's also Radio Free Asia, Current Time TV (in Russian), Middle East Broadcasting Networks, Radio Televisión Martí (targeting Cuba) and of course, Voice of America, all under USAGM (Agency for Global Media).
It could be argued that Ukraine's 2014 revolution occurred with the backing of the US and was the most immediate precursor to the present situation. I'm not claiming it was or wasn't just that there is a case this was brewing long before 2022.
IMO, this falls short of directly implicating the USG in the revolution but it certainly highlights their detailed concern in the region and a desire for specific outcomes. It makes it harder to believe USG intelligence operatives were completely hands-off. To what extent the situation was being driven by them is something I can't tell/guess.
To what extent do we expect to see direct evidence the Euromaidan protests were instigated/leveraged by intelligence officers and associated cutouts for strategic purposes? I don't know and the lack of concrete evidence makes me reluctant to draw any firm conclusions but a comment from a former intelligence analyst seems interesting to me:
"RAY McGOVERN: Well, a couple of things. You know, it really depends more on who seizes control of these uprisings. If you look at Bahrain, you know, if you look at Syria—even Egypt, to an extent—these were initially popular uprisings. The question is: Who took them over? Who spurred them? Who provoked them even more for their own particular strategic interests? And it’s very clear what’s happened to the Ukraine. It used to be the CIA doing these things. I know that for a fact. OK, now it’s the National Endowment for Democracy, a hundred million bucks, 62 projects in the Ukraine. So, again, you don’t have to be a paranoid Russian to suggest that, you know, they’re really trying to do what they—do in the Ukraine what they’ve done in the rest of Eastern Europe and elsewhere."
… which proves his point. This anti-Russian sentiment never really ended, it's easy to not notice it if you've never been on the receiving side of it. It's not just the news, I saw it in casual conversations all the time long before 2014, and even 2008. TBH I expected better from Americans, with their multi-cultural society and sensitivity trainings, but was mistaken.
One of the two major American political parties somewhat regularly supports the Russian government, in an amazing turnaround of the history of the party since 2016, but part of that is due to the party just opposing on principle almost anything the other party supports for political reasons starting around 1980s, and part of it is due to where the titular head of the party is polling. The less populated rural areas of America and the very few swing states as well have an inordinate influence on the national politics to counteract your misconceptions about America.
"By Adam Entous, Julian E. Barnes and Adam Goldman"
"Reporting was contributed by Rebecca R. Ruiz, Erika Solomon, Melissa Eddy, Michael Schwirtz and Andrew E. Kramer."
"What we consider before using anonymous sources. Do the sources know the information? What’s their motivation for telling us? Have they proved reliable in the past? Can we corroborate the information? Even with these questions satisfied, The Times uses anonymous sources as a last resort. The reporter and at least one editor know the identity of the source."
>The largest outbreak of avian influenza in U.S. history has driven up egg prices and raised concerns about a human pandemic, though C.D.C. experts say the risk of that is low.
Despite what the headline says bird flu does not kill many chickens, standard practice is to slaughter the flock to stop the spread since anything else tends to cause the bird flu to linger for ages and keep popping back up. Egg farms tend to become poultry farms when bird flu is about, better to sell them as meat before it hits. Here in egg country we can get poultry for ~$2 a pound. And poultry farms are less affected by bird flu since they tend to not keep their chickens around very long.
Maybe, but maybe it’s the US helping China with its preexisting campaign to weaken the corporations the Party decided we’re too big. And to assist its transition to a more self secure chip supply chain.
Ha! Didn’t you know about China? I thought you knew about the corporate purges that have been going on? There’s certainly been a lot of it. Well, let me know if you discover it… “in the news” haha! ;) ;p xx
That's not a very informative response. Huawei is the only company you mentioned by name, which is why I asked. There's certainly been a lot of reporting on "corporate purges" targeting e.g. unsecured loans or for-profit education, but it didn't seem to me like you were talking about those sectors.
Well it wasn't a very generous interpretation, was it? It's the kind of thing where you can research it for yourself. Why should I do your research for you? I could be talking about anything, but you wouldn't know right? But you should assume, a generous interpretation, that I could be talking about anything, right? All those things that you could recall yourself, included.
I wonder...Why are you anon on here, after so many years? Don't you feel it's kind of personally dishonest / lack of integrity to have opinions but not put your name to it?
BTW , you said, "...is the only company you mentioned by name." But I didn't even mention them by name! You said it: you're the one who mentioned them. It's weird, it's like you don't even know what you are talking about. I thought you were a kind of expert on this topic, but you're just projecting your whatever misinterpretation onto my stuff--what just do start a fight or find a disagreement? That's not good. Anyway, I think you should just slow down and think before you make such hasty, bad and incorrect replies.
Russia is running out of armor and mechanized infantry. You can see this reflected in their own military documents. Their new organization schemes keep the tanks in the back and minimize artillery support, preferring to send small squads of underequipped, dismounted infantry. A shovel is a reasonable weapon for hand to hand combat, but hand to hand combat is not an important part of modern warfare. The story is that some hapless mobiks are being thrown into the meat grinder to a greater extent that before.
It's not an important story. just a symptom of a continuing theme.
I'm not sure what exactly this is supposed to imply.
For what it's worth, while Russia has been losing tanks on a daily basis, it has not been seen as a limiting factor quantity wise until recently. People have been calling Russia's tank losses unsustainable for a long time, and they were correct, but its only now beginning to materialize as actual deficiencies that requires a change in battlefield tactics.
Russia of course still has a lot of tanks. But not enough to support mechanized infantry units effectively at the scale of yolo squads they're sending into the front. They've also lost pretty much any remaining sense of competency among their tank crews. See the clown car pileup of tanks not knowing what to do in a minefield in Vuhledar recently.
> Minhaj offered a reminder to people “touchdown dancing” about the lab leak theory: the energy department is one of nine intelligence groups that have assessed Covid’s origins. Two of those concluded a likely lab leak, five said natural causes and two said they don’t know. “And you know what? I personally side with them,” said Minhaj. “I don’t know what the fuck is going on. FBI says this, NIC says that. I’m holding out until the DMV [Department of Motor Vehicles] chimes in.”
The purpose of RFERL is to produce news items that are covertly critical of the enemy. It adds up with other resources to paint a negative image of the enemy.