How To Win An Information War…
That’s actually the title of a book I’m reading at the moment…
On a side note, it’s a really good book and I’d recommend it if you like non-fiction. It’s about this guy who was responsible for a certain amount of the British propaganda and if you can raise a few million then I’m sure that it would make an excellent film… One of the people in the book is Ian Fleming of James Bond fame and, although he only has a minor role, it would probably be enough to make it a selling point and…
Anyway, I was staring at the book and thinking I should open it and finish when I suddenly went: “Yep, that’s it! That’s the whole problem in a nutshell…”
It’s not about the truth anymore; it’s about winning the information war. “Flood the zone with shit,” said Steve Bannon and it’s one of the few things he got right.
The issue, of course, isn’t about whether I’m the best-looking man in Australia. The issue is that you have wasted your time pointing out that almost nobody agrees with that statement and while you’re pointing out that obvious fact, I’ll respond with looks are just a matter of opinion and who are you to impose your ideas on me when… And even though you’ve interrupted me as soon as you think of a good response to that, the fact is you are engaging with me in a pointless debate instead of doing something useful.
Speaking of pointless debates, at what point do we all acknowledge that there’s something of a blood sport quality about political debates. I mean, surely it would be better to have just put Joe and Donald into the Coliseum and let them wrestle in some sort of tag team where they just tag when they run out of energy… Ok, that would put Donald at a disadvantage because he hasn’t named his running mate yet but surely Rupert would be prepared to stand by and jump into the ring when tagged.
Political debates are a bit like job interviews. I can think of several where I was awesome but it was pretty clear that they’d already made up their mind to give it to someone else; I can also think of several where I wasn’t so impressive but the job was mine for the taking because they knew me and knew that I’d do a good job so what did it matter if I paused too long when they asked me how I handled conflict in the workplace before saying, “What have you been told and which bastard was it?” Of course we all laughed and pretended it was a joke, but I knew that it was Dave and I made a mental note to…
But back to political debates… They make about as much sense as picking your team for this week’s AFL game by asking the various players what they offer and why they should be selected. It might give you something to think about but it’s probably more relevant to consider the fact that the player failed to lay a single tackle even though he had plenty of opportunities when his direct opponent had the ball so many times compared to his three possessions…
Anyway, we’ve moved on from US politics and we’ve had the amazingly impressive performance in the UK election of the Reform Party. Nigel Farage – one of the driving forces behind Brexit – managed to do outstandingly well and to help his party to deliver a massive 13 seats which is a big number compared to their zero seats beforehand. If they could repeat this every election for the next few elections, they’d have nearly as many as the Tory party and they could be the main opposition party by the year 2060. But it was impressive because a few of the papers were more impressed with that than Labour winning in a landslide. Of course, it’s really clear that Labour didn’t do anything all that impressive. This was an example of the Conservative Party showing their financial acumen because clearly every one of them from Boris to Liz Truss to Rishi had placed a large bet on Labour winning and worked every day to ensure that happened!!
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14 comments
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Andrew Smith -
corvusboreus -
wam -
Patricia -
Truth Teller -
Clakka -
New Bruce -
corvusboreus -
John C -
Terence Mills -
paul walter -
Rossleigh -
New England Cocky -
Canguro
Return to home pageFarage has been long platformed by RW MSM including BBC, with social media campaigns and followers at the expense of centrist parties.
For example, the Greens have a broad and deep footprint already via councils and some MPs, but get little exposure in RW MSM versus Farage who is constantly platformed for his being both anti-immigrant and anti-EU?
It may not be plain sailing for him, especially if Labour releases an unredacted ‘Russian Influence Report’, while in EU he is viewed as a tool of Putin, Trump and anti-EU/pro-Brexit Tufton St (fossil fuel US Koch/Tanton Network) think tanks, for those wishing for permanent corrupt nativist autocracy for the <1%, see Koch/Heritage Project 2025.
Andrew Smith,
Given France’s recent lurch rightward, i you might be interested in this blast from the not-too-distant past;
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-39478066.amp
Farage is an ultra-mini trump but le pen could be a powerful trump?
ps
wow, corvus,
“I don’t hide that, to an extent, I admire Vladimir Putin (…) We must develop a relationship with Moscow, we share many common interests, both on the civilizational and the strategic levels”
Far right, far left and the loonies care not what or where as long as it is useful.
Have I missed something?
From the stats Rossleigh, it looks as though Reform UK actually landed 5 seats, although they had predicted that they would land 13.
They did run second in 103 seats though. So they split the far right vote much of which it is guessed that would have gone to the Tories if Reform UK had not had candidates.
Correct @Patricia. Live tracker currently has Reform UK on 5 seats.
It seems that many don’t really care about the complexities of the world, the laws, and the enduring efforts to bring universal peace and wellbeing. Instead, after slaving all day for bling and financial entrapment, they are drawn to nightly lounging on their arses transfixed by pulp from the likes of the ‘Holywood’ machine, reinforced by puff from the mainstream media. Celebrities being their gods, gravitas is ranked by fear resolution and ‘magic wand’ outcomes, oeuvres of painted sexuality and grit, backed by plastic props, greenscreens, CGI, history and futures warped by the will of marketing engineers. Engineering in a manic competition grasping at the $billions available through the feckless advertisers of corporate giants. Their only concern is for churn. All soon to be usurped by AI, and the enactment of blind faith.
Who can blame those increasingly exhausted lounge lizards as, in desperation, they live out their absolutism drawn from the implanted video grabs constituting their dreams, nightmares and imagination. The discombobulation implanted in their egos and indeed their ids needs to be resolved somehow, it seems by narcotic, nihilism and intensified worship.
Estranged from ventures in the tangible world, and from there, determined reason, it seems there’s a penchant for the circus and the painted ponies going up and down and round and round. With aspiring politicians lining up for a ride before retiring to the stage as Bugs & Lola Bunny, Elmer & Mrs Fudd and Daffy & Melissa Duck.
Where once it was taking the trap or shanks’s pony home from the Music Hall or Vaudeville, for 50+ years now it’s lounge lizards at home locked to the box and looney tunes.
Perhaps the original First Nations’ and new quantum physics cosmos of timelessness would serve us better than aspiration.
That’s all folks.
“How to win an Information War”
Herr What’shisface showed the world how that is done way back in WW2, after the bombing of Dresden, when the number of German dead were enlarged by ten times, to 250,000 from the actual 25,000 in order to increase the tide of public support for the nazi’s in the USA. It worked too, to the extent that churchill did not reconise the efforts of Bomber Command in his Victory Day speech, and the Bomber Command Campaign Medal and Memorial were only established in 2012. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAF_Bomber_Command_Memorial. (churchil was a shite bloke, but that is another story)
I remember doing debating at high school. Way back when we were allowed to be taught stuff and “feelings” were not part of the curriculum. Our topic was “religion”, or more exactly, the existence of a sepreme being. The teams were picked from those who could string a decent sentence together, but the twist was that the religious attendees had to argue the NO side, and those of us who didn’t belive had to argue YES. It conjured up al sorts of dilemmas, and some decent research too, but none of the abuse that is now the first if not only resort of any discussion.
“Flood the zone with shit”. What a load of absolute cocky shit.
All that it proves is that the mainstream media, the newsfeeds, the evening newsdrivel, and any broadsheet “opinion writers” are about as low as a journalistic career can get. “Forget the facts, reality, and any semblance of truth, we have a master to serve and an objectionable, scheming, psychopathic criminal to be elected as prez. Let’s do our jobs.” (And lo. The screwer from the sewer was duly erected lord high deity of the holy order of orange hairy rodents.)
Weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Where? Who? What?
“That red-head in charge in Australia is a WOMAN. “Ditch the Witch”
I don’t know wheter any of you other dear readers have been aware, but the “zone” has shifted.
As a result of the actions of Hammas on October 7 last year, and the counter actions by the israeli armed forces since then, the people of Planet Earth have been forced to “pick a side” over the unimmaginable loss of human life. Nearly 2000 on one side, and potentially 50,000 as a result on the other. ALL OF THIS should be condemned. And the killing should just STOP !
Protests have occurred around the world, but let me focus on Australia. My home.
Peaceful protestors have been forcibly removed from universities. Parliament has been disrupted. Motions have been moved, amended, debated with intensity and heat. Voted on. Floors have been crossed. Principles have been broken and expulsions have occurred. Political milage has been made, or at least attempted. Out various mainstrem newsrags have argued with great fury and rage that a muslim senator sholud be “sent back home” and bullshit, bullshit, bullshit……
And while all of this has been going on, and at this point I will stress it has been AT THE INSTIGATION AND AGITATION OF THE GREENS, The luvverly Plibbers, minister for the Environment, (you know, the Water, Trees, Land, Furry Creatures and Fish and Birds) has quietly slipped through approval for expansions to existing Coal Mines in QLD and NSW, approval for a huge Fracking operation in QLD, and the Expansion of offshore gas exploration and extraction off WA.
“Flood the zone with Shit” ? Works every time.
New Bruce,
Cynical reality is that the ALP is wedged between the influences of both donor corporations and member unions founded in primary resource extraction, so an appointment to the ALP environment ministry can kindof serve as a form of purgatory/penance for potential alternative PMs.
Love your work Rossleigh!
It was suggested on Insiders that if we had a tussle between two senior citizens as is occurring in the US, the comparison would be, based on age, John Howard and Paul Keating.
Farage is mindless populist. I wonder what AI will do as to openess accountablity etc.
Quite right, Patricia. I was using the projected figures at the time of writing and not the actual. Still, we all have to agree that if thirteen seats was a massive result then five is only eight seats short of that and what’s another eight seats that you didn’t win when you failed to win over six hundred!
@ New Bruce: Murdoch Media Monopoly (MMM) is only interested in promoting ”The Wisdom of Rupert” and his life-long quest to destroy OUR ABC. Both major political parties have bent over for this objective to the detriment of the nation, so thinking people now rely upon independent media such as AIMN, Pearls & Irritations plus Independent Australia to name just three credible sources.
Since 1974 Rupert has only had one political instruction to his editors; ”I don’t care what you say, make them (LABOR) look bad”. Consequently every journalist in Australia follows this mantra because about 90% of the declining number of mastheads are owned by MMM.
Now OUR ABC has been infiltrated by third rate Murdoch flunkies masquerading as scribblers to maintain the deliberately biased anti-LABOR presentation as ”soft propaganda” ….. just like Germany 1933 – 1945.
Cocky, this link to Jonathan Green’s July essay in The Monthly… titled ‘Two weeks at Holt Street‘, paywalled, but it might let you in.
A long but informative read in the sense of discussing how News Corp operates; for example, the following clip…
“It’s one of the issues Eric Beecher grapples with in his book The Men Who Killed the News. In it, he quotes another News luminary, former Sunday Times editor Andrew Neil. At News, writes Neil …”You are not a director or a manager or an editor: you are a courtier at the court of the Sun King – rewarded with money and status by a grateful King as long as you serve his purpose, dismissed outright or demoted to a remote corner of the empire when you have ceased to please him or outlived your usefulness.”
“Obeisance”, says Beecher, is the cornerstone of News Corp culture. And at the end of the day it’s only money that talks. “Apart from The Wall Street Journal, all the others are – commercially – almost at the scrap heap. They know that, whatever they’re worth now, in a year’s time they are going to be worth even less and will be far less saleable, to the extent that they’re saleable at all.”