What Every Saudi Schoolchild Knows

[Dhimmi]

The history of fraud is the key issue. When propaganda is planted in the press it usually takes quite a while to be exposed beyond doubt. When you see stuff in the press you can't always know for sure if it's true or false at the time. It's only later that the truth of the matter sometimes becomes clear.

I believe you're quite right on this, there's also the element of how well it can work too. Propaganda tends to get the banner headlines on day one, truthful clarification gets a small mention on page 32 several months later. By then it's often served it's purpose.
Lappy... Abeline Paradox?

 

[laptop]

Abeline Paradox?

* searches u75 *



* googles *

Nope. Proof copy of a book that's not published 'til September Don't want to say more just yet, 'cos of journalists skimming the boards.

 

[Dhimmi]

Sorry poor spelling...
<cough>
Abilene paradox?

 

[laptop]

Abilene paradox?

Ah. There's a whole book on management out there whose title is the same typo as yours. Perhaps the proofreaders were suffering from a certain unwillingness to challenge recently received wisdom

In the case of the book I've just finished, yes, but more so, since there are references, jobs and quite large sums of money involved in joining the groupthink.

In the case of those who lap up the outpourings of Benador and ignore the small correction on page 32.... I don't think so. The wiki entry, at least, describes a group delusion that arises randomly. Is this a misrepresentation of the paradox?

I see the groupthink involved in accepting such propaganda stories as:

• Primarily driven by a positive desire to reduce the world to neat narratives just like in those satisfying movies;
• Thereby fulfilling the unwritten 5½th Article of the Bill of Rights, "it shall be every citizen's right not to think"; and
• Committed to a particular Good Ending - in this case the Superiority of the Amerikkkan Way and probably its Manifest Destiny to prevail worldwide - and to working backward to fill in textual "evidence" that points to it.

They certainly seem to be crafted as though they were aiming to plug into such a psychological structure.

 

[snorbury]

bush is worse than any religion

 

[laptop]

Ah... perusing the diary of a mathematical physicist of my acquaintaince I come across this: http://www.kingdomcoming.com/

In Kingdom Coming, [Michelle] Goldberg demonstrates how an increasingly bellicose fundamentalism is gaining traction throughout [US] national life, taking us on a tour of the parallel right-wing evangelical culture that is buoyed by Republican political patronage. Deep within the red zones of a divided America, we meet military veterans pledging to seize the nation in Christ’s name, perfidious congressmen courting the confidence of neo-confederates and proponents of theocracy, and leaders of federally funded programs offering Jesus as the solution to the country’s social problems.

 

[snorbury]

Ah... perusing the diary of a mathematical physicist of my acquaintaince I come across this: http://www.kingdomcoming.com/

my life in a bush of ghosts is me faev. The Jezabel spirit is a right one

 

[tangentlama]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benador_Associates

http://www.benadorassociates.com/

http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/02-17-2005/0003027867

Max Boot, Ismail Cem, Arnaud de Borchgrave, Khalid Durán, John Eibner, Hillel Fradkin, Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. , Michel Gurfinkiel , Alexander M. Haig, Jr. , Khidhir Hamza, Fereydoun Hoveyda, Mansoor Ijaz, Charles Jacobs, Shaykh Kabbani, Stanley H. Kaplan, Martin Kramer, Charles Krauthammer, George Jonas, Michael Ledeen , Kanan Makiya, Paul Marshall, Laurie Mylroie , Azar Nafisi, John O'Sullivan, Richard Perle, Walid Phares, Richard Pipes, Dennis Prager, Tom Rose, A.M. Rosenthal, Barry Rubin, Tashbih Sayyed, Richard O. Spertzel, Amir Taheri, Ruth Wedgwood, R. James Woolsey, Jr. , Meyrav Wurmser
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benador_Associates

Brian Whittaker writes:

f the 28 clients on Ms Benador's books, at least nine are connected with the AEI, the Washington Institute and the Middle East Forum.

Although these three privately-funded organisations promote views from only one end of the political spectrum, the amount of exposure that they get with their books, articles and TV appearances is extraordinary.

The Washington Institute, for example, takes the credit for placing up to 90 articles written by its members - mainly "op-ed" pieces - in newspapers during the last year.

Fourteen of those appeared in the Los Angeles Times, nine in New Republic, eight in the Wall Street Journal, eight in the Jerusalem Post, seven in the National Review Online, six in the Daily Telegraph, six in the Washington Post, four in the New York Times and four in the Baltimore Sun. Of the total, 50 were written by Michael Rubin.

Anyone who has tried offering op-ed articles to a major newspaper will appreciate the scale of this achievement.

The media attention bestowed on these thinktanks is not for want of other experts in the field. American universities have about 1,400 full-time faculty members specialising in the Middle East.

Of those, an estimated 400-500 are experts on some aspect of contemporary politics in the region, but their views are rarely sought or heard, either by the media or government.

"I see a parade of people from these institutes coming through as talking heads [on cable TV]. I very seldom see a professor from a university on those shows," says Juan Cole, professor of history at Michigan University, who is a critic of the private institutes.

"Academics [at universities] are involved in analysing what's going on but they're not advocates, so they don't have the same impetus," he said.

"The expertise on the Middle East that exists in the universities is not being utilised, even for basic information."

Of course, very few academics have agents like Eleana Benador to promote their work and very few are based in Washington - which can make arranging TV appearances , or rubbing shoulders with state department officials a bit difficult.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/elsewhere/journalist/story/0,7792,777100,00.html

 

[tangentlama]

my life in a bush of ghosts is me faev. The Jezabel spirit is a right one

That's Brian Eno counting 1,2,3,4 - not David Byrne.

 

[nino_savatte]

Originally Posted by Johnny Canuck2
I can't verify it for gospel; I merely put it out as a discussion piece. I've never been to Saudi Arabia, much less sat in on a lesson.

It's interesting to note exactly how many of these so-called "discussion pieces" have been posted by Johnny and all of them come from questionable sources or sources whose ideological position has been masked or otherwise disguised, so that the 'articles' appear to be a legitimate concern. It's cheap and fairly transparent what is happeneing here: it's part of the propaganda offensive being waged on the public mind in preparation for a planned invasion/bombing of Iran.

 

[nino_savatte]

The horrible, horrible thing about this kind of propaganda is that it will work - at least among those who subscribe to certain groupthinks, more dangerously if it is accepted more widely.

That is, the withdrawal of the "yellow star" story by the National Post (controlled until last year by Conrad Black) - this will have no effect on those who wanted to believe it in the first place. Only on the reality-based community

* Goes back to the book chapter in which a leading physicist confesses to succumbing to groupthink - and recovers *

If that tack doesn't work JC2 will always pull something else out of the hat like the "French Jews in Flight from France" thread/lie.

 

[nino_savatte]

So you accept the possibility that what is said about the Saudi curriculum might be true?

This looks familiar: try to get someone to agree with the lie by asking this sort of question. In this way the thread starter can claim that the article (or the sentiments that it contains) is legitimate, despite the body of evidence to the contrary.

 

[jayeola]

There is no god but Yuppie and Harvey Nick is his messenger.
- Waitrose is the second Holy Place. You are to make a weekly pilgramage there
- Oh my Sons, listen not to the false god Tesco "the Evil one". As he pileth them high and selleth them cheap.
- Though are to face champgange five times a day, for it is a good region.
- Lo, yeah and verily thou art to drive your 4x4 chariot everywhere, even unto the shortest journey. For thy drivest the economy and there is no evidence of global warming

 

[nino_savatte]

Benador Associates (courtesy of Sourcewatch)

"When historians look back on the United States war in Iraq, they will almost certainly be struck by how a small group of mainly neo-conservative analysts and activists outside the administration were able to shape the US media debate in ways that made the drive to war so much easier than it might have been… But historians would be negligent if they ignored the day-to-day work of one person who, as much as anyone outside the administration, made their media ubiquity possible. Meet Eleana Benador, the Peruvian-born publicist for Perle, Woolsey, Michael Ledeen, Frank Gaffney and a dozen other prominent neo-conservatives whose hawkish opinions proved very hard to avoid for anyone who watched news talk shows or read the op-ed pages of major newspapers over the past 20 months."
— Jim Lobe, The Andean Condor among the Hawks (http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/EH15Aa01.html), Asia Times, August 15, 2003.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Benador_Associates

I see that one of their speakers is Norman Lamont, arch-Thatcherite and pal of Pinochet.

 

[ViolentPanda]

That video's opening titles credit it to MEMRI.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=MEMRI

Who also feature a "special report" on JC's partial interpretation of the how the Saudi educational system functions.

See, it's all very well bringing Judaeophobia and the like to peoples' notice, but when you're parroting stuff that isn't the whole story (and a quick google on "Saudi Arabia education system" brings a wealth of secondary info that shows that JC's OP isn't "the whole story"), then that bring difficulties to, and can be dangerous to all parties.

 

[winterinmoscow]

There is no god but Yuppie and Harvey Nick is his messenger.
- Waitrose is the second Holy Place. You are to make a weekly pilgramage there
- Oh my Sons, listen not to the false god Tesco "the Evil one". As he pileth them high and selleth them cheap.
- Though are to face champgange five times a day, for it is a good region.
- Lo, yeah and verily thou art to drive your 4x4 chariot everywhere, even unto the shortest journey. For thy drivest the economy and there is no evidence of global warming

I'm going to print that out an stick it on the wall!

 

[cemertyone]

No I don't.

Do you have something that says they do, or are you just pulling this out of your ass?

I will post up the link to the survey ( conducted by an isreali institue in the last two months) when i do will you take your star of david out of your ARSE and see that its not all a one way street.
In fact if you checked my posts you can see if for yourself.If your to lazy to do that then i will post it tuesday (tomorrow being a Bank holiday and the public libaries being closed....

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

JC I linked a bunch of evidence to that effect a couple of pages back.

If you're too lazy to go and look, I don't propose to spoon-feed you.

You may think you did, but what you actually did, was post two articles about Freedom House. There's no link there about your favourite whipping boy, Benador Associates.

Also, the evidence against Freedom House, founded by Eleanor Roosevelt, is equivocal, and your sources are as slanted as any that you rail against.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

That video's opening titles credit it to MEMRI.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=MEMRI

So what? Are you saying that that interview never happened?

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

The horrible, horrible thing about this kind of propaganda is that it will work - at least among those who subscribe to certain groupthinks, more dangerously if it is accepted more widely.

You accept that right wing american groups spread anti muslim propaganda, but you can't accept that muslims might spread anti jewish propaganda.

That's what's known as being 'biased'.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

The horrible, horrible thing about this kind of propaganda is that it will work - at least among those who subscribe to certain groupthinks, more dangerously if it is accepted more widely.

That is, the withdrawal of the "yellow star" story by the National Post (controlled until last year by Conrad Black) - this will have no effect on those who wanted to believe it in the first place. Only on the reality-based community

* Goes back to the book chapter in which a leading physicist confesses to succumbing to groupthink - and recovers *

Bernie said this story was promulgated by Benador. As it turns out, that's wrong: it was the National Post that started the story.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Brian Whittaker writes:

Yes, her speakers have a right wing slant. That doesn't mean there is a conspiracy to spread falsehood. There are also left wing thinktanks and media associations. Do you accuse them of the same duplicity?

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Who also feature a "special report" on JC's partial interpretation of the how the Saudi educational system functions.

See, it's all very well bringing Judaeophobia and the like to peoples' notice, but when you're parroting stuff that isn't the whole story (and a quick google on "Saudi Arabia education system" brings a wealth of secondary info that shows that JC's OP isn't "the whole story"), then that bring difficulties to, and can be dangerous to all parties.

Do you deny the existence of anti jewish propaganda in muslim middle eastern countries?

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

I will post up the link to the survey ( conducted by an isreali institue in the last two months) when i do will you take your star of david out of your ARSE and see that its not all a one way street.
In fact if you checked my posts you can see if for yourself.If your to lazy to do that then i will post it tuesday (tomorrow being a Bank holiday and the public libaries being closed....

Fuck off, racist.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Do you deny the existence of anti jewish propaganda in muslim middle eastern countries?

Wow, did I say or imply that?

Y'know what? I didn't.

I wonder what possible reason you could have had to ask that question rather than something less loaded?

Hmmmm...

To answer your "question". No, I don't "deny the existence of anti jewish propaganda in muslim middle eastern countries". Nothing in my post even implied that.

But you knew that anyway.

By the way, "jewish" usually has a capital "J". It's considered polite.

I mean, I hate to have to imply that you're denigrating Jews, Johnny...

 

[ViolentPanda]

Fuck off, racist.

Jews aren't a "race" (whatever R18 claims), we're a culture and a religion.

Do try harder.

 

[obanite]

Original article: http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=398274b5-9210-43e4-ba59-fa24f4c66ad4&k=28534

Denial by Iranian government: http://www.islamonline.com/cgi-bin/news_service/world_full_story.asp?service_id=2214

Maurice Motamed, representative of the Jewish minority in the Islamic Consultative Assembly (Majlis), dismissed the accusation as "complete fabrication."

Motamed noted that the alleged dress code was nothing by a lie, accusing those who believed and circulated that lies of using the fake report to achieve certain political ends.

Motamed, moreover, said that such claims are an insult to the religious minorities living in Iran.

As expected, the U.S., together with Canada and Australia were quick to launch a severe attack against the Iranian government, already under mounting international pressure over its nuclear program.

Although they admitted they had no further details on the Non-Muslims dress code claim, the three states didn’t hesitate to launch an offensive, yet in separate statements, with Washington and Ottawa seizing the chance to evoke the memory of the atrocities of Nazi Germany.

 

[obanite]

"Iran: Yellow badge report false"
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3252934,00.html

(That's a Jewish news website by the looks of it)

 

[obanite]

Ok now to the OP - a bit of background on Nina Shea, Director of the Center For Religious Freedom (who published the report):

Shea, a longtime associate of Freedom House, is a member of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, a quasi-governmental body that is heavily involved in Sudan issues and was formerly headed by Elliott Abrams. The commission is closely tied to Freedom House and is considered a creature of the Christian Right. (5)

Shea's rightwing ties date back to the 1980s, when she worked for the Puebla Institute, an outfit aimed at fighting the influence of liberation theology in Latin America. Puebla was widely considered to have collaborated with the Nicaraguan Contras. In fact, former Nicaraguan contra leader Edgar Chamorro once said that Puebla Institute's founder, Humberto Belli, had a working relationship with the contra leadership.

Sounds like a nice respectable type.

 

[Dhimmi]

Ah. There's a whole book on management out there whose title is the same typo as yours. Perhaps the proofreaders were suffering from a certain unwillingness to challenge recently received wisdom
In the case of the book I've just finished, yes, but more so, since there are references, jobs and quite large sums of money involved in joining the groupthink.
In the case of those who lap up the outpourings of Benador and ignore the small correction on page 32.... I don't think so. The wiki entry, at least, describes a group delusion that arises randomly. Is this a misrepresentation of the paradox?

I see the groupthink involved in accepting such propaganda stories as:

• Primarily driven by a positive desire to reduce the world to neat narratives just like in those satisfying movies;
• Thereby fulfilling the unwritten 5½th Article of the Bill of Rights, "it shall be every citizen's right not to think"; and
• Committed to a particular Good Ending - in this case the Superiority of the Amerikkkan Way and probably its Manifest Destiny to prevail worldwide - and to working backward to fill in textual "evidence" that points to it.

They certainly seem to be crafted as though they were aiming to plug into such a psychological structure.

I phoned a bar in Abilene, Texas to find out how to pronounce it properly, I should have actually asked how to spell it. The biggest and best examples of group think do seem to feature cash and jobs, although I have considered it might be an handy route for those wishing to become corrupt but with an effective alibi. "It wasn't us your honour it was organisational malaise."
Sorry I was so vague, I wasn't applying it to Benador, more you mentioned cake so I mentioned biscuit... I'm not sure about mixing randomness with AP, but I'm not educated enough in either to be able to wonder why I think that though. I'm even less sure about anything in Wikipedia.
I agree with your group think list but would add; Harsh denial of other points of view or dissent.