The Independent UK's Front Page Today (Image & Article): "Obama And The Fight For America's Soul"

[Turborama]

Obama Under Pressure in Test of Principle That Could Define his Presidency

Politicians are stirring up opposition to a proposed mosque near Ground Zero. The result: a vital examination of American values

By Rupert Cornwell

Saturday, August 21 2010

Listening to the Great Mosque Debate, you'd imagine that minarets and domes are about to rise on the exact spot where the Twin Towers stood – and that at the appointed hour, a muezzin's voice will soon ring out, summoning a city to bow to the faith of Mohamed Atta and his fellow hijackers.

The truth is a little different. Essentially, the New York authorities have given planning permission for a proposed Islamic cultural centre that, apart from a place of worship, will contain, inter alia, basketball courts, a restaurant, and babysitting facilities, as well as a memorial to the victims of 9/11. And all this is contingent on funding being secured for the project.

Moreover, the 13-storey construction would be two blocks away from Ground Zero. In a vast and variegated city, two blocks can feel like a dozen miles. But why let facts get in the way of a good story, particularly when it's election season and there is pandering to be done, prejudices to be stirred and votes to be won? American politics is often an unedifying spectacle. But rarely has it plumbed such depths as now in the midst of this typically news-less August.

Even so, were this merely a matter of party politics, the affair would not be so serious. The real risk is that it will reinforce the impression that the US, contrary to every assurance given since 9/11, is opposed to Islam, period. Which is precisely the argument of a certain Osama bin Laden.

Full article: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/obama-under-pressure-in-test-of-principle-that-could-define-his-presidency-2058051.html

Follow up article....

'People against it are just not open-minded. I think they have been brainwashed'

On the ground

By David Usborne, US Editor

Saturday, August 21 2010

"We managed to keep this civilised!" declares Vince Conti, moments after a complete stranger has called him a bigot. "I am so upset," growls his opponent Yasser Aggour. "This is latent bigotry exploding."

The two men – one Roman Catholic the other Muslim – have collided outside the abandoned Burlington Coat Factory discount store on Park Place in Lower Manhattan which is slated to be converted into a Muslim community centre and mosque. They are navigating the same quandary that has gripped the whole country and consumed national political discourse. Should a mosque open here so close to the site of the 9/11 attacks?

"I am not anti-Islam," insists Mr Conti, 52, who perhaps went a bit far by suggesting that he would respect Mr Aggour more if he would just "turn in" his Muslim brothers he knows to be terrorists. "But why can't they move it to a different location? This is such a sensitive place." He gestures towards Ground Zero, where American flags flutter from cranes that have come to rest for the night.

=snip=

On this night, however, Mr Conti finds himself in something of a minority. Handing out flyers to a strip club just around the corner, a young man originally from Morocco, who calls himself Jay, scoffs at the opponents to the mosque. "This country is a melting pot. If they build it right here it actually would be a good thing. People against it are just not open-minded. I think they have been brainwashed."

Full article: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/people-against-it-are-just-not-openminded-i-think-they-have-been-brainwashed-2058049.html

[smalll]

1. What the fuck does the goddamn "Independent" of Britain know about American politics?

It's a house organ of the latte-liberal upper-middle-classes of England. Sure, they know EXACTLY what will play over here, stateside. :eyes:

[Turborama]

2. Sometimes it's important to read things from outside of one's sphere of influence

Especially when matters such as this are concerned.

The point is, this story has gone global and it is now front page news on a British broadsheet national newsppaper.

The image of America in Muslims' eyes around the world is being tarnished by what's coming out of the mouths of the reich wing more than most people think.

Check out the whole article for the context of what I just said, especially the last 2 paragraphs.

Also, check this OP out...

Faux Is Very Dangerous! Their Propaganda War On Islam Is Broadcast Unfiltered ALL OVER THE WORLD
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8976871



One thing you may not know about the Independent, it was one of only two papers in Britain that was against the Iraq war from the offset (the other one was the tabloid Mirror).

The paper took a strong editorial position against the 2003 Invasion of Iraq and aspects of US and UK foreign policy related to the War on Terrorism following the September 11 attacks.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Independent#Political_stance

It was tempting to respond to your reply with the similar kind of hostility it contained but I think it's important that we have civil discussions about such important matters as how America is percieved by the rest of the world.

[ihavenobias]

11. Yes.

The End

[Rhiannon12866]

19. Well said.

It's productive to see ourselves as others see us, especially since this wedge issue has become such a "tempest in a teapot," discussed in every possible venue 24/7. At this point, an outside objective opinion is more than welcome... x(

[Rosa Luxemburg]

9. you like Rupert's Sun better?

[Tarheel_Dem]

10. You do know that there are British reporters/journalists living in this country, right?

They live and work here, but their credentials belong to the UK. You also know that we have US reporters and journalists all over the world, right? They work abroad, but their work appears in US media? :eyes:

[Phx_Dem]

17. Sadly, it appears they know more than the American media trolls

[elleng]

3. 'The real risk is

that it will reinforce the impression that the US, contrary to every assurance given since 9/11, is opposed to Islam, period. Which is precisely the argument of a certain Osama bin Laden.'

[Karenina]

4. That is no longer a "risk."

It's happening. A rolling wave. America's ever present racism is being exploited by Bernays' evil spawn and the target is Islam.

[Turborama]

5. I hadn't heard of that character until you mentioned him

Looking at his Wikipedia now. Thanks for the head's up.

I bet you know who said this....

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”


For anyone who doesn't, see http://thinkexist.com/quotation/-if_you_tell_a_lie_big_enough_and_keep_repeating/345877.html">here for the answer.

[Karenina]

7. You're SO GOOD!!!

:loveya:

And you DID catch wind that Gerd has been invited to join Newt, the walrus and not-so-bright (on 9/11, I think...)
You know Gerd (de Wildees ?) der Wild who was banned for a while from crossing Britain's borders cuz they couldn't handle the stench. Coming to a media blitz near you! :hide:

[Turborama]

8. Thanks, right back atcha!

:hi:

Have you seen this OP yet? If not, I'd be interested to hear what you think of the OP itself and post #21, too: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8976871

I actually posted the news about Wilders trip to NYC in LBN: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4511859

[elleng]

14. Been posting about 'propaganda,' Bernays, Goebbels for years,

hoping that DUers would digest it, and recognize what Dems have failed miserably to do, tailor it to our needs, Lakoff/Frame it, and use it against the damned lying Repug propagandists.

Thanks for this opportunity, Turbor.

[Turborama]

20. I'd be really interested to read your previous posts...

Can you give me some links, please? And/or maybe add them to your Journal for easy access?


You're most welcome, thanks for your input below and thanks in advance for any links.... :fistbump:

[elleng]

21. Will see what I can find, Turbor, was fascinated (and dismayed) with my 'findings.)

[elleng]

22. Not one of mine, but just found this. Looks interesting.

Propaganda (1928) by Edward Bernays- Introduction by Noam Chomsky

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x335726

[Turborama]

23. Thanks! That looks like a really good book, actually. I'm going to turn into a PDF for a read later

Funnily enough, I just posted this as a reply in an OP I've started in GD that continues this discussion about propaganda:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8993276">Jon Stewart: "Is FOX News a Terrorist Command Center?" (Daily Show Video & Related Articles)


"I consider radio to be the most modern and the most crucial instrument for influencing the masses.." was a famous and important quote from Goebbels.

Volksempfänger

The Volksempfänger (German for "people's receiver") was a range of radio receivers developed by Otto Griessing at the request of Joseph Goebbels.

The purpose of the Volksempfänger-program was to make radio reception technology affordable to the general public. Joseph Goebbels realized the great propaganda potential of this relatively new medium and thus considered widespread availability of receivers highly important.


Volksempfaenger & 1936 Nazi propaganda poster, promoting
the use of the Volksempfänger

More: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volksempf%C3%A4nger

More on the use of the radio by Goebbels' "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ministry_of_Public_Enlightenment_and_Propaganda#Propaganda">Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda"....

Radio

The radio was an important tool in Nazi propaganda and it has been argued that it was the Nazis who pioneered the use of what was still a relatively new technology as a tool of genocide. Certainly the Nazis recognised the importance of radio in disseminating their message and to that end Goebbels approved a scheme whereby the production and distribution of millions of cheap radio sets was subsidised by the government. By the start of the Second World War over 70% of German households had one of these radios, which were deliberately limited in range in order to prevent them picking up foreign broadcasts. These so-called Volksempfänger featured little beyond propaganda and speeches. Radio broadcasts were also played over loudspeakers in public places and workplaces, where listeners were frequently observed by radio wardens.

As well as domestic broadcasts, the Nazi regime also used radio to deliver its message to both occupied territories and enemy states. One of the main targets was the United Kingdom to where William Joyce broadcast regularly, gaining the nickname 'Lord Haw-Haw' in the process. Joyce first appeared on German radio on 6 September 1939 reading the news in English but soon became noted for his often mischievous propaganda broadcasts. Joyce was executed in 1946 for treason. Although the most notorious, and most regularly heard, of the UK propagandists, Joyce was not the only broadcaster, with others such as Norman Baillie-Stewart, Jersey-born teacher Pearl Vardon, British Union of Fascists members Leonard Banning and Susan Hilton, Barry Payne Jones of the Link and Alexander Fraser Grant, whose show was aimed specifically at Scotland, also broadcasting through the 'New British Broadcasting Service'.

Broadcasts were also made to the United States, notably through Robert Henry Best and 'Axis Sally' Mildred Gillars. Best, a freelance journalist based in Vienna, was initially arrested following the German declaration of war on the US but before long he became a feature on propaganda radio, attacking the influence of the Jews in the US and the leadership of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He would later be sentenced to life imprisonment for treason. Gilders, a teacher in Germany, mostly broadcast on similar themes as well as peppering her speech with allegations of infidelity against the wives of servicemen. Her most notorious broadcast was the 'Vision of Invasion' radio play, broadcast immediately prior to D-Day, from the perspective of an American mother who dreamed that her soldier son died violently in Normandy.

France also received broadcasts from Radio-Stuttgart, where Paul Ferdonnet, an anti-Semitic journalist, was the main voice during the Phoney War. Following the occupation Radio Paris and Radio Vichy became the main organs of propaganda, with leading far right figures such as Jacques Doriot, Philippe Henriot and Jean Hérold-Paquis regularly speaking in support of the Nazis. Others who broadcast included Gerald Hewitt, a British citizen who lived most of his life in Paris and had been associated with Action Française. The use of domestic broadcasters intended to galvanise support for occupation was also used in Belgium, where Ward Hermans regularly spoke in support of the Nazis from his base in Bremen, and the Italian Social Republic, to where Giovanni Preziosi broadcast a vehemently anti-Semitic show from his base in Munich. Pro-Nazi broadcasts were even heard in North Africa, where Mohammad Amin al-Husayni helped to insure the spread of Nazi ideas in the Arabic language.


Links to references here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_propaganda#Radio

[elleng]

24. Excellent! VolksWagon and Volksempfänger!!!

[elleng]

16. A bit more about 'propaganda'

'19th and 20th centuries

With the beginnings of the mass media in the 19th century, war rape was sometimes used as propaganda by European colonialists to justify putting down rebellions. The most notable example was perhaps during the Indian Rebellion of 1857, known as "India's First War of Independence" to the Indians and as the "Sepoy Mutiny" to the British, where Indian sepoys rebelled against the British East India Company's rule in India. While incidents of rape committed by Indian rebels against English women or girls were generally uncommon during the rebellion, this was exaggerated to great effect by the British media to justify continued British colonialism in the Indian subcontinent.<18> At the time, British newspapers had printed various accounts about English women and girls being raped by the Indian rebels, but with little physical evidence to support these stories. It was later found that some of these accounts were false stories created to paint some of the native people of India as savages who need to be civilized by British colonialists, a mission sometimes known as "The White Man's Burden". One such account published by The Times, regarding an incident where 48 English girls as young as 10–14 were supposedly raped by the Indian rebels in Delhi, was criticized as a false propaganda story by Karl Marx, who pointed out that the story was reported by a clergyman in Bangalore, far from the events of the rebellion.<19>

Gabriel Tarde's Laws of Imitation (1890) and Gustave Le Bon's The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind (1897) were two of the first codifications of propaganda techniques, which influenced many writers afterward, including Sigmund Freud. Hitler's Mein Kampf is heavily influenced by Le Bon's theories. Journalist Walter Lippmann, in Public Opinion (1922) also worked on the subject, as well as the American advertising pioneer and founder of the field of public relations Edward Bernays, a nephew of Freud, who wrote the book Propaganda early in the 20th century.<20>.

During World War I, Lippmann and Bernays were hired by then United States President, Woodrow Wilson, to participate in the Creel Commission, the mission of which was to sway popular opinion in favor of entering the war, on the side of the United Kingdom. The Creel Commission provided themes for speeches by "four-minute men" at public functions, and also encouraged censorship of the American press. The Commission was so unpopular that after the war, Congress closed it down without providing funding to organize and archive its papers.

The war propaganda campaign of Lippmann and Bernays produced within six months such an intense anti-German hysteria as to permanently impress American business (and Adolf Hitler, among others) with the potential of large-scale propaganda to control public opinion. Bernays coined the terms "group mind" and "engineering consent", important concepts in practical propaganda work. The file Century of the Self by Adam Curtis documents the immense influence of these ideas on public relations and politics throughout the last century.

The current public relations industry is a direct outgrowth of Lippmann's and Bernays' work and is still used extensively by the United States government. For the first half of the 20th century Bernays and Lippmann themselves ran a very successful public relations firm. World War II saw continued use of propaganda as a weapon of war, both by Hitler's propagandist Joseph Goebbels and the British Political Warfare Executive, as well as the United States Office of War Information.

In the early 2000s, the United States government developed and freely distributed a video game known as America's Army. The stated intention of the game is to encourage players to become interested in joining the U.S. Army.'

Much more here. Note the Freud connection.

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

[Turborama]

6. That is basically the crux of the piece.

Also, in the last two paragraphs...

For as David Ramadan, a Republican and an Arab-American, put it on public radio here the other day, "If two blocks is too close, is four blocks acceptable? Or six blocks? Or eight blocks? Does our party believe that one can only practise his or her religion in certain places, which define boundaries, and away from the disapproving glances of some other citizens?"

If that is the case, millions more Muslims around the world will understandably take the view that America believes that Islam is an inferior faith, to be circumscribed and marginalised. The extremists will indeed find new recruits, and the meaning of 9/11 will be eroded. For Ground Zero is indeed a place of unspeakable wickedness, but not a place of Christian martyrdom. Among the victims that day were 300 Muslims as well.

[northamericancitizen]

12. K & R

[TheKentuckian]

13. K&R

[pampango]

15. The European far right thrives on Islamophobia. Let's hope it doesn't grow there or here. n/t

[Turborama]

18. Someone's posted an article about that

In reply to a LBN article: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=4512491&mesg_id=4513056

My reply was about the "English Defence League" exploding in popularity in their 1st year of existence.

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

It has grown/is growing over there and it's happening in the States now, thanks to Faux et al's propaganda.

[Douglas Carpenter]

25. . Now on youtube - Christiane Amanpour interviews Daisy Khan and Rabbi Joy Levitt

Daisy Khan is the wife of Imam Feisal. Rabbi Joy Levitt is from the Jewish Community Center of Manhattan


now on The DU Video Forum:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=4513834&mesg_id=4513893

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fE_XnmQRDPA

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