“If the law is against you, pound on the facts; if the facts are against you, pound on the law; if the law and the facts are against you, pound on the table.”--An old lawyers’ cliché; image from
BELOW IMAGES
Illustrations by E. Benyaminson for Hello, I'm Robot! by Stanislav Zigunenko (Russia, 1989)
PUBLIC DIPLOMACY
'Major political drama' unfolding in Pak: US - Daily News & Analysis: “Arguing that in 11 months of the Obama administration, US regained popularity in Pakistan, [US special representative for Pakistan and Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke]
said, ‘We are much more popular... and secretary (of State Hillary) Clinton's trip had an immediate effect on public opinion.’ ‘Are we where we should be? No. Are we getting better? Yes. Are we strengthening our public diplomacy, our public affairs programs? We have to, and we're doing that,’ he said. ‘And there will be a continuous stream of visitors to the region next year.’"al-Hurra and Propaganda - Young Activist, One Humanity: "Most Americans have never heard of Al-Hurra, for good reason. The Arabic language station, based in northern Virginia and funded by the U.S with a $100 million yearly budget, is legally barred from broadcasting in the U.S by the Smith-Mundt Act which stipulates government funded propaganda cannot target domestic audiences. Of course not many people outside the U.S watch the station either. ... Past the incompetence of this operation ... lies an important issue: why is the U.S government funding propaganda broadcasts to the Arab world. ... Americans are easy to propagandize. In the U.S, the media market is saturated, indeed dominated, by outlets subservient to U.S interests. That is not the case in the Arab world. Juxtaposed against the images of a more ruthless American power being exercised visible on mainstream networks, commentaries by American spokespeople only serve to add hypocrisy to their government's perception in the Middle East. ... How much anti-U.S propaganda does it take to radicalize someone whose relative has been killed by an American soldier in Iraq, who has been tortured by an American backed dictatorship, whose neighbor's home has been destroyed by an American supplied missile? No amount of spin will change that."
I honestly don't know if I could reason with John Bolton - William Slack, Media, Politics, College, and More (MPCM): “I see nothing but policy criticism of Cheney, with personal attacks to boot.
The difference is that Cheney's response seems to be that anything short of what he wants will risk American lives. ... I do think Cheney has good motivations. I just don't understand how he thinks we'll have anything close to decent intelligence capabilities with a consensus that we're the bad guys. Public diplomacy matters; it's the difference between a tip and a car bomb.”George W. Bush Institute To Co-Produce Public Television Show "Ideas In Action" - Danny Shea, Huffington Post: “The George W. Bush Institute -- the ‘action- oriented think tank’ that is part of Bush's Presidential Center -- will co-produce a public television show hosted by its executive director, Ambassador James Glassman, in a rare convergence of public broadcasting and a partisan research organization. ‘Ideas in Action’ will premiere in February and will be co-produced by Andrew Walworth, who produces PBS's ‘Think Tank.’ Glassman, the former Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy under President Bush and one-time moderator of CNN's ‘Capital Gang Sunday,’ will lead a discussion on public policy issues in front of a live audience at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. He will remain executive director of the Institute.”
Bihar has changed, yet more needs to be done: Anurag - Bihar Times: “It is true that the image of Bihar has somewhat changed yet a lot more needs to be done.
The literacy rate is abysmally low and needs to be improved. Technical educational institutions are coming up. These are the views of Anurag Sinha of International Public Diplomacy Research, Canada. He said that if there is good leadership the state will develop in no time."RELATED ITEMS
CBS: ‘Anti-Muslim Propaganda’ To Blame for U.S. Homegrown Terrorism - Kyle Drennen, newsbusters.org
Perpetuating Propaganda Prevents Peace – Jewish Issues Watchdog: From International Analyst Network, 23 Dec 2009, by David Singer: Arab propaganda has created the impression that Israel is located on 78% of Palestine whilst
the West Bank and Gaza comprise the remaining 22% of Palestine - thereby claiming that the Jews possess sovereignty in the major part of Palestine. In fact Israel is only 16% of historic Palestine, the West Bank and Gaza is 6% of historic Palestine and Jordan is 78% of historic Palestine which substantiates that it is in fact the Arabs that possess sovereignty in the major part of Palestine.The First, Best after-the-fact French Resistance Propaganda Film - Justin Stewart, thelmagazine.com: Since November 18, MoMA has been screening films in a series called "Best Years: Going to the Movies, 1945-46." Making a claim for any art form's peak year(s) is always a subjective (and slightly pointless) exercise, but it's the going to the movies part that may have reached a definitive peak of excitement and fascination in those years of transition from the all-consuming war effort to the confusing comedown of peace. There's a varying degree of propaganda in each film here, whether it's the paranoia in a straightforward noir (The Dark Corner), the parental scare tactics of Where Are Your Children?, or the blatant pro-Bolshevik absurdity of The North Star. Russian and Swiss films share space with the U.S. productions, and an American-British co-production, The True Glory (co-directed by Carol Reed), is as powerful, educating, and moving as propaganda gets.
The series is presented in tandem with the release of a book by the same title, by Charles and Mirella Jona Affron, who have introduced several of the screenings. Mr. Affron introduces today’s showing of one of the most interesting films in the series, Rene Clement's The Battle of the Rails. This first feature from the director of Forbidden Games, Purple Noon, and Is Paris Burning? was directly sponsored by French Resistance veterans, and it's a stirring and shamelessly biased portrayal of deliberate sabotage performed by French railworkers to cripple the occupying forces.Word of the Day: Propaganda - Daniel Scocco, dailywritingtips.com: Propaganda is any kind of information that is spread to help or harm a specific doctrine, system, person, group and so on. The origin of the word is connected with the “College of the Propaganda,” a school created by Pope Urban VIII to educate priests for missions around the world.
