There are few realists who will argue that the MSM isn’t functioning as a propaganda bureau for Obama. There are a few operatives for the Left who complain with righteous indignation that media is in the “tank” for the GOP, but no one in touch with reality takes this outlandish diversion seriously. Most people are intuitive enough to recognize blatant dishonesty, especially when the subject matter requires the reader/viewer to ignore common sense to accept the premise of the deception.
Vogue is the medium, Asma al-Assad (wife of the Syria’s hereditary dictator for life) is the subject, and deception is the game, but deception for the sake of deception is little more than the musings of a pathological liar. No indeed, our propagandists are not pathological liars, they have definitive purposes to justify their lies and deceit.
To understand the nuances, we must travel back in time to the period leading up to the Islamic Spring of 2011. When Americans were asking why our president only backed certain Islamic Fundamentalists in their bids for freedom and seemed to ignore secular struggles, like those by students in Iran and Syria. It was as if he had a secret playbook and would only use the considerable leverage of America when we could help those closely aligned with our enemies, like the Muslim Brotherhood.
It is times like this that fluff rags like Vogue can gin up support for the president’s peculiar partisan support of radical Islamic Fundamentalists by portraying a murderous dictator’s wife as a beautiful reformer and as a positive influence on the bloody henchman that is her husband. Unfortunately, propaganda can often be exposed, even in innocuous articles like “A Rose In The Desert.”
“Asma al-Assad is glamorous, young, and very chic – the freshest and most magnetic of first ladies,” writes Joan Juliet Buck, of Syria’s first lady, for her introduction of Asma in the fluff article of the type for which Vogue is well known and respected. She describes her “energetic grace” and stylish shoes. Ms Buck tends to get carried away with her flowery penmanship:
“The 35-year-old first lady’s central mission is to change the mind-set of six million Syrians under eighteen, encourage them to engage in what she calls ‘active citizenship.’ ”
While writing the glowing and meaningless report, Buck never thought to do independent research. Journalism is not part of her mission, her mission is to provide covering for Obama and his exposed ass in the wind. If she must write believable prose that dresses tyranny up as a fashion statement, she will do it; otherwise, her role in the propaganda industry becomes vulnerable.
Unfortunately, Buck’s propaganda appeared on news stands as Syrians took to the streets to demonstrate against the tyranny that Buck tried so desperately to mask for her president. Unfortunately, the blood splatter from 9,000 victims of Assad’s stained the pages of Vogue and the face of Ms Buck.
First Lady Asma made no attempts to mask her priorities or her contempt for young people seeking “active citizenship,” for while her young people were being slaughtered in the streets by her husband’s goons, Asma continued to shop online, according to leaked emails, for designer shoes and jewelry from boutiques in Paris and London, but Ms Buck did mention Asma’s keen sense of fashion and when you are married to Syria’s hereditary president for life, you must look your best, especially when the blood of martyrs is flowing in the streets.
Oh the article caused many people, who, like the author, peruse magazine covers in grocery checkout lanes, to gasp in disbelief when the March 2011 Vogue magazine featured Asma. However, Vogue had the presence of mind to make the glowing propaganda that had turned sour disappear. Oh, the printed page is history, but the cyber ink is no longer in existence. There were 3,200 words of cyber ink, and now there are none. The article and its CTPA (covering the president’s ass) motive has been scrubbed from Vogue’s website. Obviously, the article will be around a long time despite the hypocrisy and deception of Vogue.
Propaganda seems to be a benign enterprise; especially, when you are promoting and supporting your “Gift from God” (Nancy Pelosi quote), but there are often unintended consequences for writing lies and deception. Ms Buck and Conde Nash, the author and owner of Vogue, have just experienced what it is like to be humiliated when your lies and deceptions are exposed.
Ms Buck is now saying it was “horrifying” to be near the Assads and her biggest regret is that Vogue asked her to cover the story. Is her regret a result of being exposed as a fraud or an honest appraisal. Since honesty and integrity are compromised from the onset of this debacle, we may safely assume Ms Buck is horrified at the thought of being exposed as a liar.
Still the world is left to ponder why President Obama allows the wholesale slaughter of secular dissidents with western style philosophies of freedom, but not dissidents who are Islamic Fundamentalists. Sadly, propaganda never uses the truth, unless it benefits the purpose of the promotion; consequently, it is hard to judge the truth from the lies. Therefore, by applying simple logic, none of the product of the MSM media can be judged as being factual or legitimate.
Epilogue: Apparently the Assads liked the article, they are the ones who have chosen to preserve it for prosperity, oh the irony of failed propaganda.
A professional horseman for over 50 years, Skook continues to work with horses. Skook has finished an historical novel, Fifty Thousand Years, that traces a mitochondrial line of DNA from 50,000 years ago to the present. The story follows a line of courageous women, from the Ice Ages to the present, as they meet the challenges of survival with grit and creativity. These are not women who whimper of being victims, they meet the challenges of survival as women who use their abilities without excuses or remorse, these women are winners, they are our ancestors.
Fifty Thousand Years is available in paperback and e-book, it is getting great reviews. You can purchase a copy here; Visit me on Facebook.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Dylantheauthor
Howdy Skook. We faced liars of all nationalities during our peacekeeping in Bosnia. The press extolled the virtues of the Muslims in the Medev area and we ended up in a fire fight with them. All nationalities were killing each other. In some areas all the Jews were missing. Nothing in the press about that scenario. The UN , of course, was completely useless, and we had to provide security for these arrogant idiots. Later on we told them to go to hell. Nothing in the papers about this also. As an aside, I spotted the little plastic rules of engagement cards in the latrines. Proper place for UN memos.
As with Rush, Glenn, right-wing radio, and Fox News?
Jason, how typical of a Liberal, you have nothing to contribute or offer as a counterpoint so you attack an article that has shredded the legitimacy and credibility of the MSM, portraying its purpose as a propaganda organ for a failed president and the best you can offer is, “Rush, Glenn and Fox News are bad”. You should hang out at Progressive websites, where taunts and inane insults are considered suitable material for debate; otherwise, you are in way over your head on these cyber pages.
I never watch Fox News and I rarely listen to Glenn or Rush, thus I don’t have enough material to judge their ideas. I am sure you can give us insight on their philosophies, but if you can’t comment with suitable material on this subject, don’t bother. If we wanted to read senseless crap, we could go to media matters or some other home of stupidity and lunacy.
Oil Guy, I am proud of our Canadian soldiers. They have shouldered way more than their share in numerous actions since the Boer War.
One of my sons is lunging in the traces to join up in the US, and I have been trying to gather up the necessary papers for him to leave Canada to join up in the US. I have encouraged him to wait until after the election, since I no longer trust Obama to deploy our troops in an honorable or even sensible mission, but he wants to serve in the US, even if it is for Obama.
The UN has become a front group for Leftists to generate great sums of money through corruption and fraud. That has been their primary motivation for a long time. Arguing otherwise is willful stupidity or else someone is hoping to latch onto the hind teat of a sour hog.
Always good to hear from you. One of my customers in Fort Langley took me to a farm league hockey game, I think it was in Abbotsford and they were a farm team for a team in the US. It was fast hard hockey and a good time. I told my customer to plan on taking me to a game next year. It was great fun.
@Skookum: #3
Obviously, Jason’s common sense part of his brain was turned off a long time ago, or maybe it just hasn’t been activated yet.
One reason I don’t watch today’s action movies is that I can’t deactivate the common sense part of my brain. When I see stuff happen that should have killed people, but didn’t, it turns me off.
Two things you won’t see the heroes in today’s action movies do:
(1) Get tired and get out of breath.
(2) Sweat.
Two things you won’t see the propaganda media do:
(1) Compliment a republican.
(2) Condemn a democrat.
More signs you’re dealing with the propaganda posse:
1) never, ever admits a wrong
2) Instead of killing an idea (i.e., “global warming”), it is refurbished and republished (i.e. “climate change”).
3) overreacts with righteous indignation when a wrongful act is exposed
4) uses mirror imaging to describe the “enemy”, thereby revealing the propagandist’s own actions and/or intents
5) collective trend reveals strategic intent to generate conditioned actions among subsets.
Like most propaganda pieces, there is very little actual content in this article to make it arguable.
Lib, you have yet to mount an effective argument on anything. Again, you are a typical Lib, quick with an insult or a talking point, but woefully short on logic or original thoughts. Your leader in the White House has set a poor example for you, but how else can you direct a legion of lemmings?
Skook, you did a good work here.
You pointed out (yet again) how liberals and leftists don’t care about truth or lie, right or wrong.
They don’t care if they lie and get the story wrong.
They only care about getting called out on it.
They only care about getting caught.
In my youth we were taught that wrongdoing, itself needed to be atoned for, apologized about, the wrong needed to be made as right as possible.
But today we see non-apology apologies…..you know the ones: IF I offended anyone, then I am sorry (for YOU being such a spoil sport).
Today leftist ”journalists” have learned that they are a dime a dozen.
As disposable as a used tissue.
As each one messes up, he or she is thrown under the bus.
And they don’t want to go under the bus.
That’s the only thing they are sorry about.
@Skook:
Nice response to Lib1. His comments nearly always center around a general theme that the article he is commenting on has little value in a debate. Yet, he never gives a specific idea that argues his point. Obama uses the same tactic when speaking about his political opponents. Generalizes a criticism without specifically addressing a point, or points, his political opponents have made.
Unfortunately, there are quite a number of rubes out there that allow such tactics to influence their decision making. Most likely because common sense and intellectual honesty left the barn a long time ago.
Soledad Obrien and Buck are perfect examples, there is embarrassment for being exposed as a political tool; otherwise, they are content to be political hacks and journalistic frauds for the Left. To save my life, I can’t understand why they are willing to sell their integrity and compromise freedom itself to lie for the benefit of a political movement based in dishonesty and fraud.
Skook, it’s a matter of mindset. I know. I’ve taught journalism students and lunched with their professors.
Keema, I am sure you have at least one interesting article, if not a series of articles, on this phenomenon. In my personal experience, as a student who was asked to take continuous creative writing classes after refusing to declare journalism as a major, there was no political coercion that I was aware of, back in time, some 45 years ago at a large well known university. I realize I was in a special situation, but I don’t remember this churning out of Leftist Journalistic hacks like grinding home made sausage. We were encouraged to turn out original ideas on nearly any subject matter. If it was original and thought provoking, you were guaranteed an A. If your material was boring or inane, you had better be looking at a new major. After reading the Leftist drivel in the leading newspapers, mags, and blogs, it is easy to wonder if the only requirement in journalism classes now, is to be on the politically correct side of the discussion.
First of all Skook, I know you were widely read, but Vogue? Curt commented on the AP propaganda in Iraq with Captain Jamil. I saw it first hand as journalists tried to intensify Sunni Shia conflicts. I am watching Jordan closely. Seventy percent of the population is Palestinians who have no say in the government. The King is in trouble and likely only remains in power due to the Jordan Military and US support. Jordan relies on Israel for much of its technology to include agriculture. I suspect that some of the refugees from Syria are entering Jordan, too. Articles like Vogue are not just propaganda, but treasonous!
Wow. Mental connection. Wired and Conde. I’ve been a big fan of Noah Shachtman from the early internet ‘zine’ days – http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/1999/07/20984. Sometime mid last decade Wired.com took a spin that frequently puts a sour taste in my mouth. The common denominator between Wired and Vogue? Wired aquired 2006/Vogue owned – CondeNaste. All that China fawning in Wired, now I know.
Sorry mental tangent. CondeNaste was mentioned and I remembered a disclaimer by an author in a Wired article and it all came together.
Skook:
Just as business majors generally have a certain set of attributes, so do journalism majors. I’ve found these students to be rather ideological, as opposed to those pesky, practical business majors. Nothing wrong with that — it takes all types, after all. From what I have seen, journalism students are still taught to create balanced stories. As professional journalists, however, they must answer to their editors. The journalists are the foot soldiers (albeit left-leaning ones, as evidenced by their published political contributions).
Media content analysis verifies what most people intuit — general election stories are leaning further left with each succeeding election cycle. During the 2008 general election, for example, Pew conducted a study with head-scratching results. The infographic embedded in the following article reveals the results: http://www.journalism.org/node/13307. As negative coverage can, and often does, change people’s minds, you can logically understand the reasoning behind a slanted story.
keema
hi,
you are saying very interesting things about JOURNALIST ETHIC AND BEHAVIOR,
as a well learned on the subject of sending news and ideas by journalists,
would your thoughts on the BLOGS, the favored one followed by many thousands people have surpass the
influence of the or some of the NEWSPAPER SENDS VIA THE CYBER SPACE?
DO YOU THINK that the BLOGS AS i BELIEVE HAVE ATTAIN THE RANK THEY DESERVE AT THIS TIME AS OPPOSE TO THE NEWSPAPER WHICH ARE CLAIMING IT AS THEM BEING SUPERIOR?
BYE
SKOOKUM
thank you for this POST, EXPOSING SO MUCH OF THE PROPAGANDA READ BY SO MANY EDUCATED AND UNEDUCATED, AND NEW IMMIGRANTS UNAWARE OF THE FALSE UNDERNEATH IT ALL TRYING TO SELL WHAT IS LEFT IS RIGHT.
IT IS VERY DISAPPOINTING AND ANGER THE CONSERVATIVES TO READ SUCH LIES FROM THE LEFT LEANING MEDIAS, WHICH THE CONSREVATIVES CANNOT ALWAYS EXPOSE TO THE PUBLIC, BECAUSE THEY CANNOT REACH ALL OF THEM,
BUT THEY WILL SHOCK THE PUBLIC WHEN THEY WILL EXPOSE ALL AFTER NOVEMBER, WHEN THEY TAKE OVER THE WHITE HOUSE, AND THE PEOPLE WILL BE SO SURPRISE TO LEARN THE LIES
THEY HAVE BEEN FED ON ALL THESE LAST YEARS BY THE DEMOCRATS, YES IT WILL SHOCK EVERYONE OF ALL AGES.
Unfortunately, I missed this later commentary.
Randy, I am occasionally stuck in a reception room and I will read anything but sports. I saw the original article, soon after it was published, and I was in a state of disbelief. I considered writing an article on it, but thought it was a bit out of character for the image of “Skook”, but when they scrubbed the article, I couldn’t resist.
Mossomo, these wealthy Elites seem to quest for power and control, with a confidence that ensures them that their wealth will remain untouched, while others who are not active will be stripped of their wealth. Thus the old concept of precinct politics is conducted on a national scale, without altruistic motives. Indeed the motives are self-serving to the extreme; power, control, and wealth are the prizes and these guys are playing for keeps.
Keema, I enjoy hearing of the students and motivations. We will be condemned to endure Leftist indoctrination ii academia, until Conservatives make a commitment to teach rather than pursue the dollar; unfortunately, it is one of the negative aspects of a Conservative mind, teaching is for those who can’t make it in a competitive world. It is a fundamental flaw of our perspective and it is hurting our cause and the country, for it leaves the field of education wide open for Leftist indoctrination from the beginning.
Why are there no sources in this article whatsoever? Even the two links posted to the “cyber ink” and Assad are broken. Maybe people would be more willing to discuss the content of this article if their were any validity to it.
Skooks What does Buck and her very poorly researched article have to do with Obama? His admin has in no way supported Assad and has called on him to get out.
Randy I too would question why manly man, former Marine Skooks, reads Voque and eschews sports? lol
Wut, the point of the article was that Vogue and the author were embarrassed by painting such an idyllic portrait of the Assads, but once the butchery started Vogue scrubbed the article. The article was reposted by the Assad family group. However they soon had more a pressing matter to contend with than a puff article written to convey the precise political correctness at a certain point in time. All tyrants are perceived differently over a time line. The image of the Assad family deteriorated and Vogue was left with their butts in the wind. When a periodical functions as a propaganda medium, stories can become a big liability when the winds change.
In the past periodicals would print a retraction: case closed. It’s not so easy for the journalistic lap dogs of the state; they have a much more fragile image and ego to preserve.
I am fairly new to the blogging business and using links is difficult for me. (Six years of formal schooling, what do you want) I am trying to improve. This article had a fluid or dynamic subject that a major periodical was trying to scrub. It’s not hard to imagine how or why they disappeared. Videos and opinions often vanish if they receive too much attention from articles that cut too close to the bone.
My recent carbon article has a number of links that are still functioning, but it is harder to debate the cold simple facts of science; consequently, commentary has been limited.
Rich, there is a dichotomy of tyrants for Obama: Iran passed the muster when they gunned down the students of the Green Revolution, Gadaffi, a semi-reliable ally, was condemned for threatening his people, Assad is killing his people on a regular basis and many of us are unsure which sides the favorite or home team. Do we back the fundamentalists or the secularists. It is confusing for everyone, even the big time rags like Vogue. They stuck their nose out and they got smacked by the cold winds of political correctness.
Rich, I like to watch farm league hockey. The young boys trying to make it and the older guys hanging onto a fading dream create a sense of drama for me. I like it. The only time I will buy a hot dog and a beer is at a hockey game. Great fun, The Flames, Oilers, and Canucks require navigating huge crowds and horrible winter traffic, it is much better to watch them play on the tube. The beer is much cheaper and I prefer a glass instead of a paper cup. Although, I understand why they use paper cups; hockey fans are emotional.
@Skookum: Here is a cache copy from Assad’s webpage
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:nsoSAf_QG98J:www.presidentassad.net/ASMA_AL_ASSAD/Asma_Al_Assad_News_2011/Asma_Assad_Vogue_February_2011.htm+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
CURT
hi,
I’m watching a television movie in part on HISTORY channel,
the name is; MANKIND,
a real treasure ,and a must see
bye
CURT
thank you for the link,
I like the profile, it demolish the killer profile of other,
it tell us they are real humans trying to get rid of their enemies
bye
@wut: #20
You reminded me of the time I was standing in front of a mirror combing my hair. My wife at the time was behind me, and in a mad voice she asked, “Why don’t you comb your hair all the down in the back?” I figured I would use the same attitude in answering when I answered, “Maybe because I didn’t know I wasn’t!”
I told my kids to try the positive approach first, because, once you ball a person out, it’s pretty hard to try the positive approace. If the positive approach doesn’t work, you can always ball them out.
Is it possible the writer didn’t know of the problems you mentioned, and would have thanked you for finding and repoorting the problem? We will never know.
Thanks Curt, some pages are more elusive.