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A novel the CIA spent a fortune to suppress

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Re: A novel the CIA spent a fortune to suppress

#141

Post by zen_1 »

mschuster91 wrote: post #72
oefrha wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Propaganda’s working very well if you actually believe this is the first war since WWII to redraw land borders. And I’m not even counting the invade-and-install-a-puppet kind of wars.

> Propaganda’s working very well if you actually believe this is the first war since WWII to redraw land borders. I was talking about annexation wars. Not about countries fighting for independence / collapse aftermaths (like the former Yugoslavian countries or the Vietnam war). But yes, you're correct, I forgot about the first Iraq war where Iraq tried to annex Kuwait and the US (and others) responded under UNSC auth…

Now do Israel (with the US on the colonists/annexers' side this time)

Re: A novel the CIA spent a fortune to suppress

#142

Post by dylan604 »

mark_l_watson wrote: post #133

Hopefully on topic: a good English language book on the CIA origin story is “The Devil’s Chessboard” that was a fascinating read. While most of my reading is technical and science fiction, I also really enjoy reading history. It is difficult to understand the world ‘in real time’ but looking back into history more things make sense. In a democracy, it is important to really understand history, what we got right and w…

>It is difficult to understand the world ‘in real time’ but looking back into history more things make sense.

Gotta be careful with this though, as when it comes to reading history, it really depends on what sources you are reading. The old saying "history is written by the winners" which leads to the opposing side's views being suppressed if not outright omitted. So hopefully, when it comes to "real time" views or historical views, the sources are from more than one viewpoint and are more than one.

Re: A novel the CIA spent a fortune to suppress

#143

Post by jhdias »

zabana wrote: post #129
KennyBlanken wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love the irony here. You had so little attention span you made an unsourced old-man-shouting-at-clouds comment that people have little in the way of attention spans... ...and then couldn't be bothered to investigate, out of intellectual curiosity, an easily verified statement by someone replying to you.

is it easily verified ?

Sign up reqd but https://you.com/search?q=who+are+you&tbm=youchat&cfr=chat&ch...

I heard that over half of people in the US read at least one book per year, is that true?

I am not sure of the most current statistics, but according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in 2019, about 74% of American adults said they had read at least one book in the previous year. This means that a majority of people in the US do indeed read at least one book per year, which is positive news for lovers of literature. It's worth noting, however, that the definition of a "book" in this context includes e-books and audiobooks in addition to print books, so it's possible that some of those respondents did not read a print book specifically.

Re: A novel the CIA spent a fortune to suppress

#144

Post by HPsquared »

noisy_boy wrote: post #117

There isn't much need to suppress novels anymore. People no longer have sufficient attention span to even finish a 5 minute video and need to be fed bite-sized shorts. No need to kill the producer, consumers have been killed.

They have been playing the long game, clearly!

Re: A novel the CIA spent a fortune to suppress

#145

Post by beezlebroxxxxxx »

dylan604 wrote: post #142
mark_l_watson wrote: post #133

Hopefully on topic: a good English language book on the CIA origin story is “The Devil’s Chessboard” that was a fascinating read. While most of my reading is technical and science fiction, I also really enjoy reading history. It is difficult to understand the world ‘in real time’ but looking back into history more things make sense. In a democracy, it is important to really understand history, what we got right and w…

>It is difficult to understand the world ‘in real time’ but looking back into history more things make sense. Gotta be careful with this though, as when it comes to reading history, it really depends on what sources you are reading. The old saying "history is written by the winners" which leads to the opposing side's views being suppressed if not outright omitted. So hopefully, when it comes to "real time" views or h…

This is largely why the academic study of history has become historiography, the study of how history is written, and by whom, and understood in which contexts. Academic history books, from university presses, are usually pretty different than the pop-history books or books aimed at general audiences for a similar topic. They are much more skeptical and questioning of narrative and are usually very willing to bring up counter-arguments or competing claims.

A really good example, one of my favorite academic history books, is When Champagne Became French by Kolleen Guy [1]. It's really more a history of how the story of champagne was integrated into the ongoing narrative of French national history and identity, and how this integration obscured the sometimes violent disagreements over the identity of champagne and who ultimately "owned" it.

[1]: https://www.press.jhu.edu/books/title/3029/when-champagne-be...

Re: A novel the CIA spent a fortune to suppress

#146

Post by HPsquared »

KronisLV wrote: post #137
KennyBlanken wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love the irony here. You had so little attention span you made an unsourced old-man-shouting-at-clouds comment that people have little in the way of attention spans... ...and then couldn't be bothered to investigate, out of intellectual curiosity, an easily verified statement by someone replying to you.

There are plentiful sources, which might not agree on the data that they have. Actually investigating that might take more effort than most people are willing to put in, few would care enough to sit down for the better part of the day and go through numerous studies. https://www.statista.com/topics/3928/reading-habits-in-the-u... and https://www.statista.com/statistics/222754/book-format-used-... > Book reading remai…

When these stats say "read a book", do they mean "read a whole book" or "read something from a book"? Big difference between those two.

Re: A novel the CIA spent a fortune to suppress

#148

Post by baxtr »

ajuc wrote: post #28
baxtr wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's my main argument when people say: "What they are doing is exactly the same what we did in Iraq/Afghanistan" etc. Yes, it might be true. The big difference: In the West you can actually go out on the street and protest against the acts of your government.

There's a lot of differences. For example, NATO doesn't force countries to join, and doesn't invade countries if they want to leave or join another alliance. See France. In fact - previous instance of russian CIS - Warsaw Pact - was unique among military alliances in the fact that it only invaded its members (Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Afghanistan). It was a prison not a military alliance. And in current CIS Russia sen…

That’s my point. I think the same.

Yet, the main argument is: in the West you can protest. Everything else can be debated endlessly. This one not.

Re: A novel the CIA spent a fortune to suppress

#149

Post by mejutoco »

paol wrote: post #60
mejutoco wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another way to say it without the added narrative is to simply say Ukraine has allies, and the USA is one of them.

I wouldn't call the term proxy war a narrative. It's a term with a definition, which applies here. This is also a "both things can be true" case. Obviously the supporters of a proxy war are allies of the party they're supporting.

I am not trying to argue with you or change your mind, but I will write a few reasons why I see the term proxy war often used by pro-Putin commenters to push a narrative. Not saying you are. Using the term proxy war:

1. Makes it sound as if the USA is the cause of this war (they are in a proxy war) instead of an attack on Ukraine, and Ukraine seeking help from allies. As if the USA were driving the whole thing.

2. It perpetuates a cold war approach and vocabulary, making Russia look like the superpower it was (and is not anymore).

3. The cold war way of talking about it, additionally, makes it look like there are two sides, two alternatives, which are equally valid and justified.

Because of these reasons, I say there is a narrative, and do not consider the term neutral. I personally avoid the term proxy war because of the connotations above.

Re: A novel the CIA spent a fortune to suppress

#150

Post by kodah »

frankfrankfrank wrote: post #96
serallak wrote: post #84

Something I do not understand ... From the link: > But its 1946 debut reflected a delay of more than a decade by the country’s real dictators, who disrupted the novel’s genesis and sent its author into exile. And in this act of suppression, Asturias’s censors and exilers were aided by the US, specifically the CIA. From Wikipedia: the CIA was founded September 18, 1947. How did the CIA "specifically" helped delay the…

The official formation of the CIA was also only a formality, it essentially already existed in its components and other forms, e.g., the OSS. You can’t get so fixated on the official title, it’s the underlying people and their motivations that are the thing. It’s why people have such a hard time understanding and believing the “deep state” and why it hates even being called that because it identifies them. What the w…

> It’s why they like “classifying” to keep their evil deeds covered and hidden behind an vail of authority.

I found classified docs pretty boring. Most of them remained classified because the information presented had limited distribution, which could identify sources. I never worked at the CIA though, so maybe you're right, the entire CIA is just a Ton Clancy novel.

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