I looks to me like Sergarr has drunk the Stalin-era koolaid
Hey, quite a few of self-proclaimed liberals I know would've agreed with that idea I've posted earlier.
I mean, the whole "it's propaganda even if its factually true because its only a *selective release* of information by a malicious actor, do not listen to it" thing that the Democrats - hell, the government of USA itself! - have got going on is already a fine example of "we know better what you should know about the world" and open censorship. And, whatever the government of USA does, is obviously objectively a good thing, right? It's the best government of the best state in the world, after all.
So quit with your baseless accusation of Stalinism - it's pure liberty and freedom that I'm spreading around! But it's not the false liberty and freedom of allowing foreign and domestic media traitors to run around unchecked - it's a true freedom and liberty of a society free from any lies and propaganda other than our own!
I should clarify here I think--
Total transparency most certainly *IS* bad for an intelligence network. For starters, such a network needs "eyes and ears"-- spies for lack of a better term. These are people who do very dangerous work, because the penalty for being one is often capital punishment. As such, total transparency would out them any time some idiot asked. "Mr Intelligence Guy-- How many spies do you have in the Russian government right now?" etc.
Conversely, "total secrecy" is also bad, because it leads to the bullshit we have right now, where the details of some "embarrassing" thing are "totally a state secret, so you cannot know, citizen! The number of times the Secretary of State ordered underage prostitutes while overseas is a matter of national security!" (Etc.)
These two truths point to a "partial transparency, where it is sensible + partial secrecy, where required" type arrangement. EG, "We have learned that the government of $SomeGovt plans to $NefariousPlan from our overseas contacts" strikes such a balance. It only outs that we do indeed have overseas contacts, and honestly reports what we have learned-- which strikes the needed balance between the need to secure and retain information gathering aparatus, and the need to primarily serve the public interest with accurate information. (Note, I am not so foolish as to discount the possibility of counter-intelligence, with the purposeful feeding of false information to known informants. Quite the contrary. All information gathered needs to be considered suspect, and digested before being given the "probably factual" stamp of approval.) Deciding to attempt counter-intel via reporting false intel to the news media, while certainly effective in confusing and redirecting opposition intelligence networks, is a twisted perversion of serving the public interest-- and is rife with the potential for the local government to use it to directly control its citizenry through outright misinformation and lies. As such, it needs to be forbidden. The potential for flagrant abuse that domestic psyops and propaganda against one's own citizenry (for flagrant self-benefit of the regime, at the expense of its citizenry) was one of the prominent features of Stalinist era Russia. The scary bearded guy has many jovial anecdotes and direct quotations to that effect.
"We don't let them have ideas. Why would we let them have guns?"
"Print is the sharpest and the strongest weapon of our party."
"A sincere diplomat is like dry water or wooden iron."
"Education is a weapon whose effects depend on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed."
and some rather telling one-liners about how much he felt his government was "for the public good"--
"The people who cast the votes don't decide an election, the people who count the votes do."
"It is enough that the people know there was an election. The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything."
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Topic: Doc Helgoland's Asylum for the Politically American: T+0 (Read 1412969 times)