4 ms·

I understand that Apple is a brand first and foremost, so it's no surprise that they're going to release token PR efforts and publicize their tax shelter non-pr

I understand that Apple is a brand first and foremost, so it's no surprise that they're going to release token PR efforts and publicize their tax shelter non-profits. I also understand that activists, if they actually knew of the severity of working conditions in the Foxconn factories in Shenzen or the child slaves working in illegal cobalt mines in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to power their smartphones and laptops, they'd stop buying Apple products immediately, full stop. It's a tragedy to me that a video taken by a smartphone, the privileged end product of the slavery, dehumanization, and political repression of hundreds of thousands outside the West takes precedence over those same anonymous sacrificial lives--anonymous only because they don't live in the West where recording and spreading evidence of violence is trivial. Here's a tangential fact that should chill every human alive to the bone: George Bush, his administration, and the instruments of his war machine still walk free, without charges, after launching a foreign war of aggression that killed directly and indirectly hundreds of thousands, displaced millions, legitimated torture, indefinite detentions, and drone strikes. The Patriot Act and the lead-up to the War in Iraq led directly to ICE, the Department of Homeland Security, the militarization of the police, the rejection of the sacrosanctness of civil rights, and the total unaccountability of public officials to the media. Alternate Facts and Fake News began in 2002 with the lies of WMDs in Iraq. Where is the rioting, the UN pressure, the international protests for charges to be brought against George Bush, the single most responsible individual outside of Derek Chauvin and his fellow officers for the death of George Floyd and hundreds of thousands of others?

catalogia 6y ago
ICE was preceded by the INS. I'm under the vague impression they did the same sort of stuff, but I admit I'm not really familiar with the practical differences between the former INS and ICE. > Alternate Facts and Fake News began in 2002 with the lies of WMDs in Iraq. This stuff definitely isn't new though. Those terms are nothing more than euphemisms for lies and propaganda, and the Second Iraq War definitely isn't the first time America dabbled in those things. For instance consider this incident in the runup to the First Iraq War: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nayirah_testimony https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nayirah_testimony And the Vietnam War started after the so called "Gulf of Tonkin incident", a pair of attacks on the US Navy in the span of two days... except Robert McNamara admitted decades later that the second attack never actually happened. Going back much further than that, the Spanish American War was the result of a strong propaganda campaign waged by America's yellow press; and the USS Maine explosion was almost certainly not enemy action (there were people in the Navy pointing that out from the start.) With respects to the First World War, there is probably something to be said about exactly what the RMS Lusitania was actually carrying...
- froasty 6y ago
  Oh, certainly. The United States (and every other country with a hawkish foreign policy) uses atrocity propaganda to justify their wars to their citizens. The difference between Nayirah, the Gulf of Tonkin, the RMS Lusitania, et. al and the 2003 Invasion of Iraq is that American citizens and international observers knew the pretense was fabricated at the time. These same citizens and international observers protested the fabrication, the ensuring invasion, the total capture of the media by the administration, etc. The only people to whom it was an actual surprise that Iraq did not have WMDs were Bush's low-information voting constituents.

catalogia 6y ago

ICE was preceded by the INS. I'm under the vague impression they did the same sort of stuff, but I admit I'm not really familiar with the practical differences between the former INS and ICE. > Alternate Facts and Fake News began in 2002 with the lies of WMDs in Iraq. This stuff definitely isn't new though. Those terms are nothing more than euphemisms for lies and propaganda, and the Second Iraq War definitely isn't the first time America dabbled in those things. For instance consider this incident in the runup to the First Iraq War: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nayirah_testimony https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nayirah_testimony And the Vietnam War started after the so called "Gulf of Tonkin incident", a pair of attacks on the US Navy in the span of two days... except Robert McNamara admitted decades later that the second attack never actually happened. Going back much further than that, the Spanish American War was the result of a strong propaganda campaign waged by America's yellow press; and the USS Maine explosion was almost certainly not enemy action (there were people in the Navy pointing that out from the start.) With respects to the First World War, there is probably something to be said about exactly what the RMS Lusitania was actually carrying...

froasty 6y ago
Oh, certainly. The United States (and every other country with a hawkish foreign policy) uses atrocity propaganda to justify their wars to their citizens. The difference between Nayirah, the Gulf of Tonkin, the RMS Lusitania, et. al and the 2003 Invasion of Iraq is that American citizens and international observers knew the pretense was fabricated at the time. These same citizens and international observers protested the fabrication, the ensuring invasion, the total capture of the media by the administration, etc. The only people to whom it was an actual surprise that Iraq did not have WMDs were Bush's low-information voting constituents.