-Private Military Contractors Writing the News? The Pentagon’s Propaganda at Its Worst.
Months after the Pentagon pundits flap, the Department of Defense continues to hand down contracts for propaganda in Iraq and beyond.
Less than a week after the Washington Post reported that the Department of Defense will pay private contractors $300 million over the next three years to “produce news stories, entertainment programs and public service advertisements for the Iraqi media in an effort to ‘engage and inspire’ the local population to support U.S. objectives and the Iraqi government,” Virginia Sen. Jim Webb wrote a strongly worded letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates. “I have serious reservations about the need for this expenditure in today’s political and economic environment,” he wrote. “Consequently, I am asking that you put these contracts on hold until the Armed Services Committee and the next administration can review the entire issue of U.S. propaganda efforts inside Iraq.”
Such a review, if it were to happen, would be a formidable undertaking, one that would have to start with the declaration of the “War on Terror” itself. It’s a project the Bush administration has always approached as a PR campaign as much as a military one. Who can forget former White House Chief of Staff Andy Card’s explanation for the need to introduce the Iraq War to Americans in September: “From a marketing point of view, you don’t introduce new products in August.” And remember the short-lived attempt by administration officials to re-brand the “War on Terror” by renaming it the “Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism”? (Reports at the time were that administration officials worried that the original phrase “may have outlived its usefulness,” due to its sole focus on military might.)
Regardless of what you call it, the so-called “War on Terror” has cost American taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars in propaganda costs alone. As with so much of modern war-making, most of this work is carried out by private military contractors. With the word “Halliburton” now shorthand for waste, fraud and abuse for many Americans, taxpayers’ tolerance for war profiteering has reached new lows — especially when private military companies operating with no oversight undermine the very “hearts and minds” that mission propaganda is supposedly meant to advance.
Selling the War to Americans
Perhaps one of the Bush administration’s most egregious PR undertakings in the war on Iraq was revealed this spring, when the New York Times blew the lid off the Pentagon’s military analyst program, in which more than 75 retired military officials were recruited to spout pro-war rhetoric on major networks in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. These “message force multipliers,” as they were branded, were provided with thousands of talking points by the Department of Defense starting in 2002. In one memo, dated Dec. 9, 2002 and titled “Department of Defense Themes and Talking Points on Iraq,” a quote from Paul Wolfowitz — “We cannot allow one of the world’s most murderous dictators to provide terrorists a sanctuary in Iraq” — was followed with a bullet point: “Saddam Hussein: A Global Threat.”
The investigative piece by the Times said the project “continues to this day,” seeking to “exploit ideological and military allegiances, and also a powerful financial dynamic: Most of the analysts have ties to military contractors vested in the very war policies they are asked to assess on air.”
“Records and interviews show how the Bush administration has used its control over access and information in an effort to transform the analysts into a kind of media Trojan horse — an instrument intended to shape terrorism coverage from inside the major TV and radio networks.” It would be hard to overstate the implications of such a program, particularly for a country that claims to be a beacon of democracy.
Although the Pentagon was said to have suspended its PR briefings of retired military officials shortly after the Times story broke, since claiming that its inspector general is conducting an investigation, in reality there has been precious little fallout. However, in one promising move, earlier this month, the Federal Communications Commission sent five letters of inquiry to TV military analysts in an apparent probing of the program. According to one report, “at issue is that some of them were also linked to Pentagon contracts, raising the issue of conflict of interest. In its letter signed by the chief of the investigations and hearings division enforcement bureau, the FCC suggests that TV stations and networks may have violated two sections of the Communications Act of 1934 by not identifying the ties to the Pentagon that their military analysts had.” Diane Farsetta at PR Watch, who has written extensively on the Pentagon’s pundits, particularly their work on behalf of defense contractors, says, “the good news is that that’s (a first) step toward conducting an investigation.”
Profiting off the “War of Ideas”
Beyond the Pentagon’s pundit “scandal,” the fact that propaganda contracts continue to be awarded to the very companies that have previously been implicated in ethical breaches for disseminating unattributed U.S. propaganda abroad is reason enough to renew alarm. More than the dollar amount, what is outrageous to Farsetta about the most recent propaganda contract is that it is “blatantly illegal.” “If you look at this most recent contract,” she explains, “one of the ’strategic audiences’ is U.S. audiences.” According to federal law going back to World War II, she says “no taxpayer money can go to propagandize U.S. audiences.”
The Washington Post story describes the contract as the latest in a series of cutting-edge PR initiatives undertaken since 2003 that represent a revolution in what it calls “the military’s role in the war of ideas.” “Iraq, where hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent on such contracts, has been the proving ground for the transformation.”
“The tools they’re using, the means, the robustness of this activity has just skyrocketed since 2003. In the past, a lot of this stuff was just some guy’s dreams,’” said a senior U.S. military official, one of several who discussed the sensitive defense program on the condition of anonymity.
The Pentagon still sometimes feels it is playing catch-up in a propaganda market dominated by al Qaeda, whose media operations include sophisticated Web sites and professionally produced videos and audios featuring Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants. “We’re being out-communicated by a guy in a cave,” Secretary Robert M. Gates often remarks.
The new contract was awarded to four companies, most of whom Farsetta refers to as “the usual suspects,” including Lincoln Group, the Pennsylvania Avenue company that in 2005 was found to have planted articles written by U.S. military officials in Iraqi newspapers without attribution. (Although the group was cleared of any illegalities, even then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld recognized the potential breach, remarking, “Gee, that’s not what we ought to be doing.”
Selling the War to Iraqis
The main target audience for the $300 million contract is Iraqis. But, different from earlier propaganda efforts, the content is not simply meant to convince them of the noble intentions of their American occupiers. “Originally, the major focus was all about the U.S.,” says Farsetta. “The message then was, ‘Hey, you’re free now,’ but over time it has shifted to more ‘make sure you support your own government, your own police.’”
Indeed, the Washington Post quoted an unnamed official who described one component of the program:
“There’s a video piece produced by a contractor showing a family being attacked by a group of bad guys, and their daughter being taken off. The message is: You’ve got to stand up against the enemy.” The professionally produced vignette, he said, “is offered for airing on various (television) stations in Iraq. They don’t know that the originator of the content is the U.S. government. If they did, they would never run anything.
“If you asked most Iraqis,” he said, “they would say, ‘It came from the government, our own government.’”
A pretty blunt admission, to be sure, and one that lays bare the dubious ethical nature of the program (not to mention the extent that the military recognizes Iraqis’ antipathy for the U.S. government). But it’s not the first time the U.S. government has sought to play hand puppet with Iraqi media. Last spring, the NSA obtained and made public a document, along with a PowerPoint presentation, that revealed the Pentagon’s plans in the run-up to the war to create a “Rapid Reaction Media Team.” Jim Lobe, D.C. bureau chief of InterPress Services, covered the revelation in May 2007; as he wrote, the proposal was for a “six-month, $51 million budget for the RRMT operation, apparently the first phase in a one- to two-year ’strategic information campaign’”:
Among other items, the budget called for the hiring of two U.S. ”media consultants” who were to be paid $140,000 each for six months’ work. A further $800,000 were to be paid for six Iraqi “media consultants” over the same period.
Both the paper and the slide presentation were prepared by two Pentagon offices — Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict, which, among other things, specialize in psychological warfare, and the Office of Special Plans under then undersecretary of defense for policy, Douglas Feith — in mid-January, 2003, two months before the invasion, according to NSA analyst Joyce Battle.
”The RRMT concept focuses on USG-UK pre- and post-hostilities efforts to develop programming, train talent, and rapidly deploy a team of U.S./UK media experts with a team of ‘hand selected’ Iraqi media experts to communicate immediately with the Iraqi public opinion upon liberation of Iraq,” according to the paper.
The ”hand-picked” Iraqi experts, according to the paper, would provide planning and program guidance for the U.S. experts and help ‘’select and train the Iraqi broadcasters and publishers (’the face’) for the USG/coalition sponsored information effort.” USG is an abbreviation for U.S. government.
In a rather extraordinary quote, the document boasted, ”It will be as if, after another day of deadly agit-prop, the North Korean people turned off their TVs at night, and turned them on in the morning to find the rich fare of South Korean TV spread before them as their very own.”
Circumventing Congress
In the United States, few lawmakers have had a chance to scrutinize this latest deployment of public funds for propaganda. (Like so many other contracts awarded to private defense corporations, this one was awarded with no Congressional approval.) But Webb’s letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates suggests that it could become an issue.
At a time when this country is facing such a grave economic crisis, and at a time when the government of Iraq now shows at least a $79 billion surplus from recent oil revenues, in my view it makes little sense for the U.S. Department of Defense to be spending hundreds of millions of dollars to propagandize the Iraqi people. There is now an elected government in Iraq, which is recognized to have the power and authority to negotiate a long-term security agreement with the government of the United States. Clearly that government is capable, both politically and financially, of communicating with its own people in the manner now contemplated by these DOD contracts — and without being accused by adversaries of being a foreign government that is fulminating internal conditions through propaganda.
Laudable as his efforts to reign in contractors may be — much of Webb’s letter was devoted to military contractors more generally, and Blackwater specifically — his letter made no mention of the myriad ethical questions raised by the propaganda contract. To name a few, says Farsetta, “the fact that the media produced is overwhelmingly not attributed to the U.S. government;” “the fact that one of the ’strategic audiences’ listed in the contract is ‘U.S. audiences,’ in apparent violation of U.S. law;” and “the difficulties in holding private contractors operating in war zones accountable to any standard (ethical, performance or otherwise).”
Webb, who first learned about this contract as did most Americans, from the Washington Post, has called for a thorough review of the Pentagon’s “strategic communications” initiatives, including Congressional hearings.” Were this to happen, says Farsetta, “I would love for those hearings to include representatives from foreign governments and civil society groups where the U.S. has major propaganda operations, including Iraq and Afghanistan. The heads of firms like the Lincoln Group, L-3 and Rendon should also testify, under oath.”
But, she says, “What really bothers me is that Webb’s using the “we’ve given Iraq so much and now it’s time for them to step up” argument. That argument never fails to amaze and anger me. We bombed them in 1991, then for more than a decade placed them under such devastating sanctions that hundreds of thousands of children died, then bombed them more ferociously over a longer period of time. Yet some politicians have the gall to complain that the Iraqis aren’t doing enough now? That’s not to mention that the argument assumes that Iraqi leaders have the same priorities as U.S. officials. Personally, I say we need to get our propaganda and troops out of Iraq and pay them reparations.”
-Computer analysis suggests Obama is ‘king of spin’, insane McCain clinically depressed.
When he analysed the speeches of John McCain, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, he found that even though the speeches were rehearsed, written by professionals and delivered by trained speakers, there were discernable differences between them. “It’s clear that the speeches are still highly individualised,” says Skillicorn. “This makes sense as the speeches have to, in some manner, reflect the speaker’s own voice and opinions. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be able to deliver them convincingly.”
Additionally, he says, little details count: pronouns such as “we” and “I” are often substituted subconsciously, no matter what is written in the script.
Each of the candidates had made speeches containing very high and very low levels of spin, according to Skillicorn’s program, depending on the occasion. In general though, Obama’s speeches contain considerably higher spin than either McCain or Clinton. For example, for their speeches accepting their party’s nomination for president, Obama’s speech scored a spin value of 6.7 – where 0 is the average level of spin within all the political speeches analysed, and positive values represent higher spin. In contrast, McCain’s speech scored -7.58, while Hillary Clinton’s speech at the Democratic National Convention scored 0.15. Skillicorn also found that Sarah Palin’s speeches contain slightly more spin than average.
So the analysis appears to back up McCain’s claim that he is a “straight talker”. However, for the purposes of political speech-making this may not be an entirely good thing for him. “Obama uses spin in his speeches very well,” says Skillicorn. For example, Obama’s spin level skyrockets when facing problems in the press, such as when Jeremiah Wright, the reverend of his former church, made controversial comments to the press.
“When you see these crises come along, the spin goes up,” Skillicorn says. “Obama is very good at using stirring rhetoric to deal with the issues. And it seems to work if you look at what happens in the polls afterwards.”
McCain does not seem as adept at using spin to his advantage, and his “straight talk” can make his speeches fall flat from a motivational point of view, according to Branka Zei Pollermann, founder of the Vox Institute in Geneva, Switzerland, who has analysed the candidates’ voices for communication consultants Clearwater Advisors, based in London.
“The voice analysis profile for McCain looks very much like someone who is clinically depressed,” says Pollermann, a psychologist who uses voice analysis software in her work with patients. Previous research on mirror neurons has shown that listening to depressed voices can make others feel depressed themselves, she says.
-”America’s Army” war recruitment tool video games going to US high schools.
>Palin admits Iraq War ‘for oil’, but also proclaims it’s (and a new Alaskan Oil Pipeline) ‘Gods war’
AP:
In an address last June, the Republican vice presidential candidate also urged ministry students to pray for a plan to build a $30 billion natural gas pipeline in the state, calling it “God’s will.”
“Our national leaders are sending them out on a task that is from God,” she said. “That’s what we have to make sure that we’re praying for, that there is a plan and that plan is God’s plan.”
“God’s will has to be done in unifying people and companies to get that gas line built, so pray for that,” she said.
We are a nation at war and in many [ways] the reasons for war are fights over energy sources, which is nonsensical when you consider that domestically we have the supplies ready to go.
This all begs the question: was she actually referring to the ‘God of Abraham’, or was she referring to George W. Bush?
Her influences from that church are also worth noting.
Possibly Staged Pics Fueled Georgian Propaganda Push
This photo was first published by the Reuters as an image of a “dead woman being carried by the Georgian soldiers from the town of Gori”. But this “dead woman”, incredibly, is clutching the nurse’s arm.
This man exhibiting rage and grief happens to sit in the exact same place where the earlier picture was taken: the same pile of garbage is behind his back and scraps of metal from the picture of a “dead” woman being ‘rescued’ are lying around like in the earlier photo — plus some, additional, unidentified scraps of metal. What are these supposed to represent?
Fighting Dirty: Pictures to Provoke Hatred and More Suffering
Remember the image of an emaciated Bosnian Muslim allegedly caged behind “Serb barbed wire”, in a “Serb concentration camp” Trnopolje? The fake photo filmed by a British news team became a worldwide symbol of the war in Bosnia. Even after it was proven that the “prisoner” wasn’t a prisoner to begin with, and was filmed outside the gate, part of which had barbed wire, this picture had still continued to be proudly exhibited all over the world to this day as the “evidence” that Serbs ran the “concentration camps” in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Even the Hague tribunal’s web site carries this fake image on its home page, offering another demonstration of its patent bias and voluntary blindness, a willful disregard for the facts and truth in all forms.
Also check out Danger Room’s post covering their attempts at questioning the media outlets responsible.
*Neocon PNAC Member / CIA Director James Woolsey thumbed Iraq just 2 hours after 9/11
While it was known that Woolsey was again thumbing Iraq later that day, this new clip is the first time anyone thumbed Iraq on national TV. (In propaganda) “you gotta keep repeating yourself for the truth to sink in”. -GWB
PNAC member and former Director of CIA James Woolsey named Iraq as a suspect of 9/11 at 2:26AM, 9/12/01, just over 2 hours after the day of 9/11.
James Woolsey just so happened to be a signatory in the Letter to President Clinton on Iraq, in 1998, which called for the removal of Saddam from power at that time. He was also one of the signers of another PNAC document, Statement on Post-War Iraq, on March 19, 2003. Woolsey served on the Rumsfeld Commission, and was a Commissioner on the National Commission on Terrorism which delivered the Report of the National Commissionon Terrorism to President Bill Clinton in June 2000.
While he wasn’t a participant in writing of the infamous Rebuilding America’s Defenses document, he was already a member at that time. This document, which was an uber-imperialist’s wet dream wishlist, called for a technological transformation of the military and imperialist domination of Middle Eastern and Southeast Asian lands and regimes while highlight states like Iraq and Iran as action item threats.
Pessimism was expressed in the manifesto when they complained that “the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor.”
Full coverage of Woolsey and PNAC in the Bill Moyer’s film: “Buying the War”.
It’s funny they might say that, because on 9/11 they got just that, including a green light to exploit their Iraqi imperial ambitions. At least 16 memebers of PNAC are or were in the Bush administration, including Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and even little brother Jeb Bush. It’s of little surprise that they didn’t ensure that “a new Pearl Harbor” didn’t happen. It’s not like they didn’t have some idea, as according to the 9/11 Commission Report the government had “tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands” of terrorism warnings, yet GWB wasn’t that concerned about terrorism.
Then on the night of 9/11, at 2:26AM, James Woolsey, a frontman stooge of Neo-American Imperialism, was already thumbing Iraq as a suspect sponser state of the 9/11 attacks.
“The Pearl Harbor of the 21st century took place today.” -GWB
In the aftermath, PNAC’s imperislism manifesto ended up reading like a prophecy chart come true, as they got their “New Pearl Harbor”, and their 20 plus point list of technolgical transformation, and their green light for ultra-neoimperialism including the invasion Iraq, and so on.
Today Woolsey can be often seen in the media pounding the war drum and grandstanding for American Imperialism. He is Vice President of Booz Allen & Hamilton, the lead contractor for the Total Information Awareness program. He is also a member of the Policy Advisory Board to the Secretary of Defense. Woolsey attended the September 12-14, 2006, elitist deep-integration North American Union forum entitled the “Continental Prosperity in the New Security Environment”, held in secret at Banff Springs Hotel, in Banff, Alberta, Canada.
See Also:
Woolsey’s PNAC Signatories
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=James_Woolsey
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._James_Woolsey,_Jr.
http://www.newamericancentury.org/
Fox News Porn / Fox Attacks
There’s enough smut on FOX News to make an entire porn site!
All the footage you see in the videos aired on the FOX News Channel.
Want to tell the FCC you should not be forced to pay for FOX’s smut?
Demand “a la carte” cable television. Sign this Petition!
Under current law, you cannot opt-out of FOX. You are forced to put money in FOX’s pockets every time you pay your cable bill.
The best way to keep FOX out of your home is to force cable companies to offer “a la carte” cable, where you only pay for the channels you want. A la carte will lower your cable bill, prevent inappropriate programming from entering your home, and will keep your money out of FOX’s pockets.
Where the “FOX Attacks: They Distort. We Reply” campaign all started:
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MORE ‘Fox Attacks’ Videos: Bill O’Reilly attacks 9/11 victim’s son FOX Attacks Decency… with Bill O’Reilly Leading the Way Outfoxed: Fox Attacks Richard Clarke |
Glenn Beck Deemed Ron Paul “Domestic Threat” / “Domestic Enemy”
Kurt Nimmo
http://www.truthnews.us/?p=824
Hired propagandist and corporate media shill, Glenn Beck, had Jonathan Sandys, great-grandson of Winston Churchill, and the neocon and former Marxist David Horowitz on his show to attack Ron Paul, or more accurately the “fringe elements” that support Paul.
Horowitz, typically mired in the 1960s, completely mischaracterizes the underlying dynamic of the movement, drawing anachronous comparisons between antiwar radicals of the so-called “New Left” back in the day with Muslims and the diversified antiwar movement of today. Horowitz, with his Marxist conditioning, insists on lumping these two elements together and for obvious reasons — demonizing Paul supporters becomes an easier, albeit intellectually lazy and disingenuous effort.
Beck fine tuned Horowitz’s mischaracterization. “Let me take it back the other way, David,” he averred, “it’s not just the Left this time, it’s also the Right. Ron Paul’s supporters are also on the Right.” Horowitz agreed and specifically attacked Lew Rockwell, declaring the Libertarians as “indistinguishable from the anti-American Left these days” and insisting they are “totally in bed with the Islamo-fascists,” in other words they are terrorists.
Jonathan Sandys lamented the loss of “traditional values,” that is to say it is no longer quite so easy to bamboozle the public and march them off to war, as our rulers are accustomed.
Beck concluded his segment by declaring the “Ron Paul Revolution” is “meant as a catchy slogan, but I fear some of his fringe supporters are taking the word ‘revolution’ to literally,” sort of like the founders took the word literally and acted upon it. Beck and his corporate handlers are concerned because, indeed, the Ron Paul Revolution is far more than a simple slogan and Paul supporters fully intend to clean out the corporate infested whorehouse in the District of Criminals and return America to a nation based on constitutional principles.
“As the Ron Paul movement grew, it was inevitable that the neocons would turn from demeaning to smearing,” writes Lew Rockwell on the LRC blog. “One clownish and sinister example was Glenn Beck’s CNN show last night.”
Beck actually said that the US military may have to be used against the growing threat of domestic terrorism: Ron Paul donors. Why? Because there is a “rising tide of disenfranchisement” (sic) and Ron’s volunteers raised $4.3 million in one day “to commemorate Guy Fawkes” in a “money bomb.” Of course, no American knows anything about the English Catholic rebel of four centuries ago. The donors were referencing the movie and graphic novel, V for Vendetta.
Then Beck says he [is] a libertarian in his heart and it’s OK to raise money anyway you want, so long as you are not “blowing people up.” This from a guy who advocates blowing people up every day, so long as they’re Arabs.
Then comes a plummy Brit who I think is one of Bertie Wooster’s friends from the Drones Club. Then Beck gets to the real point: we are a right-wing peace movement. And being for peace means you want to kill people, whereas being for war means you want peace, if I may distill the agitprop.
It should be obvious by now that there is indeed a concerted effort to go after the “fringe element,” that is to say patriotic Americans who want to put an end to endless neocon wars advocated by the likes of washed-up Marxists and former Trotskyites—or as the patriotic American, Paul Craig Roberts, calls them, “the Jacobins in the Bush administration”—and return America to a constitutional republic.
In the weeks ahead, we should expect more such scurrilous attacks.
The Record on CURVEBALL (Phony Iraq War Intel)
Declassified Documents and Key Participants Show the Importance of Phony Intelligence in the Origins of the Iraq War
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U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell holds up a model vial of anthrax during his historic presentation before the United Nations Security Council, February 5, 2003. (Image extracted from a video available from the White House Web site.) |
National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 234
Edited by John Prados
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB234/index.htm
Posted – November 5, 2007
For more information contact:
John Prados – 202/994-7000
Washington, DC, November 5, 2007 – CBS News’ 60 Minutes exposure last night of the Iraqi agent known as CURVEBALL has put a major aspect of the Bush administration’s case for war against Iraq back under the spotlight.
Rafid Ahmed Alwan’s charges that Iraq possessed stockpiles of biological weapons and the mobile plants to produce them formed a critical part of the U.S. justification for the invasion in Spring 2003. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell’s celebrated and globally televised briefing to the United Nations Security Council on February 5, 2003, relied on CURVEBALL as the main source of intelligence on the biological issue.
Today the National Security Archive posts the available public record on CURVEBALL’s information derived from declassified sources and former officials’ accounts.
While most of the documentary record on the issue remains classified, the materials published here today underscore the precarious nature of the intelligence gathering and analytical process, and point to the existence of doubts about CURVEBALL’s authenticity before his charges were featured in the Bush administration’s public claims about Iraq.
Beck: 9/11 Truthers “Insane”, “Dangerous Anarchists”, “The Kind Of Group A Timothy McVeigh Would Come From”
CNN host lays into truth movement in vicious attack
Steve Watson
Infowars.net
Tuesday, Oct 23, 2007
CNN host Glen Beck viciously attacked the 9/11 truth movement last night on his Headline Prime show, describing the whole movement as “insane” and branding 9/11 activists as “dangerous anarchists”.
Beck singled out 9/11 truthers in a segment in response to the infiltration of Real Time with Bill Maher by We Are Change protesters last week.
In a piece that we would normally associate with the “fair and balanced” Fox News, Beck featured two guests who BOTH argued against 9/11 truth, as well as throwing in his own two cents.
Full article here – http://infowars.net/articles/october2007/231007Beck_attack.htm
*The Media is Pro-Military-Imperialism Biased
I wrote this over a year ago. As with most of this stuff I’ve been transferring from my old spot, I could go MUCH further with this, but don’t have time.
When the Iraq war was first beginning, most had seemed to think that they were getting a somewhat accurate portrayal of the “reasons” we were driven to conflict. Because the media uncritically parroted the administrations every claims and fabrication, they were directly complicit not only selling the war, but US buying the war. From there, ensuring that people ar ejust content enough to be able to ignore or support the war.
When the war started, the media was right inside with military forces reporting “live” “from the scene”. They reported mostly the same “view” we ever seen the media portray in almost any war. All they ever seem to show is the tank shooting, the jet shooting the missiles, the troops running and maybe shooting. They try their best to make it look like something we’d pay money to go see in an action movie. They don’t show the other end of the things that are shooting.
They avoid mentioning that unexploded cluster bombs often result in civilians blowing their limbs off in later contact.
They refuse to mention how virtually all of the various munitions are made from depleted uranium, despite the fact that even the DOD admits that it’s a highly toxic and partially radioactive substance.
This is why the U.S. Army prefers to use depleted uranium over
tungsten ammunition. If you look on the chart you can see that the depleted uranium is a material that has a characteristic that allows it to sharpen itself as it penetrates the target.
www.xs4all.nl…
It’s critical that they don’t spoil the DOD’s avoid jail card, beause using it in most of the weapons platforms gives our military tremendous advantage, meaning less troops dying. Keeping the troops deaths extremely low isn’t important merely for caring abotu the troops lives, it’s about making sure that public support is easy to sway in all of the never ending global conflicts.
Then the war begins, and then it even “ends”. It’s never about actually leaving, it’s about establishing military bases and economic and political control. Or re-establishing as is the case with Iraq.
Then they still implicitly and explicitly help sell the current and upcoming wars.
CLEAR-CUT:
Conservatives often believe that the Media in general has a Liberal bias because they don’t show the good images like the soldiers playing with the kids:
Liberals on the other hand tend to believe that the Media has a Conservative bias, as they don’t show the other side of the coin:
It’s really quite clear when you step back that they only show just enough to mention the issue without getting anyone too upset that they might do something about it. They are “fair” in that they don’t show the good images otherwise Liberals would be able to see a clearcut bias. It’s likely they would percieve ”opposing bias” anyways thanks to what’s known as the “hostile media effect“, but because the Media doesn’t show the “good” images it maintains an “even balanced” appearance.
*Freedom = IMPERIALISM: It’s in the Language
Over and over the TV propaganda boxes spew out lines like “defending our freedom”, or the terrorists tried to attack our “freedom” or “our way of life” or “civilization itself”.
What is this “freedom” they keep talking about? Some definitions of freedom:
A – Freedom; Noun:
1. The condition of being free; the power to act or speak or think without externally imposed restraints.
2. Immunity from an obligation or duty.
B Freedom:
1. The state of being free; exemption from the power and control of another; liberty; independence. 2. Privileges; franchises; immunities.
3. Exemption from necessity, in choise and action; as, the freedom of the will.
While it could easily be argued that those who attacked “our” freedoms were Bush & friends, regardless of who was behind 9/11, but that’s not the scope here.
The First Truth is that the United States is an and always was an imperialist state. Our government is everything that “we’ve” ever been against, and what “we” declared independence from back in the “Colonial Period”. The big story isn’t quite this fact, it’s actually the fact that few Americans out of hundreds of millions have any concept of this glaring and irrefutable truth.
The reasons are rather blatent yet basic: we’re all indoctrinated with imperialist propaganda our entire lives, and it simply goes unquestioned. From there, constant “reinforcing” propaganda is used, as evidenced on and constantly after 9/11.
It’s the ‘first proof’ they lied about 9/11, within hours of the collapses, and continue to do so. American Imperialism is the source of the hatred for America and the intent behind the hijackers. Some could argue that it therefore proves that 9/11 wasn’t a conspiracy, however this view doesnt contradict the “LIHOP” theory whatsoever, and even in the “MIHOP” case it could be a scenario of “Osama” exploiting that hatred for gathering his goons.
In any case, here’s selections from countless examples of this language being put to use, especially after 9/11:
GWB was the first one to make this sort of statement on 9/11, and he did so only 128 minutes after the final tower had collapsed. LINK
Listen to him: “Freedom itself was attacked … and freedom will be defended”.
What on earth could that mean? It’s really quite simple: The United States was attacked for being the “World’s Only Superpower” (EMPIRE), and the hatred for the U.S. is most specifically from “our” ongoing imperial affairs in the Middle East. For those who accept that the hatred and intent behind the attacks was based entirely on them hating OUR personal freedoms consider the 2 targets: The “World Trade Center” (symbolized the economic face of the American Empire; the name says it all) and the Pentagon (symbolizes and represents the military face of the American Empire).
So, the empire was attacked, and GWB claimed that “freedom itself was attacked’, and at this point it becomesvery clear what these people are talking about when they say “freedom” in virtually any related context. Bush’s statement here was two-fold: On one level he was speaking to the elite imperialist establishment who understand that “freedom” means the freedom to dominate the entire globe. On the other level he was speaking to the Smerican Public and priming them for war. This is a very curious sort of “doublespeak”, and one that I’m not yet aware of there being existing terminology for proper characterization. Furthermore, it’s rather striking that they already had this sort of propaganda ready within hours of the attacks.
Giuliani and Gov. Pataki echo GWB’s propaganda exactly 2 hours later at 2:36PM. LINK
Here again this language is repeated. It’s uncertain whether or not they realized what they were saying, but Pataki saying “our way of life” would sure seem to indicate he did know what he was saying. Giuliani referring to them as ”barbaric” is also striking, as that’s the exact same terminology the Roman establishment would use to justify slaughtering tens of thousands of the “lawless” “barbric” tribes who refused to be dominated bu the empire. Perhaps, one or both of this couple were simply reciting the imperialist language that we’ve all been indoctrinated with our entire lives, but if they did know what they were saying it indicates some degree of complicity.
GWB at 8:30PM on 9/11, claims that “our way of life, our very freedom came under attack”. LINK
Bush, on 9/12, reiterates his claims that “freedom and democracy are under attack”. LINK
This rhetoric forces us to examine why we were attacked. The logic is quite simple: if “we” ewren’t attacked for our personal freedoms, then what freedom is he talking about? Even the 9/11 Commission had to admit the true nature of the hostilities towards the United States with a few breif examples:
He also stresses grievances against the United States widely shared in the Muslim world. He inveighed against the presence of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia, the home of Islam’s holiest sites. He spoke of the suffering of the Iraqi people as a result of sanctions imposed after the Gulf War, and he protested U.S. support of Israel.
-9/11 Commission Report p.48-49
They forgot to mention things like the CIA was responsible for Saddam getting power in the first place, or how the CIA overthrew the democraticalt elected president of Iran in 1953 to admitted control the oil, or how our real “interest” in Iarael is the fact that it’s a permanent imperial beachhead for the U.S. in the Middle East. But since the Report is like a huge summarization narrative, we’ll let that one go.
But what about the statements of the 9/11 Commission members in regards to why we were attacked? Here’s excerpts from their opening statements at the first hearings:
CHAIRMAN KEAN:
“They wanted to extinguish the very freedom, vitality and diversity that characterizes the American way of life and makes it the bastion of hope for so many others in the world.”
COMMISSIONER FIELDING:
“To repeat the obvious, we don’t know where these facts will lead us, but we will seek the facts and have them lead us to conclusions which then, and only then, can be the basis for realistic recommendations that will hopefully mitigate the possibility that we might again suffer the assaults of those who want to attack our way of life by attacking and terrorizing our citizens and our people in this country.”
“Those who attacked us on September 11th wanted to usher in not a brave new world but a cowardly one, a world in which terrorists who envy our freedom and despise our values are willing to slaughter the innocent through any means at their disposal.”
COMMISSIONER BEN-VENISTE:
“Like countless Americans, I felt the searing pain, shock and horror of the brutal September 11th attacks upon my fellow citizens and the symbols of American greatness and power.”
COMMISSIONER GORTON:
“And finally, I’d like to echo the remarks of my colleague, Mr. Ben-Veniste. The object of the attack of 9/11 was a free and open society which those attackers hated and wished to destroy.”
GOVERNOR PATAKI:
“They didn’t want to bring down towers, they wanted to bring down our confidence and our freedom and our way of life.”
MAYOR BLOOMBERG:
“One of the surest ways to let the terrorists attack us again is for all of us to stay home, seal ourselves in, and let our economy and our lives fall apart because of a perceived threat. America is a country that for 225 years has been willing to stand up, run risks, fight to make sure that we stay a democratic country and to try to help the rest of the world. And we have not gone back and hidden ourselves at home.”
DR. SOFAER:
“Ultimately, we owe the dead, the living, and the unborn a world of freedom and tolerance. When all else fails, we must fight to preserve and, in due course, extend those values. Freedom and tolerance are not merely Western or American ideals. They are enshrined in the UN Charter, freely subscribed to by all Member States. To allow their subordination to any ideology or religion, however deeply felt, would undo the principles upon which the future of this nation and of humanity rests.”
MR. JENKINS:
“Indeed, they believe that Islam’s very existence is threatened, not simply by the presence of our troops in Saudi Arabia or our support for Israel, but by the secular nature of our society, by our vast commercial and cultural power, by the destructive effects they see in globalization, by their own marginalization in the world, in their own societies, in the countries to which they and their parents have migrated.”
“Symbolically, the World Trade Center represented America’s economic might, our ambition to extend our brand of free commerce throughout the world, the physical expression of globalization, even before the term was coined. Bringing down the World Trade Center, in their mind, would challenge American authority and would demonstrate the power of the attackers.”
-Transcripts/Streaming Video; First hour on Google Video ala IIB
It’s no surprise that this is the note that the entire charade started on. In psychology this is refered to as “framing”. It ’frames’ the mindset, and in this case diverts away from the real source of the hatred that lead to the atrocity, while adding to all of the other pro-war imperialist ‘reinforcement propaganda’.
The 9/11 Commission was a 50/50 split of 5 “Democrats”, and 5 “Republicans”. Here’s what the rest of the bipartisan U.S. politicians said about the attacks, on 9/11/02:
“9/11 was a vicious attack on civilians and on freedom.”
-Hon. Porter J. Goss [R]
The terrorists attacked the towers because they represented America’s democracy, freedom, diversity, and economic prosperity.
-Hon. Marge Roukema
Our freedom, our way of life, the very foundations of our great democracy, were ruthlessly targeted by an unprecedented force of evil.
-Hon. Timothy V. Johnson
Mr. Speaker, 1 year ago, our Nation was at-tacked by terrorists who believed that by taking innocent life, they could destroy our spirit and tear down the principles, values, and freedoms that we hold dear.
-Hon. John E. Peterson
“It is a day when our Nation changed, when we were savagely attacked by malicious enemies whose hatred of freedom and democracy runs so deep that they would murder innocent men, women and children.”
-Hon. Saxby Chambliss [R]
“we do have the freedom which we fight for, and that is why I know in our hearts we will continue to wage this ongoing fight against terrorism; These attacks on our cherished principles, values and freedoms”
-Hon. Sheila Jackson-Lee [D]
“the story of the September 11 attacks is one of immense hate, a hatred for the principles of freedom,”
-Hon. Todd Russell Platts [R]
“Now it is our duty to help these children fulfill their dreams and understand that their parents died in an attack on the freedoms and values we hold to be self-evident.”
-Hon. Lois Capps [D]
“On September 11 ,2001 ,freedom-hating terrorists took from all of us our sense of innocence.”
- Hon. John Linder [R]
Although this unprovoked attack on our Nation by faceless cowards sought to damage American will, there can be no doubt that we are more determined than ever to fight for our freedom and preserve our way of life.
-Hon. Henry E. Brown, Jr.
On both occasions these victims were victims because of what America stands for: liberty, freedom, justice, human rights, opportunity, and a faith in a caring and loving God. But out of this criminal act perpetrated upon the citizens of this Nation and on this fortress of freedom that we call the United States of America, a fierce determination arose to destroy those forces of evil that without cause or warning attacked the United States.
-Hon. William O. Lipinski
But we must never forget the lesson we were forced to relearn on September 11, 2001: there are those who are threatened by our strength, our freedoms and our way of life, and they want to destroy our Nation.
We must remain united in our commitment to pursue those who threaten us, to ensure our way of life and to uphold the hope of freedom around the globe.
-Hon. Randy ”Duke” Cunningham
These acts were carried out by a group of people who hated everything our Nation stands for, and who sought to destroy the symbols of our freedom and prosperity.
By targeting symbols of American strength and success, these attacks clearly were also in-tended to assail the principles, values, and freedoms
of the United States and the American people,
-Hon. Tim Roemer
Mr. Speaker, we gather today within this citadel
of freedom. This room is where America unites in defense of enlightened self-government.
For this reason, the terrorists targeted this temple to justice as they set out to strike a blow against self-government. And, as the terrorists at-tacked symbols of might and prosperity, they at-tacked the spirit of this building. In this way, the Capitol, the Pentagon, and the World Trade Center were all one and the same. This is where the American people exercise the fullest measure of freedom.
And, make no mistake, it was the exercise of freedom that terrorists wished to extinguish a year ago.
The terrorists failed. And, if their objective was to compel us into abandoning our principles, there may have been no more spectacular a failure in recorded history.
My friends, the flame of American freedom is burning brighter and hotter on September 11, 2002, than at any moment in our history.
Freedom continues unabated in many countries around the world. Americans are doing extraordinary things in dangerous places that are known and some that we can’t talk about.
-Hon. Tom DeLay
The attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were an attack on all of us—our people, our Nation, our spirit, our way of life, our liberty and freedom.
-Hon. Jerry F. Costello
America has enemies who resent our freedom and way of life.
-Hon. Nick Smith
May I say to the cowards who targeted our great country last year, let me recite that terrorism against the United States, our freedom, and our people will never be tolerated.
Americans have answered the call to help their fellow man and to defend freedom and to serve their Nation. We will not retreat. We will not be intimidated.
-Hon. Jim Gibbons
They despise the fact that we stand for freedom;that we represent all that is great, all that is tolerant and hopeful and helpful and strong about communities.
-Hon. Adam H. Putnam
On September 11, 2001, freedom-hating terrorists took from all of us our sense of innocence.
We, too, are dedicated to a new birth of freedom here in this new century.
-Hon. John Linder
This bond provides hope that our Nation will heal from our grief and conquer those who would threaten our liberty and our way of life.
-Hon. Michael Bilirakis
What happened on September 11 of last year threatens that democracy.
- Hon.Gregory W. Meeks [D]
To those family members, we cannot ask to beguile them from their grief; but we hope that they are left with the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that should be theirs for having left such a precious contribution at the altar of freedom.
-Hon. Jay Inslee
And they also made sure to persuade US in commiting to “freedom”:
Our commitment to freedom and our strength as a Nation has never been on fuller, broader display.
-Hon. Rosa L. DeLauro
Perhaps most of all, however, we must rededicate ourselves to principles of freedom and democracy. Our precious liberty can never be taken for granted.
-Hon. Louise McIntosh Slaughter
We will do our part, and more, again and again in this new century to defend our country, to preserve our democracy, and safeguard our values of freedom and liberty.
-Hon. Robert A. Underwood
They are a 21st century enemy with an agelessly corrupt goal—destruction of life, elimination of liberty, and restriction of human freedom.
-Hon. Deborah Pryce
So on this 1 -year anniversary of September 11, on this Patriot Day, may Americans again unite to remember our loss, to celebrate our freedom, and to defend liberty.
-Hon. Jim Gibbons [R]
reveal an even deeper resolve to let the principles of freedom for which we stand ring loud and clear.
-Hon. Danny K. Davis [D]
It is in that same spirit that we stand together today—both Republicans and Democrats—to reaffirm that strength and resiliency by showing a strong bipartisan expression that we are first and foremost Americans and are committed to protecting the freedoms and values that make this country great.
-Hon. Philip M. Crane
It is a credit to their perseverance and their total commitment to freedom that the 107th Congress stands proud today.
-Hon. Juanita Millender-McDonald
The resulting war on terrorism has called together the people of America to unite behind a commitment to defend our homeland and pre-serve our way of life against all enemies of freedom and liberty.
-Hon. George R. Nethercutt, Jr.
We stand united in our resolve to defend freedom.
-Hon. Eni F.H. Faleomavaega
Although our country will never be the same, we have a renewed sense of commitment and are dedicated now, more than ever, to upholding our freedoms and liberties.
-Hon. Hilda L. Solis
We also know that from now on we will be asked to sacrifice convenience
for safety. We now know how vulnerable our freedom makes us.
But we also have a newfound appreciation for those freedoms and a renewed sense of the strength that our liberty gives us.
-Hon. Ted Strickland
More still needs to be done; but as we move forward, we have an opportunity to rededicate ourselves to do all we can to work together to preserve the memory of those who perished in making our Nation a better place, a safer place and to ensure that the spirit of freedom, democracy and our core American values continue to burn even brighter in our Nation and around the world.
-Hon. Saxby Chambliss [R]
Knowing this, we have a duty to prepare our-selves to defend not only our lives and those of our children, not only our beloved country, not only our freedoms, but civilization itself.
-Hon. Henry J. Hyde
How-ever, as Americans, we will not be deterred from experiencing the freedom we cherish.
-Hon. Juanita Millender-McDonald
We must preserve that democracy. What happened on September 11 of last year threatens that democracy. We must let freedom ring.
-Hon. Gregory W. Meeks
Though we are pausing throughout the day to remember those we lost, our resolve to protect our freedom is unyielding.
-Hon. Karen McCarthy
Throughout America we join together as a community in solidarity to make it clear to the world that our Nation is united and resolved to defend freedom against all enemies, any enemies. We may be Democrats or Republicans, conservatives or liberals. We may differ in religion or ethnicity, but we are united as Americans.
-Hon. Benjamin L. Cardin
If any of these ‘underlings’ I’ve cited (or could cite) aren’t ‘fully’ imperialists, it still just goes to show how deeply imbedded the imperialist propaganda is embedded in their brains. I see it as this: either ‘they’re’ (ANY politician) complete complicit imperialists (I’m not saying complicit in 9/11 itself, but rather ‘covering it up’ and promoting what most call the “New World Order”), or they’re too incompetenant to understand this core truth. In either case they need to be run out of office.
Note that the opening examples of how we’re indoctrinated are the way the establishment presents us with all ancient and historical examples of empires for our way of referencing what a civiliation is.
Now in this case its possible that some of them aren’t even aware of this. As I’ve already argued, if these people don’t understand the true nature of our system, then they’re too incompetent to hold their office and “lead” us. Or they’re complicit and are completely on the American Imperialism bandwagon. In either case, they need to be run out of town to make room for some real public “servants”.
We will defend the deepest principles of freedom and our Nation’s heritage.
-Hon. David D. Phelps
we have what it takes because we inherited a legacy of courage and honor and valor and we must answer this call to courage because what is at stake is freedom.
-Hon. Zach Wamp
What it is that “we” inherited: American Imperialism; from day one. What is the vision of American Imperialism? It’s called “Manifest Destiny“, and the modern vision isn’t just expanding the empire “from sea to shining sea”, it’s total global domination:
We have renewed our faith in our system of government and re-affirmed our commitment to the spread of freedom and justice around the globe.
-Hon. Greg Walden
that America’s destiny is the world’s destiny—to secure life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that we cannot allow the centuries-old, worldwide fight for freedom to falter.
-Hon. Nick J. Rahall II
I am hopeful that the memorial will also be a space where people can see the American spirit, which cannot be defeated, to take comfort in America’s resolve and the inevitable triumph of freedom.
-Hon. Steve Israel
Mr. Meno hopes ”America’s message of peace and freedom can be extended to all corners of the world.”
-Hon. Robert A. Underwood
Now, we must continue to battle for freedom and democracy throughout the world, not only for our own defense, but also in the memory of those who first gave their lives for the cause on September 11, 2001.
-Hon. Ken Bentsen
We did not ask for this mission, but we will fulfill it to ensure that freedom
endures.
Today, we find ourselves at the dawn of a new birth of freedom, not only for our Nation, but indeed for all of mankind. We have been given this enormous task, and we will undertake it as only America knows how—head on—and we will succeed. We will capture this opportunity for all of mankind and all time. We will continue to lead this Nation and world that we love,
-Hon. Tom Davis
The President will be addressing the United Nations tomorrow. He will be speaking to all freedom-loving people on the face of this planet.
-Hon. Tom Lantos
And winning this war, and the long twilight struggle it has become, will require nothing less than a sustained, unswerving commitment to the propagation of freedoms around the world.
-Hon. Adam B. Schiff
And we must protect our country, all its citizens, from all that threatens democracy and freedom—for these are the fires that have lit the world.
-Hon. Edward J. Markey
Because of America’s leader-ship, freedom and democracy are winning in all corners of the world. As President Bush has said, ”We are a people dedicated to the triumph of freedom and democracy over evil and tyranny.”
-Hon. Benjamin L. Cardin
Now it is our duty to help these children fulfill their dreams and understand that their parents died in an attack on the freedoms and values we hold to be self-evident.
It is also important to remember and honor the brave American servicemen and women who are defending our freedom around the globe, joined by defenders from other countries.
-Hon. Lois Capps
On this pain-filled first anniversary, we stand tall defending freedom, working for peace, and seeking justice. We must continue to support one another, and we must remain committed and united in the war against terrorism and use all of our might to bring to justice all of those involved with the attacks. Today we pledge to do everything in our power to defeat terrorism and to make our Nation stronger in every way that has made it a beacon of freedom and opportunity in the entire world.
-Hon. Michael N. Castle
In the days and weeks ahead, let us continue to work together with humility to protect our people, guard our freedoms, and report to the world that America will never be defeated.
Let us move forward as one Nation, one people, for the sake of every single person who believes in freedom and believes in civilization and believes in humanity.
-Hon. Richard A. Gephardt
The fire of freedom, Mr. Speaker, forged the American character and it burns deep within our souls. The ashes of tragedy have rekindled that spirit; and 1 year later, the world must know freedom’s light still burns brightly and its eternal truth shall never, never be extinguished. May God, Mr. Speaker, continue to bless and guide America as we continue our commitment to a just Nation and the defense and extension of freedom.
-Hon. Steny H. Hoyer
So who exactly gets the job of expanding “freedom” to “all four corners of the globe”?
Let us move forward as one Nation, one people, for the sake of every single person who believes in freedom and believes in civilization and believes in humanity.
In the days and weeks ahead, let us continue to work together with humility to protect our people, guard our freedoms, and report to the world that America will never be defeated.
It honors the members of our Armed Forces who have been fighting and are today fighting to defend our freedom and secure our Nation.
-Hon. Richard A. Gephardt [D]
Let us also pause today to salute the men and women of our Armed Forces who are out there defending freedom and democracy on the front lines of our war on terrorism.
-Hon. Eleanor Holmes Norton
We must, and we will, continue to achieve this victory for the people of the United States and for all civilized, peace-loving people around the world. There will be a price. The blood and treasure of our Nation will be invested. The leadership, resources and unwavering courage of the United States are critical in this struggle. We shall not falter, we will rise to the challenges. And, in the end, we will leave to future generations a safer planet because we never failed to defend the freedom we cherish. We will continue to practice what we preach.
-Hon. Gil Gutknecht
Our patriots fight for the cause of freedom, and we shall support them every step of the way.
-Hon. Michael R. McNulty
American soldiers are now stationed across the globe, helping to create a world where those who live in freedom can also live free of the fear of terrorism.
-Hon. Sue Wilkins Myrick
We prayed for our soldiers who stood ready—preparing to defend our freedom.
-Hon. Dennis R. Rehberg
“That family can be assured that we will keep Sergeant Strickland memory alive as we go forward together in a unified way to preserve the freedoms for which he died. (in the Pentagon)”
-Hon. Jay Inslee [D]
It honors the members of our Armed Forces who have been fighting and are today fighting to defend our freedom and secure our Nation.
-Hon. Richard A. Gephardt [D]
Let us also pause today to salute the men and women of our Armed Forces who are out there defending freedom and democracy on the front lines of our war on terrorism.
-Hon. Eleanor Holmes Norton
And we certainly have a much deeper admiration for the courageous devotion to duty of our servicemen and women, our men and women in uniform who fight to defend our precious freedoms throughout the world.
- Hon. Todd Russell Platts [R]
The symbol of America, our flag, can still be seen flying
with dignity and honor outside homes and businesses, displaying the true pride this Nation has in its freedoms and unwavering principles.
Let us keep the families who lost loved ones in our prayers and continue to support our deployed military personnel who courageously protect our liberties and freedoms.
-Hon. Jeff Miller
We prayed for our soldiers who stood ready—preparing to defend our freedom.
-Hon. Sam Graves
They are doing difficult, dangerous work on our behalf, and on behalf of freedom and democracy.
-Hon. Solomon P. Ortiz
They are picking up where the heroes of September 11 left off—defending America, and fighting for the freedoms that we are willing to die for. The terrorists who attack us operate out of hatred—hatred of our freedom, hatred of our faith, and hatred of our liberty.
-Hon. Jo Ann Davis
Establishing a memorial in honor of those deserving men and women will be a fitting tribute to their memory and their contribution to our Nation’s freedom. Moreover, it will act as a permanent reminder to our Nation and the world that our Nation is engaged in an ongoing battle in the name of those who were taken from us to rid the world of these most heinous of crimes.
-Hon. Benjamin A. Gilman
The fact that the establishment consistently refers to our troops as defending ’freedom” only makes my argument even more impossible to refute. How in empire’s name does having troops and bases defend us over here? Imagine how fortress like we’d be if all of our forces were here in the US. Forward deployed forces are there to protect “interests” alright… imperialist interests. But if Russia/China and friends did a sudden mass air deployment attack there wouldn’t be enough forces here at home to stop it.
All three of these gentlemen, Mr. Speaker, have been in the forefront of focusing on the foreign policy of the United States. All three have focused on the extension of liberty and justice and freedom throughout this world.
-Hon. Steny H. Hoyer
And there it is: “foreign policy”. That term is critical in understanding imperialist euphamism rhetoric. The moment you hear the media or politician talking heads invoke that term you can instantly know what they’re really talking about.
More Bush, this time he’s including all of humanity:
Google Video Link (4 Secs.)
“I believe that freedom is the future of all humanity.”
More supporting rhetoric:
Bill Clinton:
“The defense of freedom and the promotion of democracy around the world aren’t merely a reflection of our deepest values; they are vital to our national interests. Global democracy means nations at peace with one another, open to one another’s ideas and one another’s commerce.
-candidate for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination
1992GHWB:
“A hundred generations have searched for this elusive path to peace, while a thousand wars raged across the span of human endeavor, and today that new world is struggling to be born. A world quite different from the one we’ve known. A world where the rule of law supplants the rule of the jungle. A world in which nations recognize the shared responsibility for freedom and justice.”
“Now we can see… the very real prospect of a new world order, a world in which freedom and a respect for human rights find a home among all nations.”
-”Toward a New World Order” Speech; Sept. 11, 1990“It was, it is, an unparalleled situation in history, one which presents us with the rarest opportunities to shape the world to do so wisely.”
-President GHWB and National Security Brent Scowcroft in A World Transformed
1992Don Rumsfeld:
“The terrorists who attacked our country on September 11, they did more than blow up our buildings or murder thousands of people. They declared war on our nation and on our way of life.”
“They attacked us because of what we are: Americans, free men and women proud of our country, proud of our country’s cause, the cause of human freedom.”
“Their goal was to try to frighten us into altering the way we live, so that we can no longer walk out of our houses, free to go where we wish and say what we wish, knowing that our children would come home safely from school. They want us to respond by curtailing those freedoms that we enjoy as a people — to withdraw.”
“So we really have two choices: Either we can change the way we live, or we must change the way that they live.”
-Addresses Military Personnel at Whiteman Air Force Base; Oct. 19, 2001Rudy Giuliani:
“The New York City firefighters who lost their lives will be remembered among the greatest heroes of American history. Like the brave soldiers who stormed the beaches of Normandy and those who raised the flag over Iwo Jima, our firefighters… gave their lives defending our liberty.”“We’re for freedom, we’re for the future, and in order to do that, we need leadership that uplifts us and moves us toward the future,”
Sunday, February 11, 2007Tony Blair:
“America did not attack al-Qaida on September 11, al-Qaida attacked America, and in doing so attacked not just America, but the way of life of all people who believe in tolerance, and freedom, justice and peace.”
-the Bush-Blair press conference; Nov. 20, 2003GWB:
“I will not relent in this struggle for the freedom and security of my country and the civilized world.”
“More than 170 flags will fly on the south lawn of the White House today as a way to visually and symbolically explain that the world is coming together to fight this threat to civilization and to freedom.”
March 11, 2002‘We’re fighting for our way of life’
Sept. 6, 2006“The terrorists continue to plot against America and the civilized world…. We must continue to give homeland security and law enforcement personnel every tool they need to defend us. And one of those essential tools is the Patriot Act, which allows federal law enforcement to better share information, to track terrorists, to disrupt our cells, and to seize their assets.”
State of the Union address; Jan. 20, 2004“We face brutal enemies who despise our freedom and want to destroy our way of life.”
Nov. 08, 2006
Remarks By The President At Nomination Of Dr. Robert M. Gates To Be Secretary Of DefenseThose who voluntarily place themselves in harm’s way to defend our freedom: the men and
women of the armed forces.”
“Our nation faces a threat to our freedoms, and the stakes could not be higher.”
“This new enemy seeks to destroy our freedom and impose its views.”
“We wage a war to save civilization itself.”
-in Atlanta“Every civilized nation here today is resolved to keep the most basic commitment of civilization.”
“We will defend ourselves and our future against terror and lawless violence.”
-President George W. Bush’s first address to the General Assembly of the UN; Nov. 10, 2001.A month after the September 11 attacks, President Bush made the connection more explicit. “How do I respond,” he asks, “when I see that in some Islamic countries there is vitriolic hatred for America?” Of course, the President is “amazed that there’s such misunderstanding of what our country is about that people would hate us. I am like most Americans, I just can’t believe it because I know how good we are.”
“Tonight we are a country awakened to danger and called to defend freedom. “
“On September the 11th, enemies of freedom committed an act of war against our country.”
“Americans are asking, why do they hate us? They hate what we see right here in this chamber — a democratically elected government. Their leaders are self-appointed. They hate our freedoms — our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other.”
“These terrorists kill not merely to end lives, but to disrupt and end a way of life. With every atrocity, they hope that America grows fearful, retreating from the world and forsaking our friends. They stand against us, because we stand in their way.”
“But the only way to defeat terrorism as a threat to our way of life is to stop it, eliminate it, and destroy it where it grows.”
“The advance of human freedom — the great achievement of our time, and the great hope of every time — now depends on us.”
“I will not yield; I will not rest; I will not relent in waging this struggle for freedom and security for the American people.”
-Address to a Joint Session of Congress and the American People; Sep. 20, 2001
So to believe this view we must believe that the 9/11 atrocity was simply because we have freedom of election / religion / etc. First you have to believe in the myth freedom & democracy in this country itself. When you realize that those concepts are merely illusions, along with the “First Truth” perspective, then all of the establishments lies and doublespeak shatters into a million pieces. You finally near obtaining freedom of thought: the only freedom.
What’s important to pay attention to is the use of words like “our” and “we”. Bush and friends simply aren’t referring to ’simpletons’ like you or I when they use that language. So then who is Bush addressing when he says “we” or “us”?
*Lessons from the OSS: How NOT to be an ‘Enemy’ Propagandist
This is more perspective from the OSS’s “Psychology of War” ‘manual’. The OSS was the precursor to the CIA.
This perspective will examine the tactics and methods used in subverting and demoralizing ‘enemy’ populations, so that we may understand how not to demoralize and subvert our own groups and efforts and movements.
Note that virtually everythig here was written in the context of the Nazi German enemies. The lessons and rules are virtually timeless and universal.
Lesson #1: Demoralization
The goal of “Morale Operations” is to break the morale and fighting will of the “enemy”. For this reason, and it’s effectiveness in subverting a movement, ‘we’ must be careful of doing that within ’our’ own ‘ranks’.
Note the use of “apathy” as a weapon. In our situation, vast scores of the population are apathetic: they don’t care what happens or about any cause. Many people don’t even know why don’t care, or where they get that attitude. It’s actually a complex set of ‘attitudes’. Many others know why they’re apathetic, and in many cases it’s because they see no hope in the ’cause’ or the ‘greater good’. As a people, at least amonst those who don’t worship our government and believe that all is well, it’s come to be accepted that nothing can be done.
How many people are going to ‘fight’ if they’re disillusioned, especially if not backed into a ‘corner’ (yet)? For those projecting power with intent, the ideal would be to break the will of the indiviuals to destroy the cohesive ‘ranks’, and then back them into a ‘corner’ on the individual level.
When the assaulter has succeeded and broken the will of the ‘enemy’, that ‘enemy’ is likely to use “confirmation bias” to confirm the belief in defeat. From there, the more the victim confirms these prescribed expectations the more “broken” they become. This same concept applies to thought patterns and other beliefs.
The fear referenced here is the fear of defeat. Fear can be a chaotic thing. It can be used to wake people up, but it can also be used to completely break their will. The other examples shed light on this.
When leaders propagandize their own populations with fear they generally seek compliance with programs and ambitions that the population normally wouldn’t accept.
Lesson #2: Psuedosupport
Pseudosupport mostly speaks for itself. The lesson here is that we ourselves can unwittingly engage in it by making comments that include examples from Lesson #1.
Projecting the attitudes of defeat will crush the will of ‘our’ own. It’s critical that we self examine our words and attitudes. By “engaging” in pseudosupport ‘we’ undermine ‘our’ ‘fight’. If we ourselves possess these attitudes we must wonder if we’ve been influenced by demoralizing propaganda. Overcoming these attitudes can be done by taking offense to the notion that our will to resist has intentionally been broken by the demoralizing aggressor.
Lesson #3: Rumors
Rumors are used to spread subversive messages. For this reason it’s important that we try our best to keep from engaging in such activities. Here the principles and ethics of journalism are the guiding light, and important for all people to have some concept of.
Rumors can feed drectly into Lessons #1&2.
An example of this in the Truth Movement is how ’celebrities’ like Alex jones are often accused of literally working for the “Zionists”, because he doesn’t aggressively attack them. Logical fallacies come into play by the rumor propagators, all of his out front contributions are ignored, and then attention is focused on the rumor instead of the goals of the movement.
It’s possible that disinfo agent provocateurs originate the rumors, and then those who jump on the bandwagon help spread them thus becoming ‘enemy’ propaganda agents themselves.
Note that even subtle comments can be subversive and demoralizing.
Lesson #4: Black-Balling
Anyone who’s witnessed any online debates, or read articles with comments covering controversial subjects has probably seen this. Ad Hominem, Red Herring and Straw Man attacks are thrown around without any actual debate on the subject itself.
These feed into Lesson #3.
Lesson #5: Subversion – Divide and Conquer 
Divide and Conquer is as old as human conflict, and language, itself.
The ideal compromised ‘enemy’ will be broken into endless factions and groups that more or less hate each other. For example, here in the U.S. we’re not only divided by things like left / Right “Binary Politics” (that is prescribed by the media and politicians who desire for us to be divided, but people actually physically fight over issues like which rapper is better, or what color ‘rag’ they wear. That goes to show how badly divided the populations that suffer the worst have been divided: the ultimate individualism. 
Many Americans have been divided from not only their own race or culture, but also their own families. As long as we squabble over the undane and all hate eachother (including ourselves) there cannot be a serious movement.
As you can see, all 5 lessons directly feed into one another, so therefore each must be squashed. It’s time that people start relaizing that there is only the Wealthy/Elite and the non-Wealthy/Elite. “Rich People” (your boss, millionaires, etc) generally dont even come close to the true elite. The Elite are rarely even the people you read in the richest people indexes. For example, even the numbers of those wealthy people are estimates. Then there’s the people we don’t even know about. This would be the bankers and other types who dominate the scenario from behind the scenes.
Seventeen Techniques for Truth Suppression
Originally Thirteen Techniques for Truth Suppression
by David Martin, author of America’s Dreyfus AffairStrong, credible allegations of high-level criminal activity can bring down a government. When the government lacks an effective, fact-based defense, other techniques must be employed. The success of these techniques depends heavily upon a cooperative, compliant press and a mere token opposition party.
- Dummy up. If it’s not reported, if it’s not news, it didn’t happen.
- Wax indignant. This is also known as the “how dare you?” gambit.
- Characterize the charges as “rumors” or, better yet, “wild rumors.” If, in spite of the news blackout, the public is still able to learn about the suspicious facts, it can only be through “rumors.” (If they tend to believe the “rumors” it must be because they are simply “paranoid” or “hysterical.”)
- Knock down straw men. Deal only with the weakest aspect of the weakest charges. Even better, create your own straw men. Make up wild rumors and give them lead play when you appear to debunk all the charges, real and fanciful alike.
- Call the skeptics names like “conspiracy theorist,” “nut,” “ranter,” “kook,” “crackpot,” and of course, “rumor monger.” Be sure, too, to use heavily loaded verbs and adjectives when characterizing their charges and defending the “more reasonable” government and its defenders. You must then carefully avoid fair and open debate with any of the people you have thus maligned. For insurance, set up your own “skeptics” to shoot down.
- Impugn motives. Attempt to marginalize the critics by suggesting strongly that they are not really interested in the truth but are simply pursuing a partisan political agenda or are out to make money (compared to over-compensated adherents to the government line who, presumably, are not).
- Invoke authority. Here the controlled press and the sham opposition can be very useful.
- Dismiss the charges as “old news.”
- Come half-clean. This is also known as “confession and avoidance” or “taking the limited hangout route.” This way, you create the impression of candor and honesty while you admit only to relatively harmless, less-than-criminal “mistakes.” This stratagem often requires the embrace of a fall-back position quite different from the one originally taken. With effective damage control, the fall-back position need only be peddled by stooge skeptics to carefully limited markets.
- Characterize the crimes as impossibly complex and the truth as ultimately unknowable.
- Reason backward, using the deductive method with a vengeance. With thoroughly rigorous deduction, troublesome evidence is irrelevant. For example: We have a completely free press. If they know of evidence that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (BATF) had prior knowledge of the Oklahoma City bombing they would have reported it. They haven’t reported it, so there was no prior knowledge by the BATF. Another variation on this theme involves the likelihood of a conspiracy leaker and a press that would report the leak.
- Require the skeptics to solve the crime completely. For example: If Vince Foster was murdered, who did it and why?
- Change the subject. This technique includes creating and/or publicizing distractions.
- Scantly report incriminating facts, and then make nothing of them. This is sometimes referred to as “bump and run” reporting.
- Baldly and brazenly lie. A favorite way of doing this is to attribute the “facts” furnished the public to a plausible-sounding, but anonymous, source.
- Expanding further on numbers 4 and 5, have your own stooges “expose” scandals and champion popular causes. Their job is to pre-empt real opponents and to play 99-yard football. A variation is to pay rich people for the job who will pretend to spend their own money.
- Flood the Internet with agents. This is the answer to the question, “What could possibly motivate a person to spend hour upon hour on Internet news groups defending the government and/or the press and harassing genuine critics?” Don’t the authorities have defenders enough in all the newspapers, magazines, radio, and television? One would think refusing to print critical letters and screening out serious callers or dumping them from radio talk shows would be control enough, but, obviously, it is not.
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- Earlier versions of this page:
13 Techniques for Truth Suppression
14 Techniques for Truth Suppression
15 Techniques for Truth Suppression
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Many people who distrust the mainstream media have turned to alternate news sources, some of which are Internet based. Unfortunately, many of these alternate sources of news simply promote an alternate series of lies. These alternate lies are of course dressed up as “exposés.” But you can easily tell the phonies from the real thing. The information in the Waco Holocaust Electronic Museum is an acid test.
Does your news source promote Mike McNulty’s video, Waco: The Rules of Engagement or wring its hands because the Davidian law suit against the government failed? (See Waco Documentary Is A Hoax! and Waco Suits for Waco Suckers.) Does your alternate news source carry promotional pieces about rebuilding the Davidian church in Waco and mouth nice words about “healing”? (See The Cover-up Church.)
Remember, since ancient times, inquiries into questionable deaths have started with the bodies of the victims. If your news source won’t give you an honest and full account of the forensic information on Waco, or if it does not have a link to the Waco Holocaust Electronic Museum … your alternate news has failed a fundamental acid test.
Bush beckons followers to engage in propaganda
Bush calls for surge in ‘Support Our Troops’ bumper stickers
President Bush called on citizens Wednesday during a speech in Detroit, Michigan, to consider a surge in ‘Support Our Troops’ bumper stickers in a final push to victory in Iraq. With American forces taking more casualties, and the number of dead surpassing the nearly 3,000 killed during the September 11, 2001, terror attacks, Bush has come under criticism for his “shortsighted and poorly planned” policies in the Middle East.
Rememeber that memories are physical structures inside the brain, and the more a network a brain cells (memory) is “excited” it is thus reinforced. This is why the Nazi’s, and also “cult of personality” types, plant their symbols and faces everywhere. Constant “excitation” of memories or mindsets, especailly social group based mindsets, reinforces the target mindset to take hold of the target individuals mind (preferably all throughout the day).
Exposure effect is a psychological phenomenon well known to advertisers: people express undue liking for things merely because they are familiar with them. This effect has been nicknamed the “familiarity breeds liking” effect. In interpersonal attractiveness research studies, the term exposure principle is used to characterize the phenomenon in which the more often a person is seen by someone the more attractive and intelligent that person appears to be.
Simply exposing experimental subjects to a picture or a piece of music briefly led those subjects to later rate it more positively than other, similar stimuli which they had merely not been shown earlier. In another experiment, students were shown a Chinese character on a tachistoscope faster than could be perceived consciously. Later, students rated these characters as better than those to which they had not been exposed. When asked, the students were able to cite specific and detailed reasons why they preferred the characters that they did (which must have been at least partially rationalization).
The effect might be explained by the idea that recognizing a familiar environment makes us feel safe. This effect was first studied by Robert Zajonc. A related effect relevant to advertising and propaganda is the sleeper effect.
The new “surge” comes as no surprise after Bush recently called for another “surge” of some $670 million in a media PR propaganda.
Bush Calls For Another Surge…In Propaganda
All told, the (president’s proposed fiscal year 2008) budget calls for $668.2 million for the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), the federal agency that supervises all US government non-military propaganda.
At the same time Bush’s budget proposes steep cuts to federal funds for public broadcasting by nearly 25%. According to the Association of Public Television Stations, the Bush budget would cut up to $145 million from the $460 million proposed FY 2008 budget for the Corporation of Public Broadcasting.
And exactly one year ago, the (admitted) total for propaganda spending was $2.3 Billion (tax payer dollars) since 2003 alone.
Bush Admin. spent over $2.6 Billion on advertising and P.R. since 2003, GAO finds
The Administration spent $2.6 billion on contracts with advertising agencies ($2.4 billion), public relations firms ($297 million), and media organizations and individual members of the media ($25 million).
The Department of Defense spent the most on media contracts, with contracts worth $2.1 billion. The Department of Health and Human Services spent more than $300 million on these contracts, the Department of Treasury spent $252 million, and the Department of Homeland Security spent $24 million during this period.
Sports = Propaganda
This is an oldie I wrote for the 2007 Superbowl. The main attraction was “Football”, but it applies overall to media-driven modern sports fanaticism in general. At the end is a supplemental post -I thought of the following day- involving “property of” tshirts.
It turns out that sports, or at least they way they’re dramatized and pumped into society, fits right into the elitist mass media indoctrination / propaganda model.
In our society, “Football” is the major force driving that model, however, ironically, another sport named “Football” is the major driving force in most other societies. For many years, even before I ever had any coherent understanding of propaganda, I always felt that US calling “Football” “Football” was like some sort of idiot test.
We’re dealing with a sport that literally stole it’s name from a prior existing sport that involves kicking a ball around the field, and for clarification you violate penalties if you touch the ball with your hands. Perhaps the usage of the word foot is significant as it’s the furthest thing from the brain.
Somehow we took the name from a sport that deserves no name besides football, and we applied that title to a sport where you can’t even advance up the field unless you can catch and/or hold onto the ball. For fairness, they do kick the ball from time to time, in plays that last only seconds and are marginal in nature, but in truth the ball isn’t even specifically designed to be kicked. The idiot test is where they hand us these titles that clearly contradict themselves, and they prove their point when we gobble it up. And you thought TV (mass) society was amusing? On a lighter note, the “Idiot test” could be more as a form of conformity test, but even in that case it can again be argued as in Idiot Test.
This would all be example of propaganda, but I feel this sort of element is more specifically a measure of effectiveness of propaganda in general. This can be observed in other categories of media such as conditioning Christians into being foaming at the mouth rabid hawks who obsess over war even to degrees that parallel, or at least would lead to, the same mentality as people engaged in acts of genocide. Or for the “Liberals”, training them to support abortion while chastising capitol punishment or fur trade, and vice-versa.
Chomsky argues that the role of the mass media (who are controlled by only 5 mega-conglomerates) is to keep us diverted and focused on mindless issues. It’s interesting to take note of that idea, and then analyze the Superbowl phenomenon in that context. It turns out that usually the Superbowl annually draws more ratings than any other possible event. It’s almost safe to assume that nothing in recent years has gained exceptionally higher ratings than perhaps September 11th, which didn’t count in the ratings game.
Chomsky’s argument seems to hold ground considering the annual Superbowl event attracts more attention than any sort of political issue or event whether it be presidential elections, Constitutional Amendments, breaking news of severe violations of liberties and even wars. It seems that as long as we have our Superbowl then everything is alright. I could argue that that sort of fallacious logic is why our current ongoing and increasing national tragedy exists, but I won’t go there today.
“Within crowds, people think they are acting as individuals, but like the other forms of group behavior, they are being shaped by the collective action of others. People in crowds seem to take on a collective identity, and it may even be difficult to distinguish between individual and group behavior. Crowds seem to act as one even though there may be great diversity within them.” –[Andersen & Taylor] “Sociology: Understanding a Diverse Society” [College Edition] [2006]
These arguments apply to all of sports (and ultimately all social group settings), though really, “Football” is the poster-child of this phenomenon. Especially in this society, which is dripping with the elements herein, and American “Football” just so happens to be the ultimate example of the imperial propaganda model compared to its opposition.
“But wait! Such subtleties aren’t propaganda”, you argue? That’s the whole idea really, in fact many of it’s most hardcore fans openly prefer the over-competitive nature that it is, or is at least over-dramatized as being. And now the nature of this form of propaganda comes into view.
These are age old crowd / social dynamics and leadership influence that go back at least as far as the Roman Empire. In those days they used to pack over 45,000 Romans in the Colosseum to watch people get brutally murdered. The hit movie The Gladiator depicted these scenes, and the ironic thing is that the scenes were probably accurate, if not watered down while at the same time they creators of the film might have even used the Superbowl annual “Group Think” event as the primary influence in their vision of the ancient crowds.
To add to the imperial nature of our American “Football”, it’s the most militaristic in nature in comparison to the other mainstream sports. Some might argue that the crowds over in Europe, a place where many still to this day rationalize colonialism (imperialism), get into riots over the “Football” games.
It’s true and quite fascinating, from a sociological perspective, the whole “hooligan” social phenomenon. For these arguments I suggest you consider what it’d be like if the 50 “States” were literally 50 different “countries” bound by no (pseudo) federal union. If they were pumping our total cognitive dominating mainstream propaganda model into such an environment there would possibly be some state to state wars by now, in part driven by the intense competitive us vs. them rivalry mentality combined with our militarized society.
In truth propaganda applies to virtually all media. More specifically, it applies to media or stimulus that appeals to irrational emotions, and in purest form it seeks o manipulate through social group related irrational emotions. From there you have 2 different eras worth of propaganda. The French propagandist, Jacques Ellul, in his 1965 manuscript titled “Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes” summarized the nature of both old and modern propaganda as this:
“We now come to an absolutely decisive fact. Propaganda is very frequently described as a manipulation for the purpose of changing ideas or opinions, of making individuals “believe” some idea or fact, and finally of making them adhere to some doctrineall matters of mind. Or, to put it differently, propaganda is described as dealing with beliefs or ideas. If the individual is a Marxist, it tries to destroy his conviction and turn him into an anti-Marxist, and so on. It calls on all the psychological mechanisms, but appeals to reason as well. It tries to convince, to bring about a decision, to create a firm adherence to some truth. Then, obviously, if the conviction is sufficiently strong, after some soul searching, the individual is ready for action.
This line of reasoning is completely wrong. To view propaganda as still being what it was in 1850 is to cling to an obsolete concept of man and of the means to influence him; it is to condemn oneself to understand nothing about modern propaganda. The aim of modern propaganda is no longer to modify ideas, but to provoke action. It is no longer to change adherence to a doctrine, but to make the individual cling irrationally to a process of action. It is no longer to lead to a choice, but to loosen the reflexes. It is no longer to transform an opinion, but to arouse an active and mythical belief.”
Ellul’s full manuscript later demonstrates that Modern Propaganda doesn’t actually dismiss the old uses, if anything it exploits them to even more disturbing levels by exploiting individuals psychological weaknesses in all new ways. His argument in that section was mainly emphasizing the significance of “modern” (1965) propaganda.
Edward Bernays, who was instrumental in crafting modern propaganda, stated in his book “Propaganda” [1928]:
“This general principle, that men are very largely actuated by motives which they conceal from themselves, is as true of mass as of individual psychology. It is evident that the successful propagandist must understand the true motives and not be content to accept the reasons which men give for what they do.”
Many of the “motives” Bernays spoke of were irrational social behaviors. Bernays spoke more in terms of the differing perspectives of politics and advertising, whereas the other propagandists in this article were more in tune with the political / control dimensions of propaganda. Ellul explains this irrational social context in much deeper dimensions:
“Actually, just because men are in a group, and therefore weakened, receptive, and in a state of psychological regression, they pretend all the more to be “strong individuals.” The mass man is clearly sub- human, and is more unstable, but thinks he is firm in his convictions. If one openly treats the mass as a mass, the individuals who form it will feel themselves belittled and will refuse to participate. If one treats these individuals as children (and they are children because they are in a group), they will not accept their leader’s projections or identify with him. They will withdraw and we will not be able to get anything out of them.”
Never-mind that we observe the players are treated to follow orders like children. (More on what happens when we observe people later)
The sports degree of propaganda actually fulfills Joseph Goebbels (Nazi Minister of Propaganda) 14th and 16-A Principles of Propaganda:
#14: Propaganda must label events and people with distinctive phrases or slogans.
a. They must evoke desired responses which the audience previously possesses
b. They must be capable of being easily learned
c. They must be utilized again and again, but only in appropriate situations
d. They must be boomerang-proof
#16 Propaganda to the home front must create an optimum anxiety level.
a. Propaganda must reinforce anxiety concerning the consequences of defeat
Chomsky points out that sports function as an indoctrination tool that is “a way of building up irrational attitudes of submission to authority”. When viewing sports in this context it’s quite plain as day. I’d like to expand on this and point out that it also indoctrinates us with emotional (irrational) us vs. them mentality, which helps solidify the same behavior and thinking that you find with people who are heavily biased in politics or blind nationalism. In other words, it helps create and maintain the same type of irrational thinking that you also find in the mass delusional political and nationalism spectrums.
To deepen, or perhaps define the extreme degrees of irrational mentality you must look no further than the extreme-competitiveness projected by not only the direct content from the game but the media itself. I’m probably treading on dangerous water here, as many may view this as part of the nature of America itself. However, this is an important perspective considering the ways such a seemingly innocent form of media can affect a person who isn’t considerate of these potentialities.
“Propaganda does not aim to elevate man, but to make him serve. It must therefore utilize the most common feelings, the most widespread ideas, the crudest patterns, and in so doing place itself on a very low level with regard to what it wants man to do and to what end. Hate, hunger, and pride make better levers of propaganda than do love or impartiality.” - Ellul
Some quick examples would be the ways these can apply to everyday life such as the ‘compete with your neighbors’ mindset, and other related concepts lie selfishness that has society so divided in this country. Even if people can agree on issues that have significant importance, they still refuse to band together for other ideological reasons. A good example for this is how even the “Skeptics” will agree that the 9/11 Commission Report is seriously flawed and more or less discredited (despite sticking to the overall premise), needing a real independent investigation, however they generally refuse to try to work with the “conspiracy nutters” to get a real investigation.
It’s really just a good example of Sociology’s “Competition Theory“, which identifies that competition between different groups can erupt into conflicts such as wars or riots when groups must compete for limited resources. With something like football there isn’t much to ultimately compete for beyond power through the victory of ones self-identified group, however the repeated (and subjective for those who are unwitting) experience builds and maintains the irrational us vs. them framework that political biases and blind nationalism feed from.
These concepts are all virtually identical to the framework that rationalizes imperialism and fascism as somehow being normal and even natural. In a historical context, it can be argued that there have always been empires. In response, in the modern context, what’s fascinating is that the only existing empires are those of the U.S., with the U.K. being the still existing yet mostly marginalized empire. In any case, regardless of your view on sports in particular, what hyper-competitive sports teach us is this sort of mindset that then bleeds into our other thinking patterns.
Some may not see the significance of these arguments as being very legitimate, however, one needs to only look at basic neuro-physiology to see ‘conventional’ scientific proof. I state conventional because most of this article is social science (Sociology), which not many are used to seeing the Sociological Perspective, otherwise, the world would be a far different and near rational place. Anyways, the science that I speak of in this case comes in the form of “Mirror Neurons“, which are specialized brain cells that ‘record’ witnessed actions as if you yourself are doing it. (i.e. monkey see monkey do; you yawn I yawn)
The only possible way for you to not be in a subjective state while watching (anything really) is to be objected to it, or in the more rare case understand it completely in these contexts. This applies in varying degrees, but it can be more or less determined on your degree of cohesion to 1: the media, and 2: the content. The content (of anything) is expanded in this light by A: if you like it (it activates your brains rewards centers), and B: if it applies to you in a social group context. If it’s a social group “exciting” concept or issue or symbol then this is the dead ringer in developing irrational Bias complexes.
Expanding on raw neuroscience, we develop our thinking patterns in the same way that we develop our physical skills such as playing “football”. As Chomsky points out, “it’s striking to see the intelligence that’s used by ordinary people in sports” (neurally possessing) “exotic information” “about arcane issues”. The people he was referring to (’commoner’ callers to sports radio talk shows) seemed to express a sort of genius in sports from his observations. This goes to show the intellectual potential in virtually every human being, and at the same time the general model for human learning and thinking pattern development.
The more you watch (insert media=propaganda here) the more it physically embeds into the physical structures in your brain, and thus influence your thinking. As a side note, the use of symbols and such throughout our environment acts to “excite” these physical structures throughout our day. Why do you think the Nazi’s had their symbol (this also applies to any flag) virtually everywhere? In fairness, if you oppose the content and/or medium of the media you stand to oppose it. Despite this optimism, too much exposure to any view can still succumb to even opposed ‘neural stimulus’ as shown by children of alcoholics or any other undesirable behavior that often tend to grow up openly denouncing such deviant behavior but later adopt it themselves.
Perhaps if said children somehow were trained in neuroscience, psychology and sociology they could perhaps have far superior resistance to these overt and covert psychological forces? In other words don’t be too paranoid about watching sports whatsoever. It actually adds a whole new dimension of observation understanding these rules while watching the crowds on the TV.
“Propaganda must not only attach itself to what already exists in the individual, but also express the fundamental currents of the society it seeks to influence. Propaganda must be familiar with collective sociological presuppositions, spontaneous myths, and broad ideologies. By this we do not mean political currents or temporary opinions that will change in a few months, but the fundamental psycho-sociological bases on which a whole society rests, the presuppositions and myths not just of individuals or of particular groups but those shared by all individuals in a society, including men of opposite political inclinations and class loyalties.” - Ellul
The fascinating thing with the Superbowl is it annually creates a Fad (the entire nation embraces these teams as their own hometown heros) that reaches Craze proportions. Focusing on the crowds and festivities (manifested projection of medium) related to the Superbowl, rather than the content itself, is the ultimate example of sociology (Collective Behavior) in action. This “Collective Preoccupation” completely follows the Fad phase model.
First, you have the Latent Period being the entire playoffs up to kickoff. Next comes the Breakout Period being kickoff. Finally, you have the Decline Period, which is often passing out drunk after many hour sof keg beer and liquor. If your team lost, or you lost that drunken round of wrestling (that you started) there’s a higher probability of fighting with your girlfriend on the way home from the party. In any case, you’re “Superbowl mindset’ will be constantly “excited” constantly during the latent period. If you happen to have a ’strong’ Superbowl Mindset, it scientifically neuters your ability to think for yourself during such periods of excitation, especially without this wisdom.
“To be effective, propaganda must constantly short- circuit all thought and decision. It must operate on the individual at the level of the unconscious. He must not know that he is being shaped by outside forces (this is one of the conditions for the success of propaganda), but some central core in him must be reached in order to release the mechanism in the unconscious which will provide the appropriate — and expected — action.” -Ellul
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As Andersen & Taylor point out: “People involved in crazes tend to be highly focused on the craze behavior. They may seem fanatical, devoted to the craze above all else.” You will see plenty of this today, perhaps in yourself.
Another key topic in the Collective Behavior scope of Sociology is “Scapegoating“, which Anderson and Taylor define as “when a group collectively identifies another group as a threat to the perceived social order and incorrectly blames the the other group for problems they may have caused.” You’ll probably witness this behavior when (crazed) fans of the team that loses nitpicks some discrepancy against the opposing team (after losing money).
Shall I go on?
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We Own You!
Bitch!
This seemed like a good followup to yesterdays sports / Superbowl – Propaganda expose. Property means ownership. Obey. I think the images speak for themselves:
Give us your mind!
Experience Army life at the mall
The Army today opened the doors to the Army Experience Center, an educational facility that lets visitors experience Army life virtually, through interactive computer simulations and online learning programs.
Located inside the Franklin Mills Mall in Philadelphia, the AEC will inform visitors about Army careers, training and educational opportunities through hands-on interactive computer displays, Army officials said.
Visitors can role-play as soldiers, using mission simulations, Army officials said. During a visit, soldiers will lead visitors through Army equipment simulators, interactive installations and online education programs. Exhibits include a command and control center, where high-tech briefings are conducted; an interactive career center for exploring the more than 150 Army careers; and simulations of an Apache helicopter, a Black Hawk helicopter and armored Humvee vehicle.
Also available are gaming areas that feature Xbox 360 pods, networked PCs for gaming via a local area network and games that include America’s Army, the Army’s official game.
“The Army is a learning organization that constantly strives to improve its operations, and we’ve found that virtual experiences are an effective way to communicate the value of Army service,” said Edward Walters, deputy assistant secretary of the Army for recruiting and retention.
More information: www.TheArmyExperience.com.
SEE ALSO:
Group Protests Army Video Game Recruitment Tools
Group Protests Army Video Game Recruitment Tools
Video Game produced by Army to entice children into enlisting
Steve Watson
Infowars.net
Friday, August 8, 2008
An anti-war group protested the offices of video game maker Ubisoft in San Francisco yesterday to bring attention to the company’s ongoing work with the U.S. Army on “America’s Army“, a video game that has been developed specifically to increase the number of Army recruits.
In the absence of a military draft the Army has turned to technological propaganda to meet it’s recruitment targets.
The game immerses players in basic training before they can go on to play specialized combat roles. Players travel through Middle East settings using weapons that replicate those used by the US army.
The United States Army and the Modeling, Virtual Environments and Simulation Institute has stated of the game that “The Department of Defense want[ed] to double the number of Special Forces Soldiers, so essential did they prove in Afghanistan and northern Iraq; consequently, orders … trickled down the chain of command and found application in the current release of ‘America’s Army.’”
Since its release, the game has “recruited” over 30,000 players everyday. It now has more than nine million registered users, and a new version is due to be launched next month.
Watch video of the protest: CLICK
Commentator Michael B. Reagan recently penned an excellent piece exposing the game as not only a fierce form of propaganda but also as a violation of international law:
Beyond its recruitment goals, the game serves as a training device for both military tactics and weapons, and to condition players for battlefield operations. To this end, “America’s Army” game assignments are designed to simulate real world battlefield missions. For example in one mission, “Special Forces fight alongside Indigenous Forces they have trained. For this mission, [players] must rescue and escort a wounded resistance leader who’s escaped to a neutral hospital for treatment – or hinder the escape of a wounded enemy courier, depending which side you’re on.” Missions like this shadow real world military actions such as the November 2004 seizure of a Fallujah hospital, a blatant violation of international law.
[...]
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has found that Army use of the game, and its recruiting practice in general, violate international law. In May, the ACLU published a report that found the armed services “regularly target children under 17 for military recruitment. Department of Defense instruction to recruiters, the US military’s collection of information of hundreds of thousands of 16-year-olds, and military training corps for children as young as 11 reveal that students are targeted for recruitment as early as possible. By exposing children under 17 to military recruitment, the United States military violates the Optional Protocol.” The Optional Protocol on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict, ratified by the Senate in December 2002, protects the rights of children under 16 from military recruitment and deployment to war.
Furthermore, “America’s Army” is not the only video game the army has produced in an effort to vamp up recruitment. A piece in The Wall Street Journal recently highlighted the fact that the Army has been touring an exhibit known as The Virtual Army Experience for the past year and a half. This giant videogame, currently stopping at amusement parks, air shows and county fairs, has been in production since 1999 when the Army fell short of recruitment goals.
Spokesman for the U.S. Army Recruiting Command, Douglas Smith, admits that the game is a recruitment tool stating “parents are less likely to encourage their children to consider military service”.
Col. Casey Wardynski, director of the Army’s Office of Economic and Manpower Analysis at West Point has also described the game as a tool to capture the public interest and “an opportunity to shape their tastes”.
Of course, the graphic horror of war is completely absent in both video games. Being hit by a bullet translates into a red puff of mist on the screen and soldiers regenerate once they have been killed.
Ad Lab: Stage Design Magic as Propaganda Tool
One of the most interesting (for this blog) stories from the Iraq war was about the design of the U.S. military’s press room in Qatar:
“A scene in which the US army spokesman, General Tommy Franks, addressed journalists cost $200,000 and was produced by a designer who had worked for Disney, Metro Goldwyn Mayer and the television programme Good Morning America. In 2001 the White House had put him in charge of creating background designs for presidential speeches – unsurprising to those aware of the ties between the Pentagon and Hollywood.
More surprising was the Pentagon decision to recruit David Blaine for interior design; he is a magician famous in the US for his TV show and for conjuring tricks such as levitating or being shut in a cage without food.” (Le Monde Diplomatique, Jan 2008, but the details have been widely circulated since the war’s start).
Today, pictures of the two stages for the upcoming democratic extravaganza are making rounds on the net. Take a look at the designs: Republican (still a computer rendering; here’s another angle) and Democratic. From GOPConvention2008.com: “The stage was designed to facilitate the candid and personal tone that Americans have come to expect from Senator McCain. The intimate setting will be a fitting backdrop for Senator McCain’s acceptance speech.”
And some behind-the-scenes details from Denver Post: “They [DNC] will bring so many lights and speakers — as many as 300,000 pounds’ worth — the ceiling will have to be reinforced to hold them.”
Would love to know who’s behind the designs.
Update: thanks to AdLab’s readers (Nishad and Bonniel; see comments), we now know: for DNC, it’s Tribe Design and it’s David Nash (exec. producer, it’s his fifth straight convention; press release) for RNC.
Let me see if I can pull some pictures of other similar gatherings elsewhere. Should be a fun study. Stay tuned.
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Scheherazade in the White House
By Christian Salmon
A few days before the 2004 presidential election, Ron Suskind, a columnist who had been investigating the White House and its communications for years, wrote in The New York Times about a conversation he had with a presidential adviser in 2002. “The aide said that guys like me were ‘in what we call the reality-based community’, which he defined as people ‘who believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality’. I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ‘That’s not the way the world really works anymore,’ he continued. ‘We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality – judiciously, as you will – we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors.. and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do’ ” (1).
Suskind’s article was a sensation, which the paper called an intellectual scoop. Columnists and bloggers seized on the phrase “reality-based community” which spread across the internet. Google had nearly a million hits for it in July 2007. Wikipedia created a page dedicated to it. According to Jay Rosen, professor of journalism at New York University: “Many on the left adopted the term. ‘Proud Member of the Reality-Based Community’, their blogs said. The right then jeered at the left’s self-description. (‘They’re reality-based? Yeah, right…’)” (2).
The remarks, which were probably made by Karl Rove a few months before the Iraq war, are not just cynical and Machiavellian. They sound like they come from the theatre rather than from an office in the White House. Not content with renewing the ancient problems discussed in cabinet offices, pitting idealists against pragmatists, moralists against realists, pacifists against warmongers or, in 2002, defenders of international law against supporters of the use of force, they display a new concept of the relationship between politics and reality. The leaders of the world’s superpower were not just moving away from realpolitik but also from realism to become creators of their own reality, the masters of appearance, demanding a realpolitik of fiction.
Disney to the rescue
The US invasion of Iraq in March 2003 provided a spectacular illustration of the White House’s desire to create its own reality. Pentagon departments, keen not to repeat the mistakes of the first Gulf war in 1991, paid particular attention to their communications strategy. As well as 500 embedded journalists integrated into sections of the armed services, great attention was paid to the design of the press room at US forces headquarters in Qatar: for a million dollars, a storage hangar was transformed into an ultramodern television studio with stage, plasma screens and all the electronic equipment needed to produce videos, geographic maps and diagrams for real time combat.
A scene in which the US army spokesman, General Tommy Franks, addressed journalists cost $200,000 and was produced by a designer who had worked for Disney, Metro Goldwyn Mayer and the television programme Good Morning America. In 2001 the White House had put him in charge of creating background designs for presidential speeches – unsurprising to those aware of the ties between the Pentagon and Hollywood.
More surprising was the Pentagon decision to recruit David Blaine for interior design; he is a magician famous in the US for his TV show and for conjuring tricks such as levitating or being shut in a cage without food. Blaine claimed in a book in 2002 that he was the successor to Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin, a 19th century magician who agreed to go to Algeria at the French government’s request to help it quell an uprising by showing that his magic was better than that of the rebels (3). It is not known whether that is what the Pentagon expected from Blaine but it seems that use was made of his illusionist talents for special effects.
Scott Sforza, a former ABC TV producer who worked within the Republican propaganda machine, created many backgrounds against which Bush made important statements during his terms of office. On 1 May 2003 he stage-managed the presidential speech on the Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier before a sign reading “Mission accomplished: Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed.”
The show didn’t end there. Bush landed aboard the carrier in a fighter plane renamed Navy One; on it was written “George Bush, Commander-in-Chief”. He was seen leaving the cockpit dressed in a flight suit, his helmet under his arm as if he were returning from war in a remake of Top Gun (the film produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, who is a familiar face in Hollywood-Pentagon operations; he made a reality TV show, Profiles from the Front Line, on the war in Afghanistan).
The former New York Times theatre critic, Frank Rich, described the television coverage of this event and said it was fantastic – like theatre. David Broder of The Washington Post was captivated by what he called Bush’s physical posture (4). Sforza had to stage the scene carefully so that the city of San Diego, about 60km away, was not seen on the horizon when the carrier was supposed to be out in open sea in the combat zone.
But the staging was never as explicit as on 15 August 2002 when Bush solemnly spoke of national security in front of Mount Rushmore with its sculptures of the faces of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln. During his speech the cameras were placed at an angle that allowed Bush to be filmed in profile, his face superimposed on to those of his predecessors.
The image becomes the story
For Bush’s speech on the first anniversary of 9/11, in which he prepared US public opinion for the Iraq invasion by glorifying the “great struggle that tests our strength and even more our resolve”, Sforza rented three barges to take the team to the foot of the Statue of Liberty, which he had lit from below. He chose the camera angles so that the statue appeared in the background during the speech. Frank Rich, commenting on this, quoted Michael Deaver, who stage-managed Ronald Reagan’s declaration of candidacy speech in 1980 with the Statue of Liberty in the background. According to Deaver, people understood that what was around the speaker’s head was as important as the head itself (5).
What is around the head turns an image into a legend: “Mission accomplished”, the Founding Fathers, the Statue of Liberty – over time the image becomes the story. But the event must resonate with the viewer, must make two moments interact: what is represented in the image and the actual moment it is seen. This resonance produces the desired emotion. For Americans in 2002 nothing could have had a greater emotional impact than a speech on war on the first anniversary of 9/11. The country had just come back from summer holidays and was ready to concentrate on important matters.
According to Ira Chernus, professor at the University of Colorado, Karl Rove applied the “Scheherazade strategy”: “When policy dooms you, start telling stories – stories so fabulous, so gripping, so spellbinding that the king (or, in this case, the American citizen who theoretically rules our country) forgets all about a lethal policy. It plays on the insecurity of Americans who feel that their lives are out of control” (6). Rove did this with much success in 2004 when Bush was re-elected, diverting voters’ attention away from the state of the war by evoking the great collective myths of the US imagination.
As Chernus explains, Rove was “betting that the voters will be mesmerised by John Wayne-style tales of real men fighting evil on the frontier – at least enough Americans to avoid the death sentence that the voters might otherwise pronounce on the party that brought us the disaster in Iraq.” Chernus believed that Rove invented simplistic good-against-evil stories for his candidates to tell and tried to turn every election into a moral drama, a contest of Republican moral clarity versus Democratic moral confusion. “The Scheherazade strategy is a great scam, built on the illusion that moralistic tales can make us feel secure, no matter what’s actually going on out there in the world. Rove wants every vote for a Republican to be a symbolic statement” (7). This August Rove was forced to resign by Democrat members of Congress. He announced his decision with an admission which could have applied to all his work: “I feel like I’m Moby Dick… they’re after me.”
About
IGNORANCE IS FUTILE!
By: “Ignorance Isn’t Bliss” (IIB)
THE BLEEDING EDGE OF THE MERGER OF TYRANNY AND TECHNOLOGY.
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IIB Films Lab Releases:
Upcoming Releases Information: COMING…
“iXo A.I. Control Grid”
My exclusive film constructed entirely of quotes from government / military websites and documents. Presented as if from the war machine’s own ‘minds eye’. This video goes where no other film in existence does with the subject of the US military’s dream for engineered super-soldiers and a god-like cognitive self-aware artificial intelligence global computer grid. The animations and graphical images are also directly from military sources.
About Page / Research Guide: LINK
Torrent Download: COMING…
Google Video: LINK
“Road to Terrorstorm”
A project I started in 2006, got carried away with, then finally scaled it back down to the original ’simple’ concept and finished recently. A condensed compilation film of several older Infowars films mainly focusing on Police State & False Flag type tyranny pre-9/11. See them all in one package.
About Page: LINK
Torrent Download: LINK
Google Video: LINK
Research Guide: COMING…
“Neocon Wars”
An entertaining Ron Paul Star Wars parody that features intense style debate on US foreign policy which debunks the occupation of Iraq and the “War on Terror” in particular.
About Page: COMING…
Torrent Download: LINK
Google Video: LINK
Research Guide: COMING…
“They Want Your Soul”
My first short video, from 2006. The first film in history to ever discuss US military (DARPA) “AI” (AGI) ambitions. Begins with a cynical look at “American” culture, with a touch of conspiracy and concludes with potential religious implications.
About Page / Research Guide: LINK
Torrent Download: COMING…
Google Video: LINK
Key Exclusive Articles:
*The Federal Reserve Suck Machine is propelling US into ‘Neocommunism’.
*Google’s A.I. quest to become God-On-Earth.
*Obama’s NBIC (nano-bio-info-cogno convergence) Agenda.
*Google’s 23andMe DNA Databank is Targeting Children.
*Mobile Google Android to condition people to embrace constant GPS tracking
*Why I FEAR Obama like no other, like no other.
*Google Founders Artificial Intelligence Quotes Archive
*The Nationalization of Fannie May & Freddie Mack: U.S. has overthrown foreign governments over far less
*The “War on Terror” is a Complete Delusional Fantasy.
*Pseudo-Individualism used to Divide & Conquer.
*Ignorance isn’t bliss: The I Dimension.
*Al Qaeda: The CI-A Team.
*HR1955/S1959 is the modern day COINTELPRO / Operation CHAOS.
*’Global Warming’ “Consensus” & “Causes”.
*Redefining Hypocrisy: Al Gore’s Assault on Reason & Depleted Uranium.
*The Media is Pro-Military-Imperialism Biased.
*”Freedom” = IMPERIALISM: It’s in the Language.
*9/11 Commission Report: “terrorist threats, was in the tens of thousands—probably hundreds of thousands.”
*Osama’s Satellite Phone: History Channel unwittingly debunks the 911 Commission Report.
*Lessons from the OSS: How NOT to be an ‘Enemy’ Propagandist.
*IIBFilms: DARPA’s iXo Artificial Intelligence Control Grid: ‘The Official Version.’
*American Imperialism: The “First Truth” about US.
*An Inconvenient Truth on Al Gore: Google & NASA A.I.
*The United States of Iran: A Reversology.
*The Neuropsychology of Pseudo-Skepticism.
*American Imperialisms death toll on the world: 27,000,000+.
*Official CIA Guidelines for Subversion, Diversion and Division of Populations.
*Political Delusions.
*The Establishment: Unrestrained.
*Google’s DNA ‘Bio-Piracy’ & Federal DNA Databanks.
*Neuroscience proves that the politically biased are legally insane and medically addicted/diseased!
*DARPA’s ‘open’ Artificial Intelligence programs (circa 2006).
*The US Government’s “Collective Society” Fantasy.
*DISA’s / NSA’s “Net-Centric” “Global Information Grid”.
Wired: Danger Room- Secrecy News
- Infowars
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- Dandelion Salad
- Bill Moyers Journal: Health Care Reform + Wendell Potter (must-see)
- How to Sell Americans on the Idea of Israeli “Settlements” By Dan Ephron
- Michael Hudson: Trash for Cash Swaps and Debt Peonage
- New Wave of Disinformation: “Pigs at Risk” of Contracting the H1N1 Swine Flu by Michel Chossudovsky
- Practically On the Table by Ralph Nader
- Global Research
- The Memory Hole
- Empire Burlesque
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- Climate Audit
- Defense Tech
- Fact Check
- Is it true that persons older than 59 can't get heart surgery in England?
- Is the ACLU suing to have cross-shaped headstones removed from military cemeteries?
- Was Obama rude to wounded veterans during a visit to the National Naval Medical Center?
- Is ACORN providing workers for the 2010 census?
- The 'Real' Uninsured
- Advertising Lab
