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Americans Target Of Largest Media Brainwashing Campaign In History
The remarks were apparently made by Swinton, then the preeminent New York journalist, probably one night in 1880. Swinton was the guest of honour at a banquet given him by the leaders of his craft. Someone who knew neither the press nor Swinton offered a toast to the independent press. Swinton outraged his colleagues by replying:
Richard M. Cohen, Senior Producer of CBS political news, stated: "We are going to impose our agenda on the coverage by dealing with issues and subjects that we choose."
Richard Salant, former President of CBS News: "Our job is to give people not what they want, but what we decide they ought to have."
Super Zionist Wolf Blitzer Blasts David Duke on CNN David Duke analyzes the CNN story and uses it to show how Zionists bias the news Americans Target Of Largest Media Brainwashing Campaign In History By Lonnie Wolfe World Entertainment War "Intelligence Report: How To See Through Advertising" COUNTER-ADVERTISING AND ITS EFFECT ON CYBER-MEDIA By Jennifer Berdock Propaganda, American-Style by Noam Chomsky Celluloid Heroes: Part I or: You Can See All the Blood as You Walk Down Hollywood Boulevard? Celluloid Heroes: Part II or: The Tangled Web of Charlie Manson Celluloid Heroes: Part II or: The Tangled Web of Charlie Manson Continued MEDIA ADVISORY: Pentagon Propaganda Plan Is Undemocratic, Possibly Illegal
Super Zionist Wolf Blitzer Blasts David Duke on CNN David Duke analyzes the CNN story and uses it to show how Zionists bias the news By David Duke Here is a clear display of Zionist media bias. Former Representative David Duke is my proper and appropriate title. Robert Byrd is not captioned as "Former Klansman Robert Byrd." George W. Bush is not captioned as "Former coke head George Bush." And as far as "Blasts U.S." is concerned, nothing could be further from the truth. In actual fact, I defended the American people in Syria, gave Syrians a good image of Americans and blasted Israel as the true terrorist nation who has made terrorist attacks against America. Extreme Zionist and Jewish Supremacist, Wolf Blitzer, attacks my trip to Syria on CNN and calls me a White supremacist and "wanna be politician. " Wow, he is really reaching isn't he? Jewish supremacists are of course the real supremacists. I denounce racial, ethnic, or religious supremacism. I Believe in the right of all people and all nations to run their own affairs and preserve their own heritage. Such a belief is the opposite of racial supremacism. It is the Zionists who are trying to control the policies of other nations! As usual, they accuse everyone else of what they themselves are doing! For new readers of www.davidduke.com , please read my book, "Jewish Supremacism", I have a mountain of quotes from mainstream Jewish sources to prove that they are the world's ultimate supremacists. As for that statement that I am a "wanna be politician," What a cheap shot. I wouldn't say that someone who has been elected to two different public offices and who received a majority of the European American vote in major campaigns for U.S. Senate and Governor as well as higher vote totals in Presidential primaries than did many sitting U.S. Senators -- is a "wanna be politician." Actually they are incorrect for another reason in calling me a "wanna be politician." I would like to think that I am far more of a statesman in the tradition of the American republic as I have never sacrificed my honor for political gain as most politicians who sell out everything to get elected. I could have said what is popular and perhaps been a Bill Clinton, but I chose instead to tell the whole truth and be David Duke! A politician is perceived as someone who simply wants to be elected; I am someone who has a Cause and uses politics to advance it. CNN also labels me a former Klansman, but somehow the media doesn't label George Bush as “former cokehead George Bush,” or Teddy Kennedy as "hero of Chappaquiddick" or Sen. Robert Byrd as "former Klansman" or some of the members of the Black caucus as "former Black Panthers," though all of that is undeniably true. They don’t call Ariel Sharon, “Butcher of Beirut” or Nelson Mandela, “former terrorist.” They make sure never to give my proper title of Dr. David Duke, as they almost always give the "Dr." title in discussing Dr. Martin Luther King. Yet, by any standard, my doctoral degree is at least as legitimate as his. When they don't like you they can pull out all the stops. Also notice the dig at me in the end, criticizing the Media in the Mideast for not calling me a former Klansman, white supremacist, or tax offender. Could you imagine them ending a news piece on Bush saying: "The media in Britain didn't mention the fact that Bush once was a habitual user of cocaine." Or... "The media there didn't point out that Bush, who lied American soldiers into war, himself avoided Viet Nam with a cushy job back home. " Or... “The media didn't mention that George Bush has authorized mass torture of suspects and stripping away of fundamental American rights with the Patriot Act." Get the picture? Such is the power of our Jewish-dominated media. But, now through my response you can see how they manipulate the American people. In addition, they even try to bias their watchers by their caption in the news report. "Former Klansman Blasts U.S." In fact, I never blasted the U.S. I repeatedly stated in every public appearance that I was an American Patriot, even an American Partisan. That the American people don’t want war and want friendship with all and that it is only the Zionists and their servants who want war and therefore must, with lies, manipulate the American people to war. I pointed out that the ONLY Mideast nation that has made terroristic attacks upon America was Israel. Israel made terroristic firebomb attacks against American installations in Egypt in the Lavon Affair and the surprise, murderous attack on the USS Liberty. Israel recently awarded and called heroes the Jewish terrorists who attacked American facilities in Egypt. I also pointed out that there have been no agents of Mideast governments convicted of major spying against the U.S. and doing great damage to the U.S. while Israel lauds the spy who so harmed America, Jonathan Pollard. I pointed out the current espionage cases involving AIPAC (The American Israel Public Affairs Committee). I pointed out the terrible harm done to America and the Mideast in the Iraq War, a war orchestrated by the Neocons for the benefit of Israel. In reporting my trip to Syria, it was generally accepted by everyone who heard me speak that it helped lessen anti-American feeling in the Mideast, by showing that the American people, as compared to the Zionist-controlled politicians, want friendship and peace with the world. Here are some quotes by an article published in Syria. Dr. David Duke Improves American Image in the Entire Arab World SGT Damascus – translated by gmt international Officials in the Syrian Public Relations Association say that Dr. David Duke, a former member of the House of Representatives in Louisiana, has dramatically improved the view of the Syrian people and the entire Arabic Middle East toward Americans. An antique dealer in the Old City of Damascus said, “Dr. David Duke made me realize that the American people are quite different than the Jewish extremist Neocons who now control American foreign policy.” Jameel, a coed student at the University of Damascus said that she now realizes more clearly that in some ways America is occupied much like parts of Syria such as the Golan Heights. Here, the Jewish supremacists do it with guns. In America they do it through media control and political bribery. We are all victims of the same problem.” Dr. Habash, one of the major leaders in the Syrian Parliament said, “Dr. David Duke’s wonderful visit has given us a new and very positive view of the average American. Syria has never in anyway harmed the American people. Israel has committed terrorist attacks against America both in the Lavon Incident and the attack on the American Ship the Liberty when 34 Americans were killed and 173 Americans were scarred and burned in a terrorist attack by Israel. Syria has never spied on America or harmed America as did Israeli government spy Jonathan Pollard. It is Israel that is America’s real enemy as Parliamentarian David Duke has proven.” The Grand Mufti of Syria, the respected and preeminent Syrian religious leader, welcomed Dr. David Duke and thanked him for bringing Syria the true feelings of the American people. He said, “The Iraq War has resulted in not only the harming of many thousands of Iraqis but also thousands of Americans dead and many thousands of Americans hurt. For what is this war but, as Dr. Duke has shown, a war for Israel in which both Arabs and Americans have been harmed? Thank you, Dr. Duke for your courage in bringing us this message of peace and of friendship. My God’s peace and love be upon both our peoples.” </strong></blockquote> A professor of history at Damascus State University commented, ‘The Zionists now lie about Dr. David Duke and label him a White supremacist. The truth is, as Dr. Duke has shown in his book, <em>Jewish Supremacism</em>, that Israel is the most extreme example of racist supremacy on earth.” “We researched Dr. Duke’s writings, some of which go back now over 30 years. We found that he wants to preserve his European heritage and traditions just as we Arab Muslims seek the same for our own countries. We respect him for that as he respects us.” “A supremacist wants to control other peoples. That is exactly what the Zionists want, to control other peoples, the Middle East, the world. Jewish extremists always accuse everyone else of their own faults. For over 30 years Dr. Duke has consistently defended Palestinians and Arabs in general from Zionist attacks. We are honored to have him visit us in Syria.” But the admission that the entire Mideast Media was completely supportive of my visit and uttered not a negative word – that they just simply reported the news as it happened, should offer a lot encouragement to us. For if the media in these countries is free of Jewish extremist control, think of the opportunities we have to educate hundreds of millions of people on the real dangers of Jewish supremacism, something that will certainly rebound back into European-American countries. Many world scholars, leaders, media personalities are beginning to express the ideas and facts found in my books. Read "Jewish Supremacism" again, read the last two chapters on Jewish led immigration policies and the Jewish world-wide threat. If this becomes common knowledge across the world a great blow will have been struck not only in the battle of these independent nations against Jewish supremacy, but also in our own homelands. The world is changing my friends! The leading journalist in the Mideast said, "Israel has always wanted to deflect anger from themselves to America and others. Dr. Duke’s presence focuses attention on the true danger to both European-Americans and Arabs -- Jewish Extremism.” “David Duke’s message here makes all Americans wherever they are sleep safer and easier. His exemplary courage in speaking out against Zionism has done more for the American image in the Arab world than any other American I can name. And his book, "Jewish Supremacism" is by far the best book on the subject from either an Arab or Occidental source. If American foreign policy wasn't run by Israeli partisans, they would appoint him as America’s ambassador at large to heal the anti-American sentiment growing around the world.” Of course, the Jewish supremacists don’t want the anger of the people of the Mideast be directed away from America to where it rightfully belongs: the Jewish supremacist State of Israel and their Partisans who have so much influence in American and European media and government. The Zionists at CNN such as Wolf Blitzer would much rather see Americans suffer from violent attacks rather than Israel. In fact, they routinely cover up the mischief and damage Israel does to America. For instance they lie and say, “We are so thankful for Israel, our only friend in the Mideast.” The damning truth is that before America became manipulated to support Israel America had NOT EVEN ONE ENEMY IN THE MIDEAST. And, what kind of friend of America commits terrorist acts against us, spies on us, and leads us into bloody, expensive wars not in our true interests? So the Wolf Blitzer, CNN report by a pro-Israel extremist has inadvertently revealed the biased reporting that I speak about every day. I did not blast the United States. I love my country unlike the Jewish supremacists who will harm my country for the sake of Israel. I did not blast the United States. I blasted the traitors who send Americans to die or be maimed for Jewish Neocon lies rather than for the true interests and security of America. I did not blast the United States. I spoke the truth that it is not just the Golan Heights or Palestine that is occupied by the Zionist extremists, they also occupy far too much of the American media and far too much of the American government. ---David Duke Here is the link to the CNN VIDEO story for your enjoyment and edification! http://www.davidduke.com/mp3/cnn-dukeinsyria.wmv .
Americans Target Of Largest Media Brainwashing Campaign In History By Lonnie Wolfe Executive Intelligence Review www.larouchepub.com 10-16-1 Introduction: Are You Brainwashed? Are you brainwashed? What about some of your neighbors, are they brainwashed? Before you answer that, let us ask you a few preliminary questions: Do you believe that the United States was struck by a terrorist attack on Sept. 11? Do think that the people behind that attack were "Arabs" and that its "mastermind" was this fellow Osama bin Laden, operating from a cave in Afghanistan? Do you believe that the way to stop terrorism is to hit them hard, to hit them at their "bases" in such places as Afghanistan, and to hit the nations who might sponsor them, like, say Iraq? And what about the economy? Do you think that the recent fall of the stock market, and the weakness in the economy, have been caused by the Sept. 11 attacks? Well, if you answered "yes" to any of these questions, you probably are brainwashed! If you answered "yes" to more than one, you are definitely a "goner." "But," you, reply, "isn't that what most people think? Wouldn't they answer those questions the same way I do? Well, the answer to that is, yes. But, we would remind you: Just because the majority of people might BELIEVE something to be true, doesn't make it true. All it means, is that you and most of your neighbors are suffering from a mass delusion--or, put more bluntly: YOU ARE BRAINWASHED. So, the question is, really, how did you get this way? How did you come to believe things like those statements in the first questions were true? "Well, I heard it on.... Well, I saw it on.... Well, I read it in...." You needn't bother finishing those statements; we can do it for you: You, and your neighbors were told the "truth" by the mass media. The American "news" media, which is so proud of calling itself "free," and has been patting itself on it back for the wonderful job it has done for all us during and after Sept. 11, is the largest, most expensive, mass-brainwashing machine ever assembled in human history. It is a machine that so completely brainwashes the nearly 300 millions Americans, that the Nazis' infamous Propaganda Minister Josef Goebbels would be envious. Here are the essential facts of what happened on Sept. 11: According to Democratic Presidential pre-candidate Lyndon LaRouche, whose assessment is shared by many competent specialists on terrorism and irregular warfare, in this country and around the world, what took place was not a terrorist attack, but strategic, covert special operation, organized to have the appearance of a "terrorist" attack. Mr. LaRouche and others concur that, given both its scope, and the extent of the cover-up and misdirection which followed, such an operation could not have been organized by any Arab terrorist cells or networks, nor by an Arab or Middle Eastern state, nor any combination of the above; it had to be organized from within the United States, with the participation and connivance of a rogue network within the Anglo-American intelligence and military establishment. As with any such covert special operation, there is a psychological warfare component, intended to maximize its effectiveness against a targetted enemy, to confuse that enemy and misdirect him. In the case of the Sept. 11 attack, the targetted enemy is the POPULATION OF THE UNITED STATES AND ITS CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT. The "psywar" component of the operation is being carried out by the American media-machine, with the intent to brainwash the American people INTO ACCEPTING THE ONGOING COUP D'ETAT AGAINST OUR CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT. Does that mean that the directors of the U.S. mass media are involved in the operation? No; it doesn't work that way. As EIR explained and documented in a 1997 special report, the U.S. media are controlled and run as a cartel, by the Anglo-American establishment. As such, it routinely serves the interest of that establishment, reporting what it wants, and suppressing what it doesn't want reported; or slanting reporting to conceal reality. Thus, the media's performance before, during and after Sept. 11 could be prediscounted by those who planned the operation, so as to become a feature of it; it were merely required to insert certain specific "psyops" content into this media-brainwashing apparatus, for it to be spread far and wide with the desired effects on you and your neighbors. The brainwashing methods are relatively simple and classic. First, use the terror itself to put people into a state of shock, making them more susceptible to suggestion. Then resort to the "Big Lie" technique to repeatedly hammer home your psywar message--those affirmative answers to the questions we first asked. And most importantly, lie, by suppressing all counter-evidence, by refusing to report anything that might point to the assessment shared by Mr. LaRouche and others: the cover-up. All this has been done, along with initial softening of the population to the mass delusional suggestion of the enemy image and the alleged capabilities and motivations of the so-called terrorists, PRIOR TO THE LAUNCHING OF THE ATTACK ITSELF. Don't be so hasty in dismissing the possibility of your own brainwashing. The enemy knows your profile and uses it. Doesn't that make you a bit angry--maybe for the right reasons, for the first time in a few weeks? Our report below is designed to give you a view from inside this brainwashing process, to see how it has worked on you and your neighbors. And, while we can't yet say who precisely is behind what was done to this country--is still being done--we can show you how they think about brainwashing and use your weaknesses against you. Psychological Terror as a Means of Warfare: Dresden Redux Before discussing the brainwashing operation itself, we provide a little background on the use of terror against mass civilian populations. Not surprisingly, this was pioneered by the brainwashers of the Anglo-American establishment. As commentators on the scene at "Ground Zero" of the World Trade Center (WTC) attack on Sept. 11 surveyed the devastation, they reached for metaphors to describe the incredible scene. "It looks like Dresden," said one, referring to the firebombing of that German city by the Allies in 1944. Dresden had no military value as a target. For centuries, it had been a center of German cultural heritage--a heritage that had everything to do with positive developments in human civilization, and nothing to do with the Nazi disease that had been imposed on Germany by the Anglo-American financial elite. Dresden was chosen for destruction as an act of TERRORISM, directed, not against the Nazis, per se, but the German people. The firebombing of Dresden, creating a raging inferno of destruction that slaughtered more that 100,000 human beings, was conceived and directed by a group of social psychiatrists at the Strategic Bombing Survey, affiliated with the Special Operations Command of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). This group was effectively overseen by the head of the British Psychological Warfare Directorate, Brig. Gen. John Rawlings Rees, the director the Tavistock Clinic in London, which, since the 1920s, had served as a center of psychological warfare operations of the British Empire. The team at the Strategic Bombing Survey, which included a host of U.S.-based Tavistock operatives, such as Kurt Lewin, Rensis Likert, and Margaret Mead, theorized that the terror inflicted on the German population through the "message of Dresden" would break their will to fight, leaving them fearful, frightened, and disorganized. They projected that it would have a lasting effect on Germany, removing that nation from among the great states of Europe, making it a permanently psychologically scarred entity. The German people, they argued, would be made to realize that "all that is German" could be wiped away, all of its culture and history, in an instant, as it were, by powers who would oppose an assertive future Germany. In his 1941 book, "Time Perspective and Morale," Kurt Lewin described the psychology behind the use of this terror tactic for mass effect: "One of the main techniques for breaking morale through a `strategy of terror' consists in exactly this tactic--keep the person hazy as to where he stands and what just he may expect. If, in addition, frequent vacillations between severe disciplinary measures and promises of good treatment, together with the spreading of contradictory news, make the cognitive structure of this situation utterly unclear, then the individual may cease to know when a particular plan would lead toward or away from his goal. Under these conditions, even those individuals who have definite goals and are ready to take risks will be paralyzed with severe inner conflicts in regard to what to do." As the pilots and their crews came to realize what they had done--the creation of a raging inferno, burning civilian targets and civilians--many returned to their bases horrified. At the instruction of the psyops warriors, the crews had not been fully briefed on the mission. Now, they were greeted by teams of psychologists and others, who would profile their responses to the terror they had unleashed; they were told, as the crews who later dropped, unnecessarily, atomic bombs on two Japanese cities, that it would "shorten the war." As one former intelligence officer remarked decades later, "we killed for pure terror, slaughtered people as A TERRORIST WOULD. And, it had no effect on shortening the war. In fact, it seemed to help rally the German people to the Hitler government. The fools who designed this mission probably extended the war" (emphasis added). The attack on the U.S. Sept. 11, in particular the WTC attack, was designed for a similar PSYWAR brainwashing effect. The Sept. 24 issue of "The New Yorker," commented that, according to "defense experts," the Sept. 11 strike "was clearly an example of what military strategists call `psyops'; that is, a brand of warfare whose aim is not to disable military targets, but to sap the overall will of a nation and its people." The article goes on to quote from a 1999 paper by military strategist and analyst Joseph Cyrulik of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., "Asymmetric Warfare and the Threat to the American Homeland": "By killing and wounding people, damaging and destroying their homes and communities, disrupting their jobs and economic livelihoods, and undermining their confidence and sense of security, an enemy can inflict pain to the point that people demand a change in their government's policies. "Used at the right time and place ... an attack could destroy the people's faith in their government, their military, and themselves. It could become a decisive attack against the political will of an entire populace." Cyrulik is part of a network of "thinkers" who seek to change all military doctrine to meet alleged 21st Century threats; in so doing, this network wants to activate psyops, including "covert warfare" such as assassinations. While we can't say that such people are directly responsible for what occurred on Sept. 11, their assumptions about strategy, tactics, and the elevated value of psychological warfare, as well as the misdirection involved in their ascribing powers to "terrorist organizations" or "rogue states" fit nicely into the overall operation. There are new methods, not available at the time of the Dresden attack, for maximizing the psychological effects of a TERROR CAMPAIGN that parallel standard brainwashing techniques. One involves the repetition of terrifying images, the kind that would make a person recoil, and then compelling that person to continue viewing them. Such terrifying images weaken the ability of the mind to reason, making it more susceptible to suggestion and manipulation. In the hours following the attack on the World Trade Center, every television media outlet in the United States broadcast, again and again, the images of the airplanes smashing into the Twin Towers, from all conceivable angles, and then, the shots of the two towers collapsing. It was easily the most terrifying real-life image that most Americans had ever seen. A population induced into a state of terror and shock was then bombarded with SUGGESTION: images started to appear, the mugshot-like photos of the alleged perpetrators, and the image of the "evil mastermind" behind the deed, Osama bin Laden. And, you still believe that you weren't brainwashed? The Movies in Our Heads "God, this is just like a movie," exclaimed CBS anchor Dan Rather as the first of the World Trade Center towers collapsed. "Only, it's the real thing." Did you have the sense, as you were witnessing the horror of the WTC attack, that you, too, had seen this before? You probably had--and that is part of the brainwashing operation. In the last five years, there have been at least a half-dozen movies, whose plots have centered on a terrorist attack on the United States. Hollywood statisticians have estimated that these have been viewed, both in movie theaters and home videos, by more than 100 million people. And, many of these movies, in the recent period, have portrayed "Arabs" or "Islamic fundamentalists" as being behind the terrorist assaults. Each of these latter films has some "expert" advisor, usually a "former counterterrorism expert" and, in some cases, someone who has worked in the military. While it would be a leap to say that the movie-production companies or the "experts" are necessarily witting accomplices in the current plot, the movies, with their "steered" scripts helped people believe that "Arab" terrorists might be capable of what was done on Sept. 11. Long before there was television, images were placed, for "playback" in America's memory banks--first by the print media, and then, starting early in the 20th Century with the first of the real mass media, the movies. Hollywood is a component of the Anglo-American media cartel, a point made more obvious by recent creation of "entertainment conglomerates" through mergers and acquisitions. Thus, a mere handful of companies, with interlocking boards, comprised of people within the Anglo-American establishment, controls all of what we see in the multiplexes, on television, in the print media, and, more lately, on the Internet. As movies were becoming a truly mass-media phenomenon, the Anglo-American commentator Walter Lippmann described their power, along with the popwer of media generally, in shaping "public opinion"--what you and your neighbors think. In his 1921 "handbook" on the mass manipulation of the public mind, "Public Opinion", Lippmann, who had been trained by Rees, among others, at the British propaganda directorate during World War|I, writes in his introductory chapter, "The World Outside and the Pictures in Our Heads": "Public opinion deals with indirect, unseen, and puzzling facts, and there is nothing obvious about them.... The pictures inside the heads of these human beings, the pictures of themselves, of others, of their needs, purposes and relationships, are their opinions. Those pictures acted on by groups of people, or by individuals acting in the name of groups, are Public Opinion with capital letters.... The picture inside [the head] so often misleads men in their dealings with the world outside." Somewhere in your memory banks, were planted the "pictures in your head" of the WTC attack. New Yorker film critic Anthony Lane writes in the magazine's Sept. 24 issue, "How often have we listened to these words [since Sept. 11]. The statement of fact: `The worst terrorist bombing since Oklahoma City.' The promise: `Make no mistake about it--we will hunt down the enemy, we will find the enemy, and we will kill the enemy.' The caution: `You can't fight a war against an enemy you can't see.' And the ominous look ahead: `This is a time of war; the fact that it is inside our border means that it is a new kind of war.' We have learned such sentiments like a script; that we have heard it again and again [in the days since Sept. 11] has not diminished the sternness with which we have given our assent. "Just one problem: it IS a script. All the lines quoted come from `The Siege,' a 1998 thriller directed by Edward Zwick." The plot of that movie involves a network of "Arab" terrorist cells, which commit acts of increasingly violent intensity, against civilian targets in New York City. Video clips of President Clinton commenting on the attacks launched, by his administration, against the networks of Osama bin Laden are spliced into the movie footage. As the terrorists wreak more havoc and kill more people, New York City is placed under martial law; anyone who looks "Arab" is rounded up and placed in internment camps, even as the violence continues. In the end, the movie becomes a sermon on how to moderate attacks on the Constitution, and on ethnic profiling of Americans, while the nation goes on to fight the foreign, "Arab"-terrorist enemy. When "The Siege" opened in November 1999, it was greeted with protests from the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee, who charged that it "portrays Arabs and Muslims as an homogeneous, threatening mass," and labelled the film, produced by Rupert Murdoch's 20th Century Fox, "dangerous and incendiary." Despite such protests, and relatively poor reviews, the movie sold several score millions of dollars worth of tickets and has done well in its video release. In remarking how successful the movie-brainwashing effort has been, Lane noted, in the "New Yorker," that the majority of Americans reacted to those events with the same kind of unreasoned emotion that they express at the multiplex or in the home theaters: "And the exclamations from below, from the watchers of the skies caught on video, as they see the aircraft slice into the side of the tower: where have you heard those expressions most recently--the wows, the whoohs, the `holy shits'--if not in the movie theaters, and even on your own blaspheming tongue." Hollywood, through films like the "The Siege" and "Die Hard," writes Lane, has provided a "sensory education ... fed to a hungry public." In the days following the attack, President Bush's approval rating shot up to above 90%, and stayed there, especially after his nationally televised address of Sept. 13. Following the speech, a CNN commentator observed that President's approval was so high because he was behaving the way Americans expected him to: "Like the President in `Independence Day' [a blockbuster movie about an attack on Washington and the U.S. by aliens] or the guy from the `West Wing' [a popular television show]." And, you think you haven't been brainwashed? `Morphing' the Enemy Image Take a close look at the image of Osama bin Laden, as it appears on the television screens, in this time of a new "war." In psyops terms, bin Laden has become the image of the enemy--the picture that a targetted population keeps in mind as the person, or, specifically, the type of person it is fighting. There is the swarthy complexion, the beard, the burnoose, the weapons in hand--it is all there, all as expected, an ideal subject for the projected rage and hatred of an injured nation. No matter that bin Laden is not really the "evil mastermind." In the days and weeks leading up to the attack, media-watch organizations reported that the major U.S. television news outlets, including the cable networks CNN and Fox News, devoted an inordinate amount of what passes for their "international" coverage, to bin Laden, describing him as a "terrorist mastermind" or "terrorist controller," almost always accompanied by a photo or video clips. But his creation by the media as "terrorist mastermind" doesn't really begin there. To understand what happened, one needs to look at a nearly 30-year span of news reporting, that led us to this point, where some character, a former and current asset of U.S.-British-Israeli intelligence networks, operating from "caves" and other bases in one of the most remote and isolated areas of the world, has become U.S. "Public Enemy Number One." Look at the bin Laden enemy image as a morphing process that begins with the television image of the Black September terrorists of the 1972 Olympics. Then, continue to the 1973 images of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat; later, there are the images of Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini and the fanatic mullahs. Think of someone in Hollywood central casting, trying to find a person to portray the terrorist archetype, given these past figures and images: An oil-rich, almost mystical clerical type (although he holds no religious position), who looks like a morph of "enemies" Arafat and Khomeini, gets the "part." The population has also been pre-conditioned to accept the "storyline" that terrorists who would do such things as took place on Sept. 11 MUST BE ARAB AND/OR MUSLIM FANATICS, as thousands of televised hours of misreporting has repeated. Arab organizations in this country report polling results showing that, by a large margin, Americans believe, even without supporting evidence, that any act of terrorism has "Arab" origins and "Arab" perpetrators. As one intelligence source said this week, within minutes of the World Trade Center attack, Americans had decided that this was done by "Arab terrorists" connected to "terrorist mastermind" bin Laden. "They didn't need to be told to think this," said the source. "They had already been conditioned to believe it." Are such people not "brainwashed?" We are told that our press is "free." But isn't that a lie? How "free" can it be, if the most important event of our time is lied about, at almost every turn, misreported; if the truth is nowhere to be found among the smorgasbord of news outlets that comprise our glorious, "free press." In Nazi Germany, Propaganda Minister Josef Goebbels boasted that the press was free to report whatever it wanted. But, that press was "coordinated" through the operation of a "press trust," that encompassed all media. The Nazis planted stories in the press to suit their ends, and the trust dutifully reported them, with various spins that might give the appearance that not all media were receiving information from the same spigot. While Americans might find it hard to believe, THERE IS NO PRACTICAL DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE PROPAGANDA OPERATION OF THE NAZI PRESS TRUST AND THE ANGLO-AMERICAN MEDIA AND ENTERTAINMENT CARTEL. It is not hard to slant the coverage of any event to suit almost any purpose--as long as that purpose fits the needs of those elites that control the media. All it takes is the planting of a few key items of content, which are then flushed down through the media sewer pipes. Before you know it, the poor citizen is deluged. In a certain sense, the Nazi operation was less insidious, because it was more overt; only fools would fail to realize that they were being fed the "line" by Goebbels and his crew. Here, the appearance of choice, the appearance of a flood of information, confuses the average citizen into believing that he MUST BE GETTING THE TRUTH, FROM SOMEWHERE. But, even a cursory content analysis of all, or most of our news sources, especially the major television providers, shows that the general content line from all sources is basically the same. This has been the case, for example, in coverage of Lyndon LaRouche and his policies; in the major media, the coverage of LaRouche has followed the line dictated by the late Lazard Freres-linked Katharine Graham of the "Washington Post" to never cover LaRouche, unless it is to slander him. Similarly, the decision to black out the present global depression and financial collapse. While there may be no formal meetings among the controllers of the media cartel, where such policy is laid out, a policy consensus, nonetheless, ruthlessly enforces the content of the "news." In periods of crisis like the current one, however, some of the controls become more visible; less is left to chance. It has been reported by some sources, that within a few hours of the Sept. 11 attacks, Executive Orders were issued that put the U.S. media under effective wartime censorship. That is not to say that government auditors of news reporting actually issued orders censoring reports; it is to say that they moved quickly to block any reporting that might have veered away from the official "line." (There was also coordination on the extent of coverage as well. It was reported that all broadcast media were given the recommendation to cease normal programming in favor of 24-hour coverage of the "Terrorist attack on the United States" and "America at War," as the "ID logos" that appeared on all the networks. It is also reliably reported, that the White House and national security operatives participated in the decision to cancel all major sporting events. What this translates into, we have been told, is that a muzzle has been placed on government sources, and that all information coming out about the attacks and the investigation, is under top-down control. This is understood by those who control the news reporting of the major media outlets, who have thus submitted to a voluntary censorship. And you, of course, have managed to understand the truth in this brainwashing environment? As they say, "Give me a break." Beating the Drums for War There was a brief interval, that morning of Sept. 11, as the great brainwashing machine allowed for the visual impact of the terrorizing message to sink in, before the signal was given for the talking heads to pronounce the name of the enemy. If it appeared to some that no matter which channel--broadcast or cable--you tuned to in those first hours, you saw the same dozen or so spin doctors, you weren't mistaken: This has been confirmed by various media-watch outfits. For example, one media-watch organization tallied more than a dozen appearances by former CIA Director James Woolsey in the first few days after the attack, each repeating the message about the need to wage war against Iran, Iraq, and anyone else who allegedly sponsored the likes of bin Laden. An only slightly less strident Sen. John Warner (R-Va.) appeared numerous times; we lost count on Henry Kissinger. As the media-watch group, Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) stated, following Sept. 11, any hope that the media would present an unbiased account of what happened, that it might resist the drive for an ill-defined war, went out the window. Instead, FAIR documented how the print and broadcast media issued emotional tirades for war, echoing what they believed to be the sentiment of the American people; in so doing, there were no contrary views presented, and, in effect, Americans still have no clear idea about what happened, or exactly what the Bush Administration is proposing to do to protect them from future terrorist threats. Look at these following selected examples, which could be amplified by many more: * Kissinger-clone Larry Eagleburger, appearing on CNN, on the day of the attack: "There is only one way to deal with people like this, and that is you have to kill some of them, even if they are not directly involved in this thing." * The "New York Post", the next day: "The response to this unimaginable 21st-Century Pearl Harbor should be as simple as it is swift--kill the bastards. A gunshot between the eyes, blow them to smithereens, poison them if you have to. As for the cities or countries of these host worms, bomb them into basketball courts." * Sept. 14 op-ed in the "Washington Times" by Defense Intelligence Agency officer Thomas Woodrow: "At a bare minimum, tactical nuclear capabilities should be used against the bin Laden camps in the desert of Afghanistan. To do less would be rightly seen by the poisoned minds that orchestrated these attacks as cowardice on the part of the United States and the current administration." FAIR commentator and media watcher Norman Solomon commented that many of the same people who were now calling for a "war against terrorism" and anyone who might support it (including many of the analysts who were appearing as talking heads and op-ed columnists) were themselves involved in assisting terrorists, including Osama bin Laden, when such efforts were official, if then-secret U.S. policy. "How can a long-time associate of terrorists now be credibly denouncing `terrorism?'" he asks. "It's easy. All that is required is for media coverage to remain in a kind of history-free zone that has no use for facets of reality that are not presently convenient to acknowledge." One of those "inconvenient facts" was the well-documented involvement of U.S. "special ops" people, and the Zbigniew Brzezinski crowd; then, later, Ollie North and the Bush people, with bin Laden, dating back to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, which amounted to the biggest "state sponsorship" of terrorism, or at least sponsorship by a then-dominant faction of our government and intelligence community. FAIR and other media-watch groups report that almost no one mentioned these "inconvenient" matters, amidst the vast flow of war propaganda; and if they did, it was only to lie that it was a policy that had long since been abandoned. Similarly, much attention was given to reports about FBI and other agencies work in putting together the "conspiracy" behind the attack. To this date, no one in the major media outlets of the United States has mentioned that there is even a possibility of involvement of U.S. elements. Instead, the reporting has focussed on a combination of "spade work" on clues and leads, as well as, alleged connections to the bin Laden networks. FAIR remarked on such coverage, saying that the shots of bin Laden and his camps gave the impression that there had been more than circumstantial evidence linking them to attacks. The only proof offered was from "intelligence leaks" coming from the wartime propaganda apparatus created by the Executive Order or from assertions made by the talking heads and other "experts." The only characteristic, universal to all the coverage, is the cover-up of any possible trail leading to a domestic source for the control of the terrorism. Is all reporting being so "coordinated and steered?" It is clear that some of the wackos, like Fox News's Bill O'Reilly, a particularly vile character, are simply being given free rein to vent their lunacy. On Sept. 17, O'Reilly demanded that, if the Taliban do not turn over bin Laden, "the U.S. should bomb Afghan infrastructure to rubble--the airport, the power plants, their water facilities, and the roads.... "This is a very primitive country. And taking out their ability to exist day to day will not be hard. Remember, the people of any country are responsible for the government that they have. The Germans were responsible for Hitler. The Afghans are responsible for the Taliban. We should not target civilians. But if they don't rise up against their government, they starve, period." He went to advocate, in that broadcast and others, to make the "Iraqi population suffer another round of intense pain" and to blockade Libya from all food supplies: "Let them eat sand." As is typical with a "grey psyops" propaganda campaign, the most extreme ravings are played off against those only slightly less lunatic, to make the latter appear sane by comparison. Thus, an O'Reilly makes a Woolsey look like a sober analyst, as he calls for a war to take out governments that support terrorism, and for "careful" and "calculated" escalating response against bin Laden. To hold people's attention, to keep them on "message," it were necessary to keep them in a highly emotional state. To do this, there was a steady stream of "human interest" stories about the grief of affected victims, about the courage of rescue workers and those who perished, along with shots of grieving citizens. While the courage and grief are real, the constant bombardment of these images is BRAINWASHING CONDITIONING. Without them, you would have, after a few days, turned off CNN and the "news" coverage. Do you still insist that neither you, nor your neighbors, have been taken in by this? `Crash? What Crash?' Lost amid the war hysteria, or more precisely "spun" inside of it, is the coverup of what would otherwise be the biggest story of the day: the full-scale crash and blowout of the financial markets. The markets, at last look, had plunged nearly 20% since Wall Street reopened on Sept. 17. A fall that precipitous is normally called a "crash," engendering widespread panic, not only among traders and brokers, but among the general population. But in the two weeks of this crash, not one commentator on a major network has used the term! Moreover, we are told, it is our patriotic duty to have faith in the eventual recovery of both the markets and the economy. "We can't let the terrorists defeat us and bring our economy down," said financial commentator Louis Ruckeyser on his televised "Wall Street Week." As Lyndon LaRouche has stated, the crash would have occurred anyway, given the bankrupt state of world financial system, even without the Sept. 11 events. However, now the financial analysts who appear on the television news and in the print media are universally blaming most, if not all of what happened, on "Osama bin Laden." This was to be expected, they claim, given what happened on Sept. 11, in what is the biggest "Big Lie" of them all. As one trader reported, "My God! The bottom has fallen out and nobody calls it a crash. It's like it's your patriotic duty not to mention the word. Hell, the Dow's lost more than 1,500 points--that's a CRASH. But, if I'm overheard saying this, people look at me: `Where's your American flag? Remember who you are and what's going on. Do you want to help Osama bin Laden in his plot to destroy our economy?' Unbelievable!" But, as like many other media-brainwashed Americans, this trader was, in his words, "going with the program. It's not a crash, it's a terrorist event." A Clockwork Future? Several nights after the Sept. 11 attacks, CNN flashed images on the screen of National Guard personnel patrolling the streets of Washington, and heavily armed special police in New York City, inspecting cars at a tunnel entrance. Then, images were flashed of Israeli military personnel on the streets of Jerusalem, inspecting cars. The voiceover, by CNN news-witch Greta van Susteren, a regular featured personality of that media sewer, along with Mossad-asset Wolf Blitzer, spoke of America, in response to the "terrorist threat," becoming an increasingly "policed society," where civil liberties had to be sacrificed for the protection of its citizens. We have seen this before, she said, not just in Jerusalem, but in Belfast, Northern Ireland, as a response to "political terrorism" of the IRA and Protestant militia. After a while, people get used to it, she said. "Life goes on." Interviews were presented with Israelis who seemed to concur with the sentiment that, under conditions of "internal war with terrorists," one needs to adjust to sacrifices in civil liberties. "Americans will get used to it, just like we did," the Israeli said. Thus, the media prepares--or more precisely, conditions--the country to accept a form of police state, justified by a threat that has not really been dealt with, and whose true source has been covered up. Not surprisingly, when Attorney General John Ashcroft, proposed legislation for a sweeping abridgement of civil liberties, it was given relatively short shrift by the same media. FAIR reports that two of the three network news broadcasts never reported it at all; while it was hardly mentioned on CNN or Fox News. The print media, while reporting it, maintained the theme of the "necessary sacrifice" of civil liberties for personal safety and security. Back in the mid-1970s, Eric Trist and Fred Emery, two leading Tavistock brainwashers and "experts" on the effects of mass media, forecast that, by the end of the century, the United States were likely to become just such a fascist police state. The two developed a theory of "social turbulence," by which a society is delivered a series of "shocks"--administered as shared, mass phenomena--energy shortages, economic and financial collapse, and TERRORIST attack. If the "shocks" were to come close upon each other, and if they were delivered with increasing intensity, then it were possible to drive the entire society, into a state of mass psychosis, Trist and Emery said. They said that individuals would become disassociated, as they tried to flee from the terror of the shocking, emerging reality; people would withdraw into a state of denial, retreating into popular entertainments and diversions, while being prone to outbursts of rage. That rage could easily be steered, said the two brainwashers, by those who had access and control over the means of mass communication, most notably television. It was the view of Trist and Emery, in two works widely circulated among the networks of brainwashers and social psychiatrists associated with Tavistock, and among the psychological-warfare operatives of the U.S. and Britain, that the process of watching television was itself a brainwashing mechanism. They cited their own studies, that regardless of content, habituated television viewing shuts down the cognitive powers of the mind, and has a narcotic-like effect on the central nervous system, making the habituated viewer an easy subject for suggestion and manipulation; in addition, they found that such effectively brainwashed "zombies" would hysterically deny that there was anything wrong with them, or, even, that such manipulation of what they "thought" were possible. In a chilling metaphor, Trist and Emery proposed that the terrorized, violent society of the Anthony Burgess book, "A Clockwork Orange," made into a movie by Stanley Kubrick, was the logical societal outcome for an America that would, by the end of the century, have been subjected to more than 50 years of mass brainwashing by the "boob tube." Burgess's world is one of perpetual violence and terrorism, as a daily part of life; it is accepted that, if you go out at a certain time, or walk in a certain neighborhood, you will be attacked and/or killed. There is no purpose to the violence--it is random and meaningless, and therefore all the more terrifying. The wealthy are protected; everyone else is told to go about their business with knowledge of the risk. With terrorist youth gangs roaming the streets, people stay home, watching their televised entertainments, or go only to certain areas, which are heavily protected by police and military. The most sickening thing about Burgess's image is the sense of hopelessness, of inevitability, that nothing can be done about it--it is just "the way it is," as Dan Rather's predecessor as CBS News anchor, Walter Cronkite, used to remind us each night, as he closed his broadcast. While the Trist-Emery thesis is not exactly required reading in the caves of Afghanistan, it is quite familiar to the psywarriors and brainwashers who have launched a war on the American population. There is a particular kind of oligarchical evil that would think like this, that would see a Clockwork Orange society as a necessary outcome, to protect their continued privilege and power. Are we Americans already so brainwashed that we would allow this to happen? The next weeks and months will determine whether we truly do have the moral fitness to survive. "The end of the world. Details at 11. Now back to your regular programming." Remember: The first step in deprogramming yourself from mass-media brainwashing, to freeing yourself and your neighbors, from its evil clutches, is to recognize that you and they are, indeed, brainwashed. It gets a lot easier, and things begin to get much clearer from there on. Reproduced From: http://www.rense.com Source: Executive Intelligence Review www.larouchepub.com
From: http://www.speakeasy.org/clear-cut/contents/AnteroAlli.html WORLD ENTERTAINMENT WAR "Intelligence Report: How To See Through Advertising" One of the many lesser known facts about Timothy Leary is his invention of a whole-brain model for intelligence (INFO-Psychology; Falcon Press) which has since spawned two additional versions; one by myself (ANGEL TECH; Falcon.) and one by Robert Anton Wilson (PROMETHEUS RISING; Falcon.). Dr. Leary's "Eight-Circuit Brain" theory suggests that "intelligence" is fundamentally plural by definition; an interaction of intelligences, or brains, begets more intelligence. Eight interactive functions of intelligence are defined by Leary and, in the creative process of making them my own, redefined as: physical, emotional, conceptual, social, sensory, psychic, imaginative and spiritual intelligences (readers of ANGEL TECH may notice a change from "mythic" intelligence to the more psychological "imaginative" intelligence). This 8-Circuit model suggests that within each center, or function, there exists three phases necessary to each center's operation; these mirror the trinary activity to the most basic unit of biological intelligence, the neuron, in its capacity to ABSORB, INTEGRATE, and TRANSMIT information and/or energy. According to my understanding of this model, physical intelligence is increased to the degree one absorbs (receives), integrates (organizes), and transmits (expresses) physical experience. Apply this trinary function to each of the eight levels and you'll get an idea of the extraordinary implications: the realization of intelligence is entirely up to HOW each central neural (not nervous) system processes its own experiences. To the extent experience is not absorbed, not integrated, not transmitted - IN ONES OWN WAY - is the measure of ones ignorance and idiocy in whatever center lacks our presence. We are all greater idiots than we realize; getting past the vanity to admit it, is preliminary to the work of a World Entertainment Warrior. Since this 8-Circuit Brain model will be used to address intelligence issues, readers are encouraged to memorize the first four circuits. "ALERT: Imagination Death Precedes Loss of Soul" The current World Entertainment War is a form of information warfare, existing at the level of mind and perpetrated by a massive infiltration of gorgeous images and catchy buzzwords now upstaging millions of imaginations; images and fantasies enchanting enough to captivate the fancy of those minds who have stopped dreaming their own dreams. Remember, in the Information Age, real wars are no longer fought over mere physical territory but the internal landscapes of the psyche itself; whosoever governs the metaphor, governs the mind. Those who are not learning new ways of learning and those who are not thinking of themselves are already war casualties, often without knowing it. Those imaginations corroded by Television Overdose, Media Debauch, and Advertising Bolemia are suffering the silent agonies of a slow death. If these words sound melodramatic and even paranoid, look again. The actual situation they refer to is far more dramatic and terrifying than most people care to imagine. Why? Our minds have been so super-saturated with slick simulations of reality, that for some of us, it is growing increasingly difficult to care about the difference...not just between "reality" and "fantasy" but between ones own fantasies and those mass-produced by corporate imagination killers. Imagination death is a condition preliminary to the death of soul; dampen a person's power for envisioning their own lives, their futures and you wash away an internal psychic environment that is house and home to a living soul. (Note: I've no time to prove or disprove the soul's existence; I trust its quandary to be sufficient enough to test and define the reader's own sensibilities and conclusions.) There is a way to apply the 8-Circuit Brain model, in particular the first four centers, as a reference grid for deciphering advertising strategies and eventually, for seeing through them altogether. The first four circuits - physical, emotional, conceptual, and social - revolve around four inter-related levels of individual survival. Physical survival is not enough to nurture the life of a soul: there must be an emotional, conceptual, and social life, as well. To the extent one is not receiving, assimilating and communicating human experience in any combination of these four, is the extent one continues "spinning wheels in survival mode." Those centers hobbling along on one out of three pistons tend to be more vulnerable to external commands, ie., from whomever. Nobody knows this better than the media wizards working for corporate advertising executives, who play on the consumer's real and imagined deficiencies to sell their products. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- THE WAY OF HOW Intelligence, thanks to Quantum Physics, is no longer a WHAT but a HOW. Real intelligence thrives on process, not content. Any mind can fill itself with dead data and still remain fundamentally ignorant; many still do. The processes producing whatever contents fill a mind actually govern and regulate that content. WHAT something is, identifies it; HOW something happens, shows us its essence. Did you ever notice how the way someone says something means more than the content of the words themselves? The way of how. The way of how is utilized to great effect by the enemy - the Corporate Advertising Imagination Killers - to change the contents of the consumer mind without asking their permission. Shame. Shame. Shame. Promotional tactics act on the low-esteem of the naive viewer, those minds which have not begun thinking for themselves and governing their own lives. The most sophisticated frontline advertising strategies involve covert methods to trick the consumer into believing their lives are in ways obvious and ways mysterious, incomplete and deficient without the promoted product; only through purchasing the commodity will the consumer's life be "whole" or "better" again. The successful advertiser exposes a need and then, makes a promise to meet it for a price. There is nothing inherently wrong about this; it makes good business sense. But when the images and the words that are used to sell a product fail to represent the product itself, we have false advertising and worse: subliminal manipulation of values. An example is when an automobile manufacturer uses the image of an attractive woman to sell a car, they are appealing to the unmet sexual needs of the male viewer (not to mention debasing the "image of women" as an object to sell cars with). By superimposing the grid of the first four circuits over this general "deficiency" principle, very specific information jumps out at us. Each level of survival, from physical through social, is genetically motivated by specific rewards assuring satisfaction of specific needs: 1) SECURITY 2) STATUS 3) KNOWLEDGE and 4) SEX. Everybody defines and meets their needs for security, status, knowledge, and sex in different ways; the content of these needs are universal, the way of how they're met is personal. When needs aren't met, we are frustrated. This basic knowledge also forms the backbone of a successful advertising ploy: promise them anything but sell the product. By associating any product with the promise of more security or more status or more knowledge or more sex, the consumer's own unmet needs are touched and, they're hooked. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- IMAGINATION BOOT CAMP TRAINING Advertising is the business of promises, fantasies, and dreams: truth has never sold that well. Even the new "INFOtainment" shows on television (Current Affair, Cops, Funniest Videos, etc.) are slick attacks on the consumer need for the knowledge they're not getting in their actual lives. As World Entertainment Warriors, a kind of Boot Camp Training for the imagination is imperative not just for personal autonomy but for encouraging the autonomy of others. The 8-circuit grid is a good starting point, although any method which challenges the process of self-reclaimation - physically, emotionally, intellectually, and socially - can prove effective as long as each mind is mapping out their own experience. The bottom line to boot camp training is survival and learning how to be a survivor. In Boot Camp Imagination Training, expose your own needs to yourself and then, find your most creative ways of meeting them. This kind of offense is the best defense to commercial advertising which, as mentioned before, will promise you whatever you're not giving yourself. The World Entertainment War is being fought over the WAY OF HOW which is, for the better part, largely unclaimed in most people. The public education systems are, in part, to blame for this ruthless atrocity. Remember: in school, young impressionable minds are taught to value knowns over unknowns, content over process, as a measure of not only intelligence but self-worth. Anyone remember the feeling of receiving your first "F" on your report card? The highest grades and the greatest approval goes to those minds willing and able to retain the densest volume of known facts; dead data depositories. The imagination becomes ill when the mind stops relating with unknowns; it bends over and dies, when a mind turns away from the abyss. By redefining "security" and "status" and "intelligence" and "sexuality" according to what is most truthful to oneself, an extraordinary thing occurs: one begins to actually exist. And only that which really exists is subject to real change, real life. By defining ones terms, one stands a chance of living by them and cultivating the ground for the birth of a real being. Until then, we are non-entities at best...wannabees out for our next celebrity fix. Understandably, it takes a certain stance to see this. It is this very lack of stance which forces consumers to suffer as victims of the World Entertainment Wars, no matter how smart we think we are. Are we intelligent enough to confess ignorance, you know: the specific idiocy expressing our particular area of vacancy? World Entertainment Warriors know it is far too late to avoid self-definition; "define yourself or be defined." Yet, World Entertainment Warriors also fight on the frontlines under camouflage of unexplainable poetry, seductive music and iconoclastic theatre; they evoke where their opponents explain and then, get away with murderous humor. World Entertainment Warriors hit the roads, rearranging highway billboard images to expose dangerous truths while circulating posters of political candidates carrying "Dial-A-Prayer" phone numbers. Most of all, World Entertainment Warriors use their wildest imaginations as combat weapons, as power tools and as mojo healing totems for inspiring people to death. If religion is the opiate of the masses then, the death of religion is the birth of poetry. © Antero Alli
From: http://www.yorku.ca/faculty/academic/gerry/essays/berdock.html COUNTER-ADVERTISING AND ITS EFFECT ON CYBER-MEDIA By Jennifer Berdock
The proceeding discussion is perhaps best initiated through the employment of a study from the late 1950s and early 1960s, analogous to the current state of affairs in advertising standards and practice. During this time in the twentieth century, a radical physician by the name of Dr. Ewen Cameron began to experiment on patients to determine whether the human mind could essentially be ‘depatterned’, and inputted with entirely new information. This experiment would prove successful if it succeeded in altering the consciousness of the individual, thus making them especially susceptible to suggestion. Dr. Cameron determined that ‘depatterning’ could be accomplished through the use of a technique he called psychic driving. Psychic Driving is a technique that enlisted the ceaseless repetition of a key word or phrase, rendering the patient incoherent, and often disoriented even at the conclusion of the experiment. Phrases such as "you have no self-confidence" were essentially implanted in the minds of Dr. Cameron’s patients, later to be undermined by affirming messages intended to counteract the effects of the former. This driving message resulted in patients inability to decipher reality from implant, and culminated in the process of psychic driving as a torturous one. This sort of ‘research’ served to indicate its ‘brainwashing’ value if utilized within the context of the military, and in fact the CIA, who became very interested in the results of such ‘depatterning’, funded Dr. Cameron’s work for three years under the coded pseudonym of MKULTRA. Dr. Cameron became infamous in later years for the experimenting that he did upon his uneducated human subjects. He was especially ostracized by both the medical and general public for the administration of tranquilizing drugs such as LSD and sleeping pills to his subjects, as well as using unconventional methods such as electric shock therapy and deep hypnosis to ensure his patients’ compliance and lack of resistance in the experimental process. Needless to say that Dr. Cameron’s experiments succeeded in alienating both himself, and participating government agencies such as the CIA, from society’s previous trust – rendering both the psychiatric profession and the government susceptible to unyielding public scrutiny. In one sense, Dr. Cameron’s work continues to thrive in contemporary society, even withstanding the general outrage that resulted in the 50s and 60s. As explained by Bruce Grierson, a writer and editor for The Media Foundation, Under new stewards and another guise, the "electronic lobotomies continue apace. The subject pool has expanded from a few dozen people to a couple of billion. The driving messages have become more sophisticated: cryptic, alluring, alarming. They are no longer called implants. They are called ads. Of course, current advertising executives are unable to tamper with the physical nature of their subject’s minds by administering either mind-altering drugs or therapies to induce compliance. Their tools of late; the advertisements themselves, must prove so arresting that these secondary methods are no longer necessary to ensure that the ‘patients’ of the public will indeed purchase their products – regardless and irrespective of any real necessity for whatever it may be. The model of contemporary advertising follows Dr. Cameron’s scheme of depatterning. However, modern advertising proves a broader and more sophisticated process in that the public is bombarded with thousands of different, and often competing, messages, intended to lead us towards the given product willingly and readily – the effects on our long-term consciousness (as in the cases of Dr. Cameron’s patients), unknown. Advertising corporations may be said to "break down" and "build up" our minds by moving us through four stations. Initially, we are assured that purchasing a given product will enrich our lives. This is followed by the realization that to obtain this product and enrich our lives we must have enough money. Ultimately, the quest for money will alienate ourselves from one another as it becomes a central defining factor in our respective daily routines. At last, we feel socially and spiritually void by this repetitive and often fruitless process, and this may only be purged by returning to the first step in this circular system. Perhaps to a larger extent than any of us are willing to admit, we have already been fed so many driving messages to have assured our general compliance, depatterning us and leaving us susceptible to some of the most cryptic and disturbing advertisements prevalent in our social domain. Counter-advertising is a concept dedicated to an ethic of revealing and undermining the systematic manipulation by current advertisers and corporations in their desire to sell their products. One organization committed to this ideal is The Media Foundation. The Media Foundation is a media activist coalition striving to overthrow the supreme and subliminal powers of money-hungry corporations who dominate quite literally, all arenas of the media. The Media Foundation has grown to incorporate several counter-advertising strategies. In efforts to reach the same mass audience levels of those targeted by corporate advertising gurus, The Media Foundation has created its own Internet site, pioneered the Powershift Advocacy Agency, and publishes the controversial "Adbusters" magazine. Those in support of the foundations’ ethic include a multitude of media and environmental strategists, as well as a healthy salad of media and advertising professionals, students and educators of media literacy, and enough intelligent individuals concerned for the welfare of their social world being bombarded by disturbing and offensive images and messages aimed purely towards gaining profit. As mentioned, "Adbusters" is a controversial print magazine that is published by The Media Foundation. Adbusters is a Canadian publication, and has recently expanded to include its own website (see Appendix A), breaking new ground and wreaking anti-commercial havoc in cyberspace with its message faithful to the ethic of humane and responsible advertising. Adbusters is perhaps most notorious for its shockingly laughable spoofs of popular media icons, such as those directed at the McDonald’s corporation, Nike, Benetton retailers, and a slew of other such "innocent victims" of the media’s ‘double-edged sword’. Lest we forget the seriousness in the satire, Adbusters is, all jokes aside, committed to its critical investigation of current media and its propensity for irresponsibility in the public sphere (1). Powershift, the social marketing limb of the Media Foundation body, has sequentially been producing a series of Adbusters "uncommercials", directed at an uncompromising expose of the motives, and the means employed by large corporations to sell their products to the public. So controversial were these uncommercials, and the resulting reactions of targeted companies, that the majority of television networks, such as those on the forefront of T.V. advertising (i.e. NBC, CBS, ABC) absolutely and resolutely denied Powershift the airtime necessary to broadcast these crucial messages to the public. However, CNN did meet with representatives from the Powershift Advocacy Agency and The Media Foundation on the subject, and proceeded to air an hour-long CNN special report on their network to encourage and stimulate public education about the mission of the foundation’s leading cultural critics. Five of the most recent uncommercials created by Powershift, and denied television network airtime, are available to peruse and download from the adbusters website, providing for the public the rare opportunity to regard what the major networks (and their major sponsors) are attempting to – for all intents and purposes – censor from the public sphere. In retaliation to much of this corporate resistance to change, such counter-advertising strategies support an ideal of "culture-jamming": undermining the purpose of existing advertisements by ‘jamming’ them full of critical cultural messages. This process ultimately subverts the original message by disturbing the circuitry of the delivery, and reveals the blatant objectives of the advertisers. An example of live culture-jamming is in the activism of Chicago-based artist Ben Rubin, hell-and-bent on plastering his own message that, "I keep getting mugged in my sleep" – indicative of the power the media has to shape our desires and deliver its message, even when we are most unconscious of it. Rubin pastes his blurb beside the temple of as many billboarded faces as possible (to date, somewhere between one and two thousand), by spending most of his time in the Chicago subways. He may be lonely, but he certainly knows how to reach people. Cyberjamming: It’s like using the enemy’s own gun to shoot him in the back. An offspring of culture-jamming, "cyberjamming" strives towards the same ends, although using a different means: namely, the Internet. However unfortunate, the realistic truth is that most counter-media groups who operate on a smaller scale than The Media Foundation, have limited accessibility to the potential weapon-like value of the Internet. With worldwide connection, the web provides ideal places and spaces in which to educate and involve mass audiences in proactive strategy against advertising manipulations. But alas, who will foot the bill? Obtaining a website is hardly the problem, the problem is how users will know where to go and how to get there. Purchasing space on the larger search engines like Alta Vista for direct links to sites may prove a petty expense for the McDonald’s corporation, while a serious hurdle for the McDonald’s boycott organization. Fortunately, such activists have much experience in getting over such hurdles and finding some viable and innovative solutions. Heath Bunting, a pilgrim in proactive net infiltration, for the purpose of ‘jamming’ major corporations’ electronic medium, has suggested a method of ‘subversion’ to achieve a means to an end. The condensed version is that Bunting has created a situation in which the vehicle carrying messages from the corporation to the consumer is essentially stuck in traffic. A recent example is his attack on Nike and Adidas shoe retailers. When a user initiates a query, his/her search engine sends back a dozen or so initial links sending the user immediately to Bunting’s created space which reads "URL FOR RENT" and has a consequential link to the competition. The forum of cyberspace is a preferred one for Bunting and many of his contemporaries, assumedly as a result of its said potential to attack large corporations in a most valuable way – through the most interconnected of all global media avenues. Another related site is one housing a master ‘blacklist’ of those advertisers who have been known to use "spamming" (2), e-mail, and newsgroup postings as devious guises to send out their ads. The site suggests several ways in which to counteract this underhanded method of advertising (3). In order to reclaim the tools of communication, we must both rethink, and thus reorganize, the current standards in advertising. In other words, we need a paradigm shift. This is to say a transformation that inevitably occurs when sufficient individuals become proactive towards the same ethical advertising ends. Presented by Linda Starke in The New Paradigm in Business, is an expanded model of what may be termed a moral development of the corporation. This model indicates and defines five fundamental steps in this process that would reform greedy corporations into more "user-friendly" ethical institutions. The model proceeds with stage one’s Amoral Corporation, followed by The Legalistic Corporation, The Responsive Corporation, The Emergent Ethical Corporation, and finally, the much sought after, Ethical Corporation. Although positive, this model, at this moment, remains idealistic. The Amoral Corporation pursues an ‘ethic’ of victory at any cost, and considers its employees as mere units of production. The Legalistic Corporation is utterly preoccupied with operating its business as per the ‘letter of the law’, for purposes involving only the ability to shield themselves safely from too close a scrutiny. In most instances, codes of conduct within a legalistic corporation read like legal doctrines, and are followed inasmuch as is deemed necessary by executives without having their employees feel to appreciated on the job. The Responsive Corporation is more committed to responsibility than the preceding two, yet for purposes of becoming a more economically efficient unit. However, it does in fact prove more ethical in practice than the others thus far. Stage four in this process is The Emergent Ethical Corporation that actively promotes an application of social standards and ethics within the corporation, attempting to instill the like in the dispositions of its employees. The Ethical Corporation, representing the ideal model for a corporation, is dedicated to balancing profits and ethics throughout its corporate culture (4). Able to barely identify a semi-handful of corporations turtling towards stage four, counter-advertising activists have their work cut out for them. I will, however, briefly address one such corporation, progressive in the ethical example it sets by its responsible and accountable advertising strategies. A pioneer in practicing what they preach, The Body Shop sells diligently the ideals of health and wellness – bottled or otherwise. The Body Shop has always stood behind their humane vintage point, as has been demonstrated in their continued support for such charitable causes as the ethical treatment of animals, fighting violence against women, and international recycling campaigns. Until recently, I had not fully appreciated the company’s keen eye on society – and how it affects their applications in honest, and often satirical, media campaigns. Upon launching their newest advertising campaign, The Body Shop chose to examine the plight of women in a culture ‘jammed’ by unrealistic and stagnant standards of aesthetic beauty – through satire, as well as other clever eye-catching alternatives (see Appendix B). Online, The Body Shop website houses valuable corporate information, including its mission statement, as well as an account of its practiced ethical principles. Further, any critical consumer may download a case study detailing how the company accomplishes its goal to monitor this aforementioned ethical strategy. This sort of information relays to the public arena how such companies as The Body Shop enforces, and remains accountable for, these kinds of proactive policies (see Appendix C). There is hope yet. The Body Shop maintains a successful business, and likely its frontline advertising executives have enough conscience to sleep at night. It is, however, the lack of a moral majority in this business that perhaps is driving the value out of advertising. Consumers are no longer oblivious to the underhanded methods, however obscure they may be, of major corporations to manipulate the media and ourselves, for the ultimate capital reward. It takes such creative individuals as those involved with The Media Foundation to demonstrate how devastating and far-reaching the capital effect is upon our lives; our standards, ideals, self-concepts, and even our most treasured aspirations. TALK IS CHEAP CHANGE IS GOOD ADBUST!! Notes 1. Visit Adbusters at www.adbusters.org 2. The concept of "spamming" was elaborated by guest lecturer Peter Roosen-Runge, who asserted that "spamming" comprises the pump-out advertisements prevalent on the Internet, which are transmitted by way of relay computers that propagate e-mail on their behalf. Visit the Internet Advertising Blacklist at www-math.uni-paderborn.de/~axel/BL/ The Adbusters organization is on the cutting edge of cyberjamming tools and tactics, and welcomes any such input at aXel @ adbusters.org This exerpt is a condensed, and paraphrased version of Linda Starke’s discourse on the model of the moral development of corporations, from The New Paradigm in Business. References http://www.the-body-shop.com – website for The Body Shop corporation http://www.adbusters.org – website for The Media Foundation’s "Adbusters" online magazine (also in print as a Canadian alternative media publication) http://www.shift.com – website for the online "Shift" magazine (also in print as a Canadian alternative media publication) http://www.utne.com – website for the online "Utne Reader" magazine (also in print as an American alternative media publication) http://www.reason.com – website for the online "Reason" magazine (also in print as an American alternative media publication)
From:
http://educate-yourself.org/cnpropagandaforthemasses4oct01.html Propaganda
for the Masses: While the world is still in the grips of an emotional frenzy in the wake of the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, it is worth considering some of Adolf Hitler's observations on how such emotions are used to manipulate people. Emotional responses have been the source of untold suffering and bloodshed throughout the course of human history. As natural as emotions are, they are easily manipulated by external forces and can be used to control reason and action. Communications and propaganda experts have been aware of this fact for a very long time. Hitler understood this only too well. That Hitler was a monster can hardly be questioned; the fact that he possessed a kind of mad genius and a keen understanding of how the masses think (or, rather, do not think) is equally unquestionable. Hitler referred to emotion as a kind of doorway or "gateway" into the more suggestible regions of the human heart and mind; once this door has been opened it is possible to "get inside" of people's heads and direct their responses and actions. In the wake of the economic collapse in Germany and the humiliations heaped upon the German people after World War I, Hitler was able to use the emotions that emerged from these events to manipulate public opinion and, ultimately, to lead his people into a terrible and destructive war. Where emotion was lacking, such as in the case of the Jewish question, events were staged or phony stories planted in order to fire people's emotions in the direction that the government wanted to go. That a tyrant like Hitler was aware of and effectively used such knowledge should put all of us on guard. No intelligent person should allow himself or herself to be goaded into blindly supporting the actions of government merely because their emotions tell them so. What is right can only be determined in a state of emotional calm. Once your emotions are turned off, you can turn to the task of analyzing the causes, effects, and solutions to the problems that face you. There is nothing inherently wrong with emotion, it is a necessary part of the human psyche; it is that which has allowed us to develop a sense of empathy for our fellow human beings. There is, for instance, nothing wrong with feeling emotion for the innocent victims of the World Trade Center attack, but one must also grant the same emotional sympathy to the sufferings of the innocent people that have been killed worldwide by the decisions and actions of the global super powers. Only fools allow themselves to guided by their emotions; to do so is to allow yourself to become a mindless puppet of those who still practice Hitler's advanced techniques of manipulation. With the advent of television and mass communication devices, modern propaganda has become much more subtle, effective, and powerful. I am thus providing below a few snippets of Hitler's observations on the power of propaganda and of the crucial role that emotion plays in any effective propaganda campaign. By educating oneself in the techniques of propaganda, the reader stands a better chance of operating as a free and independent agent (rather than just as a part of a gigantic mindless mass). In the end, the reader should remember that propaganda is used as much today as it ever was, and perhaps even more; if we allow ourselves to be manipulated by the spinmasters we could be led to the same unspeakable end that the German people faced. Let us sincerely try to avoid subjecting ourselves to lessons that, in a better world, should have been learned years ago. I would also like to warn my readers to be wary of the those who would stage and fabricate events designed to create emotional responses, as Hitler once did, in order to facilitate what would otherwise be unpopular agendas. To think that such ideas are mere "conspiracy theory" is to make a conscious decision to ignore history. Powerful people manipulate the masses quite consciously and quite deliberately, they always have, and probably always will (unless the masses wise up). A brief perusal of the writings of such people as Walter Lippmann, George Creel, Edward Bernays, and other influential government advisers should make this painfully clear; western academics and politicians have learned from the mass mind manipulation techniques employed by the Nazis, and incorporated them into newer, subtler, and better techniques. Propaganda for the Masses is the first part in what I hope to be an ongoing effort designed to lift the proverbial veil of global deception. Consider the excerpts provided below and then ask your self how these might apply to the modern world: Excerpts from Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf: "All great movements are popular movements, volcanic eruptions of human passions and emotional sentiments, stirred either by the cruel Goddess of Distress or by the firebrand of the word hurled among the masses ... Only a storm of hot passion can turn the destinies of peoples ... It alone gives its chosen one the words which like hammer blows can open the gates to the heart of a people ... "The function of propaganda does not lie in the scientific training of the individual, but in calling the masses' attention to certain facts, processes, necessities, etc., whose significance is thus for the first time placed within their field of vision. The whole art consists in doing this so skillfully that everyone will be convinced that the fact is real, the process necessary, the necessity correct, etc. But since propaganda is not and cannot be the necessity in itself, since its function, like the poster, consists in attracting the attention of the crowd, and not in educating those who are already educated or who are striving after education and knowledge, its effect for the most part must be aimed at the emotions and only to a very limited degree at the so-called intellect...The more modest its intellectual ballast, the more exclusively it takes into consideration the emotions of the masses, the more effective it will be... "The art of propaganda lies in understanding the emotional ideas of the great masses and finding, through a psychologically correct form, the way to the attention and thence to the heart of the broad masses. The receptivity of the great masses is very limited, their intelligence is small, but their power of forgetting is enormous. In consequence of these facts, all effective propaganda must be limited to a very few points and must harp on these slogans until the last member of the public understands what you want him to understand [or believe]... "The war propaganda of the English and Americans were psychologically sound. By representing the Germans to their own people as barbarians and Huns, they prepared the individual soldier for the terrors of war, and thus helped to preserve him from disappointments. After this, the most terrible weapon that was used against him seemed only to confirm what his propagandists had told him; it likewise reinforced his faith in the truth of his government's assertions, while on the other hand it increased his rage and hatred against the vile enemy For the cruel effects of the weapon, whose use by the enemy he now came to know, gradually came to confirm for him the 'Hunnish' brutality of the barbarous enemy, which he had heard all about; and it never dawned on him for a moment that his own weapons possibly, if not probably, might be even more terrible in their effects... "The function of propaganda is, for example, not to weigh and ponder the rights of different people, but exclusively to emphasize the one right which it has set out to argue for. Its task is not to make an objective study of the truth, in so far as it favors the enemy, and then set it before the masses with academic fairness; its task is to serve our own right, always and unflinchingly... "The broad mass of a nation does not consist of diplomats, or even professors of political law, or even individuals capable of forming a rational opinion; it consists of plain mortals, wavering and inclined to doubt and uncertainty. As soon as our own propaganda admits so much as a glimmer of right on the other side, the foundation for doubt in our own right has been laid. The masses are then in no position to distinguish where foreign injustice ends and our own begins."
http://cal.jmu.edu/aleysb/chomsky.htm by Noam Chomsky
Pointing to the massive amounts of propaganda spewed by government and institutions around the world, observers have called our era the age of Orwell. But the fact is that Orwell was a latecomer on the scene. As early as World War I, American historians offered themselves to President Woodrow Wilson to carry out a task they called "historical engineering," by which they meant designing the facts of history so that they would serve state policy. In this instance, the U.S. government wanted to silence opposition to the war. This represents a version of Orwell's 1984, even before Orwell was writing. In 1921, the famous American journalist Walter Lippmann said that the art of democracy requires what he called the "manufacture of consent." This phrase is an Orwellian euphemism for thought control. The idea is that in a state such as the U.S. where the government can't control the people by force, it had better control what they think. The Soviet Union is at the opposite end of the spectrum from us in its domestic freedoms. It's essentially a country run by the bludgeon. It's very easy to determine what propaganda is in the USSR: what the state produces is propaganda. That's the kind of thing that Orwell described in 1984 (not a very good book in my opinion). 1984 is so popular because it's trivial and it attacks our enemies. If Orwell had dealt with a different problem-- ourselves--his book wouldn't have been so popular. In fact, it probably wouldn't have been published. In totalitarian societies where there's a Ministry of Truth, propaganda doesn't really try to control your thoughts. It just gives you the party line. It says, "Here's the official doctrine; don't disobey and you won't get in trouble. What you think is not of great importance to anyone. If you get out of line we'll do something to you because we have force." Democratic societies can't work like that, because the state is much more limited in its capacity to control behavior by force. Since the voice of the people is allowed to speak out, those in power better control what that voice says--in other words, control what people think. One of the ways to do this is to create political debate that appears to embrace many opinions, but actually stays within very narrow margins. You have to make sure that both sides in the debate accept certain assumptions--and that those assumptions are the basis of the propaganda system. As long as everyone accepts the propaganda system, the debate is permissible. The Vietnam War is a classic example of America's propaganda system. In the mainstream media--the New York Times, CBS, and so on-- there was a lively debate about the war. It was between people called "doves" and people called "hawks." The hawks said, "If we keep at it we can win." The doves said, "Even if we keep at it, it would probably be too costly for use, and besides, maybe we're killing too many people." Both sides agreed on one thing. We had a right to carry out aggression against South Vietnam. Doves and hawks alike refused to admit that aggression was taking place. They both called our military presence in Southeast Asia the defense of South Vietnam, substituting "defense" for "aggression" in the standard Orwellian manner. In reality, we were attacking South Vietnam just as surely as the Soviets later attacked Afghanistan. Consider the following facts. In 1962 the U.S. Air Force began direct attacks against the rural population of South Vietnam with heavy bombing and defoliation . It was part of a program intended to drive millions of people into detention camps where, surrounded by barbed wire and armed guards, they would be "protected" from the guerrillas they were supporting--the "Viet Cong," the southern branch of the former anti-French resistance (the Vietminh). This is what our government calls aggression or invasion when conducted by some official enemy. The Saigon government had no legitimacy and little popular support, and its leadership was regularly overthrown in U.S.-backed coups when it was feared they might arrange a settlement with the Viet Cong. Some 70,000 "Viet Cong" had already been killed in the U.S.-directed terror campaign before the outright U.S. invasion took place in 1972. Like the Soviets in Afghanistan, we tried to establish a government in Saigon to invite us in. We had to overthrow regime after regime in that effort. Finally we simply invaded outright. That is plain, simple aggression. But anyone in the U.S. who thought that our policies in Vietnam were wrong in principle was not admitted to the discussion about the war. The debate was essentially over tactics. Even at the peak of opposition to the U.S. war, only a minuscule portion of the intellectuals opposed the war out of principle--on the grounds that aggression is wrong. Most intellectuals came to oppose it well after leading business circles did--on the "pragmatic" grounds that the costs were too high. Strikingly omitted from the debate was the view that the U.S. could have won, but that it would have been wrong to allow such military aggression to succeed. This was the position of the authentic peace movement but it was seldom heard in the mainstream media. If you pick up a book on American history and look at the Vietnam War, there is no such event as the American attack on South Vietnam. For the past 22 years, I have searched in vain for even a single reference in mainstream journalism or scholarship to an "American invasion of South Vietnam" or American "aggression" in South Vietnam. In America's doctrinal system, there is no such event. It's out of history, down Orwell's memory hole. If the U.S. were a totalitarian state, the Ministry of Truth would simply have said, "It's right for us to go into Vietnam. Don't argue with it." People would have recognized that as the propaganda system, and they would have gone on thinking whatever they wanted. They would have plainly seen that we were attacking Vietnam, just as we can see the Soviets are attacking Afghanistan. People are much freer in the U.S., they are allowed to express themselves. That's why it's necessary for those in power to control everyone's thought, to try and make it appear as if the only issues in matters such as U.S. intervention in Vietnam are tactical: Can we get away with it? There is no discussion of right or wrong. During the Vietnam War, the U.S. propaganda system did its job partially but not entirely. Among educated people it worked very well. Studies show that among the more educated parts of the population, the government's propaganda about the war is now accepted unquestioningly. One reason that propaganda often works better on the educated than on the uneducated is that educated people read more, so they receive more propaganda. Another is that they have jobs in management, media, and academia and therefore work in some capacity as agents of the propaganda system--and they believe what the system expects them to believe. By and large, they're part of the privileged elite, and share the interests and perceptions of those in power. On the other hand, the government had problems in controlling the opinions of the general population. According to some of the latest polls, over 70 percent of Americans still thought the war was, to quote the Gallup Poll, "fundamentally wrong and immoral, not a mistake." Due to the widespread opposition to the Vietnam War, the propaganda system lost its grip on the beliefs of many Americans. They grew skeptical about what they were told. In this case there's even a name for the erosion of belief. It's called the "Vietnam Syndrome," a grave disease in the eyes of America's elites because people understand too much. Let me gives on more example of the powerful propaganda system at work in the U.S.--the congressional vote on contra aid in March 1986. For three months prior to the vote, the administration was heating up the political atmosphere, trying to reverse the congressional restrictions on aid to the terrorist army that's attacking Nicaragua. I was interested in how the media was going to respond to the administration campaign for the contras. So I studied two national newspapers, the Washington Post and the New York Times. In January, February, and March, I went through every one of their editorials, opinion pieces, and the columns written by their own columnists. There were 85 pieces. Of these, all were anti-Sandinista. On that issue, no discussion was tolerable. There are two striking facts about the Sandinista government, as compared with our allies in Central America--Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador. One is that the Sandinista government doesn't slaughter its population. That's a well-recognized fact. Second, Nicaragua is the only one of those countries in which the government has tried to direct social services to the poor. This too, is not a matter of debate; it is conceded on all sides to be true. On the other hand, our allies in Guatemala and El Salvador are among the world's worst terrorist states. So far in the 1980s, they have slaughtered over 150,000 of their own citizens, with U.S. support. These nations do little for their populations except torture, terrorize, and kill them. Honduras is a little different. In Honduras, there's a government of the rich that robs the poor. It doesn't kill on the scale of El Salvador or Guatemala, but a large part of the population is starving to death. So in examining the 85 editorials, I also looked for these two facts about Nicaragua. The fact that the Sandinistas are radically different from our Central American allies in that they don't slaughter their population was not mentioned once. That they have carried out social reforms for the poor was referred to in two phrases, both buried. Two phrases in 85 columns on one crucial issue, zero phrases in 85 columns on another. That's really remarkable control over thought on a highly debated issue. After that I went through the editorials on El Salvador and Nicaragua from 1980 to the present; it's essentially the same story. Nicaragua, a country under attack by the regional superpower, did on October 15, 1985, what we did in Hawaii during World War II: instituted a state of siege. There was a huge uproar in the mainstream American press--editorials, denunciations, claims that the Sandinistas are totalitarian Stalinist monsters, and so on. Two days after that, on October 17, El Salvador renewed its state of siege. Instituted in March 1980 and renewed monthly afterwards, El Salvador's state of siege was far more harsh than Nicaragua's. It blocked freedom of movement and virtually all civil rights. It was the framework within which the U.S.-trained and -organized army has carried out torture and slaughter. The New York Times considered the Nicaraguan state of siege a great atrocity. The Salvadoran state of siege, far harsher in its methods and it application, was never mentioned in 160 New York Times editorials on Nicaragua and El Salvador, up to now [mid-1986, the time of this interview]. We are often told the country is a budding democracy, so it can't possibly be having a state of siege. According to news reports on El Salvador, Duarte is heading a moderate centrist government under attack by terrorists of the left and of the right. This is complete nonsense. Every human rights investigation, even the U.S. government in private, concedes that terrorism is being carried out by the Salvadoran government itself. The death squads are the security forces. Duarte is simply a front for terrorists. But that is seldom said publicly. All this falls under Walter Lippmann's notion of "the manufacture of consent." Democracy permits the voice of the people to be heard, and it is the task of the intellectual to ensure that this voice endorses what leaders perceive to be the right course. Propaganda is to democracy what violence is to totalitarianism. The techniques have been honed to a high art in the U.S. and elsewhere, far beyond anything that Orwell dreamed of. The device of feigned dissent (as practiced by the Vietnam- era "doves," who criticized the war on the grounds of effectiveness and not principle) is one of the more subtle means, though simple lying and suppressing fact and other crude techniques are also highly effective. For those who stubbornly seek freedom around the world, there can be no more urgent task than to come to understand the mechanisms and practices of indoctrination. These are easy to perceive in the totalitarian societies, much less so in the propaganda system to which we are subjected and in which all too often we serve as unwilling or unwitting instruments. [This is an expanded version of an article excerpted from Propaganda Review (Winter 1987-88). Subscriptions: $20/yr. (4 issues) from Media Alliance, Fort Mason, Bldg. D, San Francisco, CA 94123. This article was drawn from an interview conducted by David Barsamian of KGNU-Radio in Boulder, Colorado (cassettes available for sale; write David Barsamian, 1415 Dellwood, Boulder, CO 80302), and an essay from Chomsky's book Radical Priorities, edited by C.P. Otero (1984). Black Rose Books, 3981 Boulevard St. Laurent, Montral H2W 1Y5, Quebec, Canada.]
2/6/02 dave@davesweb.cnchost.com or: You Can See All the Blood as You Walk Down Hollywood Boulevard (With apologies to The Kinks) David McGowan January 20, 2002 (McGowan is the author of Understanding the F-Word: American Fascism and the Politics of Illusion)
"Radio and television are psychological warfare."
Herbert Mullin, falsely accused and convicted Santa Cruz serial
killer and the son of a highly-decorated WWII Army Captain
I couldn't help noticing that Black Hawk Down has now gone into
general release. When I first heard about this film, I assumed that
it would be a shameless glorification of a reprehensible,
imperialist, oil-driven U.S. military operation that was itself
shamelessly glorified as a humanitarian mission to feed the hungry.
But I was wrong.
As it turns out, the movie is much more than that. It is
also, for instance, a shameless glorification of a convicted child
rapist and sodomizer. And, lest we forget, it is one of the most
obvious pieces of government-sanctioned, pro-war propaganda to come
out of Hollywood since .... you know, I think we may have to go all
the way back to Behind Enemy Lines on this one.
But at least that film didn't romanticize the military
exploits of a child molester. For the record, the 'hero' of Black
Hawk Down, Ranger John Grimes, was given a deceptive name-change by
the filmmakers following a request from the Pentagon's PR people. It
seems the Ranger's real name was John Stebbins – who is currently
serving a 30-year-sentence for an attack on a child under the age of
12. Stebbins' ex-wife told the New York Post: "They are going to make
millions off this film in which my ex-husband is portrayed as an All-
American hero when the truth is he is not." (1)
He sure looks like one up there on the silver screen though.
How could he not be when he is being brought to screen-life by
Hollywood hunk Ewan McGregor? Far be it from me to suggest that the
larger-than-life hero up there is actually a convicted pedophile.
That would be like, say, suggesting that the hero played by Brad Pitt
in that wretched movie about Tibet was actually a Nazi
seeking 'proof' of Aryan supremacy.
Of course, using the magic of Hollywood to transform
repellent cultural and historical figures into screen heroes is
standard operating procedure in Tinseltown. It is something that the
film industry really excels at. We are talking here, after all, about
an industry that recently gave no less an appalling figure than the
Marquis de Sade a Hollywood makeover.
But the point that I started to make before getting
sidetracked is that the repugnant piece of celluloid known as Black
Hawk Down is a painfully transparent piece of propaganda – its
release coming precisely at a time when the Bush team is beginning to
drop broad hints that Somalia could be very highly-placed on the list
of nations about to suffer from Sudden Aerial Bombardment Syndrome –
all in the name of fighting terrorism, of course.
Expansion of the war into Somalia could prove to be a tough
sell with the American people though. Despite being conditioned and
encouraged to have famously short memories, there is always the
danger that some of us might remember those graphic images of a
Special Forces operative being drug through the streets of Mogadishu.
Good thing then for the Washington crowd that this film came along at
such an opportune time – and amid a clamor of cravenly gushing
reviews.
What better way to sell a war than on the nation's theater
screens? According to an article in the Online Journal, "Many who
have seen the film report leaving the theater feeling angry, itching
to 'kick some ass.'" (2) Nothing like some emotionally-charged
propaganda to fire up the people for a war of 'revenge' against a
nation of people depicted as barbarians.
But wait a minute, you say. This film can't be deliberate
propaganda. Production on this movie had to have begun long before
September 11, long before there was a 'War on Terrorism.' The timing
of the movie must then be just a bizarre and fortuitous coincidence –
just like the timing of all the other war and 'spy' films flooding
the nation's theaters is just a coincidence.
The release of the aforementioned Behind Enemy Lines, just as
real-life Special Forces operatives were being sent behind 'enemy'
lines, was surely just a coincidence. Likewise for Spy Games and, so
as not to leave out the little ones, Spy Kids. And Collateral Damage
(Ahhnuld takes on the terrorists), We Were Soldiers (Mel Gibson helps
rewrite the Vietnam War), Hart's War (Bruce Willis helps rewrite
WWII), The Farm (aka the CIA's training center in Langley, Virginia),
Bad Company (more of the same), Spy Kids 2, The Accidental Spy, I
Spy, and the further adventures of fictional 'spies' James Bond and
Jack Ryan.
And it is obviously just a coincidence that the television
networks are quickly filling timeslots with spies as well, having
premiered no less than three new series glorifying and romanticizing
the exploits of the CIA just weeks after what was purportedly the
most massive intelligence 'failure' in U.S. history.
We know that this was a coincidence because these new series
were obviously 'in the can' long before 'the agency,' as CBS refers
to it, had any inkling that it would be thrust into the limelight in
September as it suddenly earned a much more visible role in
formulating U.S. foreign and military policy, and a much larger
budget.
As a brief aside, I just realized that I wrote "U.S. foreign
and military policy" as though those were two separate and distinct
concepts. Sorry. I have no idea what the hell I was thinking.
Anyway, the point here is that we know that the CIA's crack
counterterrorism experts had no hint of the impending attacks because
if they did they would have heroically risen to the task of saving
the lives of the doomed inhabitants of the World Trade Center towers,
just like they do every week on TV.
And that, of course, didn't happen.
So it had to be just uncanny timing that brought these new
shows to America's television screens at the precise time that the
much-maligned CIA was desperately in need of something to burnish its
image.
And in a not-so-shocking development, the CIA is now openly
participating in the crafting of its image for both the big and small
screens. This is in stark contrast to the old days, when the
intelligence community covertly participated in crafting its image –
and the images of just about everything else, for that matter. Like
the Hollywood crowd is fond of saying, it is the agents who wield the
real power in Tinseltown.
With military and intelligence types overrunning both the big
and small screens, some might be tempted to ponder whether there
isn't a coordinated psychological warfare campaign being waged
against the American people to condition them to support a serious
expansion of the 'War on Terrorism.' In retrospect, some skeptics in
the crowd might even wonder whether the country hasn't been being
primed for a major war for quite some time.
We have been, after all, bombarded with Steven Spielberg's
masterful work of flag-waving war-glorification we all know and love
as Saving Private Ryan. Some have noted, by the way, that Spielberg's
films are structured to resemble nothing so much as Nazi propaganda
films of the 1930s. Not unlike, for example, the films of Leni
Riefenstahl – the master propagandist for the Reich who gave the
world Triumph of the Will. If you aren't familiar with Riefenstahl,
you will be soon: she's about to get a Hollywood makeover courtesy of
actress/director Jodie Foster.
But that's beside the point ... sort of.
We also had to endure that wretched bit of historical
revisionism known as Pearl Harbor, which was made by the very same
Jerry Bruckheimer who is now offering us Black Hawk Down. Before
Pearl Harbor, he gave us Enemy of the State and a godawful cable
television series by the name of Soldier of Fortune, Inc.
One of Bruckheimer's earlier works was the feature-length
recruiting film, Top Gun, that was released not long before the 1990s
dawned as the decade in which it would become a rather routine
practice for America's 'top gun' pilots to bomb the piss out of
various defenseless nations that are selfishly hoarding their oil
reserves.
In those days, Bruckheimer was working with co-propagandist
co-producer Don Simpson – who opted out of the partnership when he
was found dead in his home, allegedly the victim of a drug overdose
or of natural causes, depending on who is telling the story.
Simpson's personal physician and apparent drug supplier had likewise
been found dead, in Simpson's poolhouse, and likewise was said to be
the victim of a drug overdose. Shit happens.
In Hollywood, shit happens all the time. Since shortly after
its emergence circa 1915 as the entertainment capital of the world,
Hollywood's streets have been littered with the bodies of those who
have died under, shall we say, questionable circumstances.
In September of 1920, Olive Thomas - a beautiful and very
young actress with everything to live for - purportedly killed
herself by overdosing on, of all things, mercury. One year later,
actress Virginia Rappe turned up dead at a party hosted by silent
film star Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle. In February of the next year,
1922, producer William Desmond Taylor - a former British military
officer whose life is shrouded in mystery to this day - was found
shot to death.
In 1923, matinee idol Wally Reid was found dead in a padded
cell at the mental hospital to which he had been confined. Reid was
just thirty years old. His death was attributed to his morphine
addiction, though how he would have fed that habit in a mental
hospital remains a mystery. His widow then starred in an anti-drug
film that she had lobbied for. The film was produced by Thomas Ince –
a partner of D.W. Griffith, who gave the Ku Klux Klan a rather
notorious Hollywood makeover in Birth of a Nation. Ince caught a
bullet to the head in November of 1924 while attending a private
party aboard William Randolph Hearst's yacht (though it was claimed
that Ince died of natural causes, a story propagated primarily by
Hearst's own newspapers).
And so began a tradition of unsolved and/or covered-up deaths
that plagues Hollywood to this day. And the funny thing is that if
you scratch beneath the surface of virtually any of these untimely
deaths, you find the same cast of characters that you find lurking
about the fringes of any self-respecting political 'conspiracy
theory' – namely Mafioso, native and imported fascists, drug
traffickers, and intelligence operatives.
As another brief aside, I just realized that I
wrote "Mafioso, native and imported fascists, drug traffickers, and
intelligence operatives," which is kind of like saying "Larry, Curly,
Moe, and the Three Stooges."
The bodies continue to pile up in Hollywood to this day.
Recent additions include: Robert Blake's wife, who acquired some
unwanted bullet holes in her head; William Shatner's wife, who ...
uhhh ... drowned ("we've got you covered, Captain"); singer Aaliyah,
whose plane - flown by a Florida-trained pilot with drug connections -
went down because it was reportedly overweight, despite the fact
that much of the band's equipment was reportedly left behind ("can we
move some of this equipment out of here? - we have to make room for
all these drugs"); and comedian Phil Hartman, whose shooting death
was covered up with a murder/suicide story that had more holes in it
than an Al Queda tunnel complex.
But here I have digressed at some length.
The point I was trying to make is that a psywar campaign has
been in effect for quite some time now to condition the American
people for what has been occasionally billed as World War III. The
operative strategy has been to romanticize and glorify World War II,
creating a kind of perverse wartime nostalgia. Hence we have seen the
likes of Pearl Harbor on the big screen, Band of Brothers on the
small screen, and literary masterpieces like The Greatest Generation
in the bookstores.
And those works of 'art' are just the tip of the psywar
iceberg. The media has become so besotted with images of heroic
military and law enforcement personnel that the World Socialist Web
Site recently felt compelled to commend an otherwise forgettable film
simply because: "its protagonists are not generals or admirals, Navy
Seals, Green Berets, marine commandos, FBI or CIA agents, state
troopers or municipal police officers, sheriffs or deputy sheriffs,
prison wardens or guards, secret service or Treasury agents, customs
inspectors, immigration investigators, federal marshals, judges,
bailiffs, parole or probation officers, Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms
inspectors, Internal Revenue criminal investigators, Fish and
Wildlife Service special agents, or any other fictional
representatives of law enforcement."
They seem to have left out federal prosecutors, district
attorneys, judge advocate generals, and .... well, I think you get
the idea.
As for the spy trade, there have historically been two
primary representations of intelligence operatives in our propaganda
entertainment media, both of them grotesquely disinformational and at
least one of them crafted by the spooks themselves. That would be the
notion of the intelligence operative as a dashing, cultured, romantic
hero. The prototype for this version of the fictional spy was largely
provided by Ian Fleming, creator of the James Bond character.
Fleming was a British intelligence operative during (and
after) World War II, when he worked closely with Nazi 'defector'
Rudolph Hess and a rather notorious character named Aleister Crowley –
a flamboyant occultist, British and probable U.S. intelligence
operative, and avid German and Nazi propagandist during World Wars I
and II. Fleming's work is now being carried on by the likes of Tom
Clancy, a 'former' Naval Intelligence asset and good friend of George
Bush.
The other predominant image of the intelligence community
that has permeated the media is that of 'the gang that couldn't shoot
straight' – the spy as a well-intentioned, bumbling fool. On the big
screen, the Pink Panther films established the model for this
archetype, along with such television series as Get Smart, which was
co-created by Buck Henry. Henry also was credited with the screenplay
for the film Day of the Dolphin – a blatantly disinformational look
at the work of MK-ULTRA operative John Lilly.
Assisting Henry on creating Get Smart, by the way, was Mel
Brooks, whose most recent endeavor was adapting for the Broadway
stage his film The Producers – an offensive piece of work that
trivializes the crimes of the Third Reich and casts Herr Hitler as a
cartoonish character. Strangely enough, Brooks chose to stage the
gala premier of his play on April 20, 2001 – the birthday of its
protagonist.
Brooks wasn't the first to present a buffoonish screen image
of Hitler. Charlie Chaplin did it far earlier – back in 1940 when The
Great Dictator was released just after the Nazi invasion of the
Soviet Union. The funny thing was though that Charlie pretty much
wore the same makeup to play the Fuhrer that he had been wearing for
the previous twenty years.
Chaplin's toothbrush-mustachioed 'Little Tramp' character was
created and began gracing the nation's silent movie screens just as
the similarly adorned Adolf Hitler began his climb to power in
Germany's fledgling Nazi Party following World War I (after, it
should probably be noted, spending some time in the Pasewalk
Sanitarium). By the time the real Hitler stepped onto the world
stage, therefore, the American people were predisposed to view the
silly-looking character as little more than a joke.
Coincidence? Probably so, but I thought I'd throw it out
there anyway – along with the fact that the two men were born just
hours apart: Chaplin on April 18, 1889 and Hitler on April 20, 1889.
That means that .... actually, I have no idea what the hell that
means, but it seems like it should mean something.
Chaplin, by the way, who shared with Ranger Stebbins a well-
known appetite for underage girls, was among the elite guests aboard
Hearst's yacht the night Ince was killed, may have been present at
the party of his friend Fatty Arbuckle that ended in the death of
Virginia Rappe, and was the guest of honor at a 1972 party at which
Oscar Levant made his last public appearance before being discovered
dead.
Though this warning may be a little belated, I would strongly
caution everyone out there against attending any parties where
Chaplin is on the guest list.
To be continued ......
REFERENCES:
1. Megan Turner "War-Film Hero is a Rapist," New York Post,
December 18, 2001
2. Larry Chin "Black Hawk Down: Hollywood Drags Bloody Corpse of
Truth Across Movie Screens," Online Journal, January 3, 2002
3. David Walsh "Four Recent Films," World Socialist Web Site,
January 5, 2002
2/6/02
http://davesweb.cnchost.com/wtc12.html
Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2002 16:46:34 -0600 Subject: Pentagon Propaganda Plan Is Undemocratic, FAIR-L Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting Media analysis, critiques and activism MEDIA ADVISORY: Pentagon Propaganda Plan Is Undemocratic, Possibly Illegal February 19, 2002 The New York Times reported today that the Pentagon’s Office of Strategic Influence is “developing plans to provide news items, possibly even false ones, to foreign media organizations” in an effort “to influence public sentiment and policy makers in both friendly and unfriendly countries.” The OSI was created shortly after September 11 to publicize the U.S. government’s perspective in Islamic countries and to generate support for the U.S.’s “war on terror.” This latest announcement raises grave concerns that far from being an honest effort to explain U.S. policy, the OSI may be a profoundly undemocratic program devoted to spreading disinformation and misleading the public, both at home and abroad. At the same time, involving reporters in disinformation campaigns puts the lives of working journalists at risk. Despite the OSI’s multi-million-dollar budget and its mandate to propagandize throughout the Middle East, Asia and Western Europe, “even many senior Pentagon officials and Congressional military aides say they know almost nothing about its purpose and plans,” according to the Times. The Times reported that the OSI’s latest announcement has generated opposition within the Pentagon among those who fear that it will undermine the Defense Department’s credibility. Tarnished credibility may be the least of the problems created by the OSI’s new plan to manipulate media-- the plan may compromise the free flow of information that democracy relies on. The government is barred by law from propagandizing within the U.S., but the OSI’s new plan will likely lead to disinformation planted in a foreign news report being picked up by U.S. news outlets. The war in Afghanistan has shown that the 24-hour news cycle, combined with cuts in the foreign news budgets across the U.S., make overseas outlets like Al-Jazeera and Reuters key resources for U.S. reporters. Any “accidental” propaganda fallout from the OSI’s efforts is troubling enough, but given the U.S. government’s track record on domestic propaganda, U.S. media should be pushing especially hard for more information about the operation’s other, intentional policies. According to the New York Times, “one of the military units assigned to carry out the policies of the Office of Strategic Influence” is the U.S. Army’s Psychological Operations Command (PSYOPS). The Times doesn’t mention, however, that PSYOPS has been accused of operating domestically as recently as the Kosovo war. In February 2000, reports in Dutch and French newspapers revealed that several officers from the 4th PSYOPS Group had worked in the news division at CNN's Atlanta headquarters as part of an “internship” program starting in the final days of the Kosovo War. Coverage of this disturbing story was scarce (see http://www.fair.org/activism/cnn-psyops.html), but after FAIR issued an Action Alert on the story, CNN stated that it had already terminated the program and acknowledged that it was “inappropriate.” Even if the PSYOPS officers working in the newsroom did not directly influence news reporting, the question remains of whether CNN may have allowed the military to conduct an intelligence-gathering mission against the network itself. The idea isn’t far-fetched-- according to Intelligence Newsletter (2/17/00), a rear admiral from the Special Operations Command told a PSYOPS conference that the military needed to find ways to "gain control" over commercial news satellites to help bring down an "informational cone of silence" over regions where special operations were taking place. One of CNN’s PSYOPS “interns” worked in the network’s satellite division. (During the Afghanistan war the Pentagon found a very direct way to “gain control”—it simply bought up all commercial satellite images of Afghanistan, in order to prevent media from accessing them.) It’s worth noting that the 4th PSYOPS group is the same group that staffed the National Security Council's now notorious Office of Public Diplomacy (OPD), which planted stories in the U.S. media supporting the Reagan Administration's Central America policies during the 1980s. Described by a senior U.S. official as a "vast psychological warfare operation of the kind the military conducts to influence a population in enemy territory" (Miami Herald, 7/19/87), the OPD was shut down after the Iran-Contra investigations, but not before influencing coverage in major outlets including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and Washington Post (Extra!, 9-10/01). The OPD may be gone, but the Bush administration’s recent recess appointment of former OPD head Otto Reich as assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs is not reassuring. It suggests, at best, a troubling indifference to Reich’s role in orchestrating the OPD’s deception of the American people. Indeed, as the Federation of American Scientists points out, “the Bush Administration’s insistent efforts to expand the scope of official secrecy have now been widely noted as a defining characteristic of the Bush presidency” (Secrecy News, 2/18/02). The administration’s refusal to disclose Enron-related information to the General Accounting Office is perhaps the most publicized of these efforts; another is Attorney General John Ashcroft’s October 12 memo urging federal agencies to resist Freedom Of Information Act requests. In addition, the Pentagon’s restrictive press policies throughout the war in Afghanistan have been an ongoing problem. Most recently, Washington Post reporter Doug Struck claims that U.S. soldiers threatened to shoot him if he proceeded with an attempt to investigate a site where civilians had been killed; Struck has stated that for him, the central question raised by the incident is whether the Pentagon is trying to “cover up” its actions and why it won’t “allow access by reporters to determine what they're doing here in Afghanistan” (CBS, “The Early Show,” 2/13/02). Taken together, these incidents and policies should raise alarm bells for media throughout the country. Democracy doesn’t work if the public does not have access to full and accurate information about its government.
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