Cole writes: "Two congressmen are attempting to insert a provision in the National Defense Authorization Act that would allow the Department of Defense to subject the US domestic public to propaganda."
A bipartisan amendment introduced by Rep. Mac Thornberry and Rep. Adam Smith would allow the Department of Defense to utilize propaganda. (image: Telegraph UK)
The Creeping Fascism of American Politics
20 May 12
wo congressmen are attempting to insert a provision in the National Defense Authorization act that would allow the Department of Defense to subject the US domestic public to propaganda. The bipartisan amendment was introduced by Rep. Mac Thornberry from Texas and Rep. Adam Smith from Washington State.
Nothing speaks more urgently to the creeping fascism of American politics than the assertion by our representatives, who apparently have never read a book on Germany in the 1930s-1940s or on the Soviet Union in the Stalin period, that forbidding DoD and the State Department from subjecting us to government propaganda "ties the hands of America's diplomatic officials, military, and others by inhibiting our ability to effectively communicate in a credible way." And mind you, they want to use our own money to wash our brains!
As Will Rogers observed, "This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when the baby gets hold of a hammer."
I love our guys and gals in uniform, but they can be extremely obnoxious in any discussion about US government policy that 'gets off point' or 'doesn't serve the mission.' At Washington think tank events, I've seen them repeatedly close down discussions among e.g. State Department foreign service officers. You don't want most of the DoD types providing information to us, because it won't be in any way balanced.
Of course, having a Pentagon propaganda unit at all is highly anti-democratic. The best defense of the truth is a free press. It should also be remembered that nowadays everything in Washington is outsourced, so government propaganda is often being turned over to Booz Allen or the American Enterprise Institute, which have a rightwing bias.
Doing propaganda abroad has the difficulty that it doesn't stay abroad. False articles placed in the Arabic press in Iraq were translated into English by wire services, who got stung.
Then, another problem is that the Defense Intelligence Agency analysts *also* read the false articles placed in the Arabic press by *another* Pentagon office, which they did not know about. So the analysts were passing up to the White House false information provided by their own colleagues!
I was told by an insider that one reason Washington analysts often read my blog in the Bush years was that I had a reputation for having an accurate bull crap meter, and thus my judgments on what was likely to be true helped them fight the tendency to believe our own propaganda!
Not only should this amendment be gotten rid of quick, but their constituents should please vote out of office Reps. Thornberry and Smith next November.
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Kick all the Republicans out of our governments, State and Local too, that is where they are just as bad.
The best defense to this is not to buy into any "news" except what we can obtain from foreign media.
Or, maybe Steward and O'Reilley are just the good cop/bad cop of the media? Hmmm. Scary thought!
"Fascism should more appropriately be called CORPORATISM, because it is a merger of STATE and CORPORATE power."
Benito Mussolini...
So guess private enterprise is the source of fascism. But then again when that fails they call Liberal's communist.
"Fascism should rather be called corporatism, as it is the merging of government and corporate power." --Benito Mussolini
I think this has all gone past the tipping point, with no way back -- leaving only popular uprising and installing a new system altogether. The issue, then, is what sort of system, and how can people minimize the misery in the process. How soon can a shadow government and alternative society be put up and running?
Lets say that this bill passes and propagandizing of the American Public is legitimatized-- -like torture of state enemies was by Bush---just who will set the policy, tenor and slant of the lies? Will it be a reincarnation of Hitler's propagandist Joseph Gobbles? If not, why not?
The one percent do not like a democracy! They want control of the government
bluepilgrim I fear you are right,
However, there is a flip side to this positive observation, and that is, Al Jazeera also slants news against Israel with regularity. Not that I think Israel does not need to be criticized, but Al Jazeera reports lies by local Imams who constantly make false claims about Israel and the US, and they air it in all the Muslim countries with regularity as you noted it was in Africa.
Although I would categorize Al Jazeera as leaning towards more openness in reporting, it does have bias, and that makes their reporting ethics questionable.
There were few realistic reports of what happened there and it was all a smokescreen. Yes I know that Gaddafi had few friends,that is why the world at large wanted him to go down,what with all the propaganda beamed at us 24/7. You could start doing some research with what Cynthia McKinney reported after her trip to Libya.
AJ, and the west/Arab gang is also mounting an immense propaganda campaign against Syria and Assad (not they are wonderful, of course). One needs to get into the politics and such of the Middle East to get some idea of the rivalries and factions there, which is extremely complicated.
A lot of people think thay undesrstand US politic, when they don't, but Middle Eastern politics is maybe ten times more difficult, and they have been practicing it for thousands of years -- yet the American media portrays it as if it was simple or primitive (which suits their purposes of propaganda).
Government should be the subject not the tyrant. At one time they were bureacrats.
Now they are technocrats who use information to persuade the misled that their actions are necessary for the sake of the targets. What happened in the DoD regarding the American Psychology Association is all you need to know. You will be declared mentally incompetent if you protest and they will be in Court testifying as expert witnesses to validate their pre-set conclusions.
All I see in the government is centrists and rightists, except for Bernie Sanders.
Social liberals also have a tendency to run over individual rights and pass laws to protect people from themselves (we see that in anti-smoking laws), which I haven't seen from most socialists.
Fascism in the US is real, it's hear and we have to stop it in it's tracks. They think we are too stupid to realize. But , folks, get it in gear, we have to put a stop to is, as was warned by a previous President...it will creep in when you are not looking...we must be diligent.
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Thank you for your patience.
Until I can marry a corporation and have a family with one = no pre-nup and then divorce one... a corp ain't no person.
WE'VE ALREADY BEEN SUBJECTED TO ROUND-THE-CLOCK -PROPAGANDA SINCE BUSH/CHENEY WERE APPOINTED BY SCOTUS IN 2000!
THAT'S ALL WE HAVE BEEN GIVEN FOR NIGH UNTO 12+ YEARS, MAYBE FAR LONGER.
NO TRUTH, NO RESPECT FOR THE FACTS. NO REAL INTELLIGENCE. JUST NON-STOP, MIND BLOWING PROPAGANDA AND LIES BY THIS GOVERNMENT. WAKE-THE-HECK-U P EVERYONE!
We have been incrementally brainwashed through the media, advertising, entertainment, and lying politicians. I say incrementally because that is a typical MO for the elite known as the Illuminati.
Oh, and I agree with the comment made by the poster using the moniker of "Bill Clements", your post is way too loud, we are not all failing in sight.
You want to get outraged about the existence of propaganda and how your govt is using your dollars to do this to you? Huh? Great! Get outraged, but not at these two trusty dudes.. They're doing the right thing. Its their PREDECESSORS and their superiors at whom you need to get outraged.
These two reps are just doing the grunt work. Make it legal. Then no one can get upset later on. No cumpunctions and all, hey! Its legal now you know..........
Making it legal not only prohibits righting the wrong but also ensures there will be more of it.
Again, legal does not mean right, just or moral.
Pity that our fathers and Grandfathers fought, bled and died fighting this very thing, sent out by the self-same forces that now look to perpetrate war in Iran and anywhere else they can get a foothold as long as they and theirs don't have to do the physical, dirty, de-humanizing work!
I also differ with the author when he writes "Nothing speaks more urgently to the creeping fascism of American politics than the assertion by our representatives , who apparently have never read a book on Germany in the 1930s-1940s or on the Soviet Union in the Stalin period"
-- I think the point is that they've read EVERY book on it, and they're trying to emulate it without making the same mistakes. The only "sustainability " the GOP is worried about is "sustainable authoritarianis m". Hitler, Stalin, North Korea give these idiots a hard-on for what we could have here in this country with a little bit of work, a lot of propaganda, and some god-fearing thugs to keep the masses & brainiacs in their places.
Read the Patriot Act, and find similarities to the processes used in Germany and Communist countries to subjugate the population while misinforming them ala Joseph Goebbles.
While we love the military, please let's not go back there.
What I'd like to know is this: on who's "orders" are Thornberry and Smith submitting this, because they're obviously actug as henchmen doing someone else's dirty work here... Who profits from this?
In print, radio and TV most of the information flow has been taken over by conglomerates owned mostly by right wing ideologues with their own agenda.
The dearth of unspun, factual and honest reporting(not even counting what's not reported at all) undercuts what is left of what is laughably called 'democracy' in this country.
It's a sorry state of affairs when we need a "Snopes" to check the veracity and usefulness of that which is proffered by our media.
It is evident that the cost of our "free press" is more than we can afford.
And Operation Mockingbird was a CIA program in the 50s (and the 60s, 70s, 80s....) to influence the MSM, with embedded agency assets and using Bernays propaganda techniques in their efforts.
in 1938:
"The liberty of a democracy is in
danger if the people tolerate the growth
of private power...
(Corporations,Adelson/Maher, AIPAC)
...to a point where it becomes stronger
than the democratic state itself.
That, in its essence is fascism."
Please google Naomi Wolf: 10 steps
towards fascism.
danger if the people tolerate the growth
of private power...
//
And the growth of government power is better?
Will you Libertarians ever get the fact that the ONE IS INSEPARABLE FROM THE OTHER in this country now!
This is the very DEFINITION of Fascism as set forth by "Il Duce" Benito Mussolini and subsequently embraced by Hitler, Franco, The Dulles Brothers, Stroessner, Rhodes the Boers, Suharto and a whole cabal of worldwide and subsequent US administrations , accelerated since Reagan.
I recognize that Stalin's Russia was the similarly totalitarian and bloody but was begun at the grass roots against the inherited absolutism of the Royal families -like the the original intent of the US but leading to the subsequent rise of the robber-barons and repression of labor and the newly available immigrant population (whom they pitted against each other and kept under-educated, the better to manipulate them) that they're now trying to get rid or have control of but who are an now evolving majorities.
Both ends become out of control when the ego(s) of one or a few groups of power-hungry individuals replace ideology with dictation of terms to the many and have swollen militaries, total sway over their legislators and judiciary as puppet-members of exclusive clubs of lock-stepping and bribed conformists.
Sound familiar or relative yet?
Democracy where?
False premise:
Government has a legitimate role of protecting person and property.
There is no need for government to grow massively or at all once those fundamentals are taken care of.
and more often then not it is government that grows massively and like a parasite that turns into predator who eventually kills the host.
Section 8, US Constitution
I give up in trying to make any point here, against an obvious concrete-like block of intractability.
I can't and won't debate the immovable and entrenched.
I tried! The rest is silence; 'nuff said.
The Pentagon does not need a new law. It has the largest press office and news bureau on earth. Much reporting comes entirely from the pentagon.
The State Department runs the US Information Agency (now with a different name) and Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, China, ______ (you insert the name).
"Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Is_a_Racket
[...[
After his retirement from the Marine Corps, Gen. Butler made a nationwide tour in the early 1930s giving his speech "War is a Racket". The speech was so well received that he wrote a longer version as a small book with the same title that was published in 1935 by Round Table Press, Inc., of New York.
[...]
http://www.warisaracket.com/
Chapter One - War Is A Racket
WAR is a racket. It always has been.
It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.
A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.
[...]
Well, for every positive there is negative .. that is science as well as the NATURE of the world around us. Get over it... see the facts for what they are and HOW the SPIN is put on the facts as each side tries to sway you toward their spin so you are a puppet of their way of thinking.
Indeed, Fox seems weird if you are a Zombie of the leftist Democrat Spin that makes you think you are part of the once great rich elite that used to be the Democrats but now is advertised as the avatar of the down-trodden and lower class. Enough already with Faux-news .. your Faux News is the lamestream media and the propaganda from your bombardment of CNN, MSNBC, and the other major news sources with all the leftist liberals leaning towards the Socialist Utopia... GET A CLUE!
I found out that some scientists made a study, and they found out the following:
If Fox(faux)News is a persons main source of information, that person is 37% less informed.
That means that person is 37% less able to make critical decisions on which way to jump - particularly in the political world.
Here's what pisses me off...I, along with the remainder of the more informed people in this country, have to live with the 'Fox watchers' thinking and voting decisions.
It's they who haven't "GOT A CLUE"!
BECOME AWARE!
SPEND as much time doing some research as you do bitching in comments and I bet your comments will drastically change.
That goes for becoming aware of the SLANT on this website too.. yeah, there is a slant and once you are aware of it .. you can choose if you want to call it propaganda or information.
sorry, but saying'everythi ng is false' or giving a silly platitude about science and nature is not analysis at all, but poppycock.
We saw it in Vietnam and again in the tragic occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. The military says what it wants and the country caves in under the "Support our troops" banner. It must stop! The military is for defense of the USA and not for setting policy for the country.
Just one more example of the out-of-control "military/indus trial complex!"
It said that our defense budget exceeds the collective defense budgets of the rest of the world and that our closest competitor wasn't. Its budget was 9 times smaller.
What do we need more defense spending for to fight 19th century wars?
Within the United States, for some period of time, the "free press" hasn't been "free" (in terms of expressed content). Corporate greed dictates what is printed or aired, often at the expense of suppressed news. (How long, as an example, did it take for the Wall Street Occupy Movement to be covered by main-stream media?) "Free Press" is nearly non-existant - and can only be found in on-line blogs and news services such as ReaderSupported News. Americans must demand that "Free Press" be re-established, and, if necessary, removed from the privatized corporations, becoming ONLY a public-interest controlled entity.
humm - so you would be happier if the government had sole dominion over that?
GOVERNMENT does not have to worry about pleasing anyone - they raise taxes and have to the power to throw you in prison after taking away all your things if you dare to choose to not support them.
Fascism/Socialism is blending the two together getting the worse of each.
Does that help
Government has become dependnet upon and entwined with corporations and the rich -- a similar thing happened in feudalism -- the wealthy always gets disporportionat e social and political power through using the money and capital they control. Government does have to worry about pleasing the wealthy and corprate power -- the oligarchy.
Fasciam is the opposite of socialism: it is about the benefit of and control by the oligarchy instead of the people. Get your terms right.
As for customer choice, there is little left to that because of manipulative advertising and monopoly. In many ways corporations not onlu use government to enforce their will but also act directly -- sometimes with mercenaries (so far more common in other countries, but by the same international corporations).
Socialism is an increment towards communism in that it benefits people but still gives the corporations most of the control over the government and virtually all control over production, Communism is control over both government and production by the working people.
Go forth and learn, and sin no more... you can't really be free until you understand the truth.
//
Ha ha -- that is really funny - but wrong.
Socialism is total government ownership, Fascism is partial government ownership of some companies over others -- they are two similar flavors of big brother.
Communism is total negation of individual rights. I doubt the millions of victims caused by Fascism, Socialism and Communism will move your heart an inch away from their false utopian dreams
They all deem the individual as an expendable cog in their big machine.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism
Socialism /ˈsoʊʃəlɪzəm/ is an economic system characterised by social ownership and/or control of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy,[1] and a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises, common ownership, direct public ownership or autonomous state enterprises.[2] There are many variations of socialism and as such there is no single definition encapsulating all of socialism.[3] They differ in the type of social ownership they advocate, the degree to which they rely on markets versus planning, how management is to be organised within economic enterprises, and the role of the state in constructing socialism.[4]
A socialist economic system would consist of an organisation of production to directly satisfy economic demands and human needs, so that goods and services would be produced directly for use instead of for private profit driven by the accumulation of capital, and accounting would be based on physical quantities, a common physical magnitude, or a direct measure of labour-time.[5] [6] Distribution of output would be based on the principle of individual contribution.
[...]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism
Communism (from Latin communis - common, universal) is a revolutionary socialist movement to create a classless, moneyless, and stateless social order structured upon common ownership of the means of production, as well as a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of this social order.
[...]
Look at the 10 planks of the communist manifesto. Then look at the ten amendments to the bill of Rights.
Now honestly ask your self which one protects the people from government and which one deems people as expendable components of government?
http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/61/pg61.html
The main point is to form a classless society where all people have equal rights -- certainly NOT expendable components of government (nor of an oligarchy or corporate power as we have in the US now).
"Bluepilgrim".
Please don't waste y'r valuable time with this Libertarian-tea bagger. I tried and failed completely with attempts at reasonable and reasoned debate and gave up, the effort being to much effort for my persistence against all penetrable odds.
It will keep ahold of any point you try to make and counter with all sorts of nonsense in order to hold on to the tatters of any given debate with a Pirana-like grip and a similar mindlessness (except that the Pirana is at least trying to feed itself at any price, even if it's jerked out of it's watery environment to it's own destruction).
It's not worth your goodness, or what hair you might have left.
Over the years I've learned a great deal from reading responses that people who have studied the subjects and use that information to respond to trols, right wingers, and those who are simply still ignorant. Many people don't understand what fascism, socialism, and communism actually means, and have been subject to the confusion of years of propaganda and misinformation.
It can be like a dialectic, or even Plato's device of the Socratic dialog. As one studies and gains knowledge and understanding it's good to spread it around. This is also a good way to learn, and to refine your understanding, as other knowledgeable posters respond to what you may write.
Government takes taxpayer dollars and gives them to corporations along with subsidizies.
So we could save money by eliminating the middleman. All money ends up in the same place.
Then we could create an off the books economy and make the corporations hunt us down because they wouldn't have IRS to do it for them.
Before anyone gets "nutz" on me, this is a joke.
This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when the baby gets hold of a hsmmer.
I've been predicting a more Chinese communist fascist type of gov't here for years.
I get poo-poo'd a lot when I write that.
Look at the drones in skies watching us all. Look at all the eavesdropping on many citizens without warrants. Indefinite detention sounds like the first step into a ride to Auschwitz!
See the writing on the wall before the US becomes Jesus-Freak Land.
Actually Nothing speaks more directly to fascism then a president and his party and even the opposition party who against the wishes of the people at large, bail out their low corporate friends in high places in many industries - CAR, Finance, Banking, Housing,Insuran ce, energy ...
You don't want to hear it, but the root problem is capitalism, so-called 'libertarianism ', and the liberal-neolibe ral 'free mearket' nonsense. The answer, for now, is socialism and authentic Marxism, until something better is invented and developed. That translates into a government run by the people -- the working class -- instead of an oligarchy.
In Capitalism there are no bail outs - they meet Larry the Liquidator - not socialst/facist BailOut Billy and his tax payer check book.
Soo many want to blame capitalism for the failures of Fascism/Sociali sm .. I guess that is safer then blaming your holy thieving bureaucrat.
Seems to me the constant critique of so called free market capitalism ALWAYS dumbs down to "privatized profits and socialized losses' and that is the fact of your little dream whirled Martintfre.
You were sayin'?
SOCIALISM, by WETHEPEOPLE, for WETHEPEOPLE does work!
There must be a middle of the road when one considers politics.I do think that capitalism has shown us that in it's pure form,left on it's own ,will end up burning itself out.And yet there are good values in it.It can only survive if we start caring for each other and apply some socialistic values into it.IMHO.
Capitalism grew out of and is transitional to socialism: it was originally freedom for people to work and organize out from under the control of the monarchs, lords and land-owners. That's what the 'free' in so called 'free trade' meant people were free of. The communistic worker owned and run companies, such as the software entrepreneurs, broke free from the corporate masters, even while still having to contend with the capitalist system which constrained what they could do by demanding profits and competing agains corporations.
Now corporate power is moving the world back towards feudalism and monarchy -- and that's inherent in capitalism. We are back to struggling to break free of the plutocracy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Q0PykgS42wo
Enjoy !
And to all on this forum,that read the underground news such as this one,my best regards.
I don't know anything about Adam Smith but I'll find out quickly as I live in the N.W. He is not in my district but there are ways to reach the people who are in HIS district.
Rather than yelling and screaming and waving your arms, quietly and effectively present the people with the truth. We still have the right to vote these people out of office.When they're exposed as liars, they will be removed.
We absolutely have to respond at the polls to what we see as wrong. Not voting just gives them the upper hand.
Organize people to vote. It's how these people got there in the first place.
These blogs make me feel better but talking about the issues just starts the process. Had a few more people voted instead of blogged in 2000, we might have had Gore instead of, well, you know.
The one tool we all have is our vote. Extend that to the people around you.
Organize the people in communitys where getting to the polls is hard and show them how to sign up for absentee ballots.Many more people will vote in the comfort of thier own home rather than hassle going to the polling place.
Organize people to vote. It's our only hope.
You see, these candidates are the ones jaded and dishonest, and voting them out merely opens the door for yet another ego driven candidate full of promise and ideas which eventually end up being backtracked by them.
Elected officials and potential candidates are like cockroaches, you stump on a few of them only to discover they will be replaced by a few more nasty cockroaches.
The voting process has been rendered ineffective and its time we the people become aware of that.
You have to go to the altenative and foreign journalists to get decent information and commentary.
The efforts they are making to cut out voting by dark people, old people, young people and poor people is intended to preserve a dying segment population. (God, knows what they are doing to women? Transvaginal probes?)
What democracy? We have politics by the crazy for the crazy.
How many groups can a party piss off and remain relevant?
Or, maybe Steward and O'Reilley are just the good cop/bad cop of the media? Hmmm. Scary thought!
We pay for war but let our infrastructure rot.
We pay for war but have no jobs.
We pay for war and have a disintegrated educational system.
We pay subsidies to Big Oil, go to war to protect their interests and create great vast riches for the military industrial complex through non-competitive bid contracts.
We give loans interest free to institutions that are monopolies and allow them the become our creditors with no money out of pocket, then, allow them to write off profits made from our taxes through tax loopholes.
The Fat Cats privatize profit and socialize loss. I want that deal.
I understand plutocracies. I understand oligarchies.
What I don't understand is what the hell is wrong with us, the citizens, that we tolerate the destruction of the middle class and allow the third worldization of the country we claim to love.
Why can't "we the people" force our government to break up insurance, health care, oil and financial services
monopolies? Free markets? Bull. Americans are captives of vampire capitalism.We have welfare all right--for the wealthy elite.
If we are going to be third world nation without education, infrastructure, employment or systems that benefit taxpayers, then, Americans need to move to a place where civilized people live who don't think the common good is an evil.
"My interest is, my one hobby is, maintaining a democracy. If you get these
500,000 soldiers advocating anything smelling of Fascism, I am going to get
500,000 more and lick the hell out of you, and we will have a real war right
at home." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BZCfbrXKs4&feature=related
Sinclair Lewis was so concerned about growing fascism in the world, he wrote a book in 1935, "It Can't Happen Here", a fictional tome about a fascist takeover of our nation. When I reread the book a few years back it seemed not so much fiction anymore but a good description of the Bush/Cheney administration and the neocons.
As late as 1939, American Nazis filled Madison Square Garden for a rally. Influential corporatists like Henry Ford and "hero" Charles Lindbergh were unabashed admirers of Adolph Hitler. As late as the summer of 1941, Ford and Lindbergh gladly accept the Cross of the Order of the German Eagle from Nazi leader Herman Göring.
The administration "leaked" information to the New York Times and than made the statement that, "according to NYT reports, such and such happened, or anything they wanted to give credence to, even knowing that it was they, all along, who provided the so-called "information" to the Times.
It we still had real investigative reporters than we might be able to trust what the media tells us. But I fear that few of those still exist except people like Amy Goodman and Juan Cole. I still trust Bernie Sanders and Bill Moyers, but how many of those are still around.
By a 182-238 vote, the House rejected an amendment offered by Smith and Rep. Justin Amash, R-Mich., to guarantee any terrorist suspects arrested on U.S. soil -- not just U.S. citizens -- the right to a charge and a trial."
It seems that Smith has some of the attitudes correct.
I guess doing a search of Smith's entire voting record might expose this question to some light.
http://henrymakow.com/180302.html
Gloria Steinem: How the CIA Used Feminism to Destabilize Society
March 18, 2002
by Henry Makow Ph.D.
"In the 1960's, the elite media invented second-wave feminism as part of the elite agenda to dismantle civilization and create a New World Order."
Since writing these words last week, I have discovered that before she became a feminist leader, Gloria Steinem worked for the CIA spying on Marxist students in Europe and disrupting their meetings. She became a media darling due to her CIA connections. MS Magazine, which she edited for many years was indirectly funded by the CIA.
[...]
Ain't life grand? I am often reminded of two quotes:
"The sheep are happier unto themselves than under the care of wolves" Thomas Jefferson
And when asked by a reporter "What do you think of Western Civilization? Mahatma Gandhi thought a moment, and replied, "I think it would be a good idea."
Of course, if modern India and Pakistan (and China) are representative of "Eastern Civilization", the knife cuts both ways.
When people talk about "Human Civilization" I often feel like looking all around and asking them, "Where?"
Some of the Amazon Indian tribes may come closest. And the Scandinavian countries get honorable mention. A lot of creative thought is needed here.
The real test will be, do we succeed in countering Climate Change, or does greed and stupidity destroy the biosphere?
Quite a chunk of change ends up paying off media types to disseminate misinformation, at home and abroad.
Recall all those Hollywood films that got made with Pentagon approval from the 1940's to the present?
Our services are in the misinformation business on the taxpayer dime. Otherwise, we would have dismantled the Pentagon's war-machine (the "military-indus trial complex") ages ago, regulated Wall Street and reined in the Fed. Next.
http://blog.heritage.org/2012/05/22/smith-mundt-modernization-better-late-than-never/ with a link to a separate bill from these two.
It's hard to get info and keep all these maneuvers straight.
Did this find it's way into the Defnese Authorization?
Although I haven't read Chalmers Johnson yet, his title _The Sorrows of Empire_ is, very likely, of much value.
Charles Sykes wrote a book called _Dumbing Down Our Kids_ about 25 years ago. Those kids are now adults, at least as to age...
Fox News is our counterpart to the German Völkischer Beobachter. When I checked Wikipedia about it, the specimen was the issue that essentially announced Hitler's acquiring significant power. (IIrc, I needed to translate some German (via Google Translate) to learn that.)
I'm seriously worried about our future in the next century or so.
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