Old
Gadfly: Gentlemen, we have previously
discussed evidence that public sentiment is being engineered (see here
and here);
but, do you suspect any actual propaganda taking place?
AM
(an American combat aviator with an inquiring mind): Yes, and there is a clear indication of
psychological operations (or psyops) as well.
Old
Gadfly: Let’s address propaganda first. We’ll discuss psyops another day. What is propaganda?
IM
(an American citizen with an inquiring mind):
Dictionary.com
defines propaganda as: “1. Information, ideas, or rumors deliberately spread
widely to help or harm a person, group, movement, institution, nation, etc. 2. The deliberate
spreading of such information, rumors, etc. 3. The particular doctrines or principles
propagated by an organization or movement.”
Old
Gadfly: The definitions seem clear
enough. Do you have examples?
AM: How about the President this week claiming
Republicans are fabricating “phony
scandals”? How about Eric Holder
accusing Republicans of being racist?
Old
Gadfly: By scandals are you referring to
Benghazi and the IRS, among others?
AM: Yes.
Old
Gadfly: But only Fox News is reporting on them.
And, my good progressive acquaintances keep reminding me, don’t watch Fox News—they lie.
IM: So, you don’t watch Fox News?
Old
Gadfly: Of course I do, because I
triangulate what I read and hear. And I
will tell you that based on my “triangulation” from multiple sources, the lack
of coverage by other networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC) and print media (The New
York Times and Washington Post)
is a clear case of propaganda—because the black out or censorship is deliberate
and designed to propagate particular doctrines or principles of the progressive
movement.
AM: Do you think this black out is being
orchestrated by the White House?
Old
Gadfly: Not necessarily, but I am
certain that President Obama and his inner circle are advancing similar methods
that occurred during Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Administration. If Time
magazine editors accurately reflect left-wing sentiment, then there is a lot of
support for advancing similar methods (see the cover for the November 24, 2008
issue here). In 2007, Michael Socolow authored a
compelling article about propaganda in America.
While merely acknowledging the blatant propaganda practices in the
Woodrow Wilson Administration, Socolow specifically analyzed propaganda
practices during the Franklin Roosevelt Administration, 1939-1944.[1] Socolow discovered that FDR actually pushed
for a domestic radio propaganda program but did not need one because commercial
broadcast journalism effectively performed that function. Socolow’s research also discovered the
regulatory activism role played by the Chairman of the Federal Communications
Commission. Sound familiar? There was a recent attempt to place “observers”
in news rooms across the nation.
IM: Hmmm . . . 1939-1944 . . . didn’t Orson Welles
demonstrate the power of radio broadcasting with his “War of the Worlds” stunt in 1938?
Old
Gadfly: Yes, it generated panic among
the listening public, forcing CBS and Welles to apologize; but, it also
demonstrated to CBS and other political advocates the power of the radio to
mobilize the public. Orson Welles
dramatized the War of the Worlds
science fiction novel by H. G. Wells. Many
people only know Wells for his science fiction.
Yet, he was a frequent guest of FDR’s White House[2] and vocal advocate for
liberal fascism. Jonah Goldberg observed
that Wells had spent 30 years, since the beginning of the Progressive Era,
working on the idea of “liberal fascism.”[3] Wells’ progressive ideology in the form of
liberal fascism is heavily documented.[4]
AM: I noticed Orson Welles’ association with CBS
(see the logo in the picture above).
There are some interesting dots to connect here.
·
The Socolow article includes a photograph
with the following caption: “CBS News
commentator Elmer Davis (L) confers with CBS News Director Paul White, December
1941. In 1942 Davis would be named to head
the Office of War Information, America’s propaganda agency.”
·
On November 22, 1963, when President Kennedy
was assassinated, a CBS reporter by the name of Dan Rather heard a rumor that
Dallas school children cheered the news.
While the local CBS news affiliate refused to run the story, BECAUSE IT
WAS NOT TRUE, Rather found another CBS venue to report the story anyway.[5] Sound familiar? Remember Rather’s report
on George W. Bush based on fabricated documents? Rather’s stubbornness to this day reflects Lakoff’s
“frame”
arguments—it is the frame that matters; if facts fit, great; if not, then the
facts are irrelevant.
·
More recently Sharyl
Attkison (see also here,
here,
and here)
and Lara
Logan (see also here)
were exiled from CBS, ostensibly for their aggressive reporting about issue
under the Obama Administration. While
Logan acknowledges she did not sufficiently vet an individual interviewed for a
15-minute segment about Benghazi on 60
Minutes, this portion of the report was less than 3 minutes long. There was nothing inaccurate or dubious about
the remaining 12-minute exposé on Benghazi.
I watched the original broadcast and was somewhat amazed, at the time, that
CBS allowed it to be published.
Ironically, just today I tried to locate the original Benghazi exposé by
Logan and, while there are thousands of “botched” and “apology” pieces, I could
not find a single file of the original broadcast. CBS, like the IRS, seems to be very competent
at destroying evidence. I had saved a link to the broadcast on YouTube. Click on the link and see what has happened to the "evidence." Too bad. The
majority of the factual reporting was a casualty of political pressure
(political correctness or propaganda). Yet, here is another link that had no apparent "copyright" issue. I
suppose the best way to put a bag over Logan, and her interest in “watchdog
journalism, was to bring
her back.
·
More recently, there seems to be little
interest among the commercial propaganda arm to look at potentially negative
issues with the Obama Administration. For
example, there is little interest in the IRS’s Lois Lerner pleading the Fifth
and the deliberate destruction of emails (evidence). And regarding Benghazi, there is little
interest in the recent revelation that Ben
Rhodes, a member of Obama’s national security team, sent an email to Susan
Rice directing her to blame the video on the Benghazi attack. Ben Rhodes is the brother of David
Rhodes, President of CBS.
IM: There
definitely appears to be a pattern among the dots.
AM: After the demise of Hitler and National
Socialism, Germans claimed they did not know what was happening. Spencer Tracey, in the movie “The Nuremburg
Judgment,” was shocked to hear Germans say, “I did not know.” In one scene, a household servant claimed to
know nothing of atrocities taking place under National Socialism and felt
compelled to defend Hitler when she said he did do some good things for Germans—“he
got the autobahn.” Thus, there may be
some redeeming rationale for Obama’s interest in “infrastructure investment.”
Old
Gadfly: If the media continues its
blackout tactic as a shield for Obama’s transformation of America, time will
tell whether Americans will remorsefully claim, “I did not know.” In our next conversation, let’s talk about
political psyops.
[1] Michael J. Socolow, “‘News Is a
Weapon’: Domestic Radio Propaganda and
Broadcast Journalism in America, 1939-1944, American
Journalism, Volume 24, Number 3 (Summer 2007), pp. 109-131.
[2] Jonah Goldberg, Liberal Fascism, (New
York, NY: Broadway Books, 2007), p. 135.
[3] Ibid, p. 134.
[4] Philip Coupland, “H. G. Wells’s ‘Liberal
Fascism,’” Journal of Contemporary
History, Volume 35, Number 4 (2000), pp. 541-558.
[5] Goldberg, op cit., p. 202.
