Listen up, eye rollers!Deanna Spingola Deanna Spingola
January 24, 2008
Eye rollers, people who condescendingly roll their eyes when confronted with truth, share common characteristics: apathy, naivety, and of course blissful ignorance. In addition, some eye rollers can be very dispassionate, as exemplified in the following separate scenarios:
While attempting to explain the illegalities of unwarranted surveillance, a friend replied — "As long as I am not doing anything wrong, I don't care if they listen to my conversations." While describing the potential tyrannical controls of Codex, another person responded — "I'll just stop taking vitamins." A friend borrowed a copy of Afghanistan After Democracy which photographically illustrates the horrendous birth defects caused by the ongoing use of depleted uranium by the U.S. government. Upon returning the book, that person said — "Well, lots of people have birth defects" implying that the cause is inconsequential and oh well, too bad! Rejection of these and other circumstances does not exempt media-dumbed-down American citizens from culpability or relieve victims from the consequences. What affects one citizen's liberty eventually affects all citizens.
Eye Rollers who read the daily papers assume they are well-informed. Thomas Jefferson warned: "The man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them; inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors. It is a melancholy truth that a suppression of the press could not more completely deprive the nation of its benefits than is done by its abandoned prostitution to falsehood." It is currently legal to falsify or fabricate "news." "Media propaganda tactics include blackouts, misdirections, expert opinions to echo the Establishment line, smears, defining popular opinions, mass entertainment distractions," and the proliferation of the so-called conservative and liberal positions. [1]
According to a decision by the Florida Appeals Court on February 14, 2003 in the Jane Akre whistleblower lawsuit, the court agreed with Fox News who asserted that it is not against the law to distort or falsify the news in the United States. "The Court held that Akre's threat to report the station's actions to the FCC did not deserve protection under Florida's whistle blower statute, because Florida's whistle blower law states that an employer must violate an adopted 'law, rule, or regulation.'" [2] "Fair and balanced" Fox News, citing the First Amendment, asserted that there is no rule against distorting or falsifying or deliberately distorting the news on public airways in the United States. The Bill of Rights was designed to protect individual human rights, not the government or corporations. Apparently, corporations (inanimate entities) have appropriated those liberties due to the deliberately ambiguous Fourteenth Amendment.
The Florida Appeals court, in a questionable interpretation of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) policy against falsification of the news, claimed that the FCC policy was not law but merely policy. Consequently, corporations decide what to "report," without consideration of truth. [3] Currently it is a crime for a private citizen to lie to a government official, but it is not a crime for a government official to lie to the people. [4] Lying is not a crime unless one "contracts" by their oath to tell the truth; that is why government officials resist testifying under oath. Bush and Cheney refused to testify under oath to the 9/11 Commission. With few exceptions, lying politicians are rarely prosecuted. Yet, citizens who perjure themselves often suffer harsh consequences. Despite high-priced lawyers and public support, Martha Stewart was jailed for lying, not for questionable stock transactions. She unwittingly entered into a "contract" with the court to tell the truth. The intimidating media-overkill sent a fearful message to the masses. "When the people fear their government, there is Tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is Liberty." Thomas Jefferson
"Five major media outlets filed briefs of Amici Curiae (friend of FOX) — to support the FOX position: Belo Corporation, Cox Television, Inc., Gannett Co., Inc., Media General Operations, Inc., and Post-Newsweek Stations, Inc." Highly profitable corporate broadcasters, through government complicity, and with the protection of the court, have seized the public airways and erroneously, but conveniently, shield themselves with the First Amendment. Well-compensated, often arrogant and belligerent, persuasive "pundits," without impunity, feign sincerity, propagate the party line and increase profits for their corporate employers. Contrary to the myth, they are not government watchdogs.
The airways belong to the people, not the government or corporations who are intimate partners. Corporate monopolization of the public airwaves will further increase with the FCC decision on December 18, 2007 to allow even greater media consolidation. Bush nominated Kevin Martin as an FCC member on April 30, 2001. Martin served as the Deputy General Counsel for the Bush-Cheney campaign in 2000 and participated in the Florida recount. Bush then designated Martin as the FCC chairman on March 18, 2005. [5] Martin wants to end limits on media ownership by removing the "cross-ownership ban." This plan takes effect shortly if unimpeded. Since 1983, the number of corporations owning most newspapers, magazines, book publishers, recorded music, movie studios, television and radio stations has decreased from fifty to five. [6] Prior to his FCC position, Martin was Special Assistant to the President for Economic Policy. His wife, Catherine, was a spokeswoman for Cheney during the Valerie Plame fiasco and now works on Bush's communications staff. [7]Media corporations share board members with "other large corporations including banks, investment companies, oil companies, health care, pharmaceutical, and technology companies." Media systems, until the 1980's, were domestically owned, regulated, and national in scope. Together with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, the U.S. government deregulated and privatized all communications media which "resulted in a global commercial media system dominated by a small number of super-powerful transnational media corporations (mostly U.S. based), working to advance the cause of global markets and the CIA agenda." [8]
The 1934 Communications Act, and later the Fairness Doctrine (1949) [9] allowed equal time to opposing opinions. Mark S. Fowler, a communications lawyer appointed to head the FCC by President Ronald Reagan, aggressively opposed the Fairness Doctrine as well as the First Amendment. "He set about pruning, chopping, slashing, eliminating, burying and deep-sixing fifty years of regulations that guarded against monopolistic practices and excessive commercialism and protected the public interest standard." The Fairness Doctrine, along with diversity, fairness, equal time and objectivity was rescinded in 1987. Television and radio stations were no longer required to present both sides of important or controversial issues nor give equal time to candidates. [10] Networks have called early election results affecting western voters and a whole plethora of issues. Elite-selected candidates are promoted while constitutional candidates are ignored or ridiculed.
For decades U.S. "news" has been fabricated. Radio Free Europe and the Committee for a Free Europe were big priorities for Truman and his crony, Frank Wisner. Wisner, a Wall Street lawyer, was a Navy censor, head of Office of Strategic Services (OSS) operations in southeastern Europe at the end of World War II, and the head of the Directorate of Plans (clandestine chief) of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) during the 1950s. He was the OSS liaison to the Gehlen Organization, was a senior CIA official (from 1947 until 1965) and was involved in the overthrow of Arbenz in Guatemala (1954) and Mossadeq in Iran (1953). He was the first Director of the CIA's covert action wing called the Office of Policy Coordination (created 1948).
Wisner, along with Allen Dulles, Richard Helms and Phillip Graham (publisher of The Washington Post and husband of CFR/Trilateralist Katharine Graham) established Operation Mockingbird, the CIA program designed to completely control the U.S. media. The CIA collaborated with media-skilled Nazi war criminals who conveniently escaped the gallows after Nuremburg. [11] General Reinhard, Klaus Barbie, Otto von Bolschwing (Eichmann's crony) and SS Colonel Otto Skorzeny joined the CIA's perception management efforts. "There's even evidence that Martin Bormann, Hitler's second-in-command at the end of the war, faked his own death and escaped to Latin America, where he worked with CIA-linked groups." [12] "We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." William Casey, CIA Director (staff meeting, 1981).
A real chip off the old globalist block, Wisner's son, Frank G. Wisner, Jr. (CFR, Bilderberger), was ambassador to the Philippines from August 1991 until June 1992. He is Executive Vice President of the American International Group (AIG), the world's third largest capital investment pool and a leading member of the World Trade Organization. Maurice Greenberg is the former chairman. AIG's insurance operations, including the entire period under Greenberg's leadership, have been connected to CIA covert operations. AIG purchased those six ports from Dubai. You remember those ports — U.S. citizens demanded that the government not sell the ports to Dubai. Well, they did anyway and then Dubai sold them to AIG. [13]
"Directly relevant to the post-9/11 events, current members of AIG's board of directors include former US ambassador and CFR member Richard Holbrooke, a major post-9/11 war advisor to the Bush administration and business partner of George Soros." The board included Frank Wisner, Jr., a former Enron director. Wisner Jr., then U.S. Ambassador to the Philippines, helped Enron win contracts to operate two Subic Bay power plants despite "fierce local opposition." [14] While in India, Wisner secured numerous "deals" for Enron. He left India only after Enron was firmly entrenched. [15]
Wisner preceeded Paul Wolfowitz as United States Department of Defense Under Secretary of Defense for Policy from January 1993 to June 1994. In 2003, Frank Wisner, Jr. was co-chairman of a new independent task force report on Afghanistan cosponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations. [16] He, along with Richard Armitage, is on the Board of Directors of the Institute for Middle East Peace and Development. [17] Wisner is also a trustee with the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. [18] Families that prey together get richer and accrue power with each generation.
Truman and Eisenhower were the first two presidents to introduce and mobilize propaganda as an official peacetime institution. It was a "war of words" and an "integral component of the government's foreign policy operation." Both Truman and Eisenhower employed propaganda and psychological strategy in order to promote the "Cold War" operation. In fact, much of the planning for the "Cold War" took place during the administration of these two presidents. [19]
The unrestricted propaganda operation, without congressional oversight, was controlled by the president. This, along with unconstitutional treaties, increased presidential power while decreasing constitutional checks and balances. Presidential influence (intervention) metastasized outside of the country, especially with Reagan who was perfect globalist material. The "great communicator" was a "trustworthy" spokesperson who Americans supported. The perfect "persuader" led the U.S. into the highly profitable military buildup. He got help from abroad. Former Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos donated $12 million dollars to Reagan's 1980 and 1984 presidential campaigns. That money, according to rumor, was used, in part, to "sabotage Carter's negotiations to free 52 U.S. hostages held in Iran. [20]
The National Security Council (NSC) was created by Public Law 80-253, approved on July 26, 1947, a reorganization of the U.S. security apparatus. Its function was to advise the president (chairman of the Council) on "integration of domestic, foreign, and military policies relating to national security and to facilitate interagency cooperation. At the President's direction, the NSC also assesses and appraises risks to U.S. national security, considers policies and then reports or makes recommendations to the President." [21] This legislation also provided for a Secretary of Defense, a National Military Establishment, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the National Security Resources Board." [22]
The NSC was organized with the following seven permanent members: the President; the Secretaries of State, Defense, the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force; and the Chairman of the National Security Resources Board. The CIA Director reports to the NSC and can attend meetings and advise but is not a NSC member. [23] The Amendments Act of 1949 removed the three military services from NSC membership and added the Vice-President. Additionally, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was added as an advisor. [24]
Harry S. Truman replaced the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), created June 13, 1942, with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in 1947. Truman struggled to regularize U.S. psychological warfare and the CIA which is not an intelligence-gathering operation — that misconception is one of the agency's greatest propaganda triumphs. [25] "Despite its name, the Central Intelligence Agency's main purpose is, and has always been, carrying out covert operations involving economic warfare, rigged elections, assassinations and genocide. "The Association for Responsible Dissent estimates that 6 million people had died by 1987 as a result of CIA covert operations." [26] The CIA distorts intelligence to justify its own goals. This "disinformation" deceives policymakers and has resulted in organized terror throughout the world. Using the CIA, our government breaks national and international laws in the name of national security. [27]
In addition to the CIA, Truman, careful never to use the word "propaganda" bypassed the wrangling National Security Council and, through a Presidential Directive [28] (addressed to The Secretary of State, The Secretary of Defense and the Director of Central Intelligence) founded the Psychological Strategy Board (PSB), on April 4, 1951 as suggested by Gordon Gray, a CFR member, who was the Board's first director. [29] Henry Kissinger was Gray's consultant. Gray worked for Frank Wisner's Wall Street Law firm, was a State Senator and also became a newspaper publisher — The Winston-Salem Journal and the Twin Cities Sentinel. He was the son of tobacco baron, Bowman Gray, chairman of the R. J. Reynolds Corporation.
There were two major purposes of the PSB: legitimize and institutionalize propaganda during peacetime and as a war of words during the orchestrated "Cold War" and to enable a president to commandeer congressional responsibility at the expense of the American republic. The Psychological Strategy Board was chaired by the CIA and consisted of the following: (1) Undersecretary of State, (2) The Deputy Secretary of Defense, (3) Director of Central Intelligence, (4) A representative of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, (5) An appropriate representative or head of any department or agency of the Government as determined by the Board. [30]
On Thursday 26 July 1951, President Truman told the media that the Psychological Strategy Board was a part of the Central Intelligence Agency. The Board was terminated by Executive Order 10483 of September 3, 1953. Its functions were transferred to the Operations Coordinating Board (OCB). These agencies, without any congressional oversight, would assist in the ideological "war of words" against communism. The CIA has published and disseminated hundreds of books promoting the official Cold War party line. Their newspapers and magazines throughout the world provides cover for their agents and allows the implementation of misinformation that consistently reaches U.S. audiences via the wire services which also "employs" CIA agents who prevent problematic facts from public exposure. [31]
In 1977, Washington Post journalist Carl Bernstein (exposed Watergate with Bob Woodward) declared that over 400 US journalists were CIA employees "who have secretly carried out assignments according to documents on file at CIA headquarters, from intelligence-gathering to serving as go-betweens." A high-level source told Bernstein, "One journalist is worth twenty agents." [32] CIA media assets include ABC, NBC, CBS, Time, Newsweek, Associated Press, United Press International (UPI), Reuters, Hearst Newspapers, Scripps-Howard, and Copley News Service. The CIA had infiltrated the nation's businesses, media, and universities with tens of thousands of on-call operatives by the 1950's. CIA Director Dulles had staffed the CIA almost exclusively with Ivy League graduates, like George H. W. Bush, from Yale's infamous Skull and Bones (Brotherhood of Death) Society. [33] So, who provides your perceptions?
NOTES:
[1] Operation Mockingbird: CIA Media Manipulation, By Mary Louise
[2] The Media Can Legally Lie, Project Censored by Liane Casten, Spring 2003
[3] Court Ruled That Media Can Legally Lie by Liane Casten
[4] John Zube On Law, Donald M. Fraser
[5] Biography of FCC Chairman Kevin J. Martin
[6] More Media Disinformation? FCC Proposes Greater Media Consolidation by Stephen Lendman, Global Research, December 13, 2007
[7] Ibid
[8] Operation Mockingbird: CIA Media Manipulation, By Mary Louise
[9] Communications Act of 1934
[10] The Republican Noise Machine, Right-Wing Media and How it Corrupts Democracy by Steve Brock, p. 294-95
[11] The CIA and Nazi War Criminals, National Security Archive Posts Secret CIA History Released Under Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 146, Edited by Tamara Feinstein, February 4, 2005
[12] The Gehlen Org, The CIA's Greatest Hits by Mark Zepezauer
[13] Dubai firm sells US ports to AIG, December 11, 2006
[14] A six-part series, The United States in the Philippines: post-9/11 imperatives By Larry Chin, Online Journal Contributing Editor
[15] Frank Wisner, Source Watch
[16] Wisner: 'Pivotal Moment' in Afghanistan, June 23, 2003
[17] Middle East Peace and Development
[18] Frank G. Wisner, NNDB
[19] The Rhetorical Presidency, Propaganda, and the Cold War, 1945-1955 by Shawn J. Parry-Giles, Praeger Series in Presidential Studies, 2002, Introduction
[20] A six-part series, The United States in the Philippines: post-9/11 imperatives By Larry Chin, Online Journal Contributing Editor
[21] National Security Council (NSC), Truman Administration (1947-1953)
[22] Harry S. Truman Library & Museum, Papers of Harry S. Truman, Staff Member and Office Files: National Security Council File, Date Span: 1947–1953
[23] Ibid
[24] Ibid
[25] Safe For Democracy, The Secret Wars of the CIA by John Prados, 2006, Chapter 5, The Covert Legions
[26] Operation Mockingbird: CIA Media Manipulation By Mary Louise
[27] The CIA's Greatest Hits by Mark Zepezauer, Odonian Press, http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/CIA%20Hits/CIA_GreatestHits.html, Accessed December 14, 2007
[28] Safe For Democracy, The Secret Wars of the CIA by John Prados, 2006, Chapter 5, The Covert Legions
[29] Harry S. Truman Papers Staff Member and Office Files: Psychological Strategy Board Files, Dates: 1951-53
[30] Ibid
[31] The Mighty Wurlitzer (the CIA's propaganda machine) from the book The CIA's Greatest Hits by Mark Zepezauer
[32] Operation Mockingbird: CIA Media Manipulation By Mary Louise
[33] Ibid
Deanna Spingola has been a quilt designer and is the author of two books. She has traveled extensively teaching and lecturing on her unique methods. She has always been an avid reader of non-fiction works designed to educate rather than entertain. She is active in family history research and lectures on that topic. Currently she is the director of the local Family History Center. She has a great interest in politics and the direction of current government policies, particularly as they relate to the Constitution.
http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/spingola/080124
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