|
|
Translate:
              Propaganda and the media
Monday, May 19th, 2008
Congress viewed this so seriously that every appropriations bill passed since 1951 has contained language that says no public money “shall be used for publicity or propaganda purposes within the United States” without the lawmakers’ prior approval. The Bush administration has been caught violating the propaganda ban before, notably in 2005 in the case of radio host Armstrong Williams, who was paid to endorse President Bush’s No Child Left Behind law. Particularly abhorrent to the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), which oversees compliance with the ban, is an agency’s use of “covert propaganda” or “covert attempts to mold opinion through the undisclosed use of third parties.” This is why alarm bells should be ringing all over Washington about The New York Times’ disclosure that then-Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld encouraged a secret Pentagon program to care for and spoon-feed more than 50 retired senior military officers whom the administration deemed reliable friends who could be counted on “to carry our water” on the television and cable networks. Feeding the military analysts “key and valuable information” in secret briefings by Pentagon and White House officials, the idea went, would make them the go-to guys for the networks and encourage the networks to “weed out the less reliably friendly analysts . . . .” This 2005 memorandum, addressed to then Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs Larry DiRita, added: “This trusted core group will be more than willing to work closely with us because we are their bread and butter.” Asked about the case of Col. Bill Cowan, who says he was fired as a military analyst for Fox News and cut off from the briefings for criticizing the war effort, DiRita told Glenn Greenwald of Salon.com: “I don’t know anything. I saw that in the story. I’ve heard other assertions to that effect. It was certainly not the intent.” In a follow-up e-mail exchange between DiRita and Greenwald, Rumsfeld’s former mouthpiece — now Bank of America’s chief spokesman — elaborated on what he said he didn’t remember: “I simply don’t have any recollection of trying to restrict him (Cowan) or others from exposure to what was going on.” DiRita added: “There are plenty of examples to the contrary — reaching out to people who specifically disagreed with us. One example I recall is Joe Galloway — a persistent critic and apparently popular with military readers. He came in and met Secretary Rumsfeld and we had other interactions.” Now that’s a real knee-slapper: Me as a poster boy for how Rumsfeld and DiRita “reached out” to their harshest critics even as they stroked and promoted and schemed to embed the old reliables to wax enthusiastic about a war that was going from bad to worse. Let the record show that Rumsfelds’ folks reached out to me on these few occasions:
A retired Marine general, Paul Van Riper, had been the commander of the “enemy” forces, and he used unconventional tactics to destroy the U.S. Navy flotilla in the Persian Gulf, leaving thousands of sailors and Marines dead. At that point, the commanders stopped the war game, reset everything and imposed new rules forbidding Van Riper from employing those tactics.Van Riper walked out, furious, and requested an investigation. DiRita complained in his e-mail that I was silly to blame Rumsfeld for this and for covering up the investigators’ report. After all, he wrote, Rumsfeld couldn’t be expected to know retired generals several levels below him or to bear responsibility for such matters. His complaint sparked an escalating e-mail war that most reckon DiRita lost. The entire exchange was posted on the Internet and can still be found there. So much for the Rumsfeld/DiRita outreach to their critics. They were much too busy hand-feeding horse manure to their TV generals, who in turn were feeding the same product to the American public by the cubic yard. There’s little doubt that this program violated the laws against covert propaganda operations mounted against the American public by their own government. But in this administration, there’s no one left to enforce that law or any of the other laws the Bush operatives have been busy violating. The real crime is that the scheme worked. The television network bosses swallowed the bait, the hook, the line and the sinker, and they have yet to answer for it. Have Your Say: Propaganda and the media Please read our posting guidelines before posting. Alternatively you can discuss this report here. 3 Responses to “Propaganda and the media”
Related News
|
G-8 announces global summit on financial crisis Last post by Nostalgia @ 09:58 PM Go to Forum
| Latest Topics
Freedom Of Expression, Liverpool 11th Oct 08 PT1 Last post by Nostalgia @ 09:48 PM A changing climate of opinion? Last post by Nostalgia @ 09:30 PM Seize the wealth of the City Last post by Unregistered @ 07:18 PM NSA's Warrantless Eavesdropping Targets Innocent Americans Last post by Unregistered @ 07:16 PM Storm over Big Brother database Last post by Unregistered @ 07:13 PM Scientology Customer Assaults Rights Activist in Los Angeles Last post by Unregistered @ 07:10 PM 15/16 November, London - Workers' Climate Action National Gathering Last post by Unregistered @ 07:07 PM This Stock Collapse Is Petty When Compared to the Nature Crunch Last post by Nostalgia @ 04:34 PM Record Numbers of People Are Looking For Food Last post by Nostalgia @ 04:26 PM  Email This Page To A Friend Latest Headlines
More Breaking News  Archive |
TOP NEWS DISCUSSIONS |
LATEST NEWS DISCUSSIONS |
|
|
Chomsky: Anti-Democratic Nature of US Capitalism is Being Exposed Spooks in the classroom Democracy Now Follows Up on NSA's Illegal Spying and War Crimes Seven Years After 9/11, Spies Finally Forced to Share |
R Dujour commented on: Democracy Now Follows Up on NSA’s Illegal Spying and War Crimes Why do I find myself yelling at the radio, “ask the follow up... Continue Reading & Reply Velma commented on: The Right Dictates MSNBC’s Programming Decisions Keith it is so good to listen to you.Sean Hannity, Bill o Reilly used to make my heart... Continue Reading & Reply Jacob commented on: Jim Rogers Urges People to Sell U.S. Dollar Holdings Hope you stopped listening to Mr. Rogers before he urged this action. Sionce this... Continue Reading & Reply Maximus V commented on: Chomsky: Anti-Democratic Nature of US Capitalism is Being Exposed Quote: The United States effectively has a one-party system, the... Continue Reading & Reply |
|
The views expressed in the RINF news wire and newsletter are the sole responsibility of the author (s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the webmaster. RINF.COM: Breaking News & Alternative Media is Copyleft - Copy & Distribute Freely. News Forum |
By 
Loading ...
Do you ever wonder how in the hell did we get to this place in time and space? Killing for the sake of killing or better put lying until the lies become truths.
Now dont be fooled with ole Joe galloway hes a warmonger from the “old school” another pretend green breret carring his weapon around that other fake war so he could off a few of those commie bastards.
A propaganist complaining about propaganda is moot!
Until this country can face up to the real truths we are DOOMED to all out war for ever. So please save all your jonny come latly wishes about the horrows of war when these types of articles should have and could have been written at the begining of this immoral war.
It was the media and the goverment and the warmongering money makers who con-spired to make war , the hipocrazy of the american people is stinking and as the users know very predicable so much so that it is easy to start wars based on phoney patriots and false flag missions. Whos to blame?
Its not just the imblciles neo-conmen its you and me with all the phoney patriotical bullcrap we can muster and thats one truth we have a hard time swallowing.
This society is based on greed and as long as we follow this way of being we are DOOMED. There are only two questions that really need to be answered
1)Who read and reads all that propaganda and why?
2)HEY JOE!Where ya going with that gun in your hand?
Manifested Destiny yeah right!