PROPAGANDA
Edward Bernay’s book Propaganda is the official Constitution of corporate media. During the consumerist “renaissance” of the 1920s, he urged the elite to manipulate public opinion and limit freedom of choice in order to control the new modern society. He even declared that “those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government […] the true ruling power of our country.’
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ALTERNATIVE FACTS:
POLITICAL PROPAGANDA IN ACTION
EXPANDED TRANSCRIPT
- 10 corporations control 90% of what you see, hear, or read in America’s media. The organisation Freepress documents that they are: Bain Capital/ Thomas H. Lee, CBS, Comcast, Gannett Co., News Corp, Time Warner, Tribute Company, Viacom, Walt Disney, and the Washington Post.
- In Great Britain, the concentration is even greater. The Media Reform Centre reports that the following 6 companies account for around 80% of all 56 local UK newspaper titles: Gannett UK, Johnston Press, Local World, Trinity Mirror Regionals, Archant, Tindle Newspapers, and the KM Groups.
- The late 1940s were a bleak period for journalism. The precursor to mainstream media was Operation Paperclip; the Office of Strategic Services’ (OSS) pet project in post-WWII. The US government illegally assimilated 1,500 Nazi scientists into America in order to learn their knowledge of sciences. Propaganda was one of them; Glen Yeadon writes in detail about how “many of the Nazi war criminals and collaborators recruited by Project Bloodstone were placed in Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty” and were financed by Nazi gold confiscated from Italy during their postwar elections.
- Operation Mockingbird was the official CIA initiative to take over America’s post-WWII media, where Cord Meyer and future CIA Director Allen W. Dulles worked secretly to buy out the Washington Post, New York Times, Newsweek, CBS, and many others. Using funds from the Marshall Plan, they bribed reporters and even trained dissidents. Their first coups (Operation PBSUCCESS) overthrew then-elected president of Guatemala, Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán. It has become the pulse of Western corporate media.
- Carl Bernstein was one of the first journalists to ‘leak’ information on the CIA’s involvement in the news, and his testimony was published in Rolling Stone Magazine in 1977. In it, he disclosed how over 400 journalists were directly commissioned by the CIA to spread propaganda against democratic, Communist, or ‘enemy’ governments. His work also helped to expose Richard Nixon during the Watergate scandal.
- The CIA doesn’t just work with corporate media, but also with Hollywood. Since the 1950s, the Office of Public Affairs (OPA) has directly worked with screenwriters, producers, and actors in order to masterfully create blockbuster bullshit. Argo, Zero Dark Thirty, American Sniper, and even Top Chef have colluded with them.
- Vice News sued the OPA in order to get a 20-page report from the Office of Inspector General (OIG), which documented the extent of their cronyism between mainstream media, television, Hollywood and the CIA; however, many of the pages were redacted.
- The US military created a document entitled, “Psychological Operations, Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures” (FM3-05.301) in 2003 in order to conduct psychological warfare post-9/11. Chapter 9 (Psyop Media Production) lays clear templates for creating, formatting, and disseminating psyop propaganda against targets of the Pentagon.
- Cronyism and billionaire reactionaries contribute greatly to the mainstream media. George Soros, or the “Antichrist”, is the CEO of the Open Society, a hedge fund manager, and closet Nazi war criminal. He openly donates to news companies like Media Matters, Radio Free Europe, and other channels to destabilise currencies and cause regime change around the world, including Ukraine, Syria, Libya, and even the United States. Recently, Ukraine’s CyberBerkut hacking team leaked George Soros’ memos which evidenced his plans for destabilising Ukraine.
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