| Remember how
I said that propaganda, used in the derogatory sense (see What is Propaganda?) often includes deception,
misleading statements and remarks made, from the speaker's point of view that sound like
things you want to hear, but actually don't mean what you think at all.
For example, when someone says something like "We want Congress to pass a package
to address Corporate Fraud" it actually means "Pass the legislation I want
as quickly as possible, so fast you don't have time to consider the ramifications or
loopholes I've built in, or I'll blame the Democrats in the upcoming elections and
my friends won't be able to get corporate amnesty due to ex-post facto limitations."
Or, "I know we already have laws that deal with it, but let's pretend they don't
exist, and we'll enforce them on the smaller companies we're trying to edge out of the
market, just as soon as you pass this new legislation, which will only apply to
them."
Or, "We have addressed all of the issues of the 2000 election and have decided
there were no violations, but have hired 3 additional Creole speaking interpreters to
assist people from Haiti." That would be the public version of
"What, are you nuts? Do you really think we'd do something that would risk
exposing our crimes?"
Or, how about this? The Bush Administration has set aside $35 million dollars to
address the issue of chronic homelessness. Sounds really good, doesn't it?
Given that there are 3-6 million chronically homeless people in this country, well, you
do the math. Will that amount of money even make a dent in it? It sounds good,
and can be rationalized, because after all, it will address the issue for, oh, say, 30
seconds. It might buy them all a hamburger at McDonald's. But it makes it sound like
something is being done. And Republicans will claim this is a sign of their
compassion for their fellow citizens.
Or, try this one on. How about a welfare to work program? How many
thousands and thousands of people are out of work because of corporate fraud?
Not to mention that everybody boasts about reducing the welfare roles, which sounds
good, but, hey, wouldn't that add to the problem of chronic homelessness. Doesn't
that make that 35 million a welfare supplement? Have we been deceived? After
all, we wouldn't want anyone to think that George put any more money into the welfare
system, would we?
Even worse, the government long ago issued a report stating there were certain factors
that would or would not qualify you for welfare of any sort...sounds appropriate.
Except that the government only funds less than 10% of the programs to assist
the people who qualify anyway.... think about that.
Would a business try to build a million dollar building for 100 dollars?
Okay, so let's put it another way. If they needed to pay 1
billion dollars to get a vitally needed service in order to get a result they were
committed to, and that was the price tag, would they do without it, or pay the price for
the sake of getting the job done. After all, they would be better off if the
service was provided.
And the people who worked in the building would feel empowered, they would feel a great
deal of self-esteem and feel good about themselves, and it would motivate them to be more
productive.
But instead, the government's attitude seems to be more like the building is more
important than the people. After all, they can own the building, and determine how
it looks, how it's cared for and who gets to enter it's hallowed halls. But people,
they'll come and go. It's the building that's important. And they can always
imprison the people who steal and sell drugs out of desperation and hunger, in other, less
expensive properties we call prisons. It's all very convenient. A truly
workable plan. And they say, it will make a better people.
I guess that's one I'll just have to blindly accept, because it doesn't really sound
like it's the right thing to do. But my government says it is.
How about this? Whenever Donald Rumsfeld publicly states a policy, and then retracts
that policy a couple of days later, do you think it's because he's being responsive to the
citizens? Heck no.
He told us they were starting a department of disinformation. Then said they decided
not to. Now, what that should tell you is that they created an office of
disinformation, and then disinformed you about deciding not to disinform you.
It's such a tricky business. But not at all what you would consider honest,
trustworthy, or working in the public interest. It sounds like covering up ulterior
motives.
We laugh about the idea of "wagging the dog", but if we knew how many times
the dog's been wagged, we'd probably get tired... of it.
But part of the job of propaganda is to keep you off balance. For example, when
we complained about not being warned about the attacks the government knew were coming on
911, we were subjected to a flurry of vague, uncorroborated reports of possible
terrorist attacks.
Do you actually think they'd tell you about the real threats? The ones they take
seriously? No. Because that actually WOULD be exposing intelligence information.
By issuing those reports to scare you, it caused you to wonder who you could
believe. I could have made those threats up myself while brushing my teeth before going to
work in the morning.
That's one of the biggest uses of propaganda. To make a country's citizens feel
vulnerable, scared, and dependent on the government for safety and protection, so you'll
do whatever they want you to do. So you'll dutifully follow their orders. Because,
after all, you're in danger, and you depend on your leader to save you.
But don't take MY word for it. Hitler's people were masters at this sort of thing,
getting people to do horrendous things after being scared and forced to go bankrupt by
government and corporations... They called it hyper-inflation.
The technique called hyper-inflation is not a natural occurrence in financial/free
markets. It is a technique used to drive up the price of things, make it seem that the
value of the investment is growing, and just about the time you think you're going to be a
millionaire, something catastrophic happens that damages the economy, and all of your
savings and plans for the future go up in smoke, and you're left to the mercy of the
government and corporations to save you. Gotcha. And, got your money.
In this country, we spin it as being the corruption of a few rogue corporate managers
and a sacrificial accounting company that was beginning to lose its effectiveness long
ago.
This is a headline you probably didn't catch. The government says we had 0% inflation
last month. And, they say exports of manufactured goods are up. Why is
that important?
What they don't tell you is that what I call back-door inflation is occurring by the
devaluation of the dollar caused by the decline of the stock market. Now get ready for the
magical observations.
What happens when you follow the money? Who benefits from the proceeds of our
misfortune?
George Bush says that the foundation for a strong economy is still there. That
the probability of growth is high. But for who. Let's review. The dollar
is week, we've lost our investments and pensions, and the export of manufactured goods is
up because other countries can now afford to buy our discounted products. So, it's true.
That strong foundation is there. But not for you and I. For the
corporations.
And since they are selling the product for less money to the global market... after
having manufactured their products at the cost and value of the dollar in a stronger
market... well, it goes like this.
Let's say you make a product. It costs you 5 dollars to make it. You sell
it to the world for 3 dollars because the dollar isn't worth as much anymore. That's
a 2 dollar loss per product. Even though the 3 dollars they charged is equivalent to
20 dollars in our national economy.
Read that again.
What that means is that we've been set up to lose our money to make it easier for the
corporations to sell their products, end up with a higher relative value, but avoid having
to pay taxes on their profits because, on the books, it looks like they've lost money.
Watch the stock market fall next year.
This ought to shock the heck out of you.
Today, they announced that the price of homes is quickly on the rise. This is just the
stock market scheme applied to houses, just like in the Carter years. Then, you couldn't
trust investing in the stock market, but real estate was considered a wise investment.
Something else to get people to spend their money on, to distract them from their distrust
of the corporations. Something you can trust so you will give up on social security in the
next legislative session.
Then, just like in the Carter years, the wealthy will, or already have, purchased large
quantities of houses at today's prices. Inflation and the interest rates will rise
rapidly. And they will sell the houses to people like you and me, and all of a sudden, the
bottom will fall out of the market
You'll be stuck with a house worth half the price you paid for it, your devalued dollar
will not be able to maintain the payments, and if you sell the house, you will sell it at
a loss, go bankrupt, and the bank gets to keep all your money, sell the house again, and
wait 30 more years for their turn to take all your savings away. Because they'll
think you have forgotten.
But don't take my word for it. Ask someone over 40 who got caught in this
nightmare. There are millions of them.
When the government begins advising you that real estate is a good investment, ask
yourself, is it the truth, or is it propaganda to cause you to participate in back-door
hyper-inflation? And ask yourself, who would benefit from your misfortune?
But I think the propaganda I abhor the most is the one where they say "The
Islamists hate our way of life, the freedom that we love. They want to destroy us"
Let's see... they may in fact want to destroy us. And, we must not allow them to do so.
I'll agree with that. Regardless of the reasons. But...
As normal Americans, we wonder why they would hate us. After all, we're good
Christian people with high morals and standards. It doesn't make sense.
It does when you remember that we, the individual citizens of the United States, are
not the ones who go to foreign countries and use the power of the government to force
other countries to comply with our need for greed, power and wealth. We citizens do
not strip them of their natural resources, make speeches that pit them against us or cause
them to become dependent on us so that we can control them.
Someone else does that.
And it's curious that the Declaration of Independence includes some of these
complaints, issued by our founding fathers to declare their rejection of the tyranny
of King George.
The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and
usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over
these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public
good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance,
unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so
suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people,
unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a
right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has endeavored to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose
obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to
encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of
Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for
establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and
the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass
our people, and eat out their substance.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our
constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended
Legislation:
So, that's why I'm fascinated with another observation - that just before our
nation drops a bomb on another, someone says "We don't have any issue with
(say) the Iraqi people, They love us, and they know that we are doing it for them as
much as for our own national interests. It's that government - they're evil".
And we all get scared and rally around the President, for the good of humankind.
But, all you have to do is listen and read a little and find out that they say
the same thing about us.
Personally, I think George and Sons should arrange to go to a neutral country like... I
don't know if there is one anymore... anyway.. and just have it out with Saddam.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not a fan of Hussein. I was trying to market a product
called the "Saddam Hussein Pull Apart Doll" last time around. Didn't mean
to do that project, I was just sort of there when it began. (Another story, another
time)
It's just that when I consider that there doesn't appear to be any real threat at this
time... Saddam wasn't making any speeches about us, George made a speech about him. Given
the administration's line of thinking of striking first... or as most of us would say -
first-strike - why don't we attack China? Is it because we're only willing to attack
smaller countries without the capability to defend themselves? Such honorable,
righteous victories.
Even Scott Ritter, former weapons inspector to Iraq says there's no evidence to suggest
that they have the means to do the harm our government claims and scares us with... I
mean, I'm willing to go to war if it's really necessary, but I need the proof. And
claiming Al Qaeda connections... someone could say that about anyone, and probably
will.
But when I remember the Viet Nam War... see, originally, I supported the use of
troops and our president... I always respect the soldiers. They honor
us with their patriotism and courage. Regardless of whether our leaders are just in their
cause that endangers our soldiers' lives.
I understood the domino theory and the danger of communism, even assisting a country in
a civil war with an enemy that wished to install an oppressive and inhumane government.
The problem was, they said it would take a small amount of troops... and then it
became more and more.. True, it was a different kind of war. They said it would take
a short time, not ten years, even though it did. But, there was no true will to win.
It was more about feeding what we called the military
industrial complex. The mic.
And part of what that is, is this economic theory that actually
uses war as a means of artificially stimulating an economy.
Really.
[Editor's note: Read this from the book and series Commanding Heights, which was
written by Pulitzer Prize winner Daniel Yergin and Joseph Stanislaw . This will teach you
all the fundamental principles you need to know about the global economic strategies being
employed by this government... not just recently, but since 1897... with the collaboration
of a number of other (say) G-8 and G-7 Governments, the strategies that bring us to
this very day in corporate fraud history... Yergin was a financial advisor to Clinton.
The first time I watched it on PBS, I was shocked. The 6th time, I was
angered to the point of starting this web site, just to analyze world events. Really.
A New Patriot would read this. :} See the Economics
section for more info.]
A truly brilliant genius economist in India perfected the equation. He really did
turn it into an equation.
A single equation that included every possible contingent economic factor based on
supply-side economic theory that would accurately project and balance a budget... and
there was one factor that was never specified... one that could be any amount required...
and that was the factor of the cost of war. That factor was the original purpose for
the creation of the ability to accumulate a national debt. To finance war.
In a perverse way, it makes sense, so long as you do not value human
life.
And that factor was unspecified because it was difficult to project when the consumers
might stop spending their money or need their products... or, heaven forbid, just decide
to put some in a savings account for retirement, instead of keeping it active in the
master cash flow scheme that is so important to the facade of our financial security.
It's a very intricate pyramid scheme.
So, to make up the difference in the economy, some other genius decided the thing
to do was to cause the people to think they were under imminent threat to scare them and
cause them to rally around their leader. To think it was a good idea to take a gun
and kill someone, just because your government convinced you they were the enemy.
They realized they could control the information being supplied to the citizens in
newspapers and magazines and radio stations and television stations... to cause them to
think things that usually weren't true, so that people would be willing to support the
government in waging war.
Through the media, they could shape the public opinion so that if anyone voiced another
opinion or questioned the government's policies, the citizens were shamed, called
unpatriotic. The citizens had been whipped into a fervor the likes of a lynch mob,
ready to attack anyone or anything that dared to challenge the validity of the claims of
the government.
These were the very people who understood the truth and dared to inform their
fellow citizens to try to save the world from a global conflagration based on classism,
greed and the want of absolute power.
And they enlisted their fellow citizens to spy on each other, and report dissenters and
caused even the truest of patriots to hide in their cellars for fear of imprisonment or
death. It was happening all around them. Why would anything be different for
them?
But they needed an enemy, someone to make the citizens hate and be willing, no, anxious
to destroy. So they focused on the members of a particular people and religion that they
thought less worthy. They demonized them as evil and deceptive and war-like, and willing
to attack us at any moment It gave people a symbol upon which to focus their hate,
and an enemy to conquer... a reason to commit the genocide they had in mind.
And they recruited other countries to join them in this plan of global domination.
Countries that had become dependent on this aggressor for oil and food, communications and
defense. Countries which would have most certainly been conquered as well had they not
agreed to participate.
And they attacked the world, killed millions of soldiers and civilians, terrorized and
brutalized the people of the planet with an arrogance and righteousness that is frequently
attributed to the character of a self-serving gangster.
And some of you left-wing hippie anti-globalizationists like me are probably sitting
there thinking I'm making some kind of comment about how George Bush uses
propaganda.
But what I'm really describing are the events that led to the rise of Adolf Hitler as
he took control and created Nazi Germany, and launched an attempt at global domination and
to implement the genocide we call the Holocaust They killed millions of decent,
innocent people because he wanted to purify the planet. To have the entire world acquiesce
to his own beliefs and mores. And yes, one other thing. To be the ruler of the
world.
And now, back to the Vietnam War. I think about it when I recall how, slowly but
surely, there were more and more people from my home town, from my neighborhood, from the
world I took for granted, who were not allowed to live and enjoy the benefits for
which they died. And I missed them.
I saw the pain in the faces of their brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers,
uncles and aunts and grandparents. I saw the pain in the faces of the children who could
not comprehend the finality of death, the loss of a father, the loss of a family. It
was the pain in the hearts of America, as we learned of the deception and corruption that
led us into war.
And I joined in the dissent. I took to the streets. I demanded that the
government respond to the will of the people. It took vigilance and faith and often
wasn't easy, but I knew that the people who stood beside me would support me and share in
my hopes and dreams of a planet where the death of thousands if not millions of people
were not required to balance the books for people who either could not or would not manage
the country in a way that benefited the people.
But instead, instituted policy that could only provide wealth to the corporations and
moguls who financed their campaigns and elections in order to attain and retain power.
All at the expense of the people. I considered that treason.
Remember, the name of this report is, How the Bush Administration Uses
Propaganda.
Consider the case of Worldcom, the FCC announced that there will be no abrupt
interruptions of internet services... which means... when we take Worldcom off line
to the consumers so the Department of Defense can install the rest of the censorship
machine, and hook in the network of cameras and surveillance devices so they can recognize
your face wherever you go and read everything on your computer and monitor all of your
phone calls....
We'll also find a way to take AOL offline so that the bulk of internet traffic ends up
going through Microsoft's network because they want no true competition for the
entertainment services they want to put online and make a few billion more dollars from...
And everybody knows what Microsoft does to its competitors... of course, they will feed
you even more government generated propaganda....
And, oh, by the way, you'll then want to notice that they snookered Ted Turner
out of CNN and now AOL wants to sell its cable division, AKA CNN to resolve it's financial
problems, meaning there will be very little intellectually honest reporting on tv... cause
they'll likely be sold to another member of the propaganda machine... leaving us to
the propaganda of NBC, MSNBC, CNBC, Faux and all the others who are accomplices in
suppressing the truth... (deep breath)
Doesn't it seem a little too convenient that AOL AND Worldcom would simultaneously have
problems that would cause a possible disruption of all the little emails and websites of
us malcontents that might actually inform the people and make them understand the truth...
they wouldn't want that to happen during the election season., now would they?
And the system will come back on line, just in time for the election, making Americans
very happy and Republican. And filtered to the hilt. You won't see sites like this
one. Unless, of course, they realize their plan has been revealed and that they
might be exposed for the schemers they are... again.
Remember, they said, no immediate disruptions of service.... that did
not preclude an abrupt disruption, say, in 3 or 4 weeks, or just as critical mass has been
achieved through the education and anger of the American people...
See, that's how it's done. They actually tell you their truth, but you
have to listen to the words they actually use, not the impression of action
they want you to perceive. Because what you think they said isn't what they actually said.
And that's no accident. It's a strategy, It's propaganda. And it
deceives you all the way to the bank. At least, to their bank.
But don't take my word for it. Call your investment counselor. Take 2
aspirin and call me someone who feels just as disgusted and violated as you do.
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