08/20/07 "Zmag" -- -It’s no coincidence that the American corporate media is the wealthiest communication systems in the world, yet also one of the worst in terms of educating its citizens.  Extraordinary riches require extraordinary efforts to divert public attention from extreme inequality and the democratic deficit under which Americans suffer.  Despite the abundance of media sources throughout this country, Americans still endure a staggering ignorance regarding the reality of U.S. foreign policy.  Horrendous media coverage no doubt accounts for much of this ongoing tragedy.  While there may be more information available today than at any time in history (in light of the rise of cable news, the Internet, and other technological developments), the quality of that news leaves much to be desired. News reports today do not provide the public with the context needed to evaluate the events happening around them in a critical way.  This lack of context is of no surprise to those who understand that media coverage is designed to indoctrinate and divert attention, rather than to educate.  The prolific comic George Carlin has this insight to share concerning the American media’s commitment to class warfare:
YouTube - george carlin nails it

[T]his broadcast examines an intelligence–connected mind control cult with which WikiLeaks kingpin Julian Assange appears to be affiliated. As well connected as it is ruthless and criminal, the Santiniketan Park Association of Anne Hamilton-Byrne conditioned children with drugs, sensory deprivation, sleep deprivation, torture and ritual sexual abuse in order to produce subjects who bent to the will of the group’s leader.
....

The MSM is trying to infiltrate into the younger minds via Huffpo and Discovery, as they know they are losing the battle with the American people as a whole regarding the JFK assassination and the events of 9/11.Only about25% of Americans believe that the Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone nut assassin in the JFK murder. Even FOX News said that. At least a third of the American public believe that the events of 9/11 happened because of an inside job by the U.S. government as well. That group is growing everyday.

The internet is the reason why the truth is growing in this country. Sites like Black Op Radio and The Real Deal with Jim Fetzer educate people about real facts and not the disinformation that many in the MSM try to feed you. The government and the MSM are trying very hard to suppress the internet as well. Examples are here and here. This past week we also saw the FCC rule on Net Neutrality, which will not help things at all.

Amazon.com: The Gods of Antenna: How Never to Be Afraid of Anything YES! Anything!: Bruce Herschensohn: Books

The tricks to manipulating TV news were exposed by an angry U.S. Information Agency video expert in his 1976 book, 'The Gods of Antenna.'

Ironically, this book by an award-winning US government propaganda expert, Bruce Herschensohn, helps us better understand the most valuable of the CIA's 'family jewels' revealed to the Church Senate sub-committee in 1975 by CIA Director, William Colby, the Central Intelligence Agency's control of mainstream media news used to manage public opinion and appropriately called 'Operation Mockingbird.'

Herschensohn was an ultra-conservative Nixon staffer who was mad at the network newsrooms for their calculated campaign to create an atmosphere of outrage that enabled the 'Silent Coup' (different book) we call Watergate, a campaign enabled by Naval Intelligence officer, Bob Woodward at the CIA-Washington Post.

Sometimes when factions within the secret government duel, we find out how they work.
Both the Pentagon and CIA wanted to get policy control back from Nixon.
Nixon was also emotionally unstable and drinking.

According to Anthony Summers' 2000 biography of Nixon called 'The Arrogance of Power: The Secret World of Richard Nixon,' the unstable president was prone to ordering air strikes and threatening nuclear retaliation often enough to have to be carefully buffered by insiders who knew his foibles.

Instead of getting shot like JFK, Nixon was made to walk the media plank towards impeachment and then resigned the day after GHW Bush told him to, not wanting that crossfire of hot lead used to overcome other 'political obstacles.'

Watergate hearings revived the myth of 'the rule of law in a system that works' and the outraged masses (recently called by Barak Obama "the excesses of the sixties") were placated by Nixon's removal.
This enabled the Reagan cocaine-death squad years as 'investigative journalism' was stuffed back into its bottle by blaming it for losing the Vietnam War, the same 'stab in the back' psy-ops that helped the rise of Hitler.

Bruce Herschensohn saw all his own professional tricks being used by the CIA's network news writers and angrily let the psy-ops cat out of the bag himself, right into our hands, the hands of the 'outraged masses.'
Live and learn.

From Herschensohn's book on page 68-
    "For years, film and video techniques were used only to enhance the productions for audiences that wished to be entertained; therefore, those techniques deserved to be as guarded as a magician's hat. But those techniques were being used, and at the writing are still being used, to enhance distortion for audiences that wish to be informed.
As in the days of varityped contracts, the fine print of television is more important than the bold print, but too often it passes unnoticed, just as it is intended to do."

After citing tactics used by Nazi propaganda master, Joseph Goebbels, such as "the list" technique of piling on charges so that some inevitably stick in the public's mind, Herschensohn gives us hints about the CIA's Operation Mockingbird by paying an insider's clever tribute to the musical nick-names for both major Cold War propaganda organizations, the Soviet KGB’s  'Red Orchestra' and the American CIA's 'Mighty Wurlitzer.'

page 45-
    "The symphony was being conducted by network television, playing to the national audience for a year and a half. Its orchestration and performance were masterful. Its composer remained anonymous to most of the millions who watched as the musicians played their instruments almost flawlessly."


Bookjacket flap bio of author-

"Bruce Herschensohn was deputy special assistant to President Nixon in 1973-74, having first served as director of Motion Picture and Television Services of the United States Information Agency from 1968 through 1972.
Born in Milwaukee in 1932, he spent his teen years in Los Angeles and went to work for RKO Radio Pictures in the early 1950s. After a stint with the Air Force during the Korean War, he returned to Hollywood and the motion picture industry as producer, director, writer, and editor. For eleven years he headed his own motion picture company.
His film credits include the documentaries 'Years of Lightening, Day of Drums' and 'The Five Cities of June,' the latter nominated for an Academy Award in 1964. Under Herschensohn the USIA Film Division won an Academy Award and was nominated for five others. He was named one of the ten Outstanding Young Men in the Federal Government in 1969 and received the Distinguished Service Award in 1972, the second highest civilian honor."

U.S. taxpayers footed the bill for four police to man the event at the second appearance in Columbus, along with several other plain clothed officers and even Secret Service officials who, according to demonstrators, questioned Ron Paul supporters.

Activists claimed that Beck's employees admitted Secret Service were chaperoning Beck, leading to charges that Beck is being directly bankrolled and protected by the government to spew his propaganda.