General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsUnderstanding the Prism leaks is understanding the rise of a new fascism
In his book Propaganda, published in 1928, Edward Bernays wrote: The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organised habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society.
Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.
The American nephew of Sigmund Freud, Bernays invented the term public relations as a euphemism for state propaganda. He warned that an enduring threat to the invisible government was the truth-teller and an enlightened public.
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Speaking about the National Security Agency (NSA), Senator Church said: I know the capacity that there is to make tyranny total in America, and we must see to it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law . . . so that we never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return.
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In the new American cyberpower, only the revolving doors have changed. The director of Google Ideas, Jared Cohen, was an adviser to Condoleezza Rice, the former secretary of state in the Bush administration who lied that Saddam Hussein could attack the US with nuclear weapons. Cohen and Googles executive chairman, Eric Schmidt they met in the ruins of Iraq have co-authored a book, The New Digital Age, endorsed as visionary by the former CIA director Michael Hayden and the war criminals Henry Kissinger and Tony Blair. The authors make no mention of the Prism spying programme, revealed by Snowden, that provides the NSA with access to all of us who use Google.
Control and dominance are the two words that make sense of this. These are exercised by political, economic and military design, of which mass surveillance is an essential part, but also by insinuating propaganda into the public consciousness. This was Edward Bernayss point. His two most successful PR campaigns convinced Americans that they should go to war in 1917 and persuaded women to smoke in public; cigarettes were torches of freedom that would hasten womens liberation.
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http://www.newstatesman.com/2013/06/understanding-prism-leaks-understanding-rise-new-fascism
John Pilger, renowned investigative journalist and documentary film-maker, is one of only two to have twice won British journalism's top award; his documentaries have won academy awards in both the UK and the US. In a New Statesman survey of the 50 heroes of our time, Pilger came fourth behind Aung San Suu Kyi and Nelson Mandela. "John Pilger," wrote Harold Pinter, "unearths, with steely attention facts, the filthy truth. I salute him."
cprise
(8,445 posts)newfie11
(8,159 posts)boilerbabe
(2,214 posts)truedelphi
(32,324 posts)several chapters actually - out of Richard Nixon's playbook.
But Richard Nixon did not have at his disposal a nation of "terrorized" citizens willing to bend over and assume the position. We still considered there to be value in being free citizens and in possessing liberty and freedom as our inherent rights.
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)Way to go Mr. Obama!
All that love and trust. That greatest mandate in all of history.
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DeSwiss
(27,137 posts)[center]
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- And here we are......
fasttense
(17,301 posts)Someone is making big bucks off of it. Nothing in this capitalist society gets done unless some elite corporate dick is making big bucks off of it.
cantbeserious
(13,039 posts)eom
xchrom
(108,903 posts)tblue
(16,350 posts)stillwaiting
(3,795 posts)It all depends on how the people act.