Media Disinformation: Give Them Cake

" ... John McCain appeared on David Letterman's Late Show on October 18, 2001 and suggested to Letterman and the audience of the distinct possibility that the anthrax that had killed several Americans had come from Iraq. ... "

kcearthnotes.kansascity.com

If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. (Thomas Jefferson)

As I watched the film clip I wondered if he'd been a willing participant or had been easily used by George Bush and company.

John McCain appeared on David Letterman's Late Show on October 18, 2001 and suggested to Letterman and the audience of the distinct possibility that the anthrax that had killed several Americans had come from Iraq. If the entire anthrax episode ever comes to light one day, it may tell us even more about mass manipulation.

It has got some "legs" as the saying goes. Americans want something done about $4.00 a gallon gas, which many Americans, perhaps a majority, perceive to be exorbitant, albeit in absolute terms is not remotely overpriced.

Offshore drilling, like the tax holiday, is being presented as "doing something" for the here and now. Of course, rationality and critical thinking are largely irrelevant in this matter, a truth that the Obama campaign cannot afford to ignore.

We take much of it for granted nowadays. It's practiced in North Korea and France. The United States has become quite good at it, and China is clearly getting better. The Beijing Olympics is an opportunity for the Peoples Republic to show its stuff. Nevertheless, air pollution and climate change may not cooperate in this endeavor.

Benito Mussolini, who became the leader of Italy in 1922 and a central creator of Fascism, was one of the first in the 20th century to grasp the importance of mass manipulation, through large spectacles incorporating nationalism, culture, and various symbols. The old Soviet Union in the 1920s and 1930s attempted the same thing, but more often than not it seemed inelegant and crude.

It took the evil genius of a hate-filled, rabid anti-Semite to turn mass manipulation into an art form that has been emulated throughout the world ever since, in one form or another.

Dr. Joseph Goebbels was the Reich Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda for the Nazis. In this position he was responsible for turning German society into something no one could have imagined initially.

The following film clip made by Goebbels' ministry in the 1930s shows Hitler arriving in a plane and being driven through the streets of a German city. Notice the crowds and the expressions on many of the faces. This is very much a middle class audience waving and cheering their leader.

The music that accompanies the video is obviously not from the 1930s. It's the song "Beautiful Life," which won a World Music Award several years ago. The group that produced the song is the Swedish rock group Ace of Base.
Does all of this have anything to teach us today? I don't know for certain, but reminders, oftentimes unpleasant, can sometimes be helpful when we forget the past--short-term as well as long-term.

http://kcearthnotes.kansascity.com/node/472