The Clinton Administration also used Video News Releases to promote policy, but the article never cited a specific example. Under Bush the budget for "public relations" (remember you can't spell propaganda without PR), is around $250 Million. That's an astounding amount of money spent with the only goal being to change public opinion. Noam Chomsky talks about the influence of the PR industry on American politics, and that we are sold policy and politcians in the same deceptive manner in which the PR/Advertising industry sells "toothpaste." Bush is just as likely to do something for you as AXE deodorant is going to make you irresistable to women.
That's the game here, changing the opinion of the majority to match the will of a small minority.
That small minority in turn makes billions off taxpayer money - essentially feeding off the same public tit that they later deride when a poor single mother tries to take a drop from.
"There is only one trait which is irreparable in a statesman: honesty! Honesty is negative and sterile; it is ignorant of the correct evaluation of appetite and ambition - the only powers through which you can find anything durable." ~ Octave Mirbeau
Appetite and ambition - that is what drives us in America. Our own innate greed. We all have it, we all are told that being wealthy is the ultimate form of human existence. We talk about "morality," and "materialism," but the people selling those concepts are making money off the books you bought that told you that.
In terms of politics, it would be wonderful if the policy ends could be justified by the means used to sell them. But they're not. The Bush Administration is using these videos to sell War, a false sense of safety at airports, a Medicare bill that's an open giveaway to Drug companies, and a belief that Abu Ghraib wasn't driven by policies from the highest levels of the Pentagon. What's clear is that the truth is abhorent to the elite in power, and that they know if the public was aware of certain policies to the fullest extent, they wouldn't support it.
The last part of the article talks about Abu Ghraib....
"...A short while later, Mr. Gilliam's unit distributed a news segment, sent to 34 stations, that examined the training of prison guards at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri, where some of the military police officers implicated at Abu Ghraib had been trained.
One of the most important lessons they learn is to treat prisoners strictly but fairly,'' the reporter said in the segment, which depicted a regimen emphasizing respect for detainees. A trainer told the reporter that military police officers were taught to ''treat others as they would want to be treated.'' The account made no mention of Abu Ghraib or how the scandal had prompted changes in training at Fort Leonard Wood.
According to Mr. Gilliam, the report was unrelated to any effort by the Defense Department to rebut suggestions of a broad command failure.
''Are you saying that the Pentagon called down and said, 'We need some good publicity?''' he asked. ''No, not at all.''
Do they think we the American public and press are totally fucking retarded? Yes.
Comments are closed on this story.