Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
Octafish
Octafish's Journal
Octafish's Journal
April 7, 2016
This is a story I don't see mentioned very often online, rarely in print, and never on television. I believe it's a good thing for Democrats to know, as well as all people who are interested in making peace and building a better world, like Bernie Sanders.
Did the press in 1963 report what JFK was actually doing in regards to Cuba? No.
Just before his assassination, President Kennedy ordered secret peace talks with Castro. Others in government worked against him.
The National Security Archive at George Washington University has the story:
Kennedy Sought Dialogue with Cuba
INITIATIVE WITH CASTRO ABORTED BY ASSASSINATION,
DECLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS SHOW
Oval Office Tape Reveals Strategy to hold clandestine Meeting in Havana; Documents record role of ABC News correspondent Lisa Howard as secret intermediary in Rapprochement effort
Washington D.C. - On the 40th anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy, and the eve of the broadcast of a new documentary film on Kennedy and Castro, the National Security Archive today posted an audio tape of the President and his national security advisor, McGeorge Bundy, discussing the possibility of a secret meeting in Havana with Castro. The tape, dated only seventeen days before Kennedy was shot in Dallas, records a briefing from Bundy on Castro's invitation to a U.S. official at the United Nations, William Attwood, to come to Havana for secret talks on improving relations with Washington. The tape captures President Kennedy's approval if official U.S. involvement could be plausibly denied.
The possibility of a meeting in Havana evolved from a shift in the President's thinking on the possibility of what declassified White House records called "an accommodation with Castro" in the aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Proposals from Bundy's office in the spring of 1963 called for pursuing "the sweet approach…enticing Castro over to us," as a potentially more successful policy than CIA covert efforts to overthrow his regime. Top Secret White House memos record Kennedy's position that "we should start thinking along more flexible lines" and that "the president, himself, is very interested in (the prospect for negotiations)." Castro, too, appeared interested. In a May 1963 ABC News special on Cuba, Castro told correspondent Lisa Howard that he considered a rapprochement with Washington "possible if the United States government wishes it. In that case," he said, "we would be agreed to seek and find a basis" for improved relations.
The untold story of the Kennedy-Castro effort to seek an accommodation is the subject of a new documentary film, KENNEDY AND CASTRO: THE SECRET HISTORY, broadcast on the Discovery/Times cable channel on November 25 at 8pm. The documentary film, which focuses on Ms. Howard's role as a secret intermediary in the effort toward dialogue, was based on an article -- "JFK and Castro: The Secret Quest for Accommodation" -- written by Archive Senior Analyst Peter Kornbluh in the magazine, Cigar Aficionado. Kornbluh served as consulting producer and provided key declassified documents that are highlighted in the film. "The documents show that JFK clearly wanted to change the framework of hostile U.S. relations with Cuba," according to Kornbluh. "His assassination, at the very moment this initiative was coming to fruition, leaves a major 'what if' in the ensuing history of the U.S. conflict with Cuba."
CONTINUED with links, resources...
This is a story I don't see mentioned very often online, rarely in print, and never on television. I believe it's a good thing for Democrats to know, as well as all people who are interested in making peace and building a better world, like Bernie Sanders.
April 6, 2016
UBS, HSBC Offshore Dealings Thrust Into Panama Papers Spotlight
by Greg Farrell and David Kocieniewski
Bloomberg, April 5, 2016
UBS Group AG and HSBC Holdings Plc -- two of the banks hardest hit amid a U.S. crackdown on customers’ illicit funds in recent years -- are now starring in a torrent of leaked documents detailing how they once helped clients set up thousands of offshore shell companies.
A report late Monday by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, drawing on 11.5 million records extracted from Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca, describes the contortions UBS and other banks went through as they struggled to distance themselves from clients’ offshore companies amid mounting U.S. scrutiny. It also shows how European banks in particular had once helped customers create those entities: HSBC and its subsidiaries accounted for more than 2,300 of the shells registered through Mossack Fonseca, while UBS and Credit Suisse Group AG were behind more than 1,100 apiece, according to the ICIJ report.
While the use of offshore companies can be perfectly legal, the documents have ignited a global debate since they came to light on Sunday, exposing the extent to which politicians, business leaders and celebrities make use of a secretive financial ecosystem. The scandal is a fresh headache for banks, some of which have paid billions of dollars in fines in recent years, promised to fix controls and dismantled once-lucrative businesses as they try to put to rest accusations they harbored money for tax dodgers or criminals.
"Banks and professional organizations including accountants and lawyers need to up their game in relation to knowing who their ultimate clients are,” said Alan Sheeley, head of the civil fraud and asset recovery team at Pinsent Masons law firm in London. It also raises pressure on governments, he said.
In 2010, as UBS was trying to deal with a U.S. Department of Justice investigation into illegal tax shelters, the Zurich-based bank sought to pull back from the shell companies, according to the ICIJ report. In a meeting that year with Mossack Fonseca, the bank’s representatives asserted the law firm should be responsible for identifying the shells’ owners, while the law firm insisted it didn’t know who some of them were because the bank had withheld the information, according to the report.
‘Special Treatment’
The two sides eventually figured out a way forward: Mossack Fonseca would take over the administration of the shell companies established by UBS clients and accord them "special treatment," ICIJ said. Under the new system, Mossack Fonseca agreed to accept lighter due diligence from UBS on those clients, requiring less documentation on the owners and why they used shell companies, ICIJ reported.
CONTINUED...
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04-05/ubs-hsbc-offshore-dealings-thrust-into-panama-papers-spotlight
April 5, 2016
McClatchy is part of the team -- the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists
A 401(c)3 based outta Washington, D.C.
https://panamapapers.icij.org/
McClatchy
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/article69918377.html
April 5, 2016
Who would have thought President Clinton and Sen. Gramm -- the two key figures in repealing Glass-Steagall -- would work together in Wealth Management at a Swiss bank?
Since the New Deal, Glass-Steagall had protected the US taxpayer from the Wall Street casino by law. After its repeal, the US taxpayer got put on the hook for, among other things, the most recent $16 trillion Wall Street bailout.
In September 2008 on DU2 I described the situation: Know your BFEE: Phil Gramm, the Meyer Lansky of the War Party, Set-Up the Biggest Bank Heist Ever.
If you don't like the way I write about it, you may enjoy what Robert Scheer thinks about Phil Gramm.
https://panamapapers.icij.org/20160403-panama-papers-global-overview.html
Until Sunday and the Panama Papers, this information wasn't much interest to the USA's "news media." They don't like to disturb their owners and operators any more than they have to.
Is ''Wealth Management at UBS'' a euphemism for ''Offshoring''?
After his exit from the US Senate, Phil Gramm immediately found a job at Swiss bank UBS as its Vice Chairman. Gramm today works in the Wealth Management department, where he brought on, among others, former President Bill Clinton.
It's a Buy-Partisan Who's Who:
President William J. Clinton
President George W. Bush Heh heh heh.
Robert J. McCann
James Carville
John V. Miller
Paula D. Polito
Anthony Roth
Mike Ryan
John Savercool
SOURCE: http://financialservicesinc.ubs.com/revitalizingamerica/SenatorPhilGramm.html
President William J. Clinton
President George W. Bush Heh heh heh.
Robert J. McCann
James Carville
John V. Miller
Paula D. Polito
Anthony Roth
Mike Ryan
John Savercool
SOURCE: http://financialservicesinc.ubs.com/revitalizingamerica/SenatorPhilGramm.html
Who would have thought President Clinton and Sen. Gramm -- the two key figures in repealing Glass-Steagall -- would work together in Wealth Management at a Swiss bank?
Since the New Deal, Glass-Steagall had protected the US taxpayer from the Wall Street casino by law. After its repeal, the US taxpayer got put on the hook for, among other things, the most recent $16 trillion Wall Street bailout.
In September 2008 on DU2 I described the situation: Know your BFEE: Phil Gramm, the Meyer Lansky of the War Party, Set-Up the Biggest Bank Heist Ever.
If you don't like the way I write about it, you may enjoy what Robert Scheer thinks about Phil Gramm.
https://panamapapers.icij.org/20160403-panama-papers-global-overview.html
Until Sunday and the Panama Papers, this information wasn't much interest to the USA's "news media." They don't like to disturb their owners and operators any more than they have to.
April 5, 2016
It's only fair.
First We the People get to pick up the bill for all the Warmongers.
Then, We the People get to pick up the bill for all the Banksters.
Of course now, We the People get to pick up the tab for the Oil Company that destroyed the Gulf. Of Mexico, not the oil company.
What's different now is that We the People know what they do with the money they steal from us.
April 3, 2016
Wonder who and what they'd find if banks were to leak all the offshore tax dodgers?
Massive leak exposes how the wealthy and powerful hide their money
[font size="1"]"Conspiratorial Wink" (detail) by Michael Samuels [/font size]
Massive leak exposes how the wealthy and powerful hide their money
12 world leaders maintain offshore entities
Putin’s oldest friends shuffle $2 billion around
Soccer stars, billionaires and friends of powerful named
BY KEVIN G. HALL AND MARISA TAYLOR
Sacramento Bee, April 3, 2016
McClatchy Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- A massive leak of documents has blown open a window on the vast, murky world of shell companies, providing an extraordinary look at how the wealthy and powerful conceal their money.
Twelve current and former world leaders maintain offshore shell companies. Close friends of Russian leader Vladimir Putin have funneled as much as $2 billion through banks and offshore companies.
Those exposed in the leak include the prime ministers of Iceland and Pakistan, an alleged bagman for Syrian President Bashar Assad, a close pal of Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto and companies linked to the family of Chinese President Xi Jinping.
SNIP...
The data breach occurred at a little-known but powerful Panamanian law firm, Mossack Fonseca, which has an office in Las Vegas, a representative in Miami and a presence in more than 35 other places around the world.
The firm is one of the world’s top five creators of shell companies, which can have legitimate business uses, but can also be used to dodge taxes and launder money.
CONTINUED...
http://www.sacbee.com/news/nation-world/article69729112.html
12 world leaders maintain offshore entities
Putin’s oldest friends shuffle $2 billion around
Soccer stars, billionaires and friends of powerful named
BY KEVIN G. HALL AND MARISA TAYLOR
Sacramento Bee, April 3, 2016
McClatchy Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- A massive leak of documents has blown open a window on the vast, murky world of shell companies, providing an extraordinary look at how the wealthy and powerful conceal their money.
Twelve current and former world leaders maintain offshore shell companies. Close friends of Russian leader Vladimir Putin have funneled as much as $2 billion through banks and offshore companies.
Those exposed in the leak include the prime ministers of Iceland and Pakistan, an alleged bagman for Syrian President Bashar Assad, a close pal of Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto and companies linked to the family of Chinese President Xi Jinping.
SNIP...
The data breach occurred at a little-known but powerful Panamanian law firm, Mossack Fonseca, which has an office in Las Vegas, a representative in Miami and a presence in more than 35 other places around the world.
The firm is one of the world’s top five creators of shell companies, which can have legitimate business uses, but can also be used to dodge taxes and launder money.
CONTINUED...
http://www.sacbee.com/news/nation-world/article69729112.html
Wonder who and what they'd find if banks were to leak all the offshore tax dodgers?
April 3, 2016
Har har. It is to laugh, Phil Gramm! (not present in photo)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/12511200048
UBS Wealth Management accidentally sent him another person's statement?
Har har. It is to laugh, Phil Gramm! (not present in photo)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/12511200048
April 3, 2016
Plutocrats v. Oligarchs
by DAVID ROSEN
CounterPunch, MAY 2, 2014
EXCERPT...
The term “oligarchs” is gaining currency in the U.S. Sanders defined them as “a small number of very wealthy families who spend huge amounts of money supporting right-wing candidates who protect their interests.” He means to differentiate this “small number” from the larger world of the rich and superrich, the plutocrats, who – as a class – have long exercised considerable influence on the U.S. political system. Who are these oligarchs and how do they different from today’s plutocrats? And how does this generation of oligarchs differ from previous generations of the superrich who, over the last century, have dominated American politics?
* * *
Oligarchy is defined as “government by the few” and came into English use around 1570. The term derives from two Greek words: oligos meaning “few” and arch for “rule”; similar English-language terms include monarch or hierarchy. Plutocracy is derived from the Greek ploutos meaning “wealth” and kratos for “govern.”
Today, both concepts — plutocrats and oligarchs — refer to the growing influence the rich – and especially the superrich – have on the national (and international) political economy. Oligarchs are plutocrats who use their enormous wealth to further a particularly conservative, if not rightwing, agenda.
SNIP...
Today’s grand plutocrats include the Walton family, the Koch brothers and Sheldon Adelson. They makeup seven of the top 11 wealthiest Americans: Charles Koch ($36 bil), David Koch ($36 bil), Christy Walton ($35.4 bil), Jim Walton ($33.8 bil), Alice Walton ($33.5 bil), Samuel Robson Walton ($33.3 bil) and Adelson ($28.5 bil). This is real money.
These plutocrats become oligarchs by employing their vast wealth in an apparently more aggressive – and conservative – way then, for example, Gates, Buffet or Bloomberg. The Koch brothers are major backers of the Tea Party and Americans for Prosperity; they are reported to have donated an estimated $196 millions to fight the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). The Waltons have led the charge against public education, committing an estimated $1 billion promoting privatization – no teachers’ union or community accountability — through charter schools. Adelson famously holds court for Republican presidential hopefuls who visit his Las Vegas castle to kiss his ring and proclaim their undying support for Israel.
* * *
America is stuck. The “American Century” is over and globalization is restructuring capitalism. The rich are getting phenomenally richer while the income of the rest of Americans stagnates or falls. Both American plutocrats and oligarchs are fighting to hold on to — and increase! — their wealth and influence during this restructuring. And they are succeeding.
CONTINUED...
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/05/02/plutocrats-v-oligarchs/
Oh well! Win, as long as we act like Howard Keel in "The War Wagon" as Levi Walking Bear, who said he was just a "Dumb Indian" until he got smart and took up the ways of the White man: "Grab all you can, any time you can."
You are most welcome, think. The Plutocrats vs. The Oligarchs
It's like a two-party system where the rich get richer and the rest of us pay for it.
Plutocrats v. Oligarchs
by DAVID ROSEN
CounterPunch, MAY 2, 2014
EXCERPT...
The term “oligarchs” is gaining currency in the U.S. Sanders defined them as “a small number of very wealthy families who spend huge amounts of money supporting right-wing candidates who protect their interests.” He means to differentiate this “small number” from the larger world of the rich and superrich, the plutocrats, who – as a class – have long exercised considerable influence on the U.S. political system. Who are these oligarchs and how do they different from today’s plutocrats? And how does this generation of oligarchs differ from previous generations of the superrich who, over the last century, have dominated American politics?
* * *
Oligarchy is defined as “government by the few” and came into English use around 1570. The term derives from two Greek words: oligos meaning “few” and arch for “rule”; similar English-language terms include monarch or hierarchy. Plutocracy is derived from the Greek ploutos meaning “wealth” and kratos for “govern.”
Today, both concepts — plutocrats and oligarchs — refer to the growing influence the rich – and especially the superrich – have on the national (and international) political economy. Oligarchs are plutocrats who use their enormous wealth to further a particularly conservative, if not rightwing, agenda.
SNIP...
Today’s grand plutocrats include the Walton family, the Koch brothers and Sheldon Adelson. They makeup seven of the top 11 wealthiest Americans: Charles Koch ($36 bil), David Koch ($36 bil), Christy Walton ($35.4 bil), Jim Walton ($33.8 bil), Alice Walton ($33.5 bil), Samuel Robson Walton ($33.3 bil) and Adelson ($28.5 bil). This is real money.
These plutocrats become oligarchs by employing their vast wealth in an apparently more aggressive – and conservative – way then, for example, Gates, Buffet or Bloomberg. The Koch brothers are major backers of the Tea Party and Americans for Prosperity; they are reported to have donated an estimated $196 millions to fight the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). The Waltons have led the charge against public education, committing an estimated $1 billion promoting privatization – no teachers’ union or community accountability — through charter schools. Adelson famously holds court for Republican presidential hopefuls who visit his Las Vegas castle to kiss his ring and proclaim their undying support for Israel.
* * *
America is stuck. The “American Century” is over and globalization is restructuring capitalism. The rich are getting phenomenally richer while the income of the rest of Americans stagnates or falls. Both American plutocrats and oligarchs are fighting to hold on to — and increase! — their wealth and influence during this restructuring. And they are succeeding.
CONTINUED...
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/05/02/plutocrats-v-oligarchs/
Oh well! Win, as long as we act like Howard Keel in "The War Wagon" as Levi Walking Bear, who said he was just a "Dumb Indian" until he got smart and took up the ways of the White man: "Grab all you can, any time you can."
April 3, 2016
The Powell Memo (also known as the Powell Manifesto)
The Powell Memo was first published August 23, 1971
Introduction
In 1971, Lewis Powell, then a corporate lawyer and member of the boards of 11 corporations, wrote a memo to his friend Eugene Sydnor, Jr., the Director of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The memorandum was dated August 23, 1971, two months prior to Powell’s nomination by President Nixon to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Powell Memo did not become available to the public until long after his confirmation to the Court. It was leaked to Jack Anderson, a liberal syndicated columnist, who stirred interest in the document when he cited it as reason to doubt Powell’s legal objectivity. [font color="red"]Anderson cautioned that Powell “might use his position on the Supreme Court to put his ideas into practice…in behalf of business interests.”[/font color]
Though Powell’s memo was not the sole influence, the Chamber and corporate activists took his advice to heart and began building a powerful array of institutions designed to shift public attitudes and beliefs over the course of years and decades. The memo influenced or inspired the creation of the Heritage Foundation, the Manhattan Institute, the Cato Institute, Citizens for a Sound Economy, Accuracy in Academe, and other powerful organizations. Their long-term focus began paying off handsomely in the 1980s, in coordination with the Reagan Administration’s “hands-off business” philosophy.
Most notable about these institutions was their focus on education, shifting values, and movement-building — a focus we share, though often with sharply contrasting goals.* (See our endnote for more on this.)
So did Powell’s political views influence his judicial decisions? The evidence is mixed. [font color="red"]Powell did embrace expansion of corporate privilege and wrote the majority opinion in First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti, a 1978 decision that effectively invented a First Amendment “right” for corporations to influence ballot questions.[/font color] On social issues, he was a moderate, whose votes often surprised his backers.
CONTINUED...
http://reclaimdemocracy.org/powell_memo_lewis/
Corporate McPravda owns the airwaves.
And Corporate Tee Vee is still where most Americans get most of their information, including their ideas about these two statues. Wonder what people would think were they to learn from the tee vee what pater and fils have really done with their power?
The Propaganda System That Has Helped Create a Permanent Overclass Is Over a Century in the Making
Pulling back the curtain on how intent the wealthiest Americans have been on establishing a propaganda tool to subvert democracy.
Wednesday, 17 April 2013 00:00
By Andrew Gavin Marshall, AlterNet | News Analysis
Where there is the possibility of democracy, there is the inevitability of elite insecurity. All through its history, democracy has been under a sustained attack by elite interests, political, economic, and cultural. There is a simple reason for this: democracy – as in true democracy – places power with people. In such circumstances, the few who hold power become threatened. With technological changes in modern history, with literacy and education, mass communication, organization and activism, elites have had to react to the changing nature of society – locally and globally.
From the late 19th century on, the “threats” to elite interests from the possibility of true democracy mobilized institutions, ideologies, and individuals in support of power. What began was a massive social engineering project with one objective: control. Through educational institutions, the social sciences, philanthropic foundations, public relations and advertising agencies, corporations, banks, and states, powerful interests sought to reform and protect their power from the potential of popular democracy.
SNIP...
The development of psychology, psychoanalysis, and other disciplines increasingly portrayed the “public” and the population as irrational beings incapable of making their own decisions. The premise was simple: if the population was driven by dangerous, irrational emotions, they needed to be kept out of power and ruled over by those who were driven by reason and rationality, naturally, those who were already in power.
The Princeton Radio Project, which began in the 1930s with Rockefeller Foundation funding, brought together many psychologists, social scientists, and “experts” armed with an interest in social control, mass communication, and propaganda. The Princeton Radio Project had a profound influence upon the development of a modern "democratic propaganda" in the United States and elsewhere in the industrialized world. It helped in establishing and nurturing the ideas, institutions, and individuals who would come to shape America’s “democratic propaganda” throughout the Cold War, a program fostered between the private corporations which own the media, advertising, marketing, and public relations industries, and the state itself.
CONTINUED...
http://truth-out.org/news/item/15784-the-propaganda-system-that-has-helped-create-a-permanent-overclass-is-over-a-century-in-the-making
Thankfully, to help spread light when the protectors of the First Amendment won't, Maria Galardin's TUC (Time of Useful Consciousness) Radio. The podcast helps explain how we got here and what we need to do to move forward, starting with putting the "Public" into Airwaves again:
Alex Carey: Corporations and Propaganda
The Attack on Democracy
The 20th century, said Carey, is marked by three historic developments: the growth of democracy via the expansion of the franchise, the growth of corporations, and the growth of propaganda to protect corporations from democracy. Carey wrote that the people of the US have been subjected to an unparalleled, expensive, 3/4 century long propaganda effort designed to expand corporate rights by undermining democracy and destroying the unions. And, in his manuscript, unpublished during his life time, he described that history, going back to World War I and ending with the Reagan era. Carey covers the little known role of the US Chamber of Commerce in the McCarthy witch hunts of post WWII and shows how the continued campaign against "Big Government" plays an important role in bringing Reagan to power.
John Pilger called Carey "a second Orwell", Noam Chomsky dedicated his book, Manufacturing Consent, to him. And even though TUC Radio runs our documentary based on Carey's manuscript at least every two years and draws a huge response each time, Alex Carey is still unknown.
Given today's spotlight on corporations that may change. It is not only the Occupy movement that inspired me to present this program again at this time. By an amazing historic coincidence Bill Moyers and Charlie Cray of Greenpeace have just added the missing chapter to Carey's analysis. Carey's manuscript ends in 1988 when he committed suicide. Moyers and Cray begin with 1971 and bring the corporate propaganda project up to date.
This is a fairly complex production with many voices, historic sound clips, and source material. The program has been used by writers and students of history and propaganda. Alex Carey: Taking the Risk out of Democracy, Corporate Propaganda VS Freedom and Liberty with a foreword by Noam Chomsky was published by the University of Illinois Press in 1995.
SOURCE: http://tucradio.org/new.html
If you find a moment, here's the first part (scroll down at the link for the second part) on Carey.
http://tucradio.org/AlexCarey_ONE.mp3
Thank you for the succinct political-economic analysis, Baobab. It's critical for there to be more than a handful of companies providing "news." Democracy depends on Truth.
Thus for his reward Lewis Powell became an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court.
The Powell Memo (also known as the Powell Manifesto)
The Powell Memo was first published August 23, 1971
Introduction
In 1971, Lewis Powell, then a corporate lawyer and member of the boards of 11 corporations, wrote a memo to his friend Eugene Sydnor, Jr., the Director of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The memorandum was dated August 23, 1971, two months prior to Powell’s nomination by President Nixon to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Powell Memo did not become available to the public until long after his confirmation to the Court. It was leaked to Jack Anderson, a liberal syndicated columnist, who stirred interest in the document when he cited it as reason to doubt Powell’s legal objectivity. [font color="red"]Anderson cautioned that Powell “might use his position on the Supreme Court to put his ideas into practice…in behalf of business interests.”[/font color]
Though Powell’s memo was not the sole influence, the Chamber and corporate activists took his advice to heart and began building a powerful array of institutions designed to shift public attitudes and beliefs over the course of years and decades. The memo influenced or inspired the creation of the Heritage Foundation, the Manhattan Institute, the Cato Institute, Citizens for a Sound Economy, Accuracy in Academe, and other powerful organizations. Their long-term focus began paying off handsomely in the 1980s, in coordination with the Reagan Administration’s “hands-off business” philosophy.
Most notable about these institutions was their focus on education, shifting values, and movement-building — a focus we share, though often with sharply contrasting goals.* (See our endnote for more on this.)
So did Powell’s political views influence his judicial decisions? The evidence is mixed. [font color="red"]Powell did embrace expansion of corporate privilege and wrote the majority opinion in First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti, a 1978 decision that effectively invented a First Amendment “right” for corporations to influence ballot questions.[/font color] On social issues, he was a moderate, whose votes often surprised his backers.
CONTINUED...
http://reclaimdemocracy.org/powell_memo_lewis/
Corporate McPravda owns the airwaves.
And Corporate Tee Vee is still where most Americans get most of their information, including their ideas about these two statues. Wonder what people would think were they to learn from the tee vee what pater and fils have really done with their power?
The Propaganda System That Has Helped Create a Permanent Overclass Is Over a Century in the Making
Pulling back the curtain on how intent the wealthiest Americans have been on establishing a propaganda tool to subvert democracy.
Wednesday, 17 April 2013 00:00
By Andrew Gavin Marshall, AlterNet | News Analysis
Where there is the possibility of democracy, there is the inevitability of elite insecurity. All through its history, democracy has been under a sustained attack by elite interests, political, economic, and cultural. There is a simple reason for this: democracy – as in true democracy – places power with people. In such circumstances, the few who hold power become threatened. With technological changes in modern history, with literacy and education, mass communication, organization and activism, elites have had to react to the changing nature of society – locally and globally.
From the late 19th century on, the “threats” to elite interests from the possibility of true democracy mobilized institutions, ideologies, and individuals in support of power. What began was a massive social engineering project with one objective: control. Through educational institutions, the social sciences, philanthropic foundations, public relations and advertising agencies, corporations, banks, and states, powerful interests sought to reform and protect their power from the potential of popular democracy.
SNIP...
The development of psychology, psychoanalysis, and other disciplines increasingly portrayed the “public” and the population as irrational beings incapable of making their own decisions. The premise was simple: if the population was driven by dangerous, irrational emotions, they needed to be kept out of power and ruled over by those who were driven by reason and rationality, naturally, those who were already in power.
The Princeton Radio Project, which began in the 1930s with Rockefeller Foundation funding, brought together many psychologists, social scientists, and “experts” armed with an interest in social control, mass communication, and propaganda. The Princeton Radio Project had a profound influence upon the development of a modern "democratic propaganda" in the United States and elsewhere in the industrialized world. It helped in establishing and nurturing the ideas, institutions, and individuals who would come to shape America’s “democratic propaganda” throughout the Cold War, a program fostered between the private corporations which own the media, advertising, marketing, and public relations industries, and the state itself.
CONTINUED...
http://truth-out.org/news/item/15784-the-propaganda-system-that-has-helped-create-a-permanent-overclass-is-over-a-century-in-the-making
Thankfully, to help spread light when the protectors of the First Amendment won't, Maria Galardin's TUC (Time of Useful Consciousness) Radio. The podcast helps explain how we got here and what we need to do to move forward, starting with putting the "Public" into Airwaves again:
Alex Carey: Corporations and Propaganda
The Attack on Democracy
The 20th century, said Carey, is marked by three historic developments: the growth of democracy via the expansion of the franchise, the growth of corporations, and the growth of propaganda to protect corporations from democracy. Carey wrote that the people of the US have been subjected to an unparalleled, expensive, 3/4 century long propaganda effort designed to expand corporate rights by undermining democracy and destroying the unions. And, in his manuscript, unpublished during his life time, he described that history, going back to World War I and ending with the Reagan era. Carey covers the little known role of the US Chamber of Commerce in the McCarthy witch hunts of post WWII and shows how the continued campaign against "Big Government" plays an important role in bringing Reagan to power.
John Pilger called Carey "a second Orwell", Noam Chomsky dedicated his book, Manufacturing Consent, to him. And even though TUC Radio runs our documentary based on Carey's manuscript at least every two years and draws a huge response each time, Alex Carey is still unknown.
Given today's spotlight on corporations that may change. It is not only the Occupy movement that inspired me to present this program again at this time. By an amazing historic coincidence Bill Moyers and Charlie Cray of Greenpeace have just added the missing chapter to Carey's analysis. Carey's manuscript ends in 1988 when he committed suicide. Moyers and Cray begin with 1971 and bring the corporate propaganda project up to date.
This is a fairly complex production with many voices, historic sound clips, and source material. The program has been used by writers and students of history and propaganda. Alex Carey: Taking the Risk out of Democracy, Corporate Propaganda VS Freedom and Liberty with a foreword by Noam Chomsky was published by the University of Illinois Press in 1995.
SOURCE: http://tucradio.org/new.html
If you find a moment, here's the first part (scroll down at the link for the second part) on Carey.
http://tucradio.org/AlexCarey_ONE.mp3
Thank you for the succinct political-economic analysis, Baobab. It's critical for there to be more than a handful of companies providing "news." Democracy depends on Truth.
Profile Information
Gender: MaleMember since: 2003 before July 6th
Number of posts: 55,745
