Nixon-Reagan and the anti- "liberal Media" Right Wing Machine

[Q]

Nixon-Reagan spawned the "vast right-wing conspiracy"...Or how Nixon and Reagan used our government and corporate America to transform our free press into a anti-liberal propaganda machine for the right.

- Excepts are from the Robert Parry 4 part Article: Democrats Dilemma - Deeper than Al Gore. http://www.consortiumnews.com/1999/080499a1.html

- This is a long article but probably one of the best to explain how mass communications in America was transformed to support one particular ideology over all the rest...and how Nixon and Reagan created the political-media machine to accomplish that goal.

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Beset by growing public outrage over the Vietnam War, Nixon determined that Republicans needed a more compliant media to promote their points of view and to make his hardball political strategies work. --- The disgraced president retreated to his estate in San Clemente, Calif. But Nixon's followers blamed the "liberal" news media for hounding Nixon from office and for "losing" the Vietnam War. They concluded that a more conservative press was vital to their success.

In 1979, Simon argued in his book, A Time for Truth , that only a strong conservative ideological movement could break the back of the dominant Liberal Establishment. Simon accused this Liberal Establishment of enforcing misguided concepts of "equality" and of being "possessed of delusions of moral grandeur." --- To build the Right's "counter-intelligentsia" and to transform the Republican Party into a conservative weapon would require "multi-millions" from business, Simon said. Simon's Olin Foundation allied itself with other like-minded foundations to advance this cause, giving rise to the nucleus of the Right's national infrastructure of think tanks, media and pressure groups.

One, Lt. Col. Daniel "Jake" Jacobowitz, served as executive officer inside the chief “public diplomacy” office located at the State Department. Later, the White House transferred in another five psychological warfare specialists from the 4th Psychological Operations Group at Fort Bragg, N.C. --- Raymond's public diplomacy teams also exacted a high price from mainstream reporters whose work challenged the administration's assertions about Central America and other international hot spots. By 1986, a chastened Washington press corps was falling into line on the contra war and other controversial issues.

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