Tentacles of Rage: The Republican propaganda mill, a brief history

[OneBlueSky]

excellent article by Lewis H. Lapham in the September Harper's (not online yet, so no link) . . . brief excerpt:

About the workings of the right-wing propaganda mills in Washington and New York I knew enough to know that the numbing of America's political senses didn't happen by mistake, but it wasn't until I met Rob Stein, formerly a senior adviser to the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, that I came to fully appreciate the nature and the extent of the re-education program undertaken in the early 1970s by a cadre of ultraconservative and self-mythologizing millionaires bent on rescuing the country from the hideous grasp of Satanic liberalism. To a small group of Democratic activists meeting in New York City in late February, Stein had brought thirty-eight charts diagramming the organizational structure of the Republican "Message Machine," an octopus-like network of open and hidden microphones that he described as "perhaps the most potent, independent institutionalized apparatus ever assembled in a democracy to promote one belief system."

(snip)

The effort had taken many forms -- the publication of expensively purchased and cleverly promoted tracts (Milton Friedman's Free to Choose, Charles Murray's Losing Ground, Samuel Huntington's The Clash of Civilizations), a steady flow of newsletters from more than 100 captive printing presses (among them The Heritage Foundation, Accuracy in the Media, the American Enterprise Institute and the Center for the Study of Popular Culture), generous distributions of academic programs and visiting professorships (to Harvard, Yale, and Stanford universities) the passing along of sound-bite slanders (to Bill O'Reilly and Matt Drudge), the formulation of newspaper op-ed pieces (for the San Antonio Light and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette as well as for the Sacramento Bee and the Washington Times). The prolonged siege of words had proved so successful in its result that on nearly every question of foreign or domestic policy in this year's presidential campaign, the frame and terms of the debate might as well have been assembled in Taiwan by Chinese child labor working from patterns furnished by the authors of ExxonMobils annual report.

there's much, much more . . . if you're not a subscriber, you might want to pick up a copy of the September Harper's or check it out at your local library . . .

[kentuck]

1. It's such an ominous task we have in defeating this formidable enemy...

And it is an enemy - bent on controlling the minds of enough Americans to maintain political and economic control over all of our lives.

[fdr_hst_fan]

2. And remember-

they have the MONEY!

[kentuck]

3. If we do not defeat them this time.....

They will lock down control of the media and propaganda systems and maintain complete control of this country. We will all be slaves to the corporatocracy. This may be our last chance to save our freedoms and our nation and make the necessary changes to protect us in the future. It is that important..

[AndyTiedye]

9. Only a Landslide Will Do

> They will lock down control of the media and propaganda systems and
> maintain complete control of this country

They have already done that, which is the only reason Bush* is in
the White House at all. It's not as if we elected him or anything.

They only way to get him out is such an overwhelming repudiation
that the regime is simply too embarassed to retain its grip on power.
If they are trailing by 20 points in every poll except Gallup,
and the election results come out "Putsh 'wins' again", nobody will
believe it.





In other news, Diebold corp just acquired a controlling interest
in Gallup to add to their vertical-market election system offering.
(I made that last part up or dreamed it or something).

[Karenina]

4. WE have the PEOPLE!

They use their money to buy polls to obscure that fact.

[kentuck]

6. Do we really have the people ?

we cannot underestimate the power of propaganda. And they have it all. I shudder to think what will happen if we do not defeat this scourge this time...

[Karenina]

10. If the *scourge is not roundly defeated

HALLO TO THE HUGEST BANANA REPUBLIC THE WORLD HAS EVER SEEN!!

I refuse to accept that, after the Enron non-consensual sodomy, 24/7 TURRA! TM, T-shirt harassment, and scurrilous attack upon a person who actually served in the military IN A WAR ZONE, there aren't uncounted MILLIONS of Americans who smell something VERY ROTTEN (and NOT in Denmark). ;-)

[kentuck]

11. We can only hope the people smell something rotten....

Otherwise....

[dumpster_baby]

14. kick

[grasswire]

5. Hillary nailed it.

Vast Right Wing Conspiracy.

Amazing, isn't it, that most Americans still hold liberal values on social issues such as Social Security, public education, civil rights, equal justice, etc.

[maxsolomon]

7. recent new york times sunday magazine

detailed rob stein's efforts & slideshows to progressive millionaires who are going to put together a similar system, or better yet leapfrog the GOP system using new technologies.

hence moveon's giant bankroll.

change is coming, and according to the article, the democratic party can join up or get run over.

[dumpster_baby]

8. Cheap Broadband + peer to peer computer networks is our Deus Ex Machina

In the next year or 2, wireless broadband will bring down the cost of broadband so that most Americans will be able to afford it.

Also, corporate greed will probably convert much of the spectrum to unlicensed. See here for some of the corporate push to strip the current license holders of much of the spectrum:http://economist.com/science/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3084475

Once you get 60% of Americans on broadband, you and I and other activists can start making entertaining videos and movies and such that contain liberal propaganda, and that exposes the machininations of the right wing propaganda machine.
Grassroots political activist movies and documentaries can be dispersed through the peer to peer networks such as Kazaa.

[Gold Metal Flake]

12. bump

or kick

[bemildred]

13. You gotta catch the Naomi Klein article on Iraq, too. nt