Flying the flag, faking the news

Edward Bernays, the American nephew of Sigmund Freud, who invented the term "public relations"

In his latest column for the New Statesman, John Pilger traces the history of propaganda to Edward Bernays, the American nephew of Sigmund Freud, who invented the term "public relations". Bernays believed in "engineering public consent" and creating "false realties" as news. Here are examples of how this works today.

Edward Bernays, the American nephew of Sigmund Freud, is said to have invented modern propaganda. During the first world war, he was one of a group of influential liberals who mounted a secret government campaign to persuade reluctant Americans to send an army to the bloodbath in Europe. In his book, Propaganda, published in 1928, Bernays wrote that the “intelligent manipulation of the organised habits and opinions of the masses was an important element in democratic society” and that the manipulators “constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power in our country”. Instead of propaganda, he coined the euphemism “public relations”.

Bernays to convinced women they should smoke in public.

The American tobacco industry hired Bernays to convince women they should smoke in public. By associating smoking with women’s liberation, he made cigarettes “torches of freedom”. In 1954, he conjured a communist menace in Guatemala as an excuse for overthrowing the democratically-elected government, whose social reforms were threatening the United Fruit company’s monopoly of the banana trade. He called it a “liberation”.

Bernays was no rabid right-winger. He was an elitist liberal who believed that “engineering public consent” was for the greater good. This was achieved by the creation of “false realities” which then became “news events”. Here are examples of how it is done these days:

False reality The last US combat troops have left Iraq “as promised, on schedule”, according to President Barack Obama. TV screens have filled with cinematic images of the “last US soldiers” silhouetted against the dawn light, crossing the border into Kuwait.

Fact They are still there. At least 50,000 troops will continue to operate from 94 bases. American air assaults are unchanged, as are special forces’ assassinations. The number of “military contractors” is currently 100,000 and rising. Most Iraqi oil is now under direct foreign control.



False reality BBC presenters and reporters have described the departing US troops as a “sort of victorious army” that has achieved “a remarkable change in [Iraq’s] fortunes”. Their commander, General David Petraeus, is a “celebrity”, “charming”, “savvy” and “remarkable”.

Fact There is no victory of any sort. There is a catastrophic disaster; and attempts to present it as otherwise are a model of Bernays’ campaign to “re-brand” the slaughter of the first world war as “necessary” and “noble”. In 1980, Ronald Reagan, running for president, re-branded the invasion of Vietnam, in which up to three million people died, as a “noble cause”, a theme taken up enthusiastically by Hollywood. Today’s Iraq war movies have a similar purging theme: the invader as both idealist and victim.

False reality It is not known how many Iraqis have died. They are “countless” or maybe “in the tens of thousands”.

Fact As a direct consequence of the Anglo-American led invasion, a million Iraqis have died. This figure from Opinion Research Business is based on peer-reviewed research led by Johns Hopkins University in Washington DC, whose methods were secretly affirmed as “best practice” and “robust” by the Blair government’s chief scientific adviser, as revealed in a Freedom of Information search. This figure is rarely reported or presented to “charming” and “savvy” American generals. Neither is the dispossession of four million Iraqis, the malnourishment of most Iraqi children, the epidemic of mental illness and the poisoning of the environment.

False reality The British economy has a deficit of billions which must be reduced with cuts in public services and regressive taxation, in a spirit of “we’re all in this together”.

Fact We are not in this together. What is remarkable about this public relations triumph is that only 18 months ago the diametric opposite filled TV screens and front pages. Then, in a state of shock, truth was unavoidable, if briefly. The Wall Street and City of London financiers’ trough was on full view for the first time, along with the venality of once celebrated snouts. Billions in public money went to inept and crooked organisations known as banks, which were spared debt liability by their Labour government sponsors.

Within a year, record profits and personal bonuses were posted, and state and media propaganda had recovered its equilibrium. Suddenly, the “black hole” was no longer the responsibility of the banks, whose debt is to be paid by those not in any way responsible: the public. The received media wisdom of this “necessity” is now a chorus, from the BBC to the Sun. A masterstroke, Bernays would surely say.

False reality The former government minister Ed Miliband offers a “genuine alternative” as leader of the British Labour Party.

Fact Miliband, like his brother David, the former foreign secretary, and almost all those standing for the Labour leadership, is immersed in the effluent of New Labour. As a New Labour MP and minister, he did not refuse to serve under Blair or speak out against Labour’s persistent warmongering. He now calls the invasion of Iraq a “profound mistake”. Calling it a mistake insults the memory and the dead. It was a crime, of which the evidence is voluminous. He has nothing new to say about the other colonial wars, none of them mistakes. Neither has he demanded basic social justice: that those who caused the recession clear up the mess and that Britain’s fabulously rich corporate minority be seriously taxed, starting with Rupert Murdoch.

Of course, the good news is that false realities often fail when the public trusts its own critical intelligence, not the media. Two classified documents recently released by Wikileaks express the CIA’s concern that the populations of European countries, which oppose their governments’ war policies, are not succumbing to the usual propaganda spun through the media. For the rulers of the world, this is a conundrum, because their unaccountable power rests on the false reality that no popular resistance works. And it does.

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Wilkins Ice Shelf Melts for the 8th time in 10 years

Gore you are a charleton

The British Antarctic Survey (BAS), government-funded “scientists”, have announced that the Wilkins Ice Shelf in the Antarctic is on the verge of collapsing.

Funnily enough, the BAS said exactly the same thing last year except last year the Wilkins Ice Shelf was the size of the Isle of Man and this year it’s the size of Wales. That’s a hell of a lot of growth considering that global warming is supposed to be melting all the ice.

And there’s still no explanation from the BAS or any other global warming propagandists as to how the Wilkins Ice Shelf can collapse in 1998 and again in 2008 2009.

There is, of course, one explanation for all this: it’s another piece of outdated propaganda, invented by the author of the IPPC work of fiction on climate change (who happens to be the BAS lead “scientist”) and faithfully reproduced by lazy journalists in the mainstream media.

Thanks to Ian at PJC journal for the story which I googled a little further, it seems the same ice shelf has made the news in, 1998, 2000, 2001, 2004, 2005, 2008 and 2009.

More Global warming bollocks from the last decade:

Federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett says there is no doubt the recent collapse of the Wilkins Ice shelf in Antarctica is the result of climate change.
The Wilkins Ice Shelf is in the final stages of collapse and scientists are concerned the event shows climate change is happening faster than previously thought.
From above, parts of the Wilkins Ice Shelf now look like giant panes of shattered glass, and Mr Garrett has told the ABC's Lateline program he knows climate change is a factor in the shelf's collapse.



Opening the 32nd Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meetings to be held in Baltimore, Maryland, on April 6-17, Clinton said the recent collapse of an Antarctic ice bridge shows that the poles are gravely threatened by climate change and human activity.
"With the collapse of an ice bridge that holds in place the Wilkins Ice Shelf, we are reminded that global warming has already had enormous effects on our planet, and we have no time to lose in tackling this crisis," Clinton said.


In 1995, for instance, the Larsen A ice shelf disintegrated, followed in 1998 by the collapse of the nearby Wilkins ice shelf. Over a 35-day period early in 2002, at the end of the Southern Hemisphere summer, the Larsen B ice shelf shattered, losing more than a quarter of its total mass and setting thousands of icebergs adrift in the Weddell Sea.

The 1,255-square mile ice shelf collapsed into the Weddell Sea over a 35-day period in early 2002. Scientists believe the 220-meter thick shelf had been in place for some 5,000-12,000 years. Its disintegration was the third recent, sudden collapse of an Antarctic ice shelf, following the collapses of the 618-square mile Larsen A Ice Shelf in 1995 and the 425-square mile Wilkins Ice Shelf in 1998.



Several major ice sheets have broken off over the past decade.
The Larsen A ice shelf, 1,600 sq km in size, fell off in 1995. The Wilkins ice shelf, 1,100 sq km, fell off in 1998 and the Larsen B, 13,500 sq km, dropped off in 2002.
Last Updated: 1:22AM GMT 02 Feb 2005

The study highlights the sensitivity of the poles to climate change, Scambos said. “As temperatures crossed the threshold of melting in the summer months, ice shelves in the area rapidly disintegrated. Not only do the ice shelves collapse rapidly, but the subsequent effects on the glaciers are immediate,” he said.
In three cases since 1995, large areas in the Antarctic have collapsed suddenly. They include the Larsen A Ice Shelf in 1995 (618 square miles), the Wilkins Ice Shelf in 1998 (425 square miles), and the Larsen B Ice Shelf in 2002 (1,235 square miles).
Published Sep 20 2004 by National Snow and Ice Data Center

In April 1999, the National Snow and Ice Data Center and the British Antarctic Survey reported that the Larsen B and Wilkins ice shelves, on opposite sides of the Peninsula, were "full retreat" and have lost more than 1,100 square miles of their total area since the previous April. 04/17/00- Updated 06:20 PM ET

Related articles by Zemanta

• Ice bridge ruptures in Antarctic (news.bbc.co.uk)
• Antarctic ice bridge snaps (cbc.ca)
• Wilkins Ice Sheet Lost to Climate Change (desmogblog.com)
• Ice Bridge Holding Antarctic Shelf in Place Shatters (nytimes.com)
• Large ice shelf expected to break from Antarctica (cnn.com)
• New Polar Ice Melt Spurs Obama Action (abcnews.go.com)

Blackjack Part 3: Telegraph Continues Propaganda Piece

The London Telegraph is continuing to run a crude propaganda piece in it’s arts and culture section that depicts nuclear attacks on major cities, the formation of a world government, and a police state crackdown on citizens complete with concentration camps and the implementation of martial law.

As we revealed in our original article, the first installment of the gallery entitled “Operation Blackjack” featured on a section of the Telegraph website dedicated to art, culture, film and music but seemingly held no artistic credence whatsoever, comprising merely of a series of crude pictures designed to instill fear into the viewer.

Part 2, which we covered in a second article, cannot even be considered to have a plot, it just shows a series of major cities being nuked and then amateurish photo-shopped images of Nazi-style symbols on flags and police uniforms.

Now a third installment of the baffling piece depicts the fallout of nuclear attacks on London, New York City, Washington DC, Toronto, Mexico City, Portland, and Los Angeles.

This time the piece has been photoshopped in the style of a comic book, perhaps in a poor attempt to give it the impression that it has some artistic merit. The Telegraph received a great deal of complaints after our first two articles.

Blackjack Part 3: Telegraph Continues Propaganda Piece

One of the first images shows a map marked “Teardrop - Eyes only” which features the flag of the newly formed “Union of North America” (UNA) - a new government composed of America, Canada, Mexico and Britain.

Some men in suits, presumably representatives of the “UNA” are looking at map and “the glasseye reports”, which constitute the scale of destruction wrought on the attacked cities. These men seem to be pleased with situation stating “this has exceeded our wildest expectations” and calling for “phase 2″.

Clearly from this we are supposed to deduce that these men, representatives of the new world government, are somehow involved in the events that have taken place, despite the fact that we were told religious extremist terrorists were the culprits.

The next set of images depict an announcement by the UNA to citizens everywhere that the union has begun carrying out military attacks on China, Syria and Iran, who are now apparently somehow also to blame for the earlier nuclear attacks.

Several more images show a state of martial law has been implemented and that concentration camps have been set up to hold collaborators and presumably anyone else who refuses to go along with the program.

Blackjack Part 3: Telegraph Continues Propaganda Piece

Another image shows an “Amero” coin, indicating the creation of a new global currency.

Blackjack Part 3: Depicts Concentration Camps, Martial Law

What is the point of “Operation Blackjack”, why does it continue to run in the “arts and culture” section of a major British newspaper?

Is someone’s sick fantasy being afforded exposure on a major UK newspaper website or are we being prepared for something?

Could it be that in the fictionalization of false flag terror, the creation of detention centers and the push for global government, someone is attempting to relegate such real world issues to the pages of a comic book?

As we previously highlighted, the rude and hostile response to people who have attempted to get clarification from the Telegraph only deepens the mystery.

Contact dtnews@telegraph.co.uk and politely ask for clarification on who the author of the piece is, why it continues being run when it obviously has no artistic merit, and if the Telegraph has considered the offense it is causing to people who live in the cities being depicted as victims of nuke attacks.

Thanks to the brilliant Steve Watson at Infowars for the article
Thursday, Feb 5th, 2009