Edward Herman: The U.S. propaganda system is at the peak of its powers in the early years of the 21st century, riding the wave of capitalism's triumph, U.S. global hegemony, and the effective service of the increasingly concentrated and commercialized mainstream media. In such times its ability to ignore inconvenient facts, swallow disinformation, and work the public over with propaganda can easily compete with - even surpass - anything found in totalitarian systems. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
James Connolly: Apostles of Freedom are ever idolised when dead, but crucified when living. Universally true as this statement is, it applies with more than usual point to the revolutionary hero. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Michel Chossudovsky: The CIA's relationship to the US media is amply documented. The New York Times continues to entertain a close relationship not only with US intelligence, but also with the Pentagon and more recently with the Department of Homeland Security. "Operation Mocking Bird" was an initiative of the CIA's Office of Special Projects (OSP), established in the early 1950s. Its objective was to exert influence on both the US as well as the foreign media. From the 1950s, members of the US media were routinely enlisted by the CIA. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Eric Zuesse: The media are not conduits for news and views; they are global systems designed and evolved to highlight a certain type of news to impose a certain kind of view. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Lenin: There is a Latin tag cui prodest? meaning "who stands to gain?" When it is not immediately apparent which political or social groups, forces or alignments advocate certain proposals, measures, etc., one should always ask: "Who stands to gain?" It is not important who directly advocates a particular policy, since under the present noble system of capitalism any money-bag can always "hire", buy or enlist any number of lawyers, writers and even parliamentary deputies, professors, parsons and the like to defend any views. We live in an age of commerce, when the bourgeoisie have no scruples about trading in honour or conscience. There are also simpletons who out of stupidity or by force of habit defend views prevalent in certain bourgeois circles. Yes, indeed! In politics it is not so important who directly advocates particular views. What is important is who stands to gain from these views, proposals, measures. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Jeff J. Brown: Most of the Mainstream Western Media (MWM) works tirelessly and slavishly to protect the financial and corporate elite by creating a propaganda bubble for all of us to suffocate in. Only by escaping this stifling Western disinformation fog machine can we discover the true reality of the world. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Lenin: Pre-Marxist socialism has been defeated. It is continuing the struggle, no longer on its own independent ground, but on the general ground of Marxism, as revisionism. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Karl Marx: Why do the anti-authoritarians not confine themselves to crying out against political authority, the state? All Socialists are agreed that the political state, and with it political authority, will disappear as a result of the coming social revolution, that is, that public functions will lose their political character and will be transformed into the simple administrative functions of watching over the true interests of society. But the anti-authoritarians demand that the political state be abolished at one stroke, even before the social conditions that gave birth to it have been destroyed. They demand that the first act of the social revolution shall be the abolition of authority. Have these gentlemen ever seen a revolution? A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets and cannon — authoritarian means, if such there be at all; and if the victorious party does not want to have fought in vain, it must maintain this rule by means of the terror which its arms inspire in the reactionists. Would the Paris Commune have lasted a single day if it had not made use of this authority of the armed people against the bourgeois? Should we not, on the contrary, reproach it for not having used it freely enough? Therefore, either one of two things: either the anti-authoritarians don't know what they're talking about, in which case they are creating nothing but confusion; or they do know, and in that case they are betraying the movement of the proletariat. In either case they serve the reaction. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
James Connolly: Yes, friends, governments in capitalist society are but committees of the rich to manage the affairs of the capitalist class. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Nick Davies: For the first time in human history, there is a concerted strategy to manipulate global perception. And the mass media are operating as its compliant assistants, failing both to resist it and to expose it. The sheer ease with which this machinery has been able to do its work reflects a creeping structural weakness which now afflicts the production of our news. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Stalin: Yet the Second World War began not as a war with the U.S.S.R., but as a war between capitalist countries. Why? Firstly, because war with the U.S.S.R., as a socialist land, is more dangerous to capitalism than war between capitalist countries; for whereas war between capitalist countries puts in question only the supremacy of certain capitalist countries over others, war with the U.S.S.R. must certainly put in question the existence of capitalism itself. Secondly, because the capitalists, although they clamour, for "propaganda" purposes, about the aggressiveness of the Soviet Union, do not themselves believe that it is aggressive, because they are aware of the Soviet Union's peaceful policy and know that it will not itself attack capitalist countries. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Lenin: Down with the liars who are talking of freedom and equality for all, while there is an oppressed sex, while there are oppressor classes, while there is private ownership of capital, of shares, while there are the well-fed with their surplus of bread who keep the hungry in bondage. Not freedom for all, not equality for all, but a fight against the oppressors and exploiters, the abolition of every possibility of oppression and exploitation-that is our slogan! Freedom and equality for the oppressed sex! Freedom and equality for the workers, for the toiling peasants! A fight against the oppressors, a fight against the capitalists, a fight against the profiteering kulaks! wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Julian Assange: You can either be informed and be your own rulers, or you can be ignorant and have someone else, who is not ignorant, rule over you. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Michel Chossudovsky: The most powerful component of any fear and disinformation campaign rests with the CIA, which secretly subsidizes authors, journalists and media critics, through a web of private foundations and CIA-sponsored front organizations. ... Disinformation is routinely "planted" by CIA operatives in the newsroom of major dailies, magazines and TV channels. Outside public relations firms are often used to create "fake stories". wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Lenin: The traitors, blockheads and pedants of the Second International could never understand such dialectics; the proletariat cannot achieve victory if it does not win the majority of the population to its side. But to limit that winning to polling a majority of votes in an election under the rule of the bourgeoisie, or to make it the condition for it, is crass stupidity, or else sheer deception of the workers. In order to win the majority of the population to its side the proletariat must, in the first p)ace, overthrow the bourgeoisie and seize state power; secondly, it must introduce Soviet power and complete)y smash the old state apparatus, whereby it immediately undermines the rule, prestige and influence of the bourgeoisie and petty-bourgeois compromisers over the non-proletarian working people. Thirdly, it must entirely destroy the influence of the bourgeoisie and petty-bourgeois compromisers over the majority of the non-proletarian masses by satisfying their economic needs in a revolutionary way at the expense of the exploiters. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Stalin: Earlier, the bourgeoisie, as the heads of nations, were for the rights and independence of nations and put that "above all." Now there is no trace left of this "national principle." Now the bourgeoisie sell the rights and independence of their nations for dollars. The banner of national independence and national sovereignty has been thrown overboard. Without doubt, you, the representatives of the communist and democratic parties must raise this banner and carry it forward if you want to be patriots of your countries, if you want to be the leading powers of the nations. There is nobody else to raise it. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Lenin: During the lifetime of great revolutionaries, the oppressing classes constantly hounded them, received their theories with the most savage malice, the most furious hatred and the most unscrupulous campaigns of lies and slander. After their death, attempts are made to convert them into harmless icons, to canonize them, so to say, and to hallow their names to a certain extent for the "consolation" of the oppressed classes and with the object of duping the latter, while at the same time robbing the revolutionary theory of its substance, blunting its revolutionary edge and vulgarizing it. Today, the bourgeoisie and the opportunists within the labor movement concur in this doctoring of Marxism. They omit, obscure, or distort the revolutionary side of this theory, its revolutionary soul. They push to the foreground and extol what is or seems acceptable to the bourgeoisie. All the social-chauvinists are now "Marxists" (don't laugh!). wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Denis Nowell Pritt: What are the Communists? Our capitalist Press and propaganda has for so many years built up a "Communist bogey" that for most non-political people a Communist is a mythical monstrosity. He is either just a man who is born lazy, or an agitator paid by foreign gold, who is remarkably successful in persuading honest and intelligent workers to strike for no reason; he is in any case anti-social and unpatriotic. The real truth is very different; the Communists in every country have numbered in their ranks some of the most highly skilled and conscientious workers, scientists, teachers, and writers; they are on the whole well informed and read The Times and the Financial News assiduously! They spend a good part of their leisure in mastering the intricacies of Marxist philosophy, in studying and seeking to improve social conditions, and in Trade Union and political activities. They include people of wide general culture and lively intellect. And above all, they are international in their outlook, sympathy, and philosophy. All the gangsters and fools who were welcomed into the Nazi party are assiduously excluded from the Communist ranks. Their professional politicians live on limited salaries and must maintain a high standard of personal conduct; (this rule is particularly strict in the Soviet Union). For a practical example of the difference between a Communist and a Nazi, one may recall the superb contrast of Dimitrov and Goering during the course of the Reichstag Fire Trial in 1933. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
E. P. Thompson: The foulest damage to our political life comes not from the 'secrets' which they hide from us, but from the little bits of half-truth and disinformation which they do tell us. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Gramsci: Above all, the worker must resolutely reject any solidarity with a bourgeois newspaper. And he must always, always, always remember that the bourgeois newspaper (whatever its hue) is an instrument of struggle motivated by ideas and interests that are contrary to his. Everything that is published is influenced by one idea: that of serving the dominant class, and which is ineluctably translated into a fact: that of combating the laboring class. And in fact, from the first to the last line the bourgeois newspaper smells of and reveals this preoccupation. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Bertrand Russell: Justice between classes is difficult where there is a class that believes itself to have a right to more than a proportionate share of power or wealth. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Bertrand Russell: In the middle ages when there was an epidemic of the Plague, people crowded into the churches to pray, thinking that their piety would move their god to take pity on them; in fact, the crowds in ill-ventilated buildings provided ideal conditions for the spread of the infection. If your means are to be adequate to your ends, you must have knowledge, not merely superstition or prejudice. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
George Orwell: At any given moment there is an orthodoxy, a body of ideas which it is assumed that all right-thinking people will accept without question. It is not exactly forbidden to say this, that or the other, but it is “not done” to say it, just as in mid-Victorian times it was “not done” to mention trousers in the presence of a lady. Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness. A genuinely unfashionable opinion is almost never given a fair hearing, either in the popular press or in the highbrow periodicals. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Neil Postman: Disinformation does not mean false information. It means misleading information - misplaced, irrelevant, fragmented or superficial information - information that creates the illusion of knowing something, but which in fact leads one away from knowing. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Noam Chomsky: The media want to maintain their intimate relation to state power. To do that, you've got to play the game, and playing the game means telling their lies, serving as their disinformation apparatus. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Michel Chossudovsky: Carl Bernstein's 1977 article in Rolling Stone entitled "The CIA and the Media" exposed that more than 400 American journalists had secretly carried out assignments for the Central Intelligence Agency, according to documents on file at CIA headquarters. (1950-1977). Some of these journalists' relationships with the Agency were tacit; some were explicit. Reporters shared their notebooks with the CIA. Editors shared their staffs. Some of the journalists were Pulitzer Prize winners, Most were less exalted: foreign correspondents who found that their association with the Agency helped their work. Tthe CIA's use of the American news media has been much more extensive than Agency officials have acknowledged publicly or in closed sessions with members of Congress. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Edward Herman: Once an enemy is demonized the media display a form of hysteria that helps mobilize the public in support of whatever forms of violence the government wishes to carry out. They become a virtual propaganda arm of the government, joining with it in the common fight against "another Hitler." Under these conditions remarkable structures of disinformation can be built, institutionalized, and remain parts of historic memory even in the face of ex post confutations, which are kept out of sight. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Eric Zuesse: Media corporations function like giant magnifying glasses that roam the world, highlighting facts that benefit corporate-friendly parties, leaders, allied states and voices. They also magnify facts that undermine and harm corporate-unfriendly parties, leaders, groups and voices. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Brandon Turbeville: A few alternative media outlets have begun to question whether or not certain mainstream media outlets are actually connected to the Deep State, most notably the CIA. An unimaginable scale of disinformation is being released and promoted throughout mainstream media channels on a daily basis, all propagandizing the public to go along with the desired direction of the American establishment. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Federico Pieraccini: Print and broadcast media outside the US play their role in contributing to a wave of disinformation, omissions and lies in the interests of US propaganda. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Hajo Meyer: If we want to stay really human beings, we must get up and call the Zionists what they are: Nazi criminals. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Lenin: The more violent the slander and lies against the Bolsheviks these days, the more calmly must we, while refuting the lies and slander, reflect upon the historical interrelation of events and the political, i.e., class, significance of the revolution’s present course. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
