Two Pounds Of Truth About A Million Tons Of Lies

In his recent post, "Meat Cutter Blues: The 'Soft Totalitarianism' of the American Elite", Chris Floyd reviews "Who Paid the Piper",

Frances Stonor Saunders' 1999 history of the CIA's extensive subornation and skewing of Western culture for more than half a century.

The book, for which Chris paid two pounds, explains a good part of what's wrong with us right now -- for example, why a truth-teller of Floyd's caliber is blogging while countless chumps are making good coin telling the most transparent lies.

I've added a few links and some photos. Here's Chris:

Saunders writes of a seminal document produced in 1951 by the "Psychological Strategy Board," created in that year by a secret directive from President Harry Truman [photo] to coordinate the government's broad spectrum of covert "psychological warfare" operations. The creation of the PSB was part of a blizzard of secret orders by Truman that established a second, shadow government of the United States, unaccountable to the people, with a vast secret budget and deliberately vague directives encouraging the widest possible latitude of illegal action while maintaining "plausible deniability" for elected officials: the "National Security State" that supplanted the old American Republic.

As Saunders relates, the PSB was ordered to "draw up the policy blueprint" for global psy-ops. It produced a strategy paper called PSB D-33/2. Saunders:

The paper itself is still classified, but in a lengthy internal memo, a worried PSB officer, Charles Burton Marshall, quoted freely from the passages that most exercised him. "How [can] a government interpose with a wide doctrinal system of its own without taking on the color of totalitarianism?" he asked. "The paper does not indicate any. Indeed, it accepts uniformity as a substitute for diversity. It postulates a system justifying 'a particular type of social belief and structure,' providing 'a body of principles for human aspirations,' and embracing 'all fields of human thought' -- 'all fields of intellectual interest, from anthropology and artistic creations to sociology and scientific methodology.' Marshall (who was to become a staunch critic of the PSB), went on to criticize the paper's call for 'a machinery' to produce ideas to portray 'the American way of life' on a 'systematic and scientific basis.' It anticipates 'doctrinal production' under a 'coordination mechanism,'" Marshall observed. "It asserts 'a premium on swift and positive action to galvanize the creation and distribution of ideas.'".... [Marshall's] conclusion was adamant: "This is just about as totalitarian as one can get."

"Uniformity as a substitute for diversity," based on "a particular type of social belief and structure." A "machinery" for "doctrinal production." As a description of our modern-day Establishment media -- and the product of Establishment academia and "think tanks" -- this could hardly be bettered. But Marshall had even more to say about the worldview of America's ruling class:

[In the PSB vision], "individuals are relegated to tertiary importance," Marshall continues. "The supposed elite emerges as the only group that counts. The elite is defined [in the document] as that numerically 'limited group capable and interested in manipulating doctrinal matters,' the men of ideas who pull the intellectual strings 'in forming, or at least predisposing, the attitudes and opinions' of those who in turn lead public opinion.'

...Mr Marshall's trenchant criticisms struck right at the very fundamentals of America's secret cultural warfare programme....Commenting on [the document], CIA agent Donald Jameson intended no irony when he said: "As far as the attitudes that the Agency wanted to inspire through these activies are concerned, clearly what they would like to have been able to produce were people, who of their own reasoning and conviction, were persuaded that everything the United States government did was right."

"The supposed elite emerges as the only group that counts." The CIA sought to produce "people who of their own reasoning and conviction were persuaded that everything the United States government did was right." These two passages describe perfectly the driving forces behind American society today. And after generations of diligent weeding and breeding, we have indeed produced generation after generation of journalists, politicians, academics, intellectuals, corporate chieftains -- the "great and good" of every description -- who, "by their own reasoning and conviction" believe that everything the U.S. government does is right. This accounts for why the brazenly deliberate and conscious crimes of the Bush Administration -- and its bipartisan predecessors -- are always written off as, at the very worst, good intentions gone awry, noble aims imperfectly executed.

I have a feeling I'm going to be talking about the PSB quite a bit in the near future. It's a "missing link" that answers a lot of questions.

Chris links to one of his pieces from almost exactly a year ago, "Getting Away With It: Rendition and Regime Change in Somalia", which I hope you might read in full (perhaps even following a few links), but I wish to bring to your attention the following very relevant excerpt:

This year marks the anniversary of this coup d'etat: the 1947 "National Security Act." Writing on the 50th anniversary of this supplanting of the Republic, Gore Vidal wrote:

Fifty years ago, Harry Truman replaced the old republic with a national-security state whose sole purpose is to wage perpetual wars, hot, cold, and tepid. Exact date of replacement? February 27, 1947. Place: The White House Cabinet Room. Cast: Truman, Undersecretary of State Dean Acheson, a handful of congressional leaders. Republican senator Arthur Vandenberg told Truman that he could have his militarized economy only IF he first "scared the hell out of the American people" that the Russians were coming. Truman obliged. The perpetual war began. Representative government of, by, and for the people is now a faded memory. Only corporate America enjoys representation by the Congress and presidents that it pays for in an arrangement where no one is entirely accountable because those who have bought the government also own the media. Now, with the revolt of the Praetorian Guard at the Pentagon, we are entering a new and dangerous phase. Although we regularly stigmatize other societies as rogue states, we ourselves have become the largest rogue state of all. We honor no treaties. We spurn international courts. We strike unilaterally wherever we choose. We give orders to the United Nations but do not pay our dues...we bomb, invade, subvert other states. Although We the People of the United States are the sole source of legitimate authority in this land, we are no longer represented in Congress Assembled. Our Congress has been hijacked by corporate America and its enforcer, the imperial military machine...

We can see evidence of the missing link everywhere, once we start looking for it.

It's almost as if the mere suggestion that America has been a bully in the world playground is enough to get somebody branded as a terrorist sympathizer, or something ... which is ridiculous on its face because we all know that the terrorists don't hate us for anything we've done to them or their countries; they don't even hate us "for our freedoms", as the president used to say; it's because of "the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam."

I know this because Barack Obama said so, and he's "the Senate's most liberal member" according to Rick Santorum. And I don't always believe Rick Santorum, but I do believe Barack Obama when he says the problem is "the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam".

This is also important because if they don't hate us for anything we've done, then we don't have anything to feel guilty about, and we don't have to think about changing any of our ways, and that slots in just perfectly for the "people, who of their own reasoning and conviction, [are] persuaded that everything the United States government [does is] right ... "

... including nuking civilians -- not once, but twice -- just to show the Russians we were serious, just to kick the Cold War off on a sufficiently threatening note, or maybe just for the hell of it. We knew the Japanese were ready to surrender, but who wanted to have a weapon this powerful and not use it? Certainly not Harry Truman.

And so, you see, it turns out that even our current maniac idiot president was too dangerously near the truth with his ignorant formulation "they hate us for our freedoms", since that erroneously implied that perhaps people in other countries do have reasons -- no matter how flaky -- for the unreasonable animosity they obviously feel toward America.

But if it's just a question of "perverse and hateful ideologies" then we really have no choice but to bomb them to smithereens, right?

And then ... What becomes of us?

It's a good question, isn't it? In fact it's too good, and that's why you don't see it very often.

You don't see any good questions very often, let alone answers.

A Nation Of Vicious Idiots: Waging Endless War Against The Third World, And Proud Of It

All sorts of people make all sorts of noise about all sorts of things including "unity" and "tolerance" and "all men are created equal".

At the risk of offending believers of conventional wisdom, at the risk of challenging fundamentalist interpretations of our supposedly perfect founding documents: BS!

All men are not created equal. You can tell just by looking at them. Some are tall, some are short. Some are thin, some are fat. Some are smarter than others. Some are left-handed. And so on.

But when it comes down to what really matters, there are essentially three types of Americans: those who enjoy living in a country that wages continuous war against the third world, those who abhor it, and those who know nothing about it whatsoever.

Watch this video and you will never again fall into the third category.

The War Against the Third World: What I've Learned About U.S. Foreign Policy

CIA covert operations and US military interventions since World War II. A video compilation of footage and speeches recorded in the 1980s and 1990s. What you didn't learn in school and don't hear on the mainstream media.

(If you can't see the video, click here.)

Now...

If you enjoy living in a nation that wages continuous war against the third world, if you can kill, maim and torture for fun and profit and call it serving your country, if you are proud of what your country has done and want to see more of it, you should be reading bob cassiday, who wrote:

What a motley crew the party of Carter and Clinton has produced for this election season. Once the party of Andrew Jackson, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Harry Truman, you have a whole different mindset among this collection of union thugs, abortion advocates, flag burners, and hippies. It is no wonder that their front runner is the loudmouthed wife of the former President, Hillary.
...

Mike Gravel, I have no respect for any candidate who wants to legalize narcotics. Not to worry, this guy won't get anywhere. Oh, and thanks for helping end the draft, Mike, so we can raise generation after generation of men who are not asked to serve their country.
...

If the apathy is fading, the American people are starting to pay attention, and the "great silent majority" is starting to make some noise and fight back against all of the Leftist baloney they have been fed for the last forty years, that is bad news for the Democratic Party.

Speaking of Harry Truman, speaking of forty years ago, let me make one thing perfectly clear:

It didn't have to be like this. It didn't have to be anything like this.

I can barely type at the moment, but I can copy and paste pretty well. The following comment is still germane, IMO, even though I typed it a couple of years ago, on another blog, in response to a commenter who espoused the ideas that war is the answer and Vietnam is the proof:

In case you weren't paying attention, let me remind you: the Vietnamese people had never done anything to the United States -- but we waged war on them anyway. In that war we killed about 2 million Vietnamese civilians. We also made about 4 million Vietnamese people homeless. Our reckless use of chemical weapons such as Agent Orange caused widespread cancer and birth defects. Nixon's secret and illegal bombing of Cambodia destabilized a friendly government and left a power vacuum that was filled by the genocidal regime of Pol Pot -- leading directly to the deaths of another 2 million innocent people.

And what good has come of it? In 1975 when American troops finally left, Vietnam adopted a communist nationalist government, the very thing we were supposedly trying to prevent. So in that sense, we did not achieve a single thing. And more than 4 million people died for nothing.

Nothing, Jose. They died for no reason at all unless you count the fact that people who should have known better thought war was the answer.

Ho Chi Minh was a friend and ally of the USA during World War II, Jose. Did you know that? An American intelligence agent (Archimedes Patti) gave him his first weapons. Did you know that? Ho Chi Minh helped America throw the Japanese out of Indochina and he wanted to help us throw France out as well. But FDR was dead and so was his notion of "self-determination for all peoples". And harry truman was now the president and he was not only totally uninformed on world affairs but he was also a vicious little prick. And when harry truman told Ho Chi Minh to go buck a water fuffalo, that was the end of any chance for peace and stability in the region.

If the USA had stood with its wartime ally, Ho Chi Minh; if the USA had embraced the idea of Vietnamese national self-determination rather betraying it; if the USA had stood by its announced principles after the war, rather than rejecting them in favor of French colonialism; modern Vietnam's government would certainly be nationalist -- as it is today -- but it might very well be anti-communist, and it might even be pro-American. Ho Chi Minh would never have gone to Russia and China for help if he could have obtained help from the USA.

But no! truman told Ho to go screw and what was the result? Millions and millions of innocent people dead -- millions and millions more innocents homeless -- untold grief and anguish in America as well as Southeast Asia -- and all because some vicious little prick thought more war was the answer. In fact the answer was simple -- but harry truman was not about to tell the French to get their armies the hell out of Vietnam and let the Vietnamese people live their lives in peace -- even though it would have made perfect sense, even though the American government had trumpeted the principle of self-determination all through the war, and even though America, having rescued the French from the Nazis, did not owe France one thin dime...

Yeah, I know: That was then, this is now. Now the answer is not for American troops to be planting explosives in Iraqi cars and trucks in a transparent attempt to trigger a civil war. Now the answer is not for Americans to contaminate Iraq any further with our radioactive ammunition. Now the answer is not more indiscriminate bombing of residential neighborhoods. Further violence by Americans in Iraq can only make this horrible situation even worse.

And as for you, Jose, I've had enough of your bullshit. Why don't you take your five bucks [it has been reported that disinfo bloggers are paid $5 per post] and hit the road? In fact, why don't you go spend some time with the people who share your views? Why don't you just click here and start being all you can be?

That's right, Jose! Put your soft tissue where your mouth is! Enjoy the war, always remember that war is the answer, and don't worry. We'll still be your friends, even though we're staying here -- and that's a good thing, too, because you're gonna need friends like us to bury your sorry ass when it comes home in a box.

I spelled harry truman's name in lower case back then as a sign of respect. None.

Speaking of bob cassiday, his rant against Mike Gravel drew a comment from Brad Spangler, to wit:

Re: "Oh, and thanks for helping end the draft, Mike, so we can raise generation after generation of men who are not asked to serve their country."

Good news! You're still young enough to enlist. :)

To which the vicious ignorant prick replied:

I'm too old, have a career, a wife, and a daughter. Were I 21, unmarried, without a daughter, I'd bee in uniform right now.

If that's not good enough of an answer for you, bring back the draft.

It goes without saying that this is chickenhawk bullshit of the most pungent variety. Sacrifice other people's lives and limbs in the wars I want our country to fight. But not me. I have a family. I have a career. I'm better than other people: let them die while I enjoy my life.

This guy's serious. And he's far from alone.

Watch some of his buddies throw a stun grenade at a shepherd for a joke -- and record it on video (WMV: Right-click here and "Save As..."). bob cassiday would be laughing along with them if he were 21, single, childless and jobless. And he's not even smart enough -- or decent enough -- not to say so in a very public place.

On the other hand, some Americans are actual human beings, with brains and hearts, who feel pain and emotions such as empathy, and who believe mass murder and grand theft -- and throwing a stun grenades as a "joke" -- are sins against Almighty God and crimes against humanity, even if the victims live elsewhere; even if the victims live differently.

There will be no unity. There will be no tolerance. There will be no third category.

Are you with us or against us?