The ‘Anti-Knowledge’ of the Elites

Exclusive: It’s fairly easy to spot the “anti-knowledge” spouted by the Tea Party and the Religious Right’s favorite candidates, but a more subtle form of reality-deprived “group think” pervades America’s elites though it is rarely noted in the polite circles of the mainstream media, writes Mike Lofgren. By Mike Lofgren In a previous piece, I described…

Obama Keeps Pentagon Spigot Open

Though he ran for the White House as a “change” candidate, President Obama has mostly favored continuity, including bending to the usual pressure from the Military-Industrial Complex to keep the Pentagon spending flowing, as budget watchdog Chuck Spinney explains. By Chuck Spinney The Pentagon just won another small skirmish in its long war with Social Security…

Fighting a Cultural Boycott of Israel

Cultural and economic boycotts helped isolate white-supremacist South Africa and encouraged a shift to multi-racial democracy — and a similar strategy has ratcheted up pressure on Israel to reach a peace deal with Palestinians — but there is a new pushback against that strategy, notes Lawrence Davidson. By Lawrence Davidson There is a new British organization…

Israel’s Endless Cycles of Violence

Israel’s near-half-century-old occupation of Palestinian territory has fueled such animosity that Israelis fear that ending it could unleash even worse violence, a self-perpetuating conundrum that – if left unresolved – will doom Israelis and Palestinians to chronic bouts of death and destruction, as Alon Ben-Meir describes. By Alon Ben-Meir The Netanyahu government has conveniently and consistently separated the…

GOP and the Rise of Anti-Knowledge

Ben Carson’s rise to the top of the Republican presidential field shows that many Republicans, especially Christian fundamentalists, have decoupled from the real world — and are proud of it. The more that GOP candidates embrace “anti-knowledge” the more popular they become, as Mike Lofgren explains. By Mike Lofgren In the realm of physics, the…

A Glimmer of Hope for Syria

Exclusive: With new negotiations starting in Geneva – and with Iran now allowed to participate – there is finally a glimmer of hope that the Syrian slaughter might end. But that will require concessions from all sides and President Obama standing up to the neocons who put “regime change” ahead of peace, writes Robert Parry. By…

Paypal Donation Button Added

At the suggestion of a reader, we have updated our donation form to include a Paypal donation button for direct access to our Paypal account. The button is located at the bottom of the donation form and redirects users to make a contribution to our Paypal account using either your own Paypal account or a separate…

Leadership-The Antidote To Propaganda

Leaders lead with truth. Of course truth is passé in our culture and therefore governance has become a function of technocrats managing, massaging and manipulating public opinion, which is of course, the very definition of propaganda; herding the rudderless masses wherever the enlightened elite want them to go.

There is no getting around the fact that without a revival of truth there can be no leadership. There can be no enlightening of the mind and setting fire to the spirit, only calculated appeals to base motivations of security, fear, class envy, race envy; worn admonishments to tow the line of science, progressivism and trampling upon traditional ideology in the name of fairness, tolerance and non-offensiveness.

Today Propaganda Infographic 2.0 is being released for general use and distribution.

Let’s Be Done With The Seven Propaganda Techniques

Banish from your mind once and for all that identifying propaganda consists in simply recognizing 7 rhetorical techniques. This is a severely outdated (1938) way of conceptualizing what has become a multi-billion dollar industry using multiple highly sophisticated schemes for creating alternative realities; so called narratives that control opinions, attitudes and behaviors of United States Citizens.

   Click To Enlarge Image

The purpose of this infographic is to help dispel current muddled concepts of propaganda and to reclaim its use by citizens young and old to see clearly through the fog of battle for the minds of men.

Of course there will be those who object to the idea of truth as presented in the infographic, but this ideal is a foundation of western civilization and persisted unchallenged in this country until after the First World War. The rise of mass media and the unprecedented success of WWI propaganda forever changed politicians relationship to truth and therefore changed the balance of democratic power.

The Decade of Propaganda

Volumes were written in what I call the decade of propaganda awareness (1920’s) warning that the manufacture of consent (deciding policy first and then creating public opinion to align with pre-determined paths) and democratic ideals were utterly incompatible, which of course is true.

Unfortunately for us, this battle over propaganda and its use in America was lost and with it went the dignity of man. The genie is now out of the bottle; the power of some men to control and manipulate other men’s minds and attitudes can now be unleashed at will.

Here, almost 100 years later, the clandestine shift from leadership to technocratic tyranny is almost complete. The American propagandist is alive and well in the 21^st Century.

Leaders must arise if there is to be any hope. Will you be a leader? Start by defining propaganda correctly. Start by recognizing its presence far and wide.

Please feel free to share this infographic on facebook, twitter, a blog or in a local community. Students, take this to school, throw a wrench in the indoctrination process and talk about the characteristics of propaganda in a new way.

The post Leadership-The Antidote To Propaganda appeared first on PropagandaGuard.

Seeing Syrian Crisis Through Russian Eyes

Exclusive: While there is a glimmer of hope that international negotiations may finally find a way to resolve the Syrian war, there is also growing pressure on President Obama to escalate U.S. military involvement even if that risks a wider war with Russia, a danger that ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern assesses. By Ray McGovern “To…

Paul Ryan’s Same Ol’, Same Ol’

The mainstream media is selling House Speaker-in-waiting Paul Ryan as someone who can bring some order to Congress, but it’s likely to be the same old status quo of influence-peddling that has infuriated Americans across the political spectrum, write Bill Moyers and Michael Winship. By Bill Moyers and Michael Winship Only in a world where Cosmopolitan…

If You Don’t Want Your Kids to Be ‘Assaulted’ by the Cops, Teach Them to Respect Authority

Yet another controversy over a “racist” cop allegedly “assaulting” a black teenager. A video went viral last night showing a white police officer take down a black high school student, drag her across the floor, and cuff her. Naturally, the cop is now being investigated for civil rights violations, because not only do we automatically assume he did something wrong, but that he was motivated by racial animus. It’s insane. It’s just insane. This country is insane.

Anyway, of course nobody cares about the details of this situation any more than they cared with Mike Brown or Freddie Gray or whoever else. But if context does matter to you — if you’re in the sane minority that doesn’t immediately assume all cops are bad and all black suspects are good — then the rest of the story is relevant.

According to reports from the school and witnesses, the girl was using her phone in class. The teacher told her to hand it over, she refused. Teacher told her to go to the office, she refused. Administrator came and told her to go to the office, she refused. School resource officer was summonsed. He told her to get up and come with him, she refused. She was asked again, and again, and she refused, and refused. Finally, after one last warning, she was dragged out of her chair and physically extracted from the building.

Here’s the thing: no matter if you think the cop was “too rough,” the point is that this girl could have avoided all of this SIMPLY BY OBEYING THE RULES AND HAVING SOME BASIC RESPECT FOR AUTHORITY. Sorry for yelling. I’m just tired of this “Oh no, black kids are being attacked by cops, what ever will we do about it?” thing. Here’s what you do about it: teach your kids to be decent, respectful human beings, for God’s sake. This isn’t hard, everyone. It really isn’t.

Yet we’re not allowed to expand the conversation beyond “white cops are too rough with black people” to “hey, maybe parents need to do a better job of instilling, like, some minuscule amount of discipline in their kids.” We aren’t allowed to, but I am anyway. Read and share, because I think this is and important conversation:

Click here to read.

The post If You Don’t Want Your Kids to Be ‘Assaulted’ by the Cops, Teach Them to Respect Authority appeared first on The Matt Walsh Blog.

A Close Call on Doomsday

The risk of nuclear extermination is real, especially at times of revved-up tensions between the U.S. and Russia, when a political miscalculation or a technical mistake could prove disastrous, a danger that pushed the two sides to the brink of war in 1983, as ex-CIA analyst Melvin A. Goodman recalls. By Melvin A. Goodman The Washington…

Checkmate on ‘The Devil’s Chessboard’

Exclusive: Since the end of World War II, what some call the “deep state” has taken hold of the American Republic, stripping the citizens of meaningful control over national security issues, with CIA Director Allen Dulles playing a key early role, according to David Talbot’s new biography reviewed by Lisa Pease. By Lisa Pease David Talbot’s…

Netanyahu’s Offensive Fake History

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu garbled up some inflammatory history to suggest that a Palestinian mufti was responsible for the Holocaust, but the underlying message was even more troubling, a suggestion that Palestinians as a group share the guilt, as ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar explains. By Paul R. Pillar Benjamin Netanyahu’s bit of revisionist history…

Bowing to Silly US Propaganda

The U.S. government and mainstream media are so lost in their own propaganda that U.S. foreign policy lurches around the globe like a dangerous half-blind giant. False narratives are so powerful that even Sen. Bernie Sanders bends to the delusions, a danger to both U.S. national interests and the planet, writes Rick Sterling. By Rick Sterling If the U.S.…

Parry’s Speech at I.F. Stone Award

On Oct. 22, Consortiumnews Editor Robert Parry received the I.F. Stone Medal for Journalistic Independence from Harvard’s Nieman Foundation. Stone was an iconoclastic journalist who published I.F. Stone’s Weekly during the McCarthy era and the Vietnam War, setting a standard for independence that Parry has tried to follow. By Robert Parry I want to thank…

Parry to Appear Today on NPR’s ‘On Point’

Robert Parry will appear on NPR’s On Point with Tom Ashbrook on Monday, October 26, 2015 at 11:00 am for an hour-long discussion. Parry will explore the current situation of American journalism and what we’re not being told about the living history of our country. You can stream the show live online or find a radio station…

The Public Shaming of Germaine Greer for Daring To Challenge Transgender Propaganda

Germaine Greer the long time champion of women’s issues has violated sacred orthodoxy and has now received a public shaming. The shaming, conducted by the BBC clearly attempted to out Greer as an intolerable bigot, highlighting her aberrant views of transgendered people as insensitive, offensive and insulting.

The shaming occurred after a petition circulated to disinvite Greer from speaking at an event entitled Women in Power: Lessons of the 20-Century.

Rachael Melhuish, the author of the petition to no platform Greer, describes herself as a lover of intersectional feminism and food and is the proud tweeter of the following:

Apparently sex workers are part of the marginalized multitudes that she and others like her feel compelled to stand up for. But I digress.

How to Silence Opposition

The irrepressible logic of their protest, if you can call it that, goes like this…

• Speech that offends others should be labeled “hate-speech”
• “Hate speech” should not be allowed in safe spaces (Who knew universities were suppose to be ideologically safe places?).
• “Hate-speech” should be minimized, controlled and possibly even criminalized
• People who participate in “hate speech” should be socially punished by shaming, ridicule, being denied honors, promotions, platforms to speak etc..
• People who disagree with the present groupthink should be labeled “something-phobic” or “something-exclusionary” to marginalize the substance of their arguments without really having a counter argument.
• These are all readily identifiable propaganda tactics used consistently to silence opposition, not that Rachael and her buddies have any awareness that they are willing propaganda shills.

Free speech welcomes debate and dialogue, silencing opposition belongs to tyrannical cultures not democracies.

To Ms. Greer’s credit she handles the inquisition admirably and never backs down. Belonging to a bygone age when ideas, opinions and lively debate were roadmaps to the truth, she responds with tart, indignation and frustration in the face of trite sentimentalism, and outright deceit.

Intolerance and hatred for anyone expressing a view outside of the approved transgender propaganda has now been enshrined on college campuses. Suffer not the children to hear anything not to their liking.

Must Watch: Greer’s utter honesty and disgust at the ridiculous and relentless line of questioning

In the age of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.

G. Orwell

The post The Public Shaming of Germaine Greer for Daring To Challenge Transgender Propaganda appeared first on PropagandaGuard.

The Lost Cause of Israeli Justice

When Israel was founded, there was hope among progressive Jews that the new country could rely on the best traditions of Judaism and teach the world how to navigate the shoals of bigotry and injustice, a vision that remains unfulfilled, as Lawrence Davidson describes. By Lawrence Davidson An ideologue is someone who sees the world…

Rebuffing Peace Chances in Syria

Exclusive: Official Washington’s neocon-dominated “group think” on Syria is that everything is the fault of President Assad and Russian President Putin, but the actual history shows many missed opportunities for peace because of the U.S. obsession with dictating “regime change” in country after country, as Jonathan Marshall explains. By Jonathan Marshall Seeking to disrupt the…

Presidential Success or Failure

There are two kinds of presidential foreign policy decisions, one operational like the raid to kill Osama bin Laden, which can go right or wrong almost by chance, and the other strategic like the invasion of Iraq that can be based on fraudulent information and bad judgment, writes ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar. By Paul…

The Mideast’s Humpty Dumpty Problem

Western powers – most recently the United States – have smashed up the Mideast so thoroughly that many of the options now under review in Official Washington go from bad to worse but almost certainly can never put the region back together again, writes ex-CIA official Graham E. Fuller. By Graham E. Fuller As mayhem…

Hillary Clinton’s Failed Libya ‘Doctrine’

From the Archive: As the long-running Benghazi investigation returns to center stage with another round of Hillary Clinton’s testimony, the former Secretary of State’s larger failure remains obscured – how she once envisioned the bloody Libyan “regime change” as the start of a “Clinton Doctrine,” as Robert Parry reported last July. By Robert Parry (Originally…

The More Complex Truth of Benghazi

From the Archive: More than three years after the Benghazi attack, which claimed the lives of four Americans, Republicans again are grilling former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the hyper-politicized inquiry that has obscured the more complex reality of what happened, as ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar observed in 2013. By Paul R. Pillar…

Fallout from the Gaza Blockade

Israel’s enforcement of its Gaza blockade has involved storming aid ships in international waters, including the 2010 assault on the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara in which Israeli commandos killed nine people, a case that has now led to a lawsuit against former Israeli Defense Minister Barak, writes Ann Wright. By Ann Wright A lawsuit has…

Secrecy and Hillary Clinton

Over-classification of documents is the weapon of choice wielded by the U.S. government to punish  whistleblowers and keep the American people in the dark about its actions around the world. But the well-connected, like Hillary Clinton, get special forbearance, notes Diane Roark. By Diane Roark The system for classifying intelligence and other national security documents…

In Case You Missed…

Some of our special stories in September focused on how the Syrian crisis careened out of control, how the Mideast troubles are now destabilizing Europe, how info-war manipulates public opinion, and how hypocrisy played out at the UN General Assembly. “Ukraine Rightists Kill Police; Putin Blamed” by Robert Parry, Sep. 1, 2015 “US/NATO Embrace Psy-ops and Info-War”…

MH-17 Case: ‘Old’ Journalism vs. ‘New’

Exclusive: For skilled intelligence operatives, the Internet can be a devil’s playground, a place to circulate doctored photos, audio and documents, making investigations based on “social media” and such sources particularly risky, a point worth recalling in the mystery of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, says Robert Parry. By Robert Parry The first thing any thinking person learns about the…

Planned Parenthood Murders Children — None of Their Other ‘Services’ Matter

Abortion devotees are very good at changing the subject. The problem is that we on the pro-life side almost always let them get away with it. I watched this play out yet again yesterday when news came down that Texas defunded Planned Parenthood in the state.

Naturally, Planned Parenthood fans went berserk, flailing their arms and crying about all of the “services” Planned Parenthood provides other than abortion. Even some self-professed pro-lifers often argue that Planned Parenthood ought to be funded based on the “other stuff” it does. Abortion is just three percent of their business, they claim. Planned Parenthood gives out birth control and birth control prevents abortion, they say. And so on.

This is where pro-lifers drop the ball. We respond to these arguments by trying to explain how abortion is actually more than three percent of their business, and how Planned Parenthood actually doesn’t offer mammograms, and how birth control actually doesn’t prevent abortion, but what we should be saying is this: it doesn’t matter. Planned Parenthood should be defunded and ultimately destroyed because it murders human beings. Period. That’s all. That’s it. That’s the whole argument.

What percentage of their business is murder? Doesn’t matter. What else do they do besides murder? Doesn’t matter. Have many women gone their for cancer screenings and STD tests and other important things? Doesn’t matter. Doesn’t matter. Doesn’t matter.

Look, if ANY OTHER COMPANY IN THE WORLD purposefully, as a policy, murdered people — even just a few people a year — everyone would agree that the company should be dismantled and burned to the ground. There would be no conversation at all about the “other stuff.” Just like nobody talks about the “other stuff” Hitler did.

Planned Parenthood kills humans. I don’t care if they also do cancer screenings. I don’t care if they give out birth control. I don’t care about the percentages or the figures or the pie charts.

Do they murder people? Yes. End of story. They should be defunded and all of their employees should be in jail. Nothing else they do matters. Nothing. I think this is how we need to start approaching this debate:

Click here to read my latest article.

The post Planned Parenthood Murders Children — None of Their Other ‘Services’ Matter appeared first on The Matt Walsh Blog.

A Plea for Mideast Policy Realism

Over the past two decades, a neoconservative-driven foreign policy has led to strategic disaster after disaster, but neocon belligerence continues to dominate Official Washington, a dilemma that former U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Chas W. Freeman addresses. By Chas W. Freeman Twenty-six years ago, when the elder President Bush asked me to be his ambassador to…

Will Obama Succumb to Pro-War Baiting?

The “you’re a weakling” baiting of President Obama to get him to attack the Syrian government is unrelenting, stretching from the neocon Right to some elements of the liberal Left. And, there are doubts he is strong enough to rebuff the warmongers and pursue a path toward a negotiated peace, as Rick Sterling describes. By Rick Sterling Recently…

Obama Bends to ‘Endless’ Afghan War

By failing to challenge many of Official Washington’s “group thinks” on the war policy, President Obama has become captive to them as reflected in his decision to extend the U.S. military operation in Afghanistan despite little or no prospect of success, as ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar explains. By Paul R. Pillar It probably was…

Colombia’s Bittersweet Peace Deal

Exclusive: After generations of warfare, Colombia finally has a negotiated model for peace, but the agreement is more a settlement between two battered parties than a moment of celebration. Still, it carries a promise of greater social equity and some accountability, reports Andrés Cala. By Andrés Cala The Colombian government and the continent’s mightiest and…

Reviving Hope in Palestine

With Official Washington huffily rejecting peaceful protests against Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians – such as boycotts and recognition of a Palestinian state – the situation in Israel and the Occupied Territories has turned back to violence and death, as John V. Whitbeck explains. By John V. Whitbeck Since the current upsurge of violence in Israel…

Jeffrey Sterling’s Selective Prosecution

Exclusive: The leak conviction of ex-CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling exposed a range of double standards, from how the spy agency treats African-Americans to how favored officials like Gen. David Petraeus get a pass while others get prison, an issue now before President Obama, writes Chelsea Gilmour. By Chelsea Gilmour Holly Sterling, the wife of a…

Thank You, Readers!

From Editor Robert Parry: I want to thank our readers for getting us close to our fall fundraising goal of $25,000. We only fell only about $1,400 short. And, if anyone wants to help us with that amount, we’ll keep the same thank-you gifts in place for a while. You can use a credit card online…

Kicking War Cans Down the Road

Exclusive: By playing along with Official Washington’s false hopes – and its endless chest-thumping – President Obama has trapped himself into a pointless war policy in the Middle East, now deciding to pass America’s failing Afghan War onto his predecessor, notes Jonathan Marshall. By Jonathan Marshall President Lyndon Johnson, whose record on civil rights, Medicare, the…

US Make-Believe in Syrian War

Official Washington and its mainstream media push deeper and deeper into a Mideast fantasyland where mythical “moderate rebels” in Syria represent a real force rather than a P.R. cover for Sunni jihadists, all the better to bash the Russians for their military offensive, as Gareth Porter explains at Middle East Eye. By Gareth Porter The…

The Reckless Guns of October

Exclusive: With Official Washington’s armchair warriors demanding confrontation with Russia over Syria, the prospects for the conflict spinning out of control rise by the day. Years from now, historians may shake their heads over the failure to compromise, cooperate and deescalate, as Daniel Lazare describes. By Daniel Lazare Reports that U.S. and Russian warplanes came…

The “Genderbread” Person-Delusional Indoctrination

The Man Behind The Presentation

Sam Killermann is a “social justice” comedian who gives presentations about snap judgments, identity and oppression.

It’s going to be embarrassing explaining to future generations that battling oppression in this age meant standing up to …categories of reality.

Sam, presumably having just descended from the mount with the new tablets of stone in hand, explains to the audience that everything they know about gender is wrong.

His mission he believes, is to indoctrinate college students into the fantasy of multiple genders  “discovered” in the last minute of recorded history.

The Moonies weren’t this crazy yet the ever tolerant public schools and colleges willingly embrace the macabre self-suicide of civilization.

Sam goes on to say that “It’s important to remember that one [sexuality] does not dictate the other [gender].” Is it possible that college students in social sciences are not allowed to take real science courses where the bubble of this myth would burst on the hard rock of chromosomal identification?

Gender Propaganda And Indoctrination

School district’s and colleges that allow presentations that include the “Gender bread” Person infographic are participating in culturally subversive activities and deserve your highest scorn.

Click to Enlarge

The slick comedy routine and cutesy infographic are part of an effort to present an alternative reality to college-age students. Materials and information from this source are already making their way into high school sex-ed curriculums and are freely available online.

Co-opting and corrupting a traditional symbol like the gingerbread man is a way to identify deviant cultural ideas with homespun goodness and is targeted to influence the youngest and most vulnerable of the population.

Somewhere in the cesspool of minds called academia, a stone-age myth of epic proportions has been created. Gender is non-binary, they declare, implying that the categories of male and female have become just too self-limiting. In fact, there are now 56 genders.

Rightfully this slice of academia should be laughed all the way back to the insane asylum for creating a movement fighting the oppressiveness imposed by categories of reality. Instead, perhaps making gender hopelessly complicated will contribute to job security, no one will be able to explain it except the school psychologist.

It also stands as potent criticism of a society willing to tolerate misfit professors creating an entire nomenclature of absurd genders, as one clinging tenuously to the threads of reality.

No doubt the presentation will not be identified as dangerous ideology but will euphemistically be titled “Preventing Bullying in the Schools” and other similar unarguable tenets of fairness.

This is nothing less than a planned mutiny of what it means to be fully human. If we can’t be men and women, what shall we become?

Non-Binary Gender and 2 + 2 =5: Delusion Rules The Day

What can be said of a society where supposedly well educated college professors and staff stand-by passive and mute when such dangerous ideas as the corruption of gender are passed around like candy.

I challenge any teacher, academic or social scientist to provide any shred of scientific proof that there are 56 genders. Appeals to lame and worthless “survey” research will be instantly discounted.

Indoctrinating students into a different political structures is one thing, indoctrinating them into self-deluding figments of imagination using home spun icons are crimes against humanity that will have far reaching effects.

The stone-age myth about gender is out of the bag, should we all sit back passively and let our children’s future to be “deconstructed”?

This is social treachery that has reached unprecedented levels.

Get to know Sam Killermann from his TED Talk

 

The post The “Genderbread” Person-Delusional Indoctrination appeared first on PropagandaGuard.

NYT Plays Games with MH-17 Tragedy

Exclusive: There was a time when The New York Times showed some skepticism toward the words of the U.S. government but those days are long gone, as the Times sinks even deeper into the propaganda swamp with an editorial playing games with the Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 tragedy, writes Robert Parry. By Robert Parry In its single-minded…

No, Christianity Should Not Be “Inclusive” Of Your Sinful Lifestyle

Usually I write pretty quickly, but this one took me a few days to finish. I had to pray about it and go back to Scripture several times to be sure I was making my case as convincingly as possible. I’m responding, here, to an email from an unrepentant gay Christian who tries to explain why Christian churches should start being more “inclusive” of him and his sexual perversion. He seems to use his orientation as a sort of emotional blackmail against me. As if I must sugarcoat or abandon the truth just because the truth is uncomfortable to him personally.

Obviously I’m not going to play that game. But, at the same time, I do want to take the time to explain the truth to him, and hopefully at least plant some seeds in his heart. Many will read this and likely accuse me of being “hateful” and “angry” and so on, but I don’t think either hate or anger can be found in my comments to him.

I thought this conversation is worth having publicly because we all hear all the time nowadays that different “lifestyles” should be “welcomed” and “included” in our churches. “Inclusiveness” has become the popular Christian buzzword of the moment. Yes, the Faith is inclusive in the sense that it is universal, open to everyone, so long as they are willing to FOLLOW and ACCEPT the Truth. But that’s now how progressives mean it when they say it.
They want to be included on their own terms. They want to be “accepted” along with their sin. They want the road to salvation to be broad, when in fact our Savior says quite clearly it is narrow and many will not be able to pass through it.

The Faith is “inclusive” and “welcoming” of those who wish to embrace the truth, but it does not welcome sin:

Click here to read.

The post No, Christianity Should Not Be “Inclusive” Of Your Sinful Lifestyle appeared first on The Matt Walsh Blog.

Awash in Guns and Bloodshed

The U.S. and Israel stand apart from most of the developed world as modern societies awash in guns with powerful forces overriding large numbers of citizens, even majorities, alarmed at the rates of violence, writes Lawrence Davidson. By Lawrence Davidson Here is the question: What two “modern” societies have cultures that allow and even idealize…

Syria and the ‘Vacuum’ Metaphor

Official Washington’s new “group think” is that President Obama’s hesitancy to fully invade Syria has created a “vacuum” that Russia is now filling, but the use of such metaphors can cloud serious analytical thinking and lead to catastrophic misjudgments, as ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar explains. By Paul R. Pillar Physical, spatial imagery has long…

Erdogan and the Ankara Bombing

Turkish President Erdogan is playing some dangerous games, aiding Sunni extremists in their war to topple the Syrian government and stirring up old hatreds against the Kurds. So, was last week’s murderous bombing in Ankara an outgrowth of those schemes or something worse, asks ex-CIA official Graham E. Fuller. By Graham E. Fuller “Hüngür Hüngür…

Democrats Are Godless Heathen Tyrant Maniacs Because That’s What Voters Want

I watched the Democrat debate last night. Do me a favor and read and share my write up so that I didn’t endure that torture in vain. I have to tell you: it was brutal. I was physically grimacing the entire time. My wife thought I needed Metamucil, but really I was just trying to contain my visceral revulsion and disgust. It was bad. Really bad.

You know I am not shy about criticizing Republicans, but there is no question that the Democrat Party is, at this point, rotten and corrupt to its core. We’ve reached a moment in history where wildly popular, mainstream Democrat politicians can enthusiastically endorse socialism, attack the Constitution, attack the family, celebrate baby murder, claim that “climate change” is our greatest national security threat, and openly suggest that the law shouldn’t apply to them, and they will be applauded by millions of American voters.

Last night, the candidates spent most of the time promising to give free college tuition, free health care, more paid leave, and a doubled minimum wage to all citizens and non-citizens in the country. They never once explained how this could be accomplished. They never once even mentioned the phrase “national debt.” In fact, none of them ever used the word “liberty,” either.
But the thing we must remember is that tyrants like Hillary Clinton and kooks like Bernie Sanders didn’t ascend to prominence by accident. They represent what millions of Americans want: tyranny, oppression, insanity, and death. They are merely expressions of our cultural sickness, not the root causes of it.

Read this to find out how lost many of our fellow countrymen are, and then pray:

Click here to read.

The post Democrats Are Godless Heathen Tyrant Maniacs Because That’s What Voters Want appeared first on The Matt Walsh Blog.

The Kunduz Hospital Atrocity

The U.S. bombing of a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, blipped on and off the mainstream media’s radar, catalogued as just one more unfortunate mistake in the last 14 years of war. But there is probable cause to treat the atrocity as a war crime, writes Marjorie Cohn for TeleSUR. By Marjorie Cohn…

MH-17: The Dog Still Not Barking

Exclusive: The dog not barking in the Dutch report on the shoot-down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 is the silence regarding U.S. intelligence information that supposedly had pinned down key details just days after the crash but has been kept secret, writes Robert Parry. By Robert Parry The Dutch Safety Board report concludes that an older model…

Needling Obama for More Wars

Exclusive: Rather than encourage a healthy, wide-ranging debate on world affairs, the mainstream U.S. news media prevents any serious deviation from Official Washington’s war-loving “group thinks,” a task undertaken by CBS’ Steve Kroft in a hostile interview with President Obama, reports Robert Parry. By Robert Parry As demonstrated by Steve Kroft of CBS’ “60 Minutes” in his contentious…

Ronald Reagan’s Bloody ‘Apocalypto’

From the Archive: As grotesque as it is to honor Christopher Columbus who set in motion a hemisphere-wide genocide against the indigenous population, it is also sickening to honor Ronald Reagan who aided and abetted genocide against Guatemalan tribes just last century, as Robert Parry reported in 2006. By Robert Parry (Originally published on Dec. 17,…

Last Call for Fall Fund Drive

From Editor Robert Parry: We have gotten to within about $6,000 of our fall fund goal of $25,000, thanks to a late surge in donations. If you haven’t contributed and want to help us reach our goal, please do so now as we conclude this important fund drive. Donations of any size are appreciated. You can…

How CNN Shapes Political Debate

Exclusive: CNN was happy to add a right-wing questioner for the Republican debate but won’t add a progressive for the Democratic debate, another sign of how the “mainstream media” shapes what’s acceptable in political discussion, a lesson that ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern has learned from personal experience. By Ray McGovern CNN, the sponsor of Tuesday’s…

Obama’s Two-Timing Foreign Policy

Exclusive: President Obama’s Syrian strategy is getting roundly denounced as incoherent, which – while true – is really a reflection of his failure to fully break with neocon-style interventionism even when he realizes the futility of the strategy, writes Robert Parry. By Robert Parry The mystery of the Obama administration’s foreign policy has always been whether President…

How Do-Gooders Can Do Bad

“Human rights” organizations have become purveyors of bloody chaos as they advocate Western big-power military attacks on weak countries in the name of “responsibility to protect” – one of several purportedly well-intentioned strategies gone awry – as Coleen Rowley and Diana Johnstone describe. By Coleen Rowley and Diana Johnstone Organizers and participants in the “Creating a…

The Afghan Lesson in Syria

Russian President Putin’s decision to escalate military support for the Syrian government brings to mind earlier interventions in Afghanistan that went badly – but that cautionary history and the changed Syrian dynamic also raise the prospects for negotiations, says ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar. By Paul R. Pillar The Russian military intervention to shore up…

CNN’s Double-Standards on Debates

For decades, mainstream U.S. news outlets have bent over backwards to appease conservatives and avoid the stigma “liberal media,” but there has been no similar accommodation for progressives, as Jeff Cohen notes about CNN’s handling of the upcoming Democratic debate. By Jeff Cohen At the CNN-sponsored Republican Party debate last month at the Reagan presidential…

Collateral Damage/Stuff Happens

President George W. Bush (and his successor Barack Obama) have lamented “collateral damage” in Afghanistan and Iraq – and Jeb Bush shrugs off a domestic mass shooting as “stuff happens” – but the tragedies have a common denominator: glorification of war and cultural acceptance of violence, writes David Marks. By David Marks Barack Obama responded to the shootings at a…

What Are the Syrian Options?

Official Washington is in a blind rage over Russia’s military intervention in Syria in support of the Assad regime, but the changed dynamic may offer useful options if U.S. policymakers can just look clearly at the crisis, as ex-CIA official Graham E. Fuller explains. By Graham E. Fuller With the arrival of Russian forces on…

Secrecy of Obama’s TPP Trade Deal

The “free trade” advocates managed to jolt the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement back to life and declared success, but now must walk the giant TPP trade deal past the Congress and other legislatures. Michael Winship explains why he thinks the “monster” should die. By Michael Winship Every time you think that beast called the Trans-Pacific Partnership — TPP…

The Second Amendment’s Fake History

Exclusive: A numbness followed the latest mass shooting – this time at a community college in Oregon. Many Americans were frozen in futility as powerful political forces asserted that the Second Amendment prohibits any gun laws. But that claim is historically false, writes Robert Parry. By Robert Parry False history continues to kill Americans, as we saw once again last week…

Obama Boots Syrian Peace Chance

Exclusive: President Obama thinks he can appease the neocons and liberal hawks by talking tough about Syria and Russia but – in doing so – he is throwing away a promising opportunity to resolve the Syrian conflict, plus he still gets bashed by Official Washington’s pundits, writes Robert Parry. By Robert Parry President Barack Obama is turning…

Walter Lippmann- Apologist for Propaganda In A Democracy

We Live in a Democracy- Of Course the Press Is Free!

There is one article of faith upon which the whole propaganda foundation must be built: that the media while perhaps slightly biased (right perspective versus left perspective) are for the most part still free and independent.

During the 20^th century the prevailing opinion was “that the media are independent and committed to discovering and reporting the truth and that they do not merely reflect the world as powerful groups wish it to be perceived. Leaders of the media claim that their news choices rest on unbiased professional and objective criteria…” (Chomsky, Noam, Manufacturing Consent, p.l)

After all, we live in a democracy with a storied history of a free and independent press!

“If however, the powerful are able to fix the premises of discourse, to decide what the general populace is allowed to see, hear, and think about, and to “manage” public opinion by regular propaganda campaigns, the standard view of how the system works is at serious odds with reality.” (Chomsky, Noam, Manufacturing Consent, p.l)

Propaganda More Effective In a “PRIVATE” System

A propaganda system that operates through the news media within a democracy would be much preferred to a state run system for under the guise of independence the propaganda becomes phenomenally more effective. Ask yourself, “Is it impossible to protect yourself from a threat you do not know exists.

So the question remains, does the press in America operate as the powerful wish it to operate, managing and manipulating public opinion?

Walter Lippmann holds an important key to answering this question. You remember Walter Lippmann (1889-1974), hailed as the greatest journalist of his age and who for more than sixty years exerted unprecedented influence on American public opinion through his writing.

Lippmann, in describing how the French would repeatedly magnify German casualties by constant repetition of certain formulaic phrases without regard to the battlefield realities (‘according to prisoners the German losses in the course of the attack have been considerable’…‘it is proved that the losses’…‘the enemy exhausted by his losses has not renewed the attack’) remarked that “We have learned to call this propaganda. A group of men, who can prevent access to the event, arrange the news of it to suit their purpose.” p. 26

He explains that by putting dead Germans in the focus of the picture, and by omitting to mention the French dead, a very special view of the battle was built up.

He also goes on to say, “Without some form of censorship, propaganda in the strict sense of the word is impossible. In order to conduct propaganda there must be some barrier between the public and the event. Access to the real environment must be limited, before anyone can create a pseudo-environment that he thinks wise or desirable.” p. 27

Creating Pictures of a Pseudo Environment

According to Lippmann, men hold pictures or images of the complex modern world around them, acting as shortcuts to understanding and that function as springboards to action.

“The way the world is imagined determines at any particular moment what men will do…. But what is propaganda, if not the effort to alter the picture to which men respond?” p.19

The meaning of intricate, perplexing and veiled modern events could be condensed and summed up into simple pictures: Muslims are bad; Russia is always bad; China is getting bad; bombing Syria is good; corrupt banks are good; corrupt debt is good; war is normal; government dependence is good: tolerance is good etc. etc.

To the extent that the powers that be shape these attitudes they have unlimited power to arrange public sentiments on their behalf.

Who creates the pictures of an event? The news media of course

Representative Government Does Not Work?

In 1922, he wrote the book Public Opinion, in which he argued that the modern world had become so complex and the issues so distant from the common man, that it was impossible for the masses to have an accurate opinion on most public issues.

With neither the time, nor the inclination to research the facts, the average citizen was encumbered by local biases and prejudices that made him a poor prospect to render fair and impartial conclusions affecting the future of the nation.

Lippmann’s conclusion was that “representative government, either in what is ordinarily called politics, or in industry, cannot be worked successfully, no matter what the basis of election, unless there is an independent, expert organization for making the unseen facts intelligible to those who have to make the decisions.”

Who Organizes The Opinions?

“Public opinions must be organized for the press if they are to be sound, not by the press as is the case today.” p. 22

Later he argues “the real sequence should be one where the disinterested expert first finds and formulates the facts for the man of action, and later makes what wisdom he can out of comparison between the decision, which he understands and the facts, which he organized.” p. 201

Who will be responsible for organizing public opinions for the press? Who is this disinterested expert? Lippmann’s thesis demands answers.

The Revolution Has Already Taken Place

In Lippmann’s own words…

The creation of consent is not a new art. It is a very old one that was supposed to have died out with the appearance of democracy. But it has not died out. It has, in fact, improved enormously in technic, because it is now based on analysis rather than on rule of thumb. And so, as a result of psychological research, coupled with the modern means of communication, the practice of democracy has turned a corner. A revolution is taking place, infinitely more significant than any shifting of economic power. p. 138

Within the life of the generation now in control of affairs [1922], persuasion has become a self-conscious art and a regular organ of popular government. None of us begins to understand the consequences, but it is no daring prophecy to say that the knowledge of how to create consent will alter every political calculation and modify every political premise… p. 138

It is no longer possible, for example, to believe in the original dogma of democracy… p. 138

Want to read more about how few men control all the news media? 

Want to Read Lippmann’s book Public Opinion for free Online?

 

 

The post Walter Lippmann- Apologist for Propaganda In A Democracy appeared first on PropagandaGuard.

Reflections on ‘Deep Poverty’

The Constitution’s Framers set as one of the new government’s priorities providing for the “general Welfare,” but that progressive mandate was soon swept away by slaveholders and industrialists who shaped America into a “me-first” society amazingly tolerant of “deep poverty,” as Lawrence Davidson reflects. By Lawrence Davidson In the assessment of poverty in the United States…

Obama Closes Opening to Iran

Despite prevailing on the Iran nuclear deal, President Obama isn’t following up that victory with a more realistic policy to incorporate Iran into resolving Mideast conflicts. Instead, Obama feels he must placate U.S. hardliners with more tough talk, as ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar describes. By Paul R. Pillar The Obama administration had to expend considerable political capital…

Rupert Murdoch: Propaganda Recruit

Special Report: Journalistic objectivity was never high on Rupert Murdoch’s ethics list, but “secret” records from the 1980s show how far the media magnate went to ingratiate himself with President Reagan by collaborating with U.S. propaganda operations, reports Robert Parry. By Robert Parry In February 1983, global media magnate Rupert Murdoch volunteered to help the Reagan administration’s…

Falling Short on Fall Fund Drive

From Editor Robert Parry: We are wrapping up our fall fund drive this week and have barely gotten 40 percent of the way toward our modest goal of $25,000. For this independent news site to survive, we must at least come close to our targets. If you can, please help. Donations of any size are…

Afghan Doctor Slaughter Pulls Back Curtain

The apparent U.S. slaughter of at least 22 people at an Afghan hospital, including Doctors Without Borders medical staff, is part of the grim reality of indiscriminate death when U.S. Special Forces undertake their secret raids and often toss aside the rules of warfare, reports Nicolas J S Davies. By Nicolas J S Davies On…

The Hope Behind Putin’s Syria Help

Exclusive: President Obama insists on looking the gift horse of Russian military help for Syria’s embattled government in the mouth. Rather than welcome assistance in blocking a Sunni extremist victory, Obama bends to the neocons and liberal hawks, as ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern explains. By Ray McGovern Russia’s airstrikes on rebel strongholds in Syria, now in…

US Tax Dollars and Ukraine’s Finance Minister

Special Report: Though touted as the face of reform inside Ukraine’s post-coup regime, Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko enriched herself at the expense of a U.S.-taxpayer-financed investment fund – and USAID now says it’s missing some of the audit records detailing Jaresko’s dealings, reports Robert Parry. By Robert Parry The U.S. government is missing – or…

Emancipate Yourself From Mental Slavery!

Dark Times

These are dark times, in which the propaganda of deceit touches all our lives. It is as if political reality has been privatized and illusion legitimized.

-John Pilger

The following reprinted article by John Richard Pilger an Australian journalist based in London is the text of a speech given for the launch of the book, The WikiLeaks Files.

Pilger chronicles the heart breaking reality of illusion triumphing over truth today. The launch of The WikiLeaks Files, herald’s the first attempt to pair expert commentary on cable content to historically relevant events. Pilger has  high praise for the modern day warriors of truth and his cautionary warnings about propaganda should be of interest to readers of this blog. Those wanting more of the Files can get the book on Amazon

The WikiLeaks Files: The World According to US Empire

Pilger is a well known and honored journalist having twice won Britain’s Journalist of the Year Award, and his documentaries, screened internationally, have gained awards in Britain and worldwide. In addition, Pilger has received numerous honorary doctorates.

Originally printed September 30^th, 2015 on Information Clearing House

The Revolutionary Act Of Telling The Truth

By John Pilger

John Pilger, speaking at the launch in London of The WikiLeaks Files, with an introduction by Julian Assange.

George Orwell said, “In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”

These are dark times, in which the propaganda of deceit touches all our lives. It is as if political reality has been privatized and illusion legitimized. The information age is a media age. We have politics by media; censorship by media; war by media; retribution by media; diversion by media – a surreal assembly line of clichés and false assumptions.

Wondrous technology has become both our friend and our enemy. Every time we turn on a computer or pick up a digital device – our secular rosary beads — we are subjected to control: to surveillance of our habits and routines, and to lies and manipulation.

Edward Bernays, who invented the term, “public relations” as a euphemism for “propaganda”, predicted this more than 80 years ago. He called it, “the invisible government”.

He wrote, “Those who manipulate this unseen element of [modern democracy] constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country …we are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of…”

The aim of this invisible government is the conquest of us: of our political consciousness, our sense of the world, our ability to think independently, to separate truth from lies.

This is a form of fascism, a word we are rightly cautious about using, preferring to leave it in the flickering past.  But an insidious modern fascism is now an accelerating danger. As in the 1930s, big lies are delivered with the regularity of a metronome. Muslims are bad. Saudi bigots are good. ISIS bigots are bad. Russia is always bad. China is getting bad. Bombing Syria is good. Corrupt banks are good. Corrupt debt is good. Poverty is good. War is normal.

Those who question these official truths, this extremism, are deemed in need of a lobotomy – until they are diagnosed on-message.  The BBC provides this service free of charge. Failure to submit is to be tagged a “radical” – whatever that means.

Real dissent has become exotic; yet those who dissent have never been more important. The book I am launching tonight, The WikiLeaks Files, is an antidote to a fascism that never speaks its name.

It’s a revolutionary book, just as WikiLeaks itself is revolutionary – exactly as Orwell meant in the quote I used at the beginning.  For it says that we need not accept these daily lies. We need not remain silent. Or as Bob Marley once sang: “Emancipate yourself from mental slavery.”

In the introduction, Julian Assange explains that it is never enough to publish the secret messages of great power: that making sense of them is crucial, as well as placing them in the context of today and historical memory.

That is the remarkable achievement of this anthology, which reclaims our memory. It connects the reasons and the crimes that have caused so much human turmoil, from Vietnam and Central America, to the Middle East and Eastern Europe, with the matrix of rapacious power, the United States.

There is currently an American and European attempt to destroy the government of Syria. Prime Minister David Cameron is especially keen. This is the same David Cameron I remember as an unctuous PR man employed by an asset stripper of Britain’s independent commercial television.

Cameron, Obama and the ever-obsequious Francois Hollande want to destroy the last remaining multi-cultural authority in Syria, an action that will surely make way for the fanatics of ISIS.

This is insane, of course, and the big lie justifying this insanity is that it is in support of Syrians who rose against Bashar al-Assad in the Arab Spring. As The WikiLeaks Files reveals, the destruction of Syria has long been a cynical imperial project that pre-dates the Arab Spring uprising against Assad.

To the rulers of the world in Washington and Europe, Syria’s true crime is not the oppressive nature of its government but its independence from American and Israeli power – just as Iran’s true crime is its independence, and Russia’s true crime is its independence, and China’s true crime is its independence.  In an American-owned world, independence is intolerable.

This book reveals these truths, one after the other; the truth about a war on terror that was always a war of terror; the truth about Guantanamo, the truth about Iraq, Afghanistan, and Latin America.

Never has such truth telling been so urgently needed. With honorable exceptions, those in the media paid ostensibly to keep the record straight are now absorbed into a system of propaganda that is no longer journalism, but anti-journalism. This is true of the liberal and respectable as it is of Murdoch. Unless you are prepared to monitor and deconstruct every specious assertion, so-called news has become unwatchable and unreadable.

Reading The WikiLeaks Files, I remembered the words of the late Howard Zinn, who often referred to “a power that governments can’t suppress”.  That describes WikiLeaks, and it describes true whistleblowers that share their courage.

On a personal note, I have known the people of WikiLeaks for some time now. That they have achieved what they have in circumstances not of their choosing is a source of constant admiration. Their rescue of Edward Snowden comes to mind. Like him, they are heroic: nothing less.

Sarah Harrison’s chapter, ‘Indexing the Empire’, describes how she and her comrades set up an entire Public Library of US Diplomacy. There are more than two million documents, now available to all.  “Our work,” she writes, “is dedicated to making sure history belongs to everyone.”  How thrilling it is to read those words, which also stand as a tribute to her courage.

From the confinement of a room in the Ecuadorean embassy in London, the courage of Julian Assange is an eloquent response to the cowards who have smeared him and the rogue power seeking revenge on him and waging a war on democracy.

None of this has deterred Julian and his comrades at WikiLeaks: not one bit. Isn’t that something?

The post Emancipate Yourself From Mental Slavery! appeared first on PropagandaGuard.

Obama Tolerates the Warmongers

Exclusive: President Obama is caught between the harsh realities of the Mideast and the fantasy world of Washington’s warmongers, but he prefers to risk a global catastrophe than to stand up to the neocons, the liberal hawks, the Israelis and the Saudis, a dilemma that Daniel Lazare explains. By Daniel Lazare “Only odd-numbered world wars…

Giving Saudis a Pass on Yemen War

By supporting Saudi Arabia’s war on Yemen, the U.S. is again finding itself on the same side with Al Qaeda in a Mideast conflict, a troubling pattern driven by a compulsion to excuse actions by U.S. “allies” no matter how outrageous, as ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar explains. By Paul R. Pillar The killing earlier…

“Shaping The Narrative”- Propaganda in Disguise

Euphemistic Names For Propaganda

On June 30, 2015 Friends of the Earth released a report entitled “Spinning Food: How Food Industry Front Groups and Covert Communications Are Shaping The Story of Food. 

The organization, Friends of the earth, has done an incredible service identifying and highlighting front groups spreading propaganda in the food industry. Yes, this is propaganda and it can’t be covered over by sweet sounding modern euphemistic phrases like “shaping the story”, “defining the narrative”, “creative messaging”, “having a conversation” and “shaping public opinion”.

The use of front groups to spread these messages coincides with growing opposition on the net to decry food industry practices and standards. The food industry must find a way to counteract this competition before it has time to erode industry profits and reputation.

Just What Are Front Groups?

Front groups are simply organizations funded by industry giants set up to look like natural, organic organizations that are dispensing truth. They have deceptive sounding names that create an impression of neutrality and independence while hiding their ties to big industry. They can be used to target and attack the message of opposition groups allowing industry giants to stay above the fray and keep their hands clean.

Industry giants have been in the thrall of the propaganda spell ever since Big Tobacco’s smashing success misleading the public on the dangers of smoking.

100 Year Old Propaganda Trick

This hundred-year old tactic started by Edward Bernays, the father of modern day public relations (yet another euphemistic name for propaganda), is still little known and understood.

Around 1915, Bernays launched the Celiac Project, touting the benefits of bananas for celiac sufferers -without revealing that its sole funder was the United Fruit Company, the biggest banana producer and importer in the country.

The Celiac Project is the front group that is used to promote banana consumption in a way that seems neutral and very natural.

It takes a lot of money to erect what amounts to elaborate façades of support for industry sentiments.

As the report says, “A particular segment of the food industry-we refer to it here as the industrial food and agriculture sector, including biotech, agrochemical, pharmaceutical, and agribusiness companies, as well as industrial livestock producers- is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to manipulate the public conversation about our food. “

If you have a million dollar budget today in America, you can easily confuse, mislead and misdirect the public by creating multiple front groups.

Top Front Groups In The Food Industry

Here is a chart of top front groups in the food industry as identified by Friends of Earth

By the way, the food industry is just one of many big players doing the exact same thing, extinguishing truth wherever they find it and creating alternative realities instead. No wonder they prefer to call it “shaping the narrative”. CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE

The post “Shaping The Narrative”- Propaganda in Disguise appeared first on PropagandaGuard.

Should US Ally with Al Qaeda in Syria?

Exclusive: The new U.S. “group think” is that Russian President Putin broke his promise to attack only the Islamic State when his warplanes hit other rebel targets in Syria. But Putin never limited which terrorists he’d hit and the targeted rebel coalition includes Al Qaeda’s affiliate, as Robert Parry reports. By Robert Parry The key sentence in…

Selling Access to Pope Francis

As much as Pope Francis criticized hyper-capitalism’s cruelty to the poor and the middle class, it was business as usual for the Catholic Church bureaucracy, selling access to the Pope’s events with front-row seats going to well-heeled benefactors, notes Michael Winship. By Michael Winship Many of you know the words: “And again I say unto you, it…