GOVERNMENT PROPAGANDA MILLS

You probably do not know that the Bush administration "invested" about a billion dollars(that's with a 'b')of your tax money on private public relations firms to help sell the war in Iraq. If that does not bother you, no need to read the rest of this article. If it does trouble you even a little, take a few moments at least to consider what it all means.

I should say there have been times during major conflicts like World Wars I and II when heavy duty government efforts were necessary to engage all Americans to support our troops, to help finance our efforts by buying bonds, help collect all sorts of materials that cold be recycled and, among other things, generally to maintain citizen morale through difficult times. Those were times when the entire nation was engaged and pretty much respected because we were all in the same boat, so to speak.

During World War II, as the result of outstanding public relations programs, Americans came up with a reported $187 Billion to help finance our efforts as millions of our men and women were engaged with our allies against the Axis powers. Such efforts succeeded in getting people to collect and turn in massive amounts of precious metals and other materials to be reused for critical war items.

Some of our most famous entertainers would take huge chunks of time to travel to dangerous theaters of war to entertain the troops. In Los Angeles, the entertainment world helped set up what was called the Hollywood Canteen where movie stars and others worked to make the demands on servicemen and women a little easier.

Even Abraham Lincoln used special representation during the Civil War(or the War Between The States, depending on your orientation)to help enhance out standing with major powers like France and England and the clergy in those places because they also represented important financial help down the line.

But nothing comes close to the methods employed in the last several years to sell a war thought to have been based on the discovery of Weapons of Mass Destruction and later declared to have been a "mission accomplished" yet remains in full force, longer than the conflict that engulfed the United States in World War II.

The length and breadth of such activities will require more than one blog to tell the entire story, so this will be an introductory blog in the hope of getting readers at least to ask questions of government, whether Democratic or Republican, liberal or conservative or anything else when it seems the message is more a commercial than necessary explanation of what is being done in the name of American citizens.

Just as culpable in this situation often are major journalistic organizations who fail to dig deeply information, often to avoid endangering key sources for stories .
For example, media mogul Ruper Murdoch, in a Tokyo press conference a couple of years ago was quoted as saying the several thousand Americans killed in Iraq were a "minute amount", meaning a relatively few. Had such a quote reached the editorial desks of American newspapers, it might have sparked a massive reaction. That it did not might be a reflection both of the huge control of broadcast and print media around the world Murdoch exerts or the work of private PR outfits retained by the government to control such news. Whatever the reasons, it's doubtful you ever read or heard of it.

In the next blog, we will take a look both at how firms were specifically retained and how disinformation was used. We will quote from reports of the Government Accountability Office and other sources.

Underlying all of this is the unfortunate reality of an apathetic public willing simply accept what is dealt out by the government and professional public relations firms with hundreds of millions of your dollars dangled quite legally in what are called Requests for Proposals that would be virtually impossible to avoid.

Stay tuned. And if you agree or disagree about what you have read or will read next time, do not hesitate to send it our way.

Your turn.

joe