On today’s show 1/23/2010 I’ll be bring up some interesting clips I’ve found lately. The first is this clip claiming Representative Oscar Callaway said J.P. Morgan had hired 12 high ranking news managers who determined which 25 news papers would be necessary to purchase in order to control the media.
This sounds like an odd claim. I was planning on going to a law library to dig through the Congressional record myself, but then I found this. On the New York Times own web site they have a news archive of an article published February 14, 1917.
FOR PRESS INVESTIGATION
Moore Asks Inquiry Into Charges
on Preparedness Campaign.
Special to The New York Times
WASHINGTON, Feb. 13.–A demand for an investigation of charges printed in the Congressional Record by Representative Oscar Callaway of Texas, a pacifist Democrat, that “the J.P. Morgan interests, the steel shipbuilding, and powder interests” had purchased control of twenty-five great newspapers to further the preparedness campaign, was made in the House today by Representative J. Hampton Moore, a Pennsylvania Republican. Mr. Moore said Mr. Callaway had obtained unanimous consent to extend his remarks in The Record, and his charges had not been read on the floor, “but buried in The Record.”
“I question whether a single newspapers in the United States has taken cognizance of the remarks of the gentleman from Texas,” said Mr. Moore.
“I believe they constitute a matter of high privilege.”
He said that unless some Democrat introduced a resolution to investigate the truth of the charges he would offer such a resolution.
Following the Moore speech Congressman Callaway told interviews that he could produce proof of his charges, and said Representative Tavenner of Illinois would offer immediately a resolution for an investigation of alleged inspired newspaper articles in behalf of preparedness and participation in the European war.
Mr. Callawa’s speech, as inserted in The Record charged:
“In March, 1915, the J.P. Morgan interests, the steel, shipbuilding and powder interests, and their subsidiary organizations got together twelve men high up in the newspaper world and employed them to select from the most influential papers in the United States in sufficient numbers of them to control generally the policy of the daily press of the United States.
These twelve men worked the problem out by selecting 179 newspapers and then began, by an elimination process, to retain only those necessary for the purpose of controlling the general policy of the daily press throughout the country. They found it was only necessary to purchase the control of twenty-five of the greatest newspapers. The twenty-five papers where agreed upon; emissaries were sent to purchase the policy, national and international, of these papers; an agreement was reached, the policy of the papers was bought, to be paid for by the month; and editor was furnished for each paper to properly supervise and edit information regarding the questions of preparedness, militarism, financial policies and other things of national and international nature considered vital to the interests of the purchasers.
“The contract is in existence at the present time and it accounts for the news columns of the daily press of the country being filled with all sorts of preparedness arguments and misrepresentations as to the present condition of the United States being attacked by foreign foes.
“The policy also included the suppression of everything in opposition to the wishes of the interests served. The effectiveness of this scheme has been conclusively demonstrated by the character of the stuff carried in the daily press throughout the country since March 1913.
“They have resorted to anything necessary to commercialize public sentiment and sandbag the national Congress into making extravagant and wasteful appropriations for the army and navy under the false pretense that it was necessary. Their stock argument is ‘patriotism.’ They are playing on every prejudice and passion of the American people.”
Mr. Slayden asked Mr. Moore what he construed the world “sandbag” to mean.
“It means to drive Congress into a corner and make them believe we are in state of war now,” said Mr. Moore. He quoted an advertisement, signed by the American Rights League, which began:
“To the American people: Germany is at war with the United States. The repudiation of past pledges and the threat to destroy our ships and citizens constitutes a virtual declaration of war.
It is no longer a question of whether there shall be war with Germany. There is war with Germany.”
Mr. Moore said that among the signers of the advertisement were Dr. Lyman Abbott and the Reverend Randolph H. McKim, pastor of the Church of the Epiphany of this city, and went on to criticize the latter for his actions as a minister of the gospel. Mr. Moore then proceeded to declare his own neutrality.
“I am neither pro-German, as some of the papers have recently insisted, nor pro-Ally,” he said. “I am, as this Congress ought to be, pro-American and nothing else.”
Edward Bernays wrote U.S. War propaganda for WWI. He was on the Committee for Public Information or CPI. Bernays never wrote I did this or I did that. Instead he referred to what someone could do, when referencing something he had actually done. Bernays would also refer to the “intelligent minority” — a group Bernays apparently believed he was a member of.
PROPAGANDA
(2005 reprint of the 1928 book)
Page 53-54
Propaganda does exist on all sides of us, and it does change our mental pictures of the world. Even if this be unduly pessimistic—and that remains to be proved—the opinion reflects a tendency that is undoubtedly real. In fact, its use is growing as its efficiency in gaining public support is recognized.
This then, evidently indicates the fact that anyone with sufficient influence can lead sections of the public at least for a time and for a given purpose. Formerly the rulers were the leaders. They laid out the course of history, by the simple process of doing what they wanted. And if nowadays the successors of the rulers, those whose position or ability gives them power, can no longer do what they want without the approval of the masses, they find in propaganda a tool which is increasingly powerful in gaining that approval. Therefore, propaganda is here to stay.
It was, of course, the astounding success of propaganda [written by Edward Bernays and Walter Lippmann] during the war [WWI] that opened the eyes of the intelligent few in all departments of life to the possibility of regimenting the public mind. The American government and numerous patriotic agencies developed a technique which to most persons accustomed to bidding for public acceptance, was new. They not only appealed to the individual by means of every approach—visual, graphic, and auditory—to support the national endeavor, but they [including Bernays and Lippmann] also secured the cooperation of the key men in every group—persons whose mere word carried authority to hundreds or thousands or hundreds of thousands of followers. They thus automatically gained the support of fraternal, religious, commercial, patriotic, social, and local groups whose members took their opinions from their accustomed leaders and spokesmen, or from the periodical publications which they were accustomed to read and believe. At the same time, the manipulators of patriotic opinion made use of the mental clichés and the emotional habits of the public to produce mass reactions against the alleged atrocities, the terror, and the tyranny of the enemy. It was only natural, after the war ended, that intelligent persons should ask themselves whether it was possible to apply a similar technique to the problems of peace.
It should be noted Edward Bernays got a lot of his ideas from Walter Lippmann who wrote the 1922 book “Public Opinion.” If you really want to shake up your reality, read Walter Lippmann’s book “Public Opinion.”
Let’s get back to the CFR.
One thing the above video is wrong about is Dick Cheney severed as a director of the Council on Foreign Relations two times according to the Council on Foreign Relations own web site:
Richard B. Cheney 1987-89, 1993-95
So we have talked about media control, and the CFR — I would now like to bring up one news source that I really can’t stand and that is NPR. I used to think they were great, but once I started looking at news that comes from outside the US, and even alternative news sources like CounterPunch.org, DemocracyNow.org, and TheRealNews.com, I realized just how bad NPR sucks. (Check out the news feeds I have posted.)
I believe this might explain why. Check out this Google search on NPR’s web site:
As of today NPR has 657 references to the Council of Foreign Relations. It says right on their web site foreign correspondent Deborah Amos is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
With all this in mind, was Aaron Russo telling the truth? Russo claimed Nickolas Rockefeller told him the CFR’s goal was to establish a global government and track everyone with an RFID chip.
The BBC program called TimeWatch had three episodes that aired in the early 1990’s on something called Operation Gladio. This program is being touted as essential to understand false flag operations.
In Robert Newman’s History of Oil, he claims WWI was actually the first war for oil.
Edward Bernays and Walter Lippmann both wrote US war propaganda for WWI. In Bernays book “Propaganda” he mentions the “Invisible Governors” or “Invisible Wire Pullers” 16 times.
For an interesting perspective on Edward Bernays, see the BBC four part documentary Century of Self. I don’t agree Freud was Edward Bernays greatest inspiration as the film claims. Read Propaganda and Walter Lippmann’s Public Opinion. I believe you will see were Bernays got his ideas from.
I was recently lucky enough to stumble across a PDF copy of Carroll Quigley’sTragedy and Hope. While browsing through I came across an interesting statement:
Page 77-78
When the business interests, led by William C. Whitney, pushed through the first installment of civil service reform in 1883, they expected that they would be able to control both political parties equally. Indeed, some of them intended to contribute to both and to allow an alternation of the two parties in public office in order to conceal their own influence, inhibit any exhibition of independence by politicians, and allow the electorate to believe that they were exercising their own free choice. Such an alternation of the parties on the Federal scene occurred in the period 1880-1896, with business influence (or at least Morgan’s influence) as great in Democratic as in Republican administrations. But in 1896 came a shocking experience. The business interests discovered that they could control the Republican Party to a large degree but could not be nearly so confident of controlling the Democratic Party. The reason for this difference lay in the existence of the Solid South as a Democratic section with almost no Republican voters. This section sent delegates to the Republican National Convention as did the rest of the country, but, since these delegates did not represent voters, they came to represent those who were prepared to pay their expenses to the Republican National Convention. this way these delegates came to represent the business interests of the North, whose money they accepted. Mark Hanna has told us in detail how he spent much of the winter of 1895-1896 in Georgia buying over two hundred delegates for McKinley to the Republican National Convention of 1896. As a result of this system, about a quarter of the votes in a Republican Convention were “controlled” votes from the Solid South, not representing the electorate . After the split in the Republican Party in 1912, this portion of the delegates was reduced to about 17 percent.
A similar claim was made by Edward Bernays in his book Propaganda:
Page 60-61
But it is well known that many of these leaders are themselves led, sometimes by persons whose names are known to few. Many a congressman, in framing his platform, follows the suggestions of a district boss whom few persons outside the political machine have ever heard of. Eloquent divines may have great influence in their communities, but often take their doctrine from a higher ecclesiastical authority. The president of chambers of commerce mold the thought of local business men concerning public issues, but the opinions which they promulgate are usually derived from some national authority. A presidential candidate may be “drafted” in response to “overwhelming popular demand,” but it is well known that his name may be decided upon by half a dozen men sitting around a table in a hotel room.
In some instances the power of invisible wire-pullers is flagrant. The power of the invisible cabinet which deliberated at the poker table in a certain little green house in Washington has become a national legend. There was a period in which the major policies of the national government were decided by a single man, Mark Hanna. A Simmons may, for a few years, succeed in marshaling millions of men on a platform of intolerance and violence.
Have U.S. elections improved? From the looks of things, the answer is “No.”
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Today’s show will be a simple one. I will be playing an excerpt from the BBC program Century of Self. To see the full film click on Century of Self.
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