We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Sunday, March 26, 2017

How US Flooded the World with Psyops

Click here to access article by Robert Parry from ConsortiumNews. (Editing for clarity at 5 PM Seattle time.)
Newly declassified documents from the Reagan presidential library help explain how the U.S. government developed its sophisticated psychological operations capabilities that – over the past three decades – have created an alternative reality both for people in targeted countries and for American citizens, a structure that expanded U.S. influence abroad and quieted dissent at home.
This article represents an excellent piece of investigative journalism from a journalist who has already achieved renown as a genuine independent journalist. He is an example of someone who must be a part of a citizen-funded independent alternative media organization that I suggested in a piece entitled "Some observations and solutions about the contemporary class war being waged (on us) by our capitalist ruling class". 

After studying government documents he received under FOIA, Parry reports on many systemic attempts in the 1980s to influence world opinion, both within the US and abroad, to support the many crimes committed by the capitalist directors of the US-led Empire. Propaganda and psyop programs were set up, some privately funded with close collaboration by hidden figures behind the facade of government, to insure that their crimes were hidden under a media barrage of fake "humanitarian" and "democratic" themes. It is clear from the current onslaught of anti-Putin and anti-Russian stories that are inflicted upon us daily that these programs have only gotten bigger. From my observations, corporate media, including the government chartered NPR and PBS, are almost exclusively publishing fake stories and censoring out real reports of any topic that is politically sensitive.