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...information by a government as to confuse another nation's intelligence operations." Religion, on the other hand, would appear to have been the inventor of the technique and the perfecter of its practice.
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First, let us consider the political sources. Most prominently we have governmental agencies and officials. As one might expect, we have the disinformation churned out by the Department of Defense, the White House, press secretaries for everyone important enough to have one, and the ubiquitous but ever unlocatable sources from which 'leaks' emerge. The disinformation emerging from this source these days differs from the dictionary definition in a frightening way: instead of being confected to confuse the intelligence operations of another country, the new political disinformation is designed to confuse and confound the intelligence of the American public. The other countries already know what is going on; only the voting American public must not know the truth.
Political organizations also produce disinformation--the Communists, Fascists, Republicans, and Democrats all engage in disinformation to varying degrees. So-called think-tanks such as the Heritage Foundation and the Discovery Institute with its Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture have become extremely adroit in the art of deception.
Foreign lobbies also figure prominently as sources of political disinformation. The Israeli lobby is without question the most effective of all political sources of disinformation. No American medium dares to challenge or question the Zionist spin on news from the Near East. Israel's ethnic cleansing is never portrayed as the racist reality that it is, no matter how blatant or outrageous that nation's actions might be. The Vatican lobby too is immensely effective in shaping America's foreign policy concerning population control and has been shockingly powerful in shutting down America's research on stem cells, cloning, and population control. The Vatican lobby, of all the sources I shall discuss today, may be the most serious threat to our own health and well-being. It is time for us to abolish the post of American Ambassador to the Vatican and withdraw our recognition of the Vatican as a sovereign state. It is the headquarters of a multinational business--an international ignorance industry, not a sovereign nation. If the Vatican is to retain its status as a nation, then all its cardinals, bishops, and priests should be forced to register as foreign agents and surrender their U.S. citizenship.
Advertising-Driven Corporate Media
The main problem with the media today is not that they are 'liberal' or 'conservative' or even 'right-wing.' The problem is that most of the media are owned by large corporations (including churches, as with the Mormon church in the mountain states) or are themselves large corporations. Their owners or ultimate controllers are so closely allied to government and religion that the media no longer can be considered to be an independent 'Fourth Estate.' The framers of the First Amendment provided for freedom of the press, intending that this would allow for further checks and balances of power--the press constituting a so-called Fourth Estate that would be a counterweight to the three constitutional branches of government.
Unfortunately, this no longer is an actuality. The media have gone from depending upon subscribers to depending upon advertisers for financial support. Indeed, in the case of the broadcast media, it is almost impossible to imagine how this can be otherwise. Those of you who value your FM classical music stations know how hard it is to keep advertising-free stations on the air. You also may have the feeling that the only radio worth hearing is listener-supported. The rest of radio is a wasteland of which I shall say more shortly.
As a result of the shift from dependence on subscribers to dependence on advertisers, the major pressure felt by the media comes not from the public but from the economic imperatives of their advertisers. Advertisers, ultimately, are the ones who will determine what news will be reported--as well as the reportorial tone to be employed.
Advertisers don't want controversy. They need uncritical consumers, and of course they don't want information critical of their products. Advertisers pay (1) for news that is favorable to the politicians who give them their tax breaks and ease controls on their industrial operations and (2) for news supportive of religion and 'morality.'
If you are managing a print or broadcast medium, you must consider if a given piece of news will be considered controversial by your advertisers. You don't want to offend the sources of your paycheck. Broadcast or print what your advertisers are paying you to publish. Let's see if we can do a puff piece about politicians who are involved in the subversion of the EPA or research on global warming and its connections to industrial exhaust gases--without giving a hint of their complicity in this...
NOTE: All illustrations and photos
have been removed from this article.
More articles from American Atheist Magazine
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Why I am not a Hindu., June 22, 2004
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