You know, I've often wondered how exactly it was that Oliver North, Elliott Abrams, and the rest of those dudes went from being convicted felons to folk heros with their own television shows and new bigger administration jobs, seemingly overnight.
All of which wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't that all public awareness of their crimes just vanished in the fog, I mean right-wing nut jobs can worship who they want, right?
So anyway, I just ran across this article which outlines the birth of the public-private propaganda machine which has been so effective in it's efforts to make sure that the American people are the least well-informed citizens of any country on the planet.
The propaganda machine was developed during the Reagan administration to help Americans get their minds right.
There was a chapter in the final report from the Congressional Iran-Contra Investigation which shed some light on the mess, but committee Repugs squashed the that chapter in it's final publication.
From the Iran-Contra Investigation's final report:
"...One of the CIA’s most senior covert action operators was sent to the NSC in 1983 by CIA Director [William] Casey where he participated in the creation of an inter-agency public diplomacy mechanism that included the use of seasoned intelligence specialists,” the chapter’s conclusion stated.
“This public/private network set out to accomplish what a covert CIA operation in a foreign country might attempt – to sway the media, the Congress, and American public opinion in the direction of the Reagan administration’s policies.”
From the article:
"...However, with the chapter’s key findings deleted, the right-wing domestic propaganda operation not only survived the Iran-Contra fallout but thrived.
So did some of the administration’s collaborators, such as South Korean theocrat Sun Myung Moon and Australian press mogul Rupert Murdoch, two far-right media barons who poured billions of dollars into pro-Republican news outlets that continue to influence Washington’s political debates to this day.
Before every presidential election, Moon’s Washington Times plants derogatory – and often false – stories about Democratic contenders, discrediting them and damaging their chances of winning the White House.
For instance, in 1988, the Times published a bogus account suggesting that the Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis had undergone psychiatric treatment. In 2000, Moon’s newspaper pushed the theme that Al Gore suffered from clinical delusions. [For details, see Robert Parry’s Secrecy & Privilege.]
As for Murdoch, his giant News Corp. expanded into American cable TV with the founding of Fox News in 1996. Since then, the right-wing network has proved highly effective in promoting attack lines against Democrats or anyone else who challenges the Republican power structure.
As President George W. Bush herded the nation toward war with Iraq in 2002-03, Fox News acted like his sheep dogs making sure public opinion didn’t stray too far off. The “Fox effect” was so powerful that it convinced other networks to load up with pro-war military analysts and to silence voices that questioned the invasion...."
W4B:
So, the American people have been fed a never-ending diet of right-wing batshit by the likes of the Right Rev. Sun Myung Moon, and Rupurt Murdoch under the guidance of our shadow government, and the result is half of us think we can be totally sure of anything that's on Faux News, and the rest of us aren't quite sure of anything anymore.
