propaganda

Drawing on the concept of the "Four Estates" of Republican France, it has been popular to call the press the "Fourth Estate," a non-governmental entity whose independence made it one of the pillars which supported liberty, and an important check on the power of government. In a free press the people had a way to express their concerns about government and a relatively unbiased advocate for truth independent of the self-serving assertions of political parties and leaders. In America that great tradition of a free press which truly stood out as a Fourth Estate began with the publication of Publick Occurances in 1690 and lasted for over 300 years before dying with a whimper this Wednesday at the hands of ABC News.

On Wednesday the 24th of June ABC will give over most of its programming schedule to custom programming, much of it direct from the White House, dedicated to promoting and publicizing the Obama administration's multi-trillion dollar healthcare plan. This programming will begin first thing in the morning with a Good Morning America interview with the president and continue throughout the day's newscasts, culminating in a primetime special touting the benefits of government run healthcare. The network has been given unprecedented access to the White House, where it has even been encouraged to set up an office in the East Wing. ABC and the White House are collaborating on the content of the special, few opposing voices or alternative plans will be heard, and they are refusing any advertising from groups advocating patients rights or opposing socialized medicine.

Just a few years ago Democrats were crying foul and demanding investigations when the Department of Education sent out a few Video News Releases to promote the No Child Left Behind Program, yet now they are willing to do the same thing on a much larger scale when it is their program which is being promoted. At a time when Democrats are talking about reinstituting the Fairness Doctrine and demanding a balance to right wing talk radio, turning over an entire network to government propaganda seems particularly hypocritical.

The left has long derided the right for complaining about media bias, insisting that the corporate nature of the media automatically biases it to the right, but here we see a corporate media giant deliberately whoring itself to become the propaganda outlet for a left-wing administration, and there is no question where ABC's loyalties lie. ABC News employees overwhelmingly supported Obama in the last election, donating 80 times as much to his campaign as they did to John McCain. In addition, a study by the Media Research Center shows ABC giving a disproportionate amount of coverage to the Obama healthcare plan compared to other health care options by a 3 to 1 margin.

The Obama administration has made state-corporatism a cornerstone of its economic plans, taking over businesses, forcing them into bankruptcy and handing out the spoils to their cronies and allies. But at least in the financial and auto industries there was some effort to resist, and many of those companies are still trying to buy back their freedom. What ABC is doing is many times worse, because they are volunteering willingly for a government takeover, offering themselves up as propagandists without considering the consequences. Perhaps they see a future where the state controls all media and they want to get in on the ground floor and have a favored status, but that just makes them like the slave who turns in the runaways hiding in the barn to the slave-catchers. He may get more scraps from the master's table but he's still a slave and he's also a traitor.

Journalists used to believe that they had a responsibility to keep politicians honest and hold their feet to the fire. Woodward and Bernstein didn't go to Nixon looking for ways they could help him promote his pet projects. When the press becomes nothing more than another arm of government, promoting the party line and dishing out propaganda, the people have lost one more essential safeguard of their liberty. ABC has decided to leave integrity and objectivity behind and become nothing more than shills for an ideology and a style of government which they believe in. Whether you support socialized medicine or not, this trend in the media should scare you. It's the death of the independent press and the beginning of state-run media. I halfway expect to hear the strains of "Moscow Nights" over the credits on ABC as I did on every radio or television newscast when I lived in the Soviet Union formally confirming that the media has gone from watchdog to lapdog.

Join me and many others in boycotting ABC, starting on Thursday and continuing through their summer line-up of very little but tawdry reality shows. You won't be missing much and you might be striking a blow for freedom. Though it's entirely possible that if we manage to dry up their advertising revenue they'll just get bailed out and taken over completely by the government.

This week you can probably expect a big push in the media for the cynically misnamed Employee Free Choice Act (Card Check), which I've written on before. One element of that push which will be getting coverage is an article by Seth Michaels on the AFL-CIO Now blog which heralds the fact that:

"A coalition of major investors who oversee more than $750 billion in assets is joining the fight for workers’ freedom to form unions by asking major corporations what they’re doing to protect and enhance the ability of workers to form unions."

Wow, that sounds pretty serious. That's a lot of investment money. It must mean that stockholders and important players on Wall Street are really concerned about making sure that unions can bully workers into joining by taking away their right to a secret ballot.

In fact, stockholders and major investment groups have not actually taken leave of their senses and decided it would be great to further burden businesses with rapacious union interference in our current harsh economy. What you actually have here is a classic example of how propagandists can use legtimate seeming sources to support their positions and create the impression of a popular movement or widespread support where it does not actually exist.

In the article there is a link to a press release from Domini Social Investments which further heralds this letter which has been sent to various Fortune 100 companies in support of EFCA by a group of "major institutional investors" controlling $757 billion in assets.

The effort here is to create an impression of widespread support in the financial community for Card Check. The core deception in this propaganda effort is that the letter is actually signed by a very limited group dominated by investors controlled by or closely associated with the unions promoting the legislation. The major signers on the letter are actually mostly international union pension funds or organizations representing union pension fund managers. Also signing the letter are a variety of specialty investment groups which invest in "socially responsible" businesses (unionized businesses), but they control only a small fraction of that $757 billion in assets and they are on the list mainly as a smokescreen for the union-controlled investment groups who hold the vast majority of the assets referred to.

In fact, the top signer on the list and the one with the largest assets is the AFL-CIO Employees Staff Retirement Fund, so the AFL-CIO is using their blog to promote this letter from "a coalition of major investors" without bothering to point out that they themselves are the major investors in question. Everything in the article is true as written, but the appearance that the unions have found major allies in the investment community for Card Check is entirely deceptive. The progressive angels of Wall Street who have joined them in their fight turn out just to be the unions themselves in a not very clever disguise.

What's more, the letter itself is hardly the clarion cry for EFCA which the AFL-CIO would have you believe. The letter actually makes an effort to look like it originates with the UNPRI a United Nations labor practices workgroup. The letter also does not actually endorse EFCA in any way as the AFL-CIO website suggests, but actually just solicits companies for their input on various labor issues. The letter says clearly:

"Please note that, although individual investors represented in this letter may have taken a view on the legislation, the group as a whole has itself not formulated an official position."

In reality the UNPRI and perhaps even many of the signers on the letter don't actually support Card Check at all. The letter also describes what policy towards unions and workers rights ought to be:

“The freedom to form or join a union of one’s choice or not, and to bargain collectively for the terms of one’s employment, are fundamental human rights that we as global investors recognize and respect.”

Who could disagree with that statement? It's broad enough that almost anyone would sign off on it, and would apply to the position of those who oppose the EFCA as well as those who support it. In fact, the main argument against Card Check is that it limits worker freedom to join unions by taking away the secret ballot which protects their free choice. So it could very well be that many of the signatories oppose the EFCA and it's certainly true that the group as a whole has not take a position on it and the letter is not an endorsement of it.

The letter actually seems to originate with a company called Boston Common Asset Management which like many of those signing the letter is a strange amalgem of investment firm and advocacy group. They're a worker owned collective which manages "socially responsible" investments, but seems to devote more of their time to lobbying for and promoting various left-wing causes. This business model raises all sorts of questions, like where they get the money to fund their advocacy work and how much of their customer base and revenue comes from union sources. Adding to my suspicions is that what appears to be the draft version of a similar letter to selected congressmen clearly originated on the AFL-CIO site, suggesting that these letters are being written by the union and passed on to these other groups for publication. Further research may turn up more evidence, but looking at the websites of these "social investing" groups I find it hard to believe that they could attract a great deal of money from legitimate private investors. My suspicious nature makes me wonder whether any of the groups signing the letter represent anyone other than domestic and international union interests.

What this example shows us is that when you have enough money and resources you can effectively generate your own news. Your shills issue a letter, you then hail that letter in your own publicity as a newsworthy event, you misrepresent it to make it seem more significant than it is, and then with any luck the compliant media picks up on it. With the letter released on Thursday, we'll see if that happens this coming week.

Meanwhile, in contrast with the score of shills advocating Card Check in this letter, 3100 businesses have sent their own letter to Congress opposing the passage of EFCA.

I'm usually pretty dismissive of conspiracy theorists, not being one of the those "black helicopter" Republicans thinking every meeting of the Council of Foreign Relations is a dangerous cabal.

But, sometimes people simply start getting out of hand. You know, the ol "slippery slope" idea.

Which is why I was a little unnerved by this article in Time magazine

How Obama Is Using The Science of Change

Two weeks before Election Day, Barack Obama's campaign was mobilizing millions of supporters; it was a bit late to start rewriting get-out-the-vote (GOTV) scripts. "BUT, BUT, BUT," deputy field director Mike Moffo wrote to Obama's GOTV operatives nationwide, "What if I told you a world-famous team of genius scientists, psychologists and economists wrote down the best techniques for GOTV scripting?!?! Would you be interested in at least taking a look? Of course you would!!"

Moffo then passed along guidelines and a sample script from the Consortium of Behavioral Scientists, a secret advisory group of 29 of the nation's leading behaviorists. The key guideline was a simple message: "A Record Turnout Is Expected." ..

The existence of this behavioral dream team — which also included best-selling authors Dan Ariely of MIT (Predictably Irrational) and Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein of the University of Chicago (Nudge) as well as Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman of Princeton — has never been publicly disclosed,......

President Obama is still relying on behavioral science. But now his Administration is using it to try to transform the country.

Stop me for a second. Does the name "George Orwell" spring to mind?

Read the whole article. I want you to reflect then on the utter arrogance that pervades the concept that the American public are in need of what amount to behavior modification, not appeals to rational self-interest or national self-interest.  And that the answers to what is best for Americans are already known to the Obama administration.  Therefore, we must be conditioned to accept the pre-ordained answers.

Democracy. Who needs it. The voters might make mistakes. We'll deprogram them

  But Obama is no therapist changing individuals one at a time. He's an organizer trying to build community and inspire collective action through house parties and Facebook as well as rhetoric about shared values. In other words, he's trying to create social norms — behavioral change's killer app....

The research proves change can come about when it's easy and popular, but making it lucrative — or even mandatory — can make sure it happens.

Hmm, wasn't that why we got rid of King George III?

Now I acknowledge governments here and elesewhere have used pretty subtle and pervasive means to foster their agenda. But generally campaigns against drunk driving and for racial tolerance are means to promote already agreed upon social policies. Same with appeals to patriotism to bolster domestic support for a nation's foreign policy.

 What the Obama people here are seeking to do is a quantum leap forward and away from the concepts of individual liberty and representative government.  There's no political consensus on fixing entitlements or heath care or the energy system. And by seeking to impose social conformity on the "appropriate options", the Obama camp seeks to subvert the need to obtain the consent of the governed.   No wonder they've kept it all secret.

Time identifies this problem, and then adopts an "ends justify the means" defense.

  The idea of public officials, even well-meaning ones, trying to engineer our private behavior to produce change can seem a bit creepy.

But face it: Obama is right. Our emissions are boiling the planet, and most of our energy use is unnecessary. Our health expenditures are bankrupting the Treasury, and most of our visits to the doctor can be traced to unhealthy behavior. We do need to change, and we know it.

  So much for debating what we ought to do.  Just follow what "The One" has decided is best.

I'm slightly familiar with the science of behavior modification, having a son who is on the autistic spectrum.  It's ironic that concepts like Applied Behavior Analysis are used to help children with an expressive disorder properly communicate their wants and needs.

The Obama Behavior Modification agenda is designed to prevent typical adults from communicating their needs and wants; since more and more choices will be taken away from us and replaced with a government approved "default option", and tremendous peer pressure brought to bear against those with undesirable nonconformist choices.

Now, if this didn't leave you a little queasy, I refer one to Hot Air, and Ed Morrissey's fear that the Internet will now be legally subject to appropriation by the administration. 

The bill addresses the need to protect vital networks from cyber attack, but it gives a lot of power to the executive branch — perhaps too much power.

 I don;t know if the  Cybersecurity Act of 2009, S.773 would provide unfettered power to the Obama Administration to shut down the Internet. Morrissey suggests the bigger problem is   "that the bill essentially repeals the Fourth Amendment." 

If the Obama Administration wanted to quell some ad hoc "tea party" national civil protest movement, certaintly screwing with the World Wide Web would be one way to do it. That is how it is done in China, isn't it.

Again, I'm not big on conspiracy theories. But putting these two things in juxtaposition also doesn't leave me with warm feelings about the good intentions of the current administration. This keeps up, this RINO may go libertarian yet.

===Update===

While I was thinking about this, I realized that there had been a behavioral scientist who had written extensively on topics related to human choice.

Burrhus Frederic Skinner (March 20, 1904 – August 18, 1990) was an American psychologist, author, inventor, advocate for social reform,[1][2]and poet.[3] He was the Edgar Pierce Professor of Psychology at Harvard University from 1958 until his retirement in 1974.[4] He invented the operant conditioning chamber, innovated his own philosophy of science called Radical Behaviorism,[5] and founded his own school of experimental research psychology—the experimental analysis of behavior. His analysis of human behavior culminated in his work Verbal Behavior, which has recently seen enormous increase in interest experimentally and in applied settings.[6] He discovered and advanced the rate of response as a dependent variable in psychological research. He invented the cumulative recorder to measure rate of responding as part of his highly influential work on schedules of reinforcement.[7] [8] In a recent survey, Skinner was listed as the most influential psychologist of the 20th century.[9] He was a prolific author who published 21 books and 180 articles.[10] [11]

OK, so why does this matter that Skinner is the major influence on contemporary behavior sciences. Well, what did he have to say about permitting individuals make decisions?

This was his little dissertation of applying behaviorism to society.

Beyond Freedom and Dignity is a book written by American psychologist B. F. Skinner and first published in 1971. The book argues that entrenched belief in free will and the moral autonomy of the individual (which Skinner referred to as "dignity") hinders the prospect of using scientific methods to modify behavior for the purpose of building a happier and better organized society.

Beyond Freedom and Dignity may be summarized as an attempt to promote Skinner's philosophy of science, the technology of human behavior, his conception of determinism, and what Skinner calls 'cultural engineering'.

"Almost all major problems involve human behavior, and they cannot be solved by physical and biological technology alone. What is needed is a technology of human behavior. 

Skiiner wrote another book Walden Two, "an earlier novel in which Skinner depicted a utopian community based on his ideas regarding behavior modification. In Beyond Freedom and Dignity Skinner extends his argument for explicit cultural engineering of which Walden Two may be seen as an example."

Accordingly to Wikipedia, Noah Chomsky took a big swipe at Skinner's efforts to apply behavioral psychology to societal reform.  I'm not sure I'm accustomed to having him as an ally, but when a hard lefty like him and a RINO like me are going libertarian, well, hmmmm

I'm usually pretty dismissive of conspiracy theorsts, not being one of the those "black helicopter" Republicans thinking every meeting of the Council of Foreign Relations is a dangerous cabal.

But, sometimes people simply start getting out of hand. You know, the ol "slippery slope" idea.

Which is why I was a little unnerved by this article in Time magazine

How Obama Is Using The Science of Change

Two weeks before Election Day, Barack Obama's campaign was mobilizing millions of supporters; it was a bit late to start rewriting get-out-the-vote (GOTV) scripts. "BUT, BUT, BUT," deputy field director Mike Moffo wrote to Obama's GOTV operatives nationwide, "What if I told you a world-famous team of genius scientists, psychologists and economists wrote down the best techniques for GOTV scripting?!?! Would you be interested in at least taking a look? Of course you would!!"

Moffo then passed along guidelines and a sample script from the Consortium of Behavioral Scientists, a secret advisory group of 29 of the nation's leading behaviorists. The key guideline was a simple message: "A Record Turnout Is Expected." ..

The existence of this behavioral dream team — which also included best-selling authors Dan Ariely of MIT (Predictably Irrational) and Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein of the University of Chicago (Nudge) as well as Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman of Princeton — has never been publicly disclosed,......

President Obama is still relying on behavioral science. But now his Administration is using it to try to transform the country.

Stop me for a second. Does the name "George Orwell" spring to mind?

Read the whole article. I want you to reflect then on the utter arrogance that pervades the concept that the American public are in need of what amount to behavior modification, not appeals to rational self-interest or national self-interest.  And that the answers to what is best for Americans are already known to the Obama administration.  Therefore, we must be conditioned to accept the pre-ordained answers.

Democracy. Who needs it. The voters might make mistakes. We'll deprogram them

  But Obama is no therapist changing individuals one at a time. He's an organizer trying to build community and inspire collective action through house parties and Facebook as well as rhetoric about shared values. In other words, he's trying to create social norms — behavioral change's killer app....

The research proves change can come about when it's easy and popular, but making it lucrative — or even mandatory — can make sure it happens.

Hmm, wasn't that why we got rid of King George III?

Now I acknowledge governments here and elesewhere have used pretty subtle and pervasive means to foster their agenda. But generally campaigns against drunk driving and for racial tolerance are means to promote already agreed upon social policies. Same with appeals to patriotism to bolster domestic support for a nation's foreign policy.

 What the Obama people here are seeking to do is a quantum leap forward and away from the concepts of individual liberty and representative government.  There's no political consensus on fixing entitlements or heath care or the energy system. And by seeking to impose social conformity on the "appropriate options", the Obama camp seeks to subvert the need to obtain the consent of the governed.   No wonder they've kept it all secret.

Time identifies this problem, and then adopts an "ends justify the means" defense.

  The idea of public officials, even well-meaning ones, trying to engineer our private behavior to produce change can seem a bit creepy.

But face it: Obama is right. Our emissions are boiling the planet, and most of our energy use is unnecessary. Our health expenditures are bankrupting the Treasury, and most of our visits to the doctor can be traced to unhealthy behavior. We do need to change, and we know it.

  So much for debating what we ought to do.  Just follow what "The One" has decided is best.

I'm slightly familiar with the science of behavior modification, having a son who is on the autistic spectrum.  It's ironic that concepts like Applied Behavior Analysis are used to help children with an expressive disorder properly communicate their wants and needs.

The Obama Behavior Modification agenda is designed to prevent typical adults from communicating their needs and wants; since more and more choices will be taken away from us and replaced with a government approved "default option", and tremendous peer pressure brought to bear against those with undesirable nonconformist choices.

Now, if this didn;t leave you a little queasy, I refer one to Hot Air, and Ed Morrissey's fear that the Internet will now be legally subject to appropriation by the administration. 

The bill addresses the need to protect vital networks from cyber attack, but it gives a lot of power to the executive branch — perhaps too much power.