The American Way of Propaganda

I’m going to illustrate key aspects of American propaganda as demonstrated by the recent episode of Netanyahu in Congress. But first let’s look at a similar example to set the background.

In April, 2006, President Bush referred to himself as the decider. A circus of ridicule broke out condemning the new word. There is no such word as “decider.” Haha ha. All the talking heads and media pundits gave their take on how the new word reflected Bush’s verbal inadequacies. A great time was had by all. The president of the country was language challenged.
The authorities however declared their own ignorance of the English language. English allows for the creation of new words with the –er suffix. It is so common that hundreds of words have established themselves in this way: baker, backer, maker, packer, hunter, hacker, hiker, biker, sucker, fucker and hundreds of others. The intelligentsia jumped on the legitimate construction of “decider” like hyenas, but seemed unaware that the president was abandoning the Constitution and declaring a palace revolution. The Constitution stipulates that Congress decides and the president executes the decisions. The founding fathers were well aware of the dictatorial nature of a single “decider” and were explicitly clear that the president was not to be a decider. The supposed guardians of proper language not only exposed their impotent understanding of English, they proved themselves ignorant of the basic laws of the nation.

Here we see the basic tactic of perception management, concentrate on something insignificant to hide a vital issue, control the perspective of the mind.

Strengthened by the lame to non-existent response of assuming a decider role, Bush could continue and even increase his use of the criticized signing statements despite the questionable legality of these emperor-like decrees.

I’ll return to another typical, and significant, aspect of perception management as illustrated by the decider circus after looking at the present Netanyahu extravaganza.

Note: I’m using the word propaganda for convenience. The evolved and modern form of propaganda is known as psyops (psychological operations). Psyops is to propaganda what a WWII cannon shell is to a hellfire missile.

We can view Natanyahu’s visit and speech to the US Congress as the equivalent of the spectacle around Bush’s use of the word decider, an event full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Everyone knew what Nat was going to say. What was the big deal? This psychological operation contained three objectives:
to propagate and maintain the great lie about the US-Israel relationship
to test the rules of government
to hide a highly significant event in South Africa

The Great Lie
Israel controls the US Congress, US foreign policy and American politics in general. This myth is drummed out persistently. This nonsense attempts to resolve the USA from responsibility for the genocide of the Palestinians and hide the fact that Israel functions as the main military garrison of the American Empire. Due to persistent and varied propaganda bombardments many people fall victim to this great myth.
I’ve written about the AIPAC myth in 4 posts:
AIPAC Lobby Myth – Bribers and Bribees
AIPAC Lobby Myth 2 – Love of Hate
The AIPAC Lobby Myth 3 – Preventing the Blush
The Tale of the Tail (AIPAC myth 4)

We need merely to follow the money to see that all trails lead to the military/weapons corporations whose lobbying and special interests looms like a giant with Israel as a wart on its nose. We can also ask, if Israel controls US policy, why do they need to send Natanyahu to speak to Congress?

Perhaps the best evidence of the myth of the Israeli tail wagging the US dog, can be found in the reasoning of the cheap propagandists:

There is a sentiment found in “progressive” circles that the US is the boss in the U.S. Israeli power dance. Their vulgar “theory” of imperialism tells them that.

John V. Walsh in LewRockwell.com (March 6, 2015)
The quotation marks are Walsh’s. Pointing to an abstract (vulgar) theory, without saying anything about the theory tells us absolutely nothing. It insinuates and distracts.
Walsh also claims,

Empires are full of examples of the “lesser” ally pulling the strings to make the greater one dance.

Oh really? How about one example?

Matt Carr in ICH (March 7, 2015) gives the myth another twist under the title:
The United States of Israel

no country with any respect for truth or even its own national interest would actually invite a man like this to speak to its own elected representatives if it didn’t have to, let alone invite him in order to undermine the policy of its elected president.

Carr tells us that truth-respecting America had to invite Natanyahu (because of Israeli’s power over the US) … to undermine the president. This brings us to the second of the three psyops objectives. But first, one last reflection on the Israel tail wagging the US dog myth. The myth, based on the assumption that the US government is bought by Israel, says that the government is a herd of corrupt bribe-taking traitors. Perhaps they are, in which case, there are more and wealthier buyers than Israel, and all talk of “elected representatives” has no relevance. What’s the purpose of elections if all the candidates are up for sale?

The Rules of Government
Natanyahu wasn’t invited by “a country”, but by a single senator. This break in the rules of government slid silently in the shadows of the debate about Bibi’s visit and speech. It was barely mentioned other than in passing as being unprecedented or part of a power play between Republicans and the President. As in the case of Bush using the word decider and the implications being a decider, Bibi’s insignificant speech drew tons of loud comments whereas the highly significant rupture in the structure of government got a few whispered grams. The office of the president—the White House—and the State Department alone have the authority to deal with other heads of state. If a subordinate level of an organization is allowed to make decisions without the approval of and in opposition to a higher level, the organization in question doesn’t function. Yet this unheard of breach of principle passed without debate and barely a whisper.

I’m not going to speculate why the President, who had the formal authority to stop the visit, didn’t do anything. It proves that the President has as much real power as a sock-puppet. This wasn’t debated either. Psyops managed perception away from the essential questions of government organization and presidential power and concentrated on an the speech of another sock-puppet with a scary reputation.

South Africa’s Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW)
Is it a coincidence that the Netanyahu extravaganza coincided with the Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) in South Africa? Possibly, if we have no knowledge about how American propaganda works. Bibi’s visit and the silence about IAW however stinks of psyops.

It is one thing for people in general to accuse Israel of Apartheid, but when the foremost experts on Apartheid, drawing from their own experience, tell us that Israel’s apartheid is even worse than their own was, it’s nearly impossible to deny. “The children of celebrated liberation heroes have come out to support the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign against Israel, denouncing the Jewish state’s brutal colonial occupation of Palestine. The campaign is supported by 85 South African organizations and institutions.”
Read the entire article in Pambazuka News

Was Netanyahu’s completely predictable speech more newsworthy than the speech of Nelson Mandela’s grandson and those of the other relatives of the heroes who fought against South African apartheid? Of course not. But it was very important for the US and its Israeli garrison that you didn’t hear about it.

This is so typical for American psyops that we can be rather certain that when a storm rages about an insignificant event, it is hiding some significant event. In the case of Bush and the decider circus, it just happened to occur right after his press secretary Scott McClellan resigned among rumors about the lies leading up to the invasion of Iraq and chief of staff Scooter Libby saying that Bush approved of leaking CIA intelligence documents. Suddenly, a debate about a word wiped out inquiries into acts of treason. Like a speech by a scary sock-puppet wiped about explosive evidence of apartheid. Or recognition of a non-existent state of Palestine wiped out the findings of the Russell Tribunal on the Gaza massacre. Etc.

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“Perception management is an Apache helicopter firing hellfire missiles of diversion.”
Dartwill Aquila

“The American media is a tightly controlled disinformation ministry.”
Paul Craig Roberts

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