LARRY ROMANOFF—Bernays’ original project was to ensure US entry into the European war, but later he primarily concerned himself with the entrenchment of the twin systems of electoral democracy and unrestricted capitalism the elites had created for their benefit, and with their defense in the face of increased unrest, resistance, and ideological opposition. Discovering that the bewildered herd was not so compliant as he wished, Bernays claimed a necessity to apply “the discipline of science”, i.e., the psychology of propaganda, to the workings of democracy, where his social engineers “would provide the modern state with a foundation upon which a new stability might be realized”. This was what Lippmann termed the necessity of “intelligence and information control” in a democracy, stating that propaganda “has a legitimate and desirable part to play in our democratic system”. Both men pictured modern American society as being dominated by “a relatively small number of persons who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses”.
February 2021
New York Times racialist vandals descend on Rome and Greece
16 minutes readSANDY ENGLISH—Padilla deploys similarly aggressive measures against his subject. “Dismantling structures of power,” he writes, “will require writing an entirely new story about antiquity, and about who we are today.” If the classics disagrees with him—both as a field of study and as a realm of history—it should be destroyed. Poser writes approvingly that “if classics fails his test, Padilla and others are ready to give it up.” The Times author herself thinks it is time to “get rid of the classics”—a formulation that appears three times in her article. To be blunt, this is the rhetoric of the privileged, arrogant, and self-satisfied elite. How many recent college graduates, it may be asked, are at all familiar with Thucydides or Plutarch? In fact, the great majority of American students—regardless of their racial background—have almost no access to the study of classical antiquity. Politicians have gutted the study of the humanities in the public schools. College and universities have likewise shifted resources to “professional training” programs. Rigorous education in classics, the hallmark of the college liberal arts education of the 19th century, has vanished. Even as a potential field of study, classics exists at a diminishing number of elite colleges and universities such as Princeton, from whence the self-satisfied Padilla hurls his thunderbolts.
PATRICE GREANVILLE—Western publics, especially in the US, are acutely disinformed. Courtesy of their ruling elites, Americans are easily the most brainwashed people in history. The result is a culture in which, besides ignorance and plenty of antisocial values paraded as normal, a thick fog of confusion permeates every nook and cranny of a person’s consciousness. As in other nations where the ruling cliques have also advanced self-flattering narratives to cement their legitimacy, the official US narcissistic canon has some recognizable features, most of them encapsulated in the alarmingly chauvinist creed defined as American exceptionalism.
Reuters, BBC, and Bellingcat participated in covert UK Foreign Office-funded programs to “weaken Russia,” leaked docs reveal
40 minutes readMAX BLUMENTHAL—In 2018, Ashurkov’s name appeared in leaked documents exposing a covert, UK FCO influence network called the Integrity Initiative. As The Grayzone reported, the Integrity Initiative operated behind the cover of a think tank called the Institute for Statecraft, which concealed its own location through a fake office in Scotland.
Run by a group of military intelligence officers, the secret propaganda group worked through clusters of media and political influencers to escalate tensions between the West and Russia. Listed among the London cluster of anti-Russian influencers was Ashurkov.
The Integrity Initiative’s military directors outlined their agenda in stark, unequivocal terms. As the leaked memo below illustrates, they aimed to exploit the media, think tanks and their influence network to stir up as much hysteria about Russia’s supposedly malign influence as possible. Since they embarked on their covert campaign, nearly all their wishes have come true.
KIM PETERSEN—That the CTV reporting is disingenuous is obvious from the moving of the goalposts with the substitution of “persecution” for “genocide.” Clearly persecuting someone, however unpleasant, is absolutely and qualitatively different from killing someone. And since genocide refers to the destruction of an entire population, a rapidly growing population would seem to belie claims of one side committing a genocide. Moreover, what statistic is better to “select” to refute assertions of a genocide being perpetrated? Still, to claim one group is being persecuted requires evidence.
