Listen to a reading of this article:
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I think it would be a lot more efficient and straightforward if all English-language news media were just run directly out of CIA headquarters by agency officials in Langley, Virginia. This way news reporters could eliminate the middleman and drop the undignified charade of presenting unproven assertions by western intelligence agencies as “scoops” that they picked up from “sources”.
I mean, right now the mass media are churning out stories about “intelligence” which says Vladimir Putin has decided to invade Ukraine very soon, citing government officials and anonymous sources. We are never shown the “intelligence”, and we are never shown any evidence of its veracity; we’re simply told what opaque and unaccountable government agencies want us to believe about a foreign government. We’re not even reminded by the publishers of these CIA press releases that western intelligence agencies have a very extensive history of lying about exactly this sort of thing, and we’re certainly not informed that Kyiv appears to be ramping up aggressions in eastern Ukraine.
Seriously, look at this absurd tweet by CNN’s Natasha Bertrand:
Scoop: US and allies have new intel that suggests Russia could be planning to attack Ukraine prior to end of Olympics, contrary to previous assessments. New intel comes as officials have dramatically ramped up the urgency of public warnings related to Ukraine in past 24 hours.
— Natasha Bertrand (@NatashaBertrand) February 11, 2022
That’s not a “scoop”. That’s just a news media employee repeating something she was told either directly or indirectly by the western intelligence cartel. She’s literally just telling us what an immensely powerful spy intelligence agency told her to say. And that’s become the norm for mass media reporting on all nations the western power alliance doesn’t like, especially Russia.
So why mess around? Why not just move CNN’s office into the George Bush Center for Intelligence in Langley and have the CIA just publish its reports directly from there? I hear CNN needs a new president anyway. That way nobody needs to pretend they’re doing news reporting instead of intelligence agency stenography, the general public is clear that they’re being fed whatever story about reality the CIA wants them to believe, nobody feels like they’re being treated like a fool, plus it saves a commute for all the intelligence agency insiders who already work in the mass media.
Because it must get pretty tedious, right? Where instead of just having your CIA employer tell you to run a story you have to go through this whole song and dance where an agency officer contacts you and says “Ooh buddy, have I got a scoop for you!” and then you type up what they say in newsy-sounding language citing “sources familiar with the matter” and present it as a news story.
Clearly that’s not news reporting. Clearly it’s nothing other than garden variety state propaganda. So why not just be forthright about it? I know the CIA has a lot going on right now, but surely it can make some space in all its domestic surveillance, lying, torturing, drug trafficking, coup-staging, warmongering and assassinations for a little more state media news punditry?
https://twitter.com/catcontentonly/status/1492227124157112324?s=20&t=xOIhZReJoQrss7oPJMq1JA
And of course we already know the answer. Propaganda doesn’t work if its targets know they are being propagandized. It needs to be administered by institutions who the public trusts to tell them the objective truth about what’s going on in the world. If the US and its Five Eyes allies simply controlled all media through the government like overtly totalitarian regimes, their propaganda would actually be far less effective than the systems of domestic perception management they have in place currently.
The CIA is officially forbidden from operating in the United States (though as we’ve seen many times since its creation and up to the present day this is treated more as a guideline than a restriction), but what it is not officially forbidden to do is contact the media directly or through a proxy under the pretense of feeding them a news story which just so happens to advance the interests of the agency. The plutocratic media who benefit from the same status quo that the CIA protects then uncritically funnel that information into the minds of the unsuspecting public, and before you know it they’re rending their garments over a foreign government they’d previously not thought much about.
In an actual free society with an actual free press, the very idea of this would be outrageous and if such a thing ever occurred it would be immediately condemned as journalistic malpractice with severe consequences for everyone involved. In an inverted totalitarian dystopia with the most effectively propagandized population on earth, it’s just treated as normal.
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40 responses to “Proposal: Just Run All Western News Media Directly Out Of CIA Headquarters”
The Russians are coming… the Russians are coming… is getting old. At least 60 years old because when we were in grade school in the 60s… around the time the CIA killed JFK… when the warning alarm went off we took cover. One ring was for tornado and two rings was for nuclear attack… in a small town in the mid-west… nonetheless.
If it was a tornado warning we went to the hallway and held our hands over our heads.
If it was a nuclear attack we were to crawl under our desks and hold our hands over our heads.
I’ve lived a lifetime of fear propaganda.
Caitlin, you’ve proven your worth again with this sentence: “Kyiv appears to be ramping up aggressions in eastern Ukraine.”
I’ve glanced through all the comments, and I may have missed something, but it doesn’t appear to me as if anyone else has seen what should be obvious, that there is a strategy in this. The Ukrainian Government wants to oppress its Russian-speaking citizens, and the Americans (I mean the people secretly in charge), for whatever reason, want to create an issue with Russia. It’s no use our pretending to see or understand more than we really do, but I think we can say that much with confidence.
I see, after reading it more-or-less properly, that you do say later in your article that we do know why it wouldn’t work to just issue the news from Langley.
I think we should think of ourselves as large animals under the control of a herder, or really of a band of stockmen (cowboys). Since having been a stockman myself and then going to town and being “educated,” I have been fascinated by the analogies between the way I used to manage large groups of large and somewhat dangerous animals, and the way in which the people in charge manage us. They really don’t believe that it is possible for them to be honest with us, any more than I would have thought of being honest with the cows and bullocks. Also, I could never have managed the cattle in such large groups if it hadn’t been for their social feelings. If they had simply split up and moved in different directions as soon as they saw me, it would have been hopeless. I took advantage of their sociability and the fact that I knew more than they did, to get them into the yards, where I could do what I liked with them. I think the people in charge do exactly the same thing to us. The only difference is that there isn’t the same clear demarcation among cattle, horses, dogs, and humans. There ARE people who function as cattledogs and probably horses, but it isn’t always clear who is a dog and who is a cow.
Switching analogies, you can think of it in terms of the old American show-business distinction between carnies and marks. The carnies are the people who travel with the circus and make a living from it, and the marks or suckers are the people who pay to come in the door. It is possible to graduate from being a mark to being a carnie under some circumstances. In any religion, there are always a lot of marks who might also be called “novices,” because they are marks who are candidates for admission to the paid ranks or carnies or priests.
We should invent an annual award for stories like Russia invading Ukraine or China invading Taiwan. We could call it “the didn’t happen of the year award”.
CIA FAILED AGAIN at their “strategic communications campaign”.
We are TIRED of reading the same headlines, they are nauseating.
CIA’s “augmented reality” campaign literally pushes the consumers of news into reading press releases from Putin himself, then our US government get offended that we believe Putin more.
@CIAkids, you should have done all of your homework in school, instead of playing videogames, and NEVER cheat on tests. Maybe you would have a better idea of how to run this world, then.
Seriously! Only 7% of Americans completely trust the news.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/355526/americans-trust-media-dips-second-lowest-record.aspx
Unfortunately, trusting the news bears little relationship to watching it or listening to it as background, which untold millions of Americans do daily as a matter of course. The propaganda, polarization, and dumbing-down thereby seep into the mind unaffected by any level or lack of trust.
Caitlin, they might not care that their Kabuki theater doesn’t pass your smell test. The real centers of power in the empire are insulated from the citizenry by the political institutions. The citizens can’t vote their way out of it, so the great game continues. Just assume that everyone in a suit on the TV is rich, because they are. If you’re also rich, they’re talking to you, otherwise, it’s background noise.
It would end a lot of both confusion and discussion.
I was under the impression they already were.
You can’t get rid of the middleman. The illusion of freedom and free speech depends on it. Take away the middleman and the naked truth will perturb the herd.
Here’s where Caitlin and I disagree. She says: “Propaganda doesn’t work if its targets know they are being propagandized.” That’s kind of her raison d’etre. I say, on the other hand, that the targets couldn’t care less about who’s feeding them what, so long as they’re being entertained or pleasantly polarized to root for their team and hate the other. Thus IMHO it would hardly be noticed if all Western news was officially run from CIA headquarters. What would continue to be noticed, of course–bigtime–is whether the ass of a particular celebrity was getting too big, which Hitler-ized country is currently in our crosshairs, etc. That said, I hope Caitlin’s right and I’m wrong.
You are right about people for whom entertainment is more important than facts. For others who care about facts, propaganda doesn’t work if they know that they are propagandized. They simply turn off the corporate media. This comes down to priorities in life IMO.
Come along now Russia, get off your collective duffs and do your job! We’re getting tired of making predictions that don’t come true. Just get on with it! What are you waiting for? We’ve told everybody over and over that you’re going to, so just do it! Stop shilly-shallying and spouting nonsense about diplomacy! You know that’s a load of cobblers, we have zero interest in actually talking to anybody. There’s the border, the ground is nice and frosty hard, why not have a go? Call yourselves warmongers? What kind of warmongering is this when you don’t actually monger any wars?
Do it!
Hah! Can’t take on mighty NATO eh? So slink off back home with your tails between your legs!
There are two schools of thought actually: the optimists who think that when dust settles down after the nuclear war over Ukraine, the only living things on Earth will be cockroaches and Keith Richards and the pessimists who think there won’t even be cockroaches…
There is now a theory that life originated at the thermal vents in deep ocean. and will again
Maybe… Then again maybe not… In any case Keith Richards, who was here from the beginning, was born out of the Big Bang.
The more probable outcome of a nuclear war over Ukraine is that survivors will be limited to cockroaches, Democrats, and Republicans. It could take eons to rebuild a gene pool that can foster intelligent lifeforms.
Priceless. Caitlin, that could be the funniest thing you’ve ever written. Epic sardonic !
All countries have their CIA counterpart or secret police. So your article while true actually has a much larger scope which encompasses all governments. They all have an arm which is hidden so they can accomplish tasks the public will never see. This of course is all for our safety, so they say.
Yeah, I could write a book. But if I did…
Anyhow, American Propaganda has fallen into a fearsome decline. Seriously.
Classical US Propaganda was referred to as one of three shades – White, Grey and Black.
White PropagandaNow extinct, facts, data and examples, carefully vetted for truth and cross-referenced, which disclose previously unknown information.
Grey PropagandaWhitish Propaganda based on one single lie, to which facts are associated which cause deception by virtue of the source lie.
Black Propaganda: assertions and conclusions, almost all completely manufactured, to deceive an audience to think, believe and react a certain way. (Now called, news, MSM, anything anyone says about anything pretty much.)
White propaganda was what the US Public Broadcasting Service, the BBC, CBC, AFP, etc., would report. They were carefully firewalled to prevent incursion of manipulation by the CIA, MI5/6, etc. (Really-truly. Don’t confuse with the BBC of today.)
Grey propaganda – An example was the Cuban Missile Crisis lie that the USSR was placing nuclear-tipped missiles into installations, which likely in the near future could strike Washington. Actually, they were launch-ready before the “crisis” began. Krushchev had the tiger by the tail. If the US did not engage in a military assault on the installations, then there was a chance that Kennedy was not completely controlled by the Pentagon. If the US did launch a strike, that was the answer that the Pentagon really DID run the country, and Kennedy was just a puppet, and the Pentagon needed to be melted. Thanks, Nikita!
Black Propaganda. All that there is anymore.
We desperately need truthtellers like the old PBS, BBC, etc., which unearthed truths and brought them to light. It’s obvious that “for-profit” Military-Industrial-News-Cabals will no longer do so. It must be behind a firewall to prevent political or Agency intrusions, and serve the public’s interest. That’s what was intended originally, and we miss it.
Why then call it “white propaganda” rather than the free press? Because it is the sunlight is the best disinfectant principle. Edward Snowden, Julian Assange practiced white propaganda. Pulling the sheets on corrupt power. Solzhenitsyn did it. The release of The Pentagon Papers was white anti war propaganda in the eyes of the MIC. They wanted to whack Dan Ellsberg and Jack Anderson,
Virginia? Why not more directly, the City of London or whereever in Israel ? The CIA is only about 1/3 solely American agents, which means of course that the January 6 so–called insurrection was actually a foreign invasion since the CIA was behind it.
Five Chagos Islanders, who were kicked off their islands fifty years ago by the UK to make way for the USA’s Diego Garcia military base, have returned for the first time without the UK’s permission and without British soldiers accompanying them.
.
“The trip is the culmination of years of tug-of-war legal battles with Britain over ownership of the Chagos Islands.
Despite concerted opposition from both the UK and US, Mauritius has won a string of significant victories, first at the UN General Assembly, then at the UN’s International Court of Justice, and finally at the UN’s tribunal for settling maritime disputes. UN maps now show the territory as Mauritian, while Britain has recently been ordered by two international courts to “decolonise” Mauritius by formally renouncing its sovereignty over Chagos.”
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-60349040
The UK has not relinquished its sovereignty over the islands.
Also, John Pilger made a one-hour documentary, ‘Stealing a Nation’, on the Chagossians and their treatment by the US and UK.
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Under no circumstances should the case of the Chagos Islands be compared in any way with that of Crimea. Russia is Evil, so anything it did or does is Evil – a self-evident truth that all right-thinking people agree upon. The UK broke international law by seizing the islands and evicting their inhabitants, and continues to flout it by keeping the islands, but that is obviously Good, and completely different.
From history we can see the roots of the UK’s hating of Russia.
When the UK was expanding its empire around the world (killing many indigenous people) it found Russian borders in many inconvenient places.
So it considered Russia a competitor.
They cannot forgive Russia for being next to Iran with its coveted oil reserves.
And it is plain not fair to have Russia claim the natural gas fields in the Arctic ( insert a massive temper tantrum)
National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan’s press release was like a comedy sketch, the Russians are going to invade, we don’t know when but all the pieces are in place, we can’t pinpoint a day or the hour but its a very distinct possibility. We continue to see Russian troops in their own country, (Ukraine Borer) we continue to see Russian escalation.
Russia could invade at any minute should Putin order it, it time for you to leave now…we’re not saying a decision has been taken by Putin to invade.
What a convoluted and twisted press release, designed entirely to frighten civilians and demonise Russia, Hitchens Razors should be applied here, that which is presented without evidence should also be dismissed without evidence.
The 51st state the UK has instructed its FCO to tell UK nationals to leave Ukraine whilst domestic flights are available, if anything reading between the lines its the US and the UK that’s most likely to start a war in Ukraine not Russia.
i wouldn’t put it past the us-mic to nuke kiev at this point, taking the ‘mad-dog’ tactics to it’s full extent.
The CIA already captured Kiev in 2014 and has turned it into an excuse to antagonize Russia with the phony “intel” that Caitlin’s talking about. The US knows that Ukraine cannot survive a war but couldn’t care less. If the US could cause Putin to lose a single night of sleep, the destruction of Ukraine would be well worth it. It’s a dangerous time to be an ally of NATO.
Yep, it looks like Washington and Langley have developed such a bad case of war fever that they cannot even wait till after the Olympics to end civilisation as we know it.
~
They are counting on Russia simply rolling over and conceding short of Armageddon–accepting all the blame and sanctions simply because the CIA propaganda machine is so magnificently superior to their own. After all, Putin has always backed off before rather than play Russian roulette at Washington’s taunts, right?
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Perhaps Washington was not listening during all the talk talk talk, but Putin did mention that the command and control centers of the actual warmongers, not merely their Ukrainian dupes, would be hit as appropriate. Smoke ’em if ya got ’em (hypersonic delivery systems that is). Ready or not, America! Try and explain this one to the voters, Joe.
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Perhaps Putin even gave them one last chance to come to their senses when his kiss goodbye to Macron included the advice that there will be no winners to what the West seems to have in mind. Washington may well have miscalculated big time and for this we will all pay the price come Monday or Tuesday.
~
Good luck to our survivors, consider yourselves the genetic lottery winners, unless you turn into Morelocks or something.
I wrote to my Senator and Congressman that I am not willing to die for Raytheon and Lockheed Martin.
And that they do not have my permission to finance Third World War with my and kids money (debt).
Here’s a headline that might get some traction with Babylon Bee! When you do satire Caitlin, you excel at it!
LOL, I thought that they were already doing that, and surprise! They’re tapping our phones too now. Why not? Our US mail service has been turned into a spy agency by several years now as well. What’s next? Are they really going to put audio/video cameras in our toilets as well? I guess we’ll just have to wait for our exciting futures to unfold.
Caitlin:
I disagree with you.
It was a “scoop”.
The “scoop” I most use is the one to scrape up shiet and put it in the bin.
So, it was a “scoop” of “shiet”.
Also, I disagree with your statement that “Propaganda doesn’t work if its targets know they are being propagandized.”
I know plenty of people who know they are being propagandized, and “like it”. It justifies the narratives they enjoy pushing on others, even know the data behind it is BS.
Caitlin, there’s actually a very clear nugget of optimism right near where you’re pointing. Every intelligence organization in modern history is split into a good side and a bad side. That’s because even bad governments need to know some truth. DPRK has to know about famine, pestilence and unrest, the Real Numbers, or the ruling cabal will be blindsided. The CIA runs a factbook on boring stuff like rainfall in Mali. If the Agencies stuck to facts not analysis they could benefit the world. But that stuff ain’t sexy.
A person, population, organization or government often go through the final phase of delusion/insanity before being destroyed. Killing and injuring millions of innocent people in non nuclear weaponized countries, using all lies and propaganda is one thing. Every moment and everyday confronting Nuclear nations with incessant and aggressive disinformation and false flag operations to increase the profits for Defense industries and to justify the existence of 17 Intelligence agencies is beyond insanity and I’m not aware of any parallel to this extreme level of malevolence at the top, in the history of mankind, especially considering these countries can destroy an entire Nation in 20-30 minutes with hypersonic missiles like Avangard, tipped with Nuclear warheads and can travel up to 27 times speed of sound. So far we are so lucky that Russia and China are ruled by extremely patient adults and true Statesmen. Once our luck runs out, perhaps We the people given to apathy, gullibility, divisiveness, consumerism and passivity deserve the kind of monsters who rule us and whatever the end result that awaits us.
The CIA succeeded in its assassinations and regime changes.
Abolish the CIA, restore the free information flow.
Actually, historically the CIA failed all of their ill-conceived missions.
So they gave us plenty of reasons to just shut them down.
Of course, when CIA moved into journalism, they ruined that too.
Anybody that opposes the CIA gets murdered, presidents, would-be presidents, radical humanitarians, scientists, journalists, foreign leaders . . .
Sounds like the CIA is a monopoly, too! The more urgent it is to abolish it. I mean, the CIA just sealed their own fate!
Why, bless your li’l ol’ heart! You’re worried for the CIA, ain’t that special!
There’s a passel of intelligence agencies just looking out for you! Personally!! Seventeen of ’em in the U.S. of A.! look ’em up! (We’re tracking your website – we need to monetise them)
One of the newest ones is Space Delta Seven, which sounds like a porn movie but is actually a new secret intelligence service of the Space Force! Looky here
BiteYerBalls
I was joking, but I wish we could get rid of the CIA. I read that after “the intelligence failure” of 9/11, the CIA was largely replaced by private intelligence companies. I do not really wish to investigate that many. I know we are all being tracked and what we type online or offline is being sold, so I like to type complete nonsense in Google searches so they get their money’s worth – or worse. Incredibly, in this random way you may discover interesting things, like “Inept Geriatric Despot’: Madison Cawthorn Calls Biden An Idiot…”