Internet Media Spin in Action

Check it out. Seven 'terrorists' go from being peaceful Americans and bible-reading "Seas of David" to Al'Qaeda-inspired lunatics intent on murder. Amazing isn't it? But then again, I guess this just shows how the media likes to present both sides of a story. [excuse me while I use a sick bag]

The War on Children

Another essential article. Please read this piece by John Pilger. If you say to yourself, "it can't possibly be this bad," I can only say two words: it's worse. What else can we do but tell others how bad it is? Some will see, some will not, but perhaps with enough awareness, something can be done.

Also, Kurt Nimmo writes that, "Buried in the Week in Review section of the New York Times is an admission that Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad never said Israel should be “wiped off the map,” a reference to a mistranslated phrase bandied about the corporate media over the last several weeks as an example of Iran’s intention to attack Israel, especially after it develops nukes, either next week or a decade out, depending on the level of fanaticism of the neocon making the claim."

I've got three words: Big [Frakk]ing Surprise. Now that we 'know' Ahmadinejad never said this (forget the fact that we knew this ages ago), where is the international pressure against the terrorist state, Israel, for threatening to wipe Iran off the map, which they, in fact, did.

Vice Premier Shimon Peres said Monday that "the president of Iran should remember that Iran can also be wiped off the map."

Peres is a clever psychopath. Notice the use of passive voice. "I did not say we would wipe them out, only that they could be wiped out."

10,000 Hadithas

As many of you already know, Haditha-like massacres are occuring daily in Iraq. The following piece, by Dahr Jamail, analyzes the various stages of government-sponsored propaganda in regards to these 'leaks.' Please read the entire article.

Propaganda and Haditha
By Dahr Jamail and Jeff Pflueger
t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Friday 09 June 2006

In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.
- Winston Churchill, British Prime Minister during World War II

Propaganda is when the Western corporate media tries to influence public opinion in favor of the Iraq War by consistently tampering with truth and distorting reality. It is to be expected. And it is to be recognized for what it is. On occasions when the media does its job responsibly and reports events like the November 19, 2005, Haditha Massacre, it must also be willing and able to anticipate and counter propaganda campaigns that will inevitably follow. It is to be expected that the responsible members of the media fraternity will stick to their guns and not join the propagandists.

This piece is a summary of five most commonly deployed crisis management propaganda tactics which the State and Media combine that we can expect to see in relation to the Haditha Massacre. Listed in a loose chronological order of their deployment, the tactics are: Delay, Distract, Discredit, Spotlight and Scapegoat. Each of the five public relations campaigns will here be discussed in the context of the Haditha Massacre.

Delay

Al-Jazeera channel, with over 40 million viewers in the Arab world, is the largest broadcaster of news in the Middle East. It has been bearing the brunt of an ongoing violent US propaganda campaign. Their station headquarters in both Afghanistan and Baghdad were destroyed by US forces during the US invasions of both countries. In Baghdad, the attack on their office by a US warplane killed their correspondent Tareq Ayoub. Additionally, al-Jazeera reporters throughout Iraq have been systematically detained and intimidated before the broadcaster was banned outright from the country. These are somewhat contradictory actions for an occupying force ostensibly attempting to promote democracy and freedom in Iraq.

On November 19, 2005, the day of the Haditha Massacre, al-Jazeera had long since been banned from operating in Iraq. The station forced to conduct its war reporting from a desk in Doha, Qatar, was doing so via telephone. Two Iraqis worked diligently to cover the US occupation of Iraq through a loose network of contacts within Iraq. Defying the US-imposed extreme challenges, al-Jazeera, by dint of its responsible reporting, had the entire Haditha scoop as soon as it occurred, which they shared with Western and other media outlets, while the latter were content to participate in delaying the story nearly four months by regurgitating unverified military releases.

Two days after the massacre, DahrJamailiraq.com was the only free place on the Internet that carried al-Jazeera's report translated into English (it could be viewed at MidEastWire.com for a fee).

The anchorperson for al-Jazeera in Doha, Qatar, interviewed journalist Walid Khalid in Bahgdad. Khalid's report, translated by MidEastWire.com, was as follows:

Yesterday evening, an explosive charge went off under a US Marines vehicle in the al-Subhani area, destroying it completely. Half an hour later, the US reaction was violent. US aircraft bombarded four houses near the scene of the incident, causing the immediate death of five Iraqis. Afterward, the US troops stormed three adjacent houses where three families were living near the scene of the explosion. Medical sources and eyewitnesses close to these families affirmed that the US troops, along with the Iraqi Army, executed 21 persons; that is, three families, including nine children and boys, seven women, and three elderly people.

Contrast this to the reportage of the slaughter by the New York Times, the "newspaper of note" in the United States. Unquestioningly parroting the military press release, their story of November 21, 2005, read: "The Marine Corps said Sunday that 15 Iraqi civilians and a Marine were killed Saturday when a roadside bomb exploded in Haditha, 140 miles northwest of Baghdad. The bombing on Saturday in Haditha, on the Euphrates in the Sunni-dominated province of Anbar, was aimed at a convoy of American Marines and Iraqi Army soldiers, said Capt. Jeffrey S. Pool, a Marine spokesman. After the explosion, gunmen opened fire on the convoy. At least eight insurgents were killed in the firefight, the captain said."

The organization Iraq Body Count (IBC) immediately endorsed this, clearly demonstrating how its tally of Iraqi civilian deaths due to the war is way below the actual numbers. Exclusively referencing samples from the Western media that willingly embrace the official propaganda, IBC can hardly constitute an unbiased or truthful source of information.

In April 2006, their database of media sources cited an AP story and a Reuters story from November 20, 2005, along with a March 21, 2006, London Times article. This is how IBC distilled the stories; "Haditha - fighting between US Marines and insurgents-gunfire" and the number of civilians killed was recorded as 15. It is difficult to understand why IBC has once again opted to cite US fabrications mindlessly repeated by the Western media rather than take into account the readily available English translation of al-Jazeera's Haditha report.

On June 6, 2006, the Haditha Massacre is recorded by IBC as "family members in their houses and students in a passing car" and the declared number of victims is 24. One cannot help wonder how many uncorrected, unverified and unchallenged pieces of US military propaganda lurk in IBC's database. Haditha could be just the tip of the iceberg.

It wasn't until four months after the event that the Western corporate media started to straighten out the story. On March 19, 2006, it was Time Magazine that "broke" the Haditha story in a piece titled "Collateral Damage or Civilian Massacre in Haditha." The primary sources for this piece were a video shot by an Iraqi journalism student produced the day after the massacre and interviews conducted with witnesses. Another glaring evidence of how a few simple interviews with Iraqis and some readily available photographs and video can drastically correct the glaring errors in the Western media's representations of the occupation.

It is significant that this "exclusive" story came from the same publication that graced its cover with George W. Bush as the 2004 Person of the Year for "reframing reality to match his design." That brazen advertisement for the most unpopular re-elected US president in history more than establishes the fact that the magazine has an agenda that has less to do with responsible journalism than it does with influencing public opinion. That Time set its clocks back four months in regard to Haditha, when evidence was readily available the day after the event, only supports the charge that it willingly participates in US state propaganda. Journalists should aggressively expose the truth that Time, like its acclaimed 2004 person of the year, also reframes reality to match its design. If journalists do not look at Time's story with a skeptical eye as an exercise in PR before jumping on the Haditha bandwagon, they too risk shortchanging the public's trust with a meaningless opportunity to participate in a PR crisis anagement campaign.

But the Haditha Massacre is far from being the only story that the Western corporate media has delayed covering. On May 4, 2004, journalist Dahr Jamail, one of the authors of this piece, wrote "Telltale Signs of Torture Lead Family to Demand Answers." The story, published by the NewStandard, was about a 57-year-old Iraqi named Sadiq Zoman, who was detained at his residence in Kirkuk on July 21, 2003, when US troops raided the Zoman family home in search of weapons and, apparently, to arrest Zoman. Over a month later, on August 23, soldiers dropped Zoman off, comatose, at the main hospital in Tikrit. His body bore telltale signs of torture: point burns on his skin, bludgeon marks on the back of his head, a badly broken thumb, electrical burns on the soles of his feet and genitals and whip marks across his back.

Jamail originally wrote the story in January 2004 and shared the information with over 100 newspapers in the US for them to report on. The story was conveniently ignored by the US corporate media until it was forced to run other torture photos from Abu Ghraib after journalist Seymour Hersh threatened to scoop 60 Minutes II by running his piece about torture in the New Yorker, in late April 2004.

Another example of this delayed "reporting" involved the report on the use of white phosphorous by the US military against civilians in Fallujah during the November 2004 assault on the city. Jamail originally reported a story titled "Unusual Weapons Used in Fallujah" with Inter Press Service. US corporate media ignored the story until the Independent in the UK ran his reporting about the atrocity. Even after this, aside from a few token editorials that mentioned this war crime, most major news outlets continued in their silence. This despite the fact that the Pentagon admitted to the use of these weapons, and residents of Fallujah like Abu Sabah had long since told a reporter, "They used these weird bombs that put up smoke like a mushroom cloud, then small pieces fall from the air with long tails of soke behind them." He also described pieces of these bombs that exploded into large fires that burnt the skin when water was thrown on the burns.

There are countless other stories which the US corporate media has deliberately delayed from their reportage and which may never reach the wide US audience that they deserve. It is necessary to ask, when will the corporate media report on stories such as the following:

November 19, 2004: "As US Forces Raided a Mosque," Inter Press Service (At least four worshippers are killed and 20 wounded during Friday prayers when US and Iraqi forces raided Abu Hanifa Mosque in Baghdad.

April 19, 2004: "US Troops Raid Abu Hanifa Mosque, Destroy Fallujah Relief Goods," The NewStandard News (Tanks and Humvees are used to crash through the gates of a mosque in the middle of the night. Foodstuffs stockpiled for Fallujah relief are destroyed, worshippers are terrorized, shots fired, copies of the Holy Qu'ran are desecrated.)

December 13, 2004: "US Military Obstructing Medical Care," Inter Press Service (US military prevented delivery of medical care in several instances and regularly raided hospitals in Iraq.)

April 23, 2004: "Fallujah Residents Report US Forces Engaged in Collective Punishment," The NewStandard News (Despite what Marines called a "ceasefire" in Fallujah, refugees trapped outside and Fallujans still under siege continued to face measures of collective punishment.)

January 3, 2004: "US Military Terrorism and Collective Punishment in Iraq" (Mortars fired at a farmer's home and land in al-Dora, near Baghdad. As Jamail wrote in the aforementioned web log at that time, residents reported, "We don't know why they bomb our house and our fields. We have never resisted the Americans. There are foreign fighters who have passed through here, and I think this is who they want. But why are they bombing us?" When the farmer was asked what happened when he requested that US military remove the unexploded mortar rounds, he said, "We asked them the first time and they said 'OK, we'll come take care of it.' But they never came. We asked them the second time and they told us they would not remove them until we gave them a resistance fighter. They told us, 'If yo won't give us a resistance fighter, we are not coming to remove the bombs.'" He held his hands in the air and said, "But we don't know any resistance fighters!")

November 18, 2004: "Media Repression in 'Liberated' Land," Inter Press Service (Journalists increasingly detained and threatened by the US-installed interim government in Iraq. Media were stopped particularly from covering recent horrific events in Fallujah. The "100 Orders" penned by former US administrator in Iraq L. Paul Bremer included Order 65, passed March 20, 2004, to establish an Iraqi communications and media commission. This commission has powers to control the media because it has complete control over licensing and regulating telecommunications, broadcasting, information services and all other media establishments. Within days of the "handover" of power to an interim Iraqi government in June 2004, the Baghdad office of al-Jazeera was raided and closed by security forces from the interim government. The network was banned initially for one month from reorting out of Iraq, subsequently extended to "indefinitely." The media commission ordered all news organizations to "stick to the government line on the US-led offensive in Fallujah or face legal action.")

February 14, 2005: "Media Held Guilty of Deception," Inter Press Service (A people's tribunal held much of Western media guilty of inciting violence and deceiving people in its reporting of Iraq. The panel of judges in the Rome meeting of the World Tribunal on Iraq (WTI), an international people's initiative seeking to unearth the truth about the war and occupation in Iraq, accused the United States and the British governments of impeding journalists in performing their task, and intentionally producing lies and misinformation.)

Distract

Once a damaging, and most likely delayed, story hits the Western corporate media consciousness, concurrent stories may be released that distract the audience or dilute the potency of the main story. The handling of the Haditha story by corporate Western media is being managed similarly.

For example, on June 1, 2006, the BBC released a story detailing an alleged "massacre" at Ishaqi on March 15, 2006. Dahr Jamail had reported on the incident and had photographs posted nearly two months before. The BBC's story was suspicious: not only was it delayed by two and a half months, but its timing was concurrent with a peak in media interest in the Haditha Massacre scandal. Meanwhile, the BBC's version of the Ishaqi story itself, while tragic, didn't seem to be much of a scandal at all. It was not surprising that the day after the BBC story "broke," ABC published a story entitled, "US Military Denies New Abuse Allegation at Ishaqi" reporting that the US Military had conductd an investigation and found that there was no basis for claims of a massacre at Ishaqi. The idea that the BBC could "break" a story and the military could respond, investigate and have a press release about it in time for ABC to report findings of innocence the next day is unbelievable if not outright ridiculous. This series of media events served primarily to distract people from the Haditha story and sow seeds of doubt in their minds about the Haditha Massacre. One would expect savvy journalists to recognize the set-up from a mile away.

On June 5, 2006, the New York Times provides us with two additional distractions - one involving paid Internet advertising and the other the front page of the paper.

If one did a Google search on "Haditha" on June 5th, one was presented with a story entitled "Disbelief Over Haditha": via Google's AdSense. The story is essentially a patriotic piece comprised of interviews with military individuals at Camp Pendelton on Memorial Day where the interviewees were granted a national audience in the Times and an opportunity to shower sympathy on the soldiers involved in the massacre and cast doubt on the event itself. The fact that the NYT is paying for this story to appear every time one types in "Haditha" in Google, and that this story unarguably serves to create doubts about the events that occurred in Haditha, is clearly a distraction from the horrendous fact of the massacre itself. A question to ask: why isn't the New York Times paying to promote a neutral piece about the Haditha Massacre rather than for a piece promoting blatant and exclusive American patriotism and denial?

But on this same day, the New York Times goes further in obfuscating the Haditha Massacre with distraction and doubt by swallowing whole a media event sponsored by the US military. Two reporters were flown by the US government to an excavated mass grave site in a military helicopter. The mass grave site was ostensibly created when Saddam Hussein's secret police murdered people connected with the Shiite uprising in 1991. Coincidentally, the number of people found in this site is 28, nearly the same number allegedly killed in the Haditha Massacre. The reason that the US flew the reporters to the site is clear; this story of a similar massacre at Saddam Hussein's hands distracts the public from the Haditha Massacre with the faulty logic of, "Well, if he did it ..." The New York Times did not feel the need to delay the story and published "Uncovering Iraq's Horrors in Desert Graves" on the front page merely two days after the journalists received a government tour of the site. After the kind of directed criticim of the role that the New York Times, via US state and military propagandists like Judith Miller and Thomas Friedman, has played in orchestrating Iraq War propaganda, one would imagine that reputable journalists would know better than to accept a US-sponsored media outing in Iraq. Reputable journalists should additionally wonder why the New York Times continues to accept this type of propaganda as news, while ignoring events such as the ones where the people of Fallujah dug mass graves to bury the thousands killed during the US assault of the city in November 2004.

But the mother of all distractions came on June 8, 2006, in the media spasm over the alleged killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. We can be certain of this week's front page news. The ridiculous thing is that Zarqawi himself is perhaps more a US propaganda and media fabrication more than a real threat to the Iraqi people, let alone the security of the US. The story of Zarqawi served to simplify and put an al-Qaeda face on what is really a much more complicated situation regarding the resistance and rising sectarian tensions in Iraq. Now with Zarqawi's alleged death reported by the US Government, the media is swallowing the state's version of this story whole, despite all the fraud that we've seen in past US propaganda stunts, such as the Jessica Lynch "rescue," the Pat Tillman fabrication, the pulling down of Saddam Hussein's statue in Firdos Square in Baghdad, and even the capture of Hussein himself. Will the death of Zarqawi slow the violent resistance in Iraq? No. Will the death of Zarqawi bring improvement n the electricity, water and medical infrastructure in Iraq? No. Will the death of Zarqawi bring stability and security to the Iraqi people? No. But is the death of Zarqawi a perfect distraction from the Haditha Massacre, total failure of the US occupation of Iraq, and the ongoing US military assault on the city of Ramadi? Absolutely. And his death conveniently distracts the corporate media from reporting that while the Prime Minister of Iraq appointed most of his cabinet last weekend, the position of Vice President Abel Abdul Mahdi, which had been set over a month ago, was the re-appointment of one of the most aggressive supporters of the economic agenda of the Bush administration in Iraq. An agenda which includes the implementation of corporate globalization of Iraq's laws and far, far greater US corporate control of Iraq's oil supply.

Discredit

Perhaps the most interesting propaganda campaign we have seen in connection with the Haditha Massacre was a massive and well-coordinated effort on the part of FOX news and the right wing bloggers to discredit any allegations of war crimes simultaneously running down the entire "left wing" Internet. This campaign came in the form of fraudulent video testimony from Jesse MacBeth. In this video "testimony" Jesse MacBeth claims to have been a soldier in Iraq and to have committed a variety of horrendous war crimes. The video barely made a stir on the web since people questioned its validity within hours of its release. Yet, on May 24, 2006, mere days after the video's first appearance on the web, FOX news spun fabrications about the video calling it an "anti-war video" and claiming "that thing posted on the Internet [was] the #2 most cicked-on blog on the Internet in the last few weeks." #2 most clicked-on blog? One should question where FOX news had been able to obtain data on the most popular blogs - unless Dick Cheney's news favorite is even closer with the NSA than some might suspect. The data comparing traffic to various web sites certainly is not available to FOX to make such a claim. But the claim was false anyway. Jesse MacBeth never had a blog. The video was posted on a small, low bandwidth web site that could never have handled anywhere near the kind of traffic required for the #2 blog. In fact, three days before FOX's show, the web site publicly registered just over 1,500 hits - total - and the video wasn't available because the site couldn't meet even that meager demand. At 5 pm pst, two days before FOX's wild promotion of the MacBeth video, a Google search on Jessie MacBeth revealed only two obscure references to the video at all. The video was in fact downright difficult to find anywhere on the web that day, let alone! the "last few weeks" before FOX's broadcast. FOX's deceptive promotion of this video and concurrent discrediting was deliberate propaganda to pre-empt any future or existing claims of war crimes, such as the Haditha Massacre, as well as an attempt to dismiss the entire left wing blogosphere and the "anti-war" movement. By far the greatest promoters of the MacBeth video were FOX news and the right-wing bloggers.

Spotlight

When an issue becomes too large and too damaging to control effectively, savvy PR professionals work to focus the public's attention on a single topic within the larger issue. The public thereby loses its view of the forest - the more damaging and larger issue - for the single tree of a selective topic or event related to the issue. This single topic needs to be controversial enough to capture a large audience, but sufficiently containable so that the particulars remain debatable and do not spiral out of control. We have seen this pattern of PR repeated over and over in the war. Examples include endless debates about the 500 prisoners illegally held in Guantanamo Bay, when the reality of the larger issue involves over 14,000 Iraqis detained without trail in both disclosed and undisclosed Iraqi prisons, as well as countless people held in secret US detention chambers in Eastern Europe. Another instance is the torture "scandal" at Abu Ghraib, where public attention was focused on sexual humiliation and inane ebates over the uses of dogs or water-boarding, when in fact there exists documentation of torture much more violent, systematic and widespread at US hands.

The Haditha Massacre is becoming the Spotlight event in the much broader and more volatile issue of US War crimes in Iraq. Haditha is by no stretch of the imagination an isolated incident. Journalists should work to broaden the reporting of Haditha to include a discussion of the much broader issue of International Law and War Crimes. This is, after all, a war where US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales described the Geneva conventions as "quaint," chemical weapons were used on a civilian population in Fallujah, violent torture continues at the hands of the US or its proxies, arbitrary detentions of Iraqis continue in violation of international law, hospitals have been intentionally destroyed and occupied, cluster bombs and flechettes have been deployed on dense civilian habitations, civilians are being killed daily, and journalists have been intentionally targeted by US troops. If we lose the forest for the trees on the issue of the Haditha Massacre, we risk participation in US propaganda.

Scapegoat

Parallels are being drawn between what happened in Haditha on November 19, 2005, and the 1968 massacre in My Lai during the Vietnam War, in which US forces ruthlessly slaughtered 500 unarmed women, men and children in a small village. The most direct parallels will probably involve what happens legally to those chosen by the internal military investigation to take the blame for the event in Haditha. In the case of My Lai, a lengthy internal investigation was launched, and followed by a court-martial. Despite the massively brutal nature of the massacre, the cover-up, and the many people involved, in the end, one man, Lt. William Calley, spent roughly 3 years under house arrest.

As we see the media spotlight on the Haditha Massacre, we can expect to see damage control measures through inventing scapegoats as was done in My Lai and Abu Ghraib. As in the Abu Ghraib torture media blitz, the military will not concern itself with loyalty for the troops that put their lives on the line daily. The military will readily sacrifice its Charles Graners and Sabrina Harmans while its superiors dodge and evade responsibility and the incident is made to look isolated. Haditha will be erroneously presented as the crime of a few "bad apples." With the massive cover-up by military superiors, countless other war crimes occurring in Iraq, and a US media landscape that has assisted in the cover-up, journalists need to do more than produce propaganda of the various trials and legal minutiae of the scapegoats identified to pay for the Haditha massacre. There are much bigger stories that await telling if the offered PR bait can be rejected.

Conclusion: Is the US Corporate Media Complicit in War Crimes?

According to principles set during the Nuremburg Trials and the UNESCO Charter, the primary responsibility of journalists during a time of war is not to incite the public to violence. In the case of the Haditha Massacre cover-up, we need to ask: Is the US Corporate Media complicit in the cover-up of this War Crime? By helping to cover up countless events like the Haditha Massacre, is the US Corporate Media inciting the public to violence by distorting the truth about the war in Iraq?

Already, stories from the US Media and "journalists" like Judith Miller who promoted the war with fabrications have failed the test of journalistic responsibility set by the Nuremburg Trials and the UNESCO Charter. But the US corporate media seems extremely resistant to responsible reform. How can the New York Times be satisfied publishing an unverified official account of what happened in Haditha presented by a military that has been caught in countless lies, such as the Pat Tillman fabrication and the invented Jessica Lynch "rescue?" Is the US corporate media prepared to challenge these government propaganda deceptions? Or are they going to remain engaged in aiding and abetting the war crimes of the US military and its commander in chief?

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Dahr Jamail is an independent journalist who spent over 8 months reporting from occupied Iraq. He presented evidence of US war crimes in Iraq at the International Commission of Inquiry on Crimes Against Humanity Committed by the Bush Administration in New York City in January 2006. He writes regularly for TruthOut, Inter Press Service, Asia Times and TomDispatch, and maintains his own web site, dahrjamailiraq.com.

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Jeff Pflueger is Dahr Jamail's electronic publicist. He maintains a web site at jeffpflueger.com.

Jeff Rense aka "Compulsive Liar"

For those of you who don't know, Jeff Rense is an extremely popular alternative radio host. He talks about such issues as Bird Flu, 9/11, UFOs, and generally anything else considered conspiratorial. However, he is an odd dude. For one, he is extremely secretive. No one has seen him in person or knows where he lives. The only picture available of him online is a photoshopped cartoon of god-knows-who.

Well it turns out, Rense isn't all he's cut himself out to be. Please read all of Lisa Guliani's article, Jeff Rense: A Reinvention of What?, available here and here. It seems Rense has some connections to the very people he pretends to denounce. Now, why would he want to do that?

As an update, see how fast Rense worked to try to get this piece offline. It seems he doesn't like past employers revealing that he is a liar. He refuses to even answer simple questions to clarify his so-called resume. Can we say "Psychopath?" To discuss further, participate here.

Here's the text of the article:

Patsy Smullin has run KOBI-TV for the last 30 years, and her father founded it. If anybody would have known Jeff Rense and the supposed 5,000 newscasts he claims to have made, it would be Patsy.

As it happens, Patsy Smullin does remember Jeff Rense, and in two different telephone conversations I had with her over the past few days, she confirmed that he did have a position at her television station for a brief time as a reporter and news anchor. Smullin stressed that Jeff Rense, or “a guy calling himself Jeff Rense” (her words), was employed at KOBI (an NBC affiliate) from June 1983 to May 1984, and she is not aware of him working at any other station in the state of Oregon either prior to his employment at KOBI-TV or afterward. [I would think if he'd worked at other stations previous to his KOBI position, these would be listed on his job application or resume when given to KOBI-TV.]

Patsy had more to say. She revealed that in her experience as Jeff Rense’s employer (and this is a direct quote), “He was not known for his honesty.” Think about it. Patsy Smullin was Rense’s employer some twenty-odd years ago. After all this tiime, the characteristic that has remained clearly in her memory is that “he was not known for his honesty”. What does that say to you? According to Ms. Smullin, at that time Jeff was also involved in several court battles with other people. One wonders if it has anything to do with him not being known for his honesty?

When asked if she could elaborate on the comment she'd made regarding Rense not being known for his honesty, her response was: "Sure. He was a compulsive liar." Also, when questioned as to the claim that Jeff anchored and produced “5000 newscasts,” Patsy Smullin laughed heartily and stated, “This is absolutely false. He never did that here.” Okay, if not at KOBI-TV, then where? Perhaps Jeff Rense will reveal this to us all at some point so we can check it out.

But on his own website, Jeff Rense claims to have been an award winning news director and TV news anchor for 10-12 years (accounts vary). If not at KOBI, then where?

An American Treasure

"…an award-winning television News Director and News Anchor for over ten years, Jeff continually pushed for higher standards of journalism and responsible, intelligent reporting and inquiry. Regrettably, those goals were often at odds with the irrevocable TV news obsession for tabloid exploitation of the trivial, the tragic and the sensational. The situation became so dubious and distasteful that one day he walked away from his highly-successful news anchor/news director career (as high as a 53 Share of the audience - Nielsen) and moved to radio, recognizing it as the last viable approach to bringing reality to the American public...and now with the internet, to the world."

Interesting that Rense declares himself to have worked as a news director and TV news anchor. An online search to verify this claim will return only Jeff’s words – repeated endlessly ad nauseum - as to the truthfulness of this assertion. There is literally no data to substantiate this claim anywhere on the Internet. The claim exists only on the Rense website and a few other websites that have copied and pasted the Rense claims onto their own pages.

Here’s another variation on the same theme: Jeff Rense Hosts Sightings

"During 12 years as an award-winning broadcast journalist, Jeff anchored and produced more than 5,000 television newscasts. This devoted single dad is also author of the book AIDS Exposed and passionately investigates ways to prevent diseases and extend life. His brother is Rip Rense, longtime reporter for the Los Angeles Times. Jeff first did radio while an education major at the University of California Santa Barbara, and in 1994 he returned to this first love with the talk radio show "End of the Line." In 1997, by agreement with Henry ("the Fonz") Winkler and Paramount Pictures, this show transformed into the ratings star "Sightings."

_______________________________________________________________

Based on the following article he was a former news anchor at KOBI-TV. However, if one searches KOBI, there is no information on the former popular TV news anchor/news director Jeff Rense to be found.

The Truth Is Up There

"Presiding over this conspiratorial miasma is talk-radio host Jeff Rense, whose weeknight show, Sightings, is broadcast from a studio somewhere in Southern Oregon. (Citing threats to his life, Rense asked WW not to print his exact location.) Five nights a week, millions of Americans (including an estimated 21,000 Portlanders) in 120 cities tune in to Rense to catch up on the latest news on alien abduction, Bigfoot, paranormal phenomena--and chemtrails. A former news anchor at KOBI-TV in Medford, Rense began to hear reports of chemtrails in 1999."

________________________________________________________________

The above page also says:

"...By the late 1980s, Rense had worked for a handful of network affiliates in the West. He said his ratings were high, and he got 'lucrative offers' from several Oregon stations. But he had also become disillusioned with TV news and decided to quit the business...." "...After walking away from his TV career path, Rense returned to Santa Barbara and opened three pet stores..."

"...By the early 1990s, he had sold his All About Pets outlets and in 1994 approached KTMS with his idea for a talk-radio show, or at least his version of one..."

A Professional Broadcast Journalist

"As an award-winning broadcast journalist, Mr. Rense has anchored and produced well over 5,000 live 30-and 60-minute television newscasts… He began his End of the Line radio show which is now in its fourth highly successful year. Recently, the End of the Line was acquired by the Premiere Radio Networks, one of the top two radio syndicators in the U.S., and renamed Sightings On The Radio through an agreement with Paramount."

"As a journalist and private citizen, he became aware of the misinformation and propaganda surrounding the worldwide AIDS epidemic. Devoting three years of his life to researching, collecting, and compiling information, Mr. Rense authored the underground best-seller, AIDS Exposed, published in 1996. This 420-page book has been acclaimed as 'overwhelming,' 'invaluable' and 'the supreme public service' by broadcasters, medical professionals, and educators alike. Appearing on scores of radio and TV talk shows as an author, Mr. Rense has also been invited to lecture at such institutions as the University of California and USC. He has also written numerous articles, papers, and reports on a wide range of subjects and acts as a consultant on many different issues."

Rense's radio show "End of the Line" was renamed "Sightings on the Radio" with Paramount's backing.

An extensive online search for articles, journalistic reports and papers from Rense’s purported pre-Rense.com prior journalism career yields nothing.

How can this possibly be if he has written ‘numerous articles, papers and reports’? His book, AIDS Exposed, does not appear to be available anymore, with the exception of potential availability of a random used copy, if you’re lucky.

A search on the publisher of this book, Bioalert Press, coughs up nothing as far as any listing for a company website. The top link on Google search for Bioalert Press says: Bookstore-- Balaam's Ass Suggests you Read These Good Books-- Health AIDS Exposed-- Jeffrey Rense-- BioAlert Press-- Order from Jeffrey Rense, Box 764, Goleta, CA 93116. www.balaams-ass.com/bookstor/health.htm -

The above Google link would not come up for me in multiple attempts on different days. Regarding the Balaam’s Ass link, one has to order the book directly from Jeff Rense. Is Bioalert Press really just Rense? Has anyone out there ever heard of BioAlert Press?

I find it very ironic that Rense claims to have become so disillusioned with the nature of the mainstream news broadcast business and its inclination to report tabloid style and sensationalistic material, when all anyone has to do is peruse the Rense.com website for 10 minutes to realize that this well-funded site – funded by the same mainstream businesses that Rense claims to detest – is full of nothing but a never-ending series of sensationalistic, tabloid-type, speculative, unsubstantiated or fabricated “news” articles. I have to ask: Is it only wrong, disillusioning and distasteful when “other” people do it, Jeff? Or are you doing it for them?

Furthermore, online searches for any evidence of Jeff Rense’s longstanding claims regarding his extremely elusive broadcast journalism career path result in even more dead ends. There is an article on the Rense website entitled “The Most Dangerous Man in Talk Radio”, authored by an alleged LA writer named Kennedy Grey.

In this article, Kennedy Grey tells us, “When Jeff Rense walked away from a #1 rated Oregon TV news anchor position, people suspected job burnout. But Rense wasn't burned out on his job - his dissatisfaction was with the entire news media mainstream itself. Grey also states that Jeff spent “Twelve years as on on-air news anchor and News Director "up and down the west coast". Grey further says, “Rense set out to re-invent himself into a liberator of truth from the confines of a corrupt and bloated news broadcast industry.” He directly quotes Jeff Rense, who states that “Radio is theatre of the mind - a classroom of the mind."

Very interesting comments, aren’t they? The news anchor/news director statement is impossible to verify via the Internet, and thus far Jeff Rense is not forthcoming with information in spite of email sent to him containing a link to our website inquiry dated Friday, May 26, 2006 entitled Who is "Jeff Rense"?.

Does anyone have a copy of any of these 5,000 Jeff Rense newscasts? We’d sure like to see one. Thus far, we have not been able to locate anyone other than one person who remembers seeing Jeff Rense anchoring a TV newscast.

Only one TV news station’s call letters has been identified thus far. KOBI-TV 5 out of Medford, Oregon, which is an NBC affiliate. Pretty slim pickings. Nevertheless, I made a few phone calls to Medford, Oregon. One would think that as popular as Jeff Rense supposedly was, surely someone would remember him from the 1980s – particularly if he had produced and anchored 5000 newscasts up and down the West Coast. I contacted the Mail Tribune and spoke with an employee in the newsroom there. She had never heard of Oregon’s (former) #1 top rated news anchor, Jeff Rense. I’m awaiting a call back from Bob Hunter, editor of the Mail Tribune newspaper, to see if he has any recollections on this matter.

“5000 newscasts” is a lot of face-time, wouldn’t you agree?

Three calls to Rense’s former place of employment, KOBI-TV, speaking to four people who worked there didn’t help Rense very much. The first three individuals I spoke to had never heard of Jeff Rense and have no idea who he is. The fourth person was the owner of KOBI-TV, Patsy Smullin.

Jeff claims to have left KOBI due to his disillusionment with the mainstream news business and the tendency of TV news to sensationalize and dip into tabloid reporting, as stated above. I read Jeff’s published claims about this to Patsy Smullin. She responded, “That’s not the reason he gave to us at all. He said he was leaving to join his wife in their pet store.” (I am currently checking out the pet store information.)

Overall, Patsy Smullin did not give the impression that Jeff Rense had been a good employee while at KOBI-TV. In fact, her remarks lead one to believe that he was dishonest and untrustworthy. It was all I could do to restrain myself from asking if he conducted newscasts while wearing a wig.

The question we are entitled to ask is: why would Jeff Rense make so many claims about himself, and why would he twist the truth and make public assertions that are simply not true? Isn’t the “reinvented Jeff Rense” supposed to be all about truth and realism as opposed to sensationalistic, tabloid-style garbage? If one looks through his massive website, is it conceivable that a person might have some difficulty trying to discern the difference between Rense shinola and honest-to-god truth? Where does one end and the other begin? Furthermore, is Jeff Rense the person we really want to ask? Maybe that’s a little like asking the Bush Gang to investigate 911? (Oh, right! That’s already been done. Vanity Fair called it a “whitewash.”)

----------------------------------------

“Jeff Rense” is a familiar name to countless political/conspiracy talk radio listeners and web surfers. In these circles, virtually everyone has heard of Rense.com. What very few people realize, or have even stopped to think about, is that very little is known about Jeff Rense himself. The available online biographical information is vague and deals in generalities, and has been copied and pasted from one web page to another over the years. The Rense legend has been dished out for public consumption in small, measured doses over time in word-bytes, with hardly anyone daring to openly question its veracity. Rense fans embrace, and often even vehemently defend the legend; those who don’t end up being ridiculed and attacked. That’s a curious feature of Rense’s position as a “Don of Conspiracy Theory.”

Jeff Rense is an interesting guy, wouldn’t you say? He’s almost a “legend,” and is even listed on a government site as the number one purveyor of “misinformation.” That’s quite an accomplishment in a world where “conspiracy theories” are mostly ignored and/or ridiculed. You could even say that it’s very good PR to get on such a list.

My curiosity about Jeff Rense began to grow when I realized that he has maintained a large Internet presence for over a decade, and despite this, there is virtually no information on him other than that which one finds on his website. How has Jeff Rense managed to keep information about himself off the world wide web all these years? That’s an interesting question.

We live in a time that discourages curiosity about the ‘wrong” topics – that’s a hallmark of the Fascist Bushistas - and it seems that questioning Rense is definitely “off limits”. We have to wonder why that is? Asking questions about the ‘wrong” people is treated almost as sacrilege. We love to hold our heroes and gurus high, don’t we? But we have learned the hard way that questions are only discouraged by those who have something to hide.

What could such a nice guy, such a great “patriot” as Jeff Rense possibly have to hide?

After spending some time combing through his claims and trying to find verification, I began to realize that “Jeff Rense” is little more than a reinvention. He has made some very interesting claims over the years, particularly with respect to his former stints in broadcasting and journalism; claims that served as building blocks in the creation of a legend, a legend constructed from the twisting of truth.

Well, let’s look at “Jeff Rense” shall we?

Claim #1: On the Rense.com homepage, we see the following:

“7-time Peabody Award Nominee”

Rense Peabody Talkers claim

Peabody Awards

Truth: The Rense.com website claims 7 Peabody Award nominations. The Peabody Awards do not have nominees. Anyone can fill out an entry, and then later the winners are announced. The following is an email from the Peabody Awards Foundation:

"The Peabody Awards program receives between 1,000 and 1,200 entries each year. We have a 15 member judging panel that meets several times during the judging season, as well as listening to/watching entries alone in their homes. They discuss all entries as a group, usually awarding between 30 and 35 Peabodys each year. There are no set number of awards given, and the board does not choose winners according to categories. We do not have a list of finalists or "nominees" as other awards programs have.

Basically we have entrants and winners.

Danna L. Williams Senior Administrative Assistant, emailed Feb. 6th 2006 "

In other words, you could nominate me, I could nominate you, and we could all nominate Bozo the Clown. The Peabody panel will most likely be interested in these suggestions, but ultimately it is THEY who choose the winners – not the public. There are no official lists of “nominees”. Rense’s website claim to be a “7 Time Peabody Award Nominee” is not only misleading, it means essentially nothing. It is presented to create a false impression of Rense’s achievements, basically it’s deceptive bullshit.

Talkers Magazine

Claim # 2: The Rense website states: “Talkers magazine top 100 Host”

Talkers Magazine ‘Heavy Hundred’

Truth: Please note that Jeff Rense isn't listed in the top 100, and he isn't even listed in the additional 250 names cited in the rest of Talkers Top Radio Show Host picks for 2006. Rense failed to make the cut for 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002, etc. Rense was on the list once about 6 or 7 years ago, according to a response to my inquiry from Talkers. In fact, they find it pretty interesting that Jeff Rense is continuing to present this claim on his website, creating the appearance of his inclusion on this popular list, when in fact he is currently not listed. Talkers characterized this misleading representation in one word: “deceptive”, saying they will be keeping an eye on Rense and any Talkers-related claims from here on. Take a look at the list linked above. Call Talkers Magazine and ask them yourself if he is indeed on the Heavy Hundred list.

Claim #3: Rense’s Myspace web page at:

Rense My Space Profile lists his location as Ashland, Oregon – yet his Rense.com fan page says he is in California. Which is it? Oregon or California? Does Rense have two residences? If so, how does one afford two residences on an Internet radio income?

Of course, the answer could be that one is his residence and the other is his business address, but again I ask: if he is just doing his thing because he is a “true patriot,” knowing how hard it is for other true patriots to make ends meet, we have to ask who is paying for his office? What money is backing him? His MySpace page states an income of $100,000-$150,000 per year. That’s a pretty good chunk of change for a guy who claims to be in the business out of the goodness of his heart and his interest in truth.

Claim #4: Jeff Rense From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Former television news anchorman Jeff Rense, who lives in Santa Barbara, California, is a popular conspiracy theorist and is the host of the Jeff Rense program which is broadcast on terrestrial radio and on the Internet. He originally became famous in the 90's with the program "Sightings". His radio program and website (See below) cover such subjects as UFO reports, paranormal phenomena, conspiracy theories, reports of new diseases and a plethora of other material rarely covered by the mainstream media. Jeff Rense leans towards a populist approach regarding politics and media. Rense does not subscribe to any conventional political standpoint and many of his views are simultaneously left and right leaning. Rense has one brother: writer, Rip Rense. His step mother, New York socialite and editor-in-chief of Architectural Digest Magazine, is Paige Rense. His father, now deceased, was sports journalist, Arthur F. Rense (1917-1990). Jeff Rense is also a vegan."

Here we learn that Rense’s views are simultaneously both left-leaning and right-leaning. Sounds like an impossible contortion to me. It is also established from more than one source that Jeff’s father, Arthur Rense, formerly a sportswriter and sometime poet, also landed a job at Douglas Aircraft doing PR. How does a poet and sports writer qualify for work as a public relations director at Douglas Aircraft, one of the biggies of the Military Industrial Complex? Here is the NY Times obituary for Arthur Rense:

Arthur F. Rense, Public Relations Executive, 74
Published: January 5, 1991
“Arthur F. Rense, a retired public relations executive, died on Dec. 28 at his home in Las Vegas, Nev. He was 74 years old. He died of leukemia, said his wife, Paige Rense, editor in chief of Architectural Digest. Mr. Rense had been director of public relations for the Summa Corporation, owned by Howard R. Hughes, until he retired in 1985. He had been public relations director for the missiles and space systems division of Douglas Aircraft Company and director of public relations at Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, Calif. Besides his wife, Mr. Rense is survived by three sons from a former marriage, Kirk of Irvine, Calif., Jeff of Santa Barbara , Calif., and Rip of Sherman Oaks, Calif.; four brothers, Randy, Andy and Frank, all of Cleveland, and William of Denver; and two grandchildren.”

Regarding Summa Corporation: The Washington Post for April 1, 1975, carried this information:

Summa Corp. is the financial umbrella under which most of (Howard)Hughes' worth is contained. . . .Most recently, another Summa "asset" hit the news: the $350 million Hughes Glomar Explorer vessel that Hughes built at the behest (and the expense of) the Central Intelligence Agency . . . Mormons, Hughes, & CIA

Summa Corporation has been tied to CIA contracts on more than one occasion, to say the least. Douglas Aircraft Company is also well-known for its numerous government contracts, not to mention the starring role it is now playing in Bush’s Endless War. So again I ask: how did “poet and sports writer” Arthur Rense end up as public relations director for Douglas Aircraft and Summa Corp? In bed with the Feds? More importantly, what kind of connections does his son Jeff have with these same gangs? After all, his views are “both left and right” which suggests that he could have “left” views to vacuum in his audience all the while subtly converting them to “right” views.

Douglas Aircraft also has ties with RAND Corporation:

RAND (Encyclopedia)

The RAND Corporation is an American think tank.

"A think tank is a group of individuals dedicated to high-level synergistic research on a variety of subjects, usually in military laboratories, corporations,... first formed to offer research and analysis to the U.S. military. The organization has since expanded to working with other government and commercial organizations Project RAND was set up in 1945 by the USAAF, under contract to the Douglas Aircraft Company. An interesting aside, Condoleezza Rice is a former RAND CorporationTrustee 1991-1997 and current Secretary of State for the United States, a war whore if ever there was one."

Okay, I think everybody knows that Summa, Douglas Aircraft, and RAND are all major players with DOD, military and intelligence agencies in the fascist government that Jeff Rense claims to oppose. Yet we find that his father, Arthur Rense, poet, sports writer, was “somehow” a public relations director for both Douglas Aircraft and Summa Corporation? I would very much like to hear Jeff Rense publicly discuss this curious fact one of these fine days and explain how he could live much of his life with alphabet soup guys swarming around and avoid being sucked into the game. Funny how this topic never seems to come up, isn’t it? Perhaps he just keeps forgetting to mention it.

Now I want to come back to the fact that Jeff Rense has been “honored” by being listed on an official government website as a major purveyor of “disinformation.” Among the conspiracy minded crowd, that is a high kudo indeed. But is it evidence that Jeff truly is a news source standing in opposition to the Bush Reich and their Endless Wars of Lies and Agression? Maybe not. As Robin Ramsay, Editor of Lobster Magazine, wrote in the February issue of Fortean Times:

Recently, the US State Department has begun trying to rebut some of the current conspiracy theories about America. Their first targets were a couple of websites - www.rense.com and Conspiracy Planet - and the late Joe Vialls, an Australian. What a boost for the named sites! Attacked by the State Department![...]

[Y]ou don't have to be a PR genius to see that what you simply mustn't do is launch official attacks: all they do is amplify and legitimise the theories by announcing that they are deemed to be worth attacking. [Fortean Times 206, February 2006, p. 19]

What a coup for Rense and Alex Jones! To be officially declared the primo disinfo sites! Now, if you know anything about COINTELPRO, you expect that the real COINTELPRO operations will be attacked "officially" in order to legitimize them exactly as Robin Ramsay has described. That also means that those who are honest and sincere seekers of truth and who do their homework and expose the lies of the Bush Reich will most certainly NOT be martyred by the official government. It's way too dangerous and gives them legitimacy. Rather, they will be defamed by the “officially designated disinformation agents” – and dare we say it? – agents of COINTELPRO - such as Jeff Rense, Alex Jones and similar disinformation agents that have received the Bush Reich seal of approval. In fact, it seems that this is a well-orchestrated plan that is described in detail in that much maligned document, “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.” A really good way to keep your eye on the ball is to consider Protocol 12...

Now, it is important when reading the Protocols to not assign it's origin to any national, ethnic, or religious group. Rather, consider it to be a statement of any group that seeks to control and dominate and use the public for their own gain Then you will truly begin to understand who is who. (Excerpts of Protocol 12: Control of the Press are located at the end of this article):

Recently, Jeff Rense accused WING TV of engaging in deception, trickery, subterfuge, lying, slandering and libel, just to name a few of the charges. He has publicly called Victor Thorn and myself “dirtball scum” and together with Alex Jones and their groupies, charged us with being “cointelpro assets, government agents and un-American operatives." True to form and apparently attached to Rense at the hip and the lip, (and linked on the official government site, I should add), Alex Jones reinforces, endorses, and repeats Rense’s vomitus, only louder. What’s amusing about this is that Rense, Jones, nor any of their groupie parrots have yet to substantiate any of these bogus charges made against us.

Let me get this straight: nobody has to qualify with data anything they say, including (and particularly) veteran journalist Jeff Rense? Alex Jones has yet to qualify any of his ridiculous comments about us either, and he refuses to hold himself accountable for his own words.

Ask yourself: Why? Is it conceivable to anyone out there that they cannot PROVE the things they say about WING TV? Moreover, this begs the question, can they prove any and all of the other “gospel-truth” claims they’ve made over the years? That is another very good question.

You see, we are supposed to just believe what they say simply because they say it. Forget about facts, data or substantiation. Forget about showing evidence of their assertions; forget about journalistic ethics; just nod your head and agree. Don’t ask questions. Gobble up the lies and twisted half-truths and get your fill of the fix du jour. After all, in the words of Jeff Rense, it is all a “theater of the mind”.

What we observe is that both Rense and Jones pander to a “least common denominator” audience demographic, the people out there who don’t bother to check things out for themselves and will just repeat what they hear and read over and over, like good little automatons. This is the ideal Rense-Jones target audience, one which will worship blindly, surrender critical thinking skills, believe without questioning or disagreement, and of course, shell out the bucks.

Incidentally, I did a search on Kennedy Grey, the LA writer who penned the article about Rense entitled “The Most Dangerous Man in Talk Radio”. He (she) is supposedly the founder of a group called RAS, an acronym for ‘Rock Against Suicide’. Unfortunately, a Google search for Kennedy Grey did not yield a website for the RAS group anywhere, but there is an interview with Kennedy Grey on this website: The Internet Nirvana Fan club.

Nirvana Fan Club. Oh boy, how impressive. A Curt Cobain suicide website.

I was not able to find any links online to Grey’s organization, RAS, or to Kennedy Grey, other than the single article he wrote which is published on Rense.com. I would like to find Kennedy Grey and ask whether he/she even bothered to check out any of the claims Rense made to him in the interview. I’d like to learn if Kennedy Grey is a real person, for that matter, or just a construct of Rense. Whatever the case may be, it doesn’t look like Grey checked out any of the statements Rense made in that interview. If some fact-checking had been done, Grey’s article would probably be written a bit differently. At the very least, it should have been.

Rense and Alex Jones enjoy howling that “Honest-to-God patriots" NEVER attack other patriots. That sounds a lot like:

"For any attempt to attack us, if such still be possible, we shall inflict fines without mercy…. No one shall with impunity lay a finger on the aureole of our government infallibility. The pretext for stopping any publication will be the alleged plea that it is agitating the public mind without occasion or justification." [Protocols]

The fact is, those who do the research know that the Founding Fathers engaged in a great deal of spirited, heated, sincere dispute with one another. Some of them hated one another with a passion, yet in spite of this animosity, worked together for the common good of all; as the cause was greater than themselves, and they all knew this to be true. So where do Rense and Jones come off bellowing such obnoxious bullshit, especially when we consider the fact that merely branding oneself a “patriot” does not necessarily make it so. I could call myself “Madonna”, but that doesn’t mean I AM Madonna.

Appearances can be very deceiving, especially when some so-called “patriots” choose to hide behind microphones in undisclosed locations, behind wigs and a couple of re-touched, photo-shopped cartoon pictures of themselves, and when all they choose to disclose is a limited amount of extremely vague babble about their alleged past accomplishments, achievements, or experience designed solely to “create a legend”.

And then, when we discover, with a minimum of investigation, that their claims do not hold up, that it is all completely manipulated, twisted, exaggerated, amplified and contorted facts designed to present a false front, we are entitled to question everything else. Why do people tell lies, whether overtly or by omission? Some do it because of mental issues, some do it for profit, and some do it just because they can.

Bottom line: Jeff Rense has falsely accused WING TV of trading in lies, deception, duplicity, innuendo, disinformation and trickery. Jeff Rense better start looking in the mirror, because I see a so-called “patriot” that needs to come clean about a few things, someone who is “not known for his honesty”.

Definitions of deception on the Web:

• misrepresentation: a misleading falsehood
• the act of deceiving
• magic trick: an illusory feat; considered magical by naive observers
• Deception is providing intentionally misleading information to others.
• To practice deceit.
• To give a false impression: appearances can deceive.
• To cause to believe what is not true; mislead.
• to cause to accept as true or valid what is false or invalid intransitive verb : to practice deceit
• be false to; be dishonest with - 2: cause someone to believe an untruth

Stay tuned, because this investigation is not over. More to follow soon.

"The big print giveth and the small print taketh away."
~ Tom Waitts ~

Protocol 12: Control of the Press

1. The word "freedom," which can be interpreted in various ways, is defined by us as follows –

2. Freedom is the right to do what which the law allows. This interpretation of the word will at the proper time be of service to us, because all freedom will thus be in our hands, since the laws will abolish or create only that which is desirable for us according to the aforesaid program.

3. We shall deal with the press in the following way: what is the part played by the press to-day? It serves to excite and inflame those passions which are needed for our purpose or else it serves selfish ends of parties. It is often vapid, unjust, mendacious, and the majority of the public have not the slightest idea what ends the press really serves. We shall saddle and bridle it with a tight curb: we shall do the same also with all productions of the printing press, for where would be the sense of getting rid of the attacks of the press if we remain targets for pamphlets and books? …

For any attempt to attack us, if such still be possible, we shall inflict fines without mercy…. No one shall with impunity lay a finger on the aureole of our government infallibility. The pretext for stopping any publication will be the alleged plea that it is agitating the public mind without occasion or justification.

I BEG YOU TO NOTE THAT AMONG THOSE MAKING ATTACKS UPON US WILL ALSO BE ORGANS ESTABLISHED BY US, BUT THEY WILL ATTACK EXCLUSIVELY POINTS THAT WE HAVE PRE-DETERMINED TO ALTER. WE CONTROL THE PRESS

4. NOT A SINGLE ANNOUNCEMENT WILL REACH THE PUBLIC WITHOUT OUR CONTROL. Even now this is already being attained by us inasmuch as all news items are received by a few agencies, in whose offices they are focused from all parts of the world. These agencies will then be already entirely ours and will give publicity only to what we dictate to them.

5. If already now we have contrived to possess ourselves of the minds of the GOY communities to such an extent that they all come near looking upon the events of the world through the colored glasses of those spectacles we are setting astride their noses; if already now there is not a single State where there exist for us any barriers to admittance into what GOY stupidity calls State secrets: what will our positions be then, when we shall be acknowledged supreme lords of the world in the person of our king of all the world ....

6. Let us turn again to the FUTURE OF THE PRINTING PRESS. Every one desirous of being a publisher, librarian, or printer, will be obliged to provide himself with the diploma instituted therefore, which, in case of any fault, will be immediately impounded. With such measures THE INSTRUMENT OF THOUGHT WILL BECOME AN EDUCATIVE MEANS ON THE HANDS OF OUR GOVERNMENT, WHICH WILL NO LONGER ALLOW THE MASS OF THE NATION TO BE LED ASTRAY IN BY-WAYS AND FANTASIES ABOUT THE BLESSINGS OF PROGRESS. Is there any one of us who does not know that these phantom blessings are the direct roads to foolish imaginings which give birth to anarchical relations of men among themselves and towards authority, because progress, or rather the idea of progress, has introduced the conception of every kind of emancipation, but has failed to establish its limits .... All the so-called liberals are anarchists, if not in fact, at any rate in thought. Every one of them in hunting after phantoms of freedom, and falling exclusively into license, that is, into the anarchy of protest for the sake of protest.... FREE PRESS DESTROYED

7. We turn to the periodical press. … if there should be any found who are desirous of writing against us, they will not find any person eager to print their productions. Before accepting any production for publication in print, the publisher or printer will have to apply to the authorities for permission to do so. Thus we shall know beforehand of all tricks preparing against us and shall nullify them by getting ahead with explanations on the subject treated of.

8. Literature and journalism are two of the most important educative forces, and therefore our government will become proprietor of the majority of the journals. This will neutralize the injurious influence of the privately-owned press and will put us in possession of a tremendous influence upon the public mind .... If we give permits for ten journals, we shall ourselves found thirty, and so on in the same proportion. This, however, must in no wise be suspected by the public. For which reason all journals published by us will be of the most opposite, in appearance, tendencies and opinions, thereby creating confidence in us and bringing over to us quite unsuspicious opponents, who will thus fall into our trap and be rendered harmless.

9. In the front rank will stand organs of an official character. They will always stand guard over our interests, and therefore their influence will be comparatively insignificant. 10. In the second rank will be the semi-official organs, whose part it will be to attack the tepid and indifferent.

11. In the third rank we shall set up our own, to all appearance, opposition, which, in at least one of its organs, will present what looks like the very antipodes to us. Our real opponents at heart will accept this simulated opposition as their own and will show us their cards.

12. All our newspapers will be of all possible complexions -- aristocratic, republican, revolutionary, even anarchical - for so long, of course, as the constitution exists .... Like the Indian idol "Vishnu" they will have a hundred hands, and every one of them will have a finger on any one of the public opinions as required. When a pulse quickens these hands will lead opinion in the direction of our aims, for an excited patient loses all power of judgment and easily yields to suggestion. Those fools who will think they are repeating the opinion of a newspaper of their own camp will be repeating our opinion or any opinion that seems desirable for us. In the vain belief that they are following the organ of their party they will, in fact, follow the flag which we hang out for them.

13. In order to direct our newspaper militia in this sense we must take special and minute care in organizing this matter. Under the title of central department of the press we shall institute literary gatherings at which our agents will without attracting attention issue the orders and watchwords of the day. By discussing and controverting, but always superficially, without touching the essence of the matter, our organs will carry on a sham fight fusillade with the official newspapers solely for the purpose of giving occasion for us to express ourselves more fully than could well be done from the outset in official announcements, whenever, of course, that is to our advantage.

14. THESE ATTACKS UPON US WILL ALSO SERVE ANOTHER PURPOSE, NAMELY, THAT OUR SUBJECTS WILL BE CONVINCED TO THE EXISTENCE OF FULL FREEDOM OF SPEECH AND SO GIVE OUR AGENTS AN OCCASION TO AFFIRM THAT ALL ORGANS WHICH OPPOSE US ARE EMPTY BABBLERS, since they are incapable of finding any substantial objections to our orders. ONLY LIES PRINTED

15. Methods of organization like these, imperceptible to the public eye but absolutely sure, are the best calculated to succeed in bringing the attention and the confidence of the public to the side of our government. Thanks to such methods we shall be in a position as from time to time may be required, to excite or to tranquillize the public mind on political questions, to persuade or to confuse, printing now truth, now lies, facts or their contradictions, according as they may be well or ill received, always very cautiously feeling our ground before stepping upon it .... WE SHALL HAVE A SURE TRIUMPH OVER OUR OPPONENTS SINCE THEY WILL NOT HAVE AT THEIR DISPOSITION ORGANS OF THE PRESS IN WHICH THEY CAN GIVE FULL AND FINAL EXPRESSION TO THEIR VIEWS owing to the aforesaid methods of dealing with the press. We shall not even need to refute them except very superficially.

16. Trial shots like these, fired by us in the third rank of our press, in case of need, will be energetically refuted by us in our semi-official organs.

17. Even nowadays, already, to take only the French press, there are forms which reveal masonic solidarity in acting on the watchword: all organs of the press are bound together by professional secrecy; like the augurs of old, not one of their numbers will give away the secret of his sources of information unless it be resolved to make announcement of them. Not one journalist will venture to betray this secret, for not one of them is ever admitted to practice literature unless his whole past has some disgraceful sore or other .... These sores would be immediately revealed. So long as they remain the secret of a few the prestige of the journalist attacks the majority of the country - the mob follow after him with enthusiasm.

18. Our calculations are especially extended to the provinces. It is indispensable for us to inflame there those hopes and impulses with which we could at any moment fall upon the capital, and we shall represent to the capitals that these expressions are the independent hopes and impulses of the provinces. Naturally, the source of them will be always one and the same - ours. WHAT WE NEED IS THAT, UNTIL SUCH TIME AS WE ARE IN THE PLENITUDE POWER, THE CAPITALS SHOULD FIND THEMSELVES STIFLED BY THE PROVINCIAL OPINION OF THE NATIONS, I.E., OF A MAJORITY ARRANGED BY OUR AGENTUR. What we need is that at the psychological moment the capitals should not be in a position to discuss an accomplished fact for the simple reason, if for no other, that it has been accepted by the public opinion of a majority in the provinces.

19. WHEN WE ARE IN THE PERIOD OF THE NEW REGIME TRANSITIONAL TO THAT OF OUR ASSUMPTION OF FULL SOVEREIGNTY WE MUST NOT ADMIT ANY REVELATION BY THE PRESS OF ANY FORM OF PUBLIC DISHONESTY; IT IS NECESSARY THAT THE NEW REGIME SHOULD BE THOUGHT TO HAVE SO PERFECTLY CONTENDED EVERYBODY THAT EVEN CRIMINALITY HAS DISAPPEARED ... Cases of the manifestation of criminality should remain known only to their victims and to chance witnesses - no more.

I think that all of the above may sound very familiar to all of you reading this. The only difference is that now we work with the Internet and not printed materials. But the principles are the same.