People who live in overt totalitarian states know the “news” that comes through their televisions and newspapers is state-controlled propaganda. The Chinese know, as do Cubans, as did every sensible person who had the unfortunate fate of being stuck behind the Soviet-controlled Iron Curtain.
But in the United States, the land of the free, it has taken citizens nearly a century to realize they’ve been on the receiving end of the most sophisticated, long-running propaganda campaigns in modern history.
After Americans overwhelmingly reelected President Donald Trump, one of the promises he kept was letting Elon Musk loose to prod around government agencies in search of waste. Musk, through his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), has discovered more than the typical abuse and ineptitude common in government agencies staffed by people with no business, money, or even common, sense. He has discovered that some of the most widely read news agencies, outlets believed to be wholly independent, have taken millions of dollars from the U.S. government.
Politico Problem
Politico, a left-wing news agency that pushes every major Establishment narrative but nonetheless claims to be independent, has received at least $8.4 million through various federal government agencies, including the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), according to data on usaspending.gov. Other agencies funding Politico include the departments of Energy, Interior, Health and Human Services, and Agriculture. A closer look reveals that if we go back to 2016, Politico has taken in a much bigger taxpayer haul, more than $34 million.
Politico’s CEO and editor-in-chief have vehemently denied that the outlet has received “any government funding.” They did, however, carve out an exception for POLITICO Pro, which they said, “is different.” They admit some government agencies subscribe to it, but only because it “makes them better at their jobs.” Given the nation’s run-down condition, they should have come up with a better excuse.
It’s difficult to believe that the Department of Interior’s $455K online subscription to Politico is completely legitimate and without strings. The Trump administration isn’t buying it, either. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters, “I can confirm that the more than eight million taxpayer dollars that have gone to essentially subsidizing subscriptions to Politico on the American taxpayer’s dime will no longer be happening.”
But it’s not just Politico. The nation’s “newspaper of record,” The New York Times, has raked in almost $46 million through the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the National Science Foundation; and The Associated Press (AP) also took in millions through the U.S. Agency for Global Media and the State Department.
Intel Operations
The “subscription scandal” comes on the heels of the Twitter and Facebook files revelations. It wasn’t too long ago when Americans learned that U.S. intelligence agents burrowed into social-media companies to push for the censoring of unapproved Covid and election-related information circulating on the platforms.
Many Americans became aware of “media bias” after Trump famously descended the escalator at Trump Tower in 2015 to announce his first presidential bid. After that, a barrage of smear campaigns, including Operation Crossfire Hurricane, wholly led by corrupt elements within the FBI, assailed the public. Legacy media’s goal was clear: destroy Trump and the segment of the population responsible for putting him in power.
Past Is Prelude
But this wasn’t the first time intelligence agencies tried to manipulate the American people into believing a certain narrative regarding presidential matters.
In 1967, the CIA sent out classified document number 1035-960 to some of its overseas stations. Despite the CIA being an agency tasked with conducting its work abroad, this document included instructions on how to propagandize Americans. It instructed agents to manufacture faith in the Warren Commission report, the U.S. government’s investigation into President John F. Kennedy’s assassination. The CIA document said:
The aim of this dispatch is to provide material for countering and discrediting the claims of the conspiracy theorists, so as to inhibit the circulation of such claims in other countries.
The problem was that Americans believed Lee Harvey Oswald’s final words, “I’m just a patsy.” The CIA document said that a public opinion poll indicated that 46 percent of Americans didn’t believe Oswald acted alone and more than half agreed the Warren report “left some questions unresolved.” The memo advised agents to use their “friendly elite” contacts in political and media realms to manipulate the public into believing JFK was the victim of a lone, crazy gunman. It laid out very specific arguments to make, including that rational conspirators would not use a loser such as Oswald for such a high-profile job. The memo cited books that were critical of the investigation along with counterpoints to discredit the arguments in those books. It was a how-to on propaganda.
Sometimes, even the people in charge of legacy media outlets have made admissions against interest.
Ruling-class Journalists
On October 30, 1993, The Washington Post published an op-ed by then-senior editor Richard Harwood titled “Ruling Class Journalists.” Harwood revealed that many of the most widely read newspapers and magazines in America were in the propaganda business. He said journalists “do not merely analyze and interpret foreign policy; they help make it.” He cited a long list of influential media people who were members of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), a self-proclaimed think tank “whose members are the nearest thing we have to a ruling establishment in the United States.” As repeatedly reported in this publication, the CFR is a century-old Deep State organization that undermines U.S. interests and subversively works to install the pieces of a one-world totalitarian government.
Some of the CFR media members Harwood mentioned included “former” members of the CIA (or its forerunner, the Office of Strategic Services, OSS), TNA reported in our May 8, 2017 issue. These include Cord Meyer, Jr., who was a longtime head of the United World Federalists, and (after nearly 30 years in CIA leadership) a syndicated columnist and author; Thomas Braden, a top-level OSS-CIA leader who later became a newspaper publisher, syndicated columnist, and CNN commentator; and William F. Buckley, who, following his CIA service, founded National Review and Young Americans for Freedom.
Status Quo: Censorship
Could this unholy alliance between intel, internationalists, and media be why a former award-winning investigative journalist for CBS ran into a wall when she tried to report certain stories? In her book Slanted: How the News Media Taught Us to Love Censorship and Hate Journalism, Sharyl Attkisson writes:
There were full-fledged internal power struggles between managers who wanted to keep doing good journalism and those who clearly wished to slant the news for any number of reasons.… I came to learn the same struggles were under way at other news organizations.… I heard secondhand accounts from newsmakers — they would tell me that certain national news reporters had their stories blocked up the chain.
Attkisson provides multiple examples of stories that were killed by someone up the ladder, including one about President Barack Obama’s taxpayer-subsidized green schemes. In 2012, she followed up on a tip that labor unions in Michigan were angry because a lot of tax money under Obama’s green energy stimulus program, about $300 million, was actually going to Korean companies and Korean workers. She did all the legwork, including taking photos and video of Korean employees doing work that was supposed to be performed by Americans, as well as getting a union leader to confirm what was happening. But the story was killed by a CBS executive in New York. Attkisson said she was used to this producer “changing scripts and story direction for her own politically motivated reasons.” In the end, despite her efforts, there was no convincing her. The story was killed for good.
Attkisson doesn’t reveal the name of the producer, but given what we’ve learned over the last decade, it wouldn’t be shocking to learn of connections between what was happening at CBS and the Deep State. Even absent of those connections, it is clear legacy media has operated with very specific left-wing bias.
Propaganda Power
The American public has been a victim of government sanctioned propaganda for more than a century. Edward Bernays, considered the father of propaganda, used his persuasive sorcery to help U.S. President Woodrow Wilson convince the American public to support American involvement in World War I. He also helped the Aluminum Company of America (Alcoa) and other special-interest groups convince Americans that water fluoridation was safe and beneficial. He did this by getting the American Dental Association to play the role of believable experts. This resulted in the fluoridation of most of America’s local water systems. TNA’s predecessor, American Opinion, was among the few truly independent news outlets that resisted the fluoridation propaganda. Last year, a California court ruled in favor of several groups who fought hard to drive home the point that there was too much evidence suggesting fluoridation may lower IQ in babies.
Bernays had a very elitist outlook when it came to the average American. He wrote in his book Public Opinion:
Ours must be a leadership democracy, administered by the “intelligent minority” who know how to regiment and guide the masses. The common interests very largely elude public opinion entirely, and can be managed only by a specialized class whose personal interests reach beyond the locality.
Times Are Changing
This multi-generational “specialized class” that likes to lecture the people about “democracy” has driven national policies and cultural trends longer than we’ve been alive. This subversive takeover has nearly destroyed the nation. The United States is $36 trillion in debt, is crawling with terrorists and criminals invited by a previously installed presidential administration, and its military is spread throughout a world that is growing increasingly tired of our meddling. All this came about under the nose of the public, which was brainwashed and fooled into believing whatever line of propaganda assailed it, the ultimate goal being to continue the policies of the “specialized class.”
But that is changing now. With public trust in media at its lowest point and so many revelations coming to light, the nation is on the verge of learning the ugly but necessary truth about the degree of corruption they have been paying for.
