Propaganda and the Politics of Perception


by Michael Carmichael 
 
Global Research, March 12, 2007 
Planetary Movement  

A version of this text was presented to the Kuala Lumpur Conference on 
War Crimes, Perdana Global Peace Organization, 5-7 February 2007.

War propaganda glorifies military indoctrination as the highest form 
of patriotism while simultaneously demonizing the enemies of the state.

Adolf Hitler realized the power of propaganda to mould and shape 
public opinion. Hitler wrote a highly informed essay on the powers of 
propaganda in his political autobiography, Mein Kampf.

Modern governments employ propaganda to incite public outcries for war 
in order to advance their agendas in foreign policy.

War propaganda is nothing new. The dynastic Egyptians created 
monumental sculptures that glorified Pharaoh as a conqueror who 
personally executed ? frequently by fracturing their sculls with a mace 
- hundreds of the enemies of his state. Thus, the public glorification 
of war and its most heinous crimes has been with us for thousands of 
years.

War propaganda is abundantly evident in the fabric of our culture, and 
it presents no symptoms of weakness or dissipation. Quite the opposite 
is true. The latest film by Clint Eastwood, Flags of our Fathers, is 
little more than war propaganda that glorifies American military 
achievements in the context of a racial enemy ? the Japanese. Sadly, 
Clint Eastwood has a long history of manufacturing films that are 
nothing more than pulpish propaganda: Where Eagles Dare; Heartbreak 
Ridge, Firefox and many other glorifications of violence and the 
principle, ?Might makes right.?

While the primary purpose of war propaganda is to manufacture public 
commitment to wars and their inevitable crimes, in George Bush?s 
America psychological warfare aimed directly at the American public is 
designed to manufacture the political platform to launch a perpetual 
state of war that will produce a totalitarian regime headed by a 
Commander-in-Chief who is nothing more than a military dictator.

?Perception management? is another term used to describe the process 
of transforming public opinion to conform to a premeditated political 
agenda. Perception management establishes underlying trends and 
tendencies that drive the public perception of events in the direction 
of war. During war, perception management manipulates public opinion to 
accept the horrific nature of war crimes as merely nothing more than 
collateral damage, friendly fire and accidental mishaps that are 
inevitable consequences of the fog of war.

Psychological warfare training in George Bush?s America has reached 
historic proportions. Social influence, perception management and a 
full range of persuasion techniques have permeated the American 
government and are now deeply embedded into the fabric of official 
culture ? especially the US military. The purpose of psychological 
warfare is to manufacture public support for Bush?s wars and for future 
wars as well as strengthening the powers of the state while demonizing 
the enemies of the Bush-Cheney regime. Concomitant with these 
assignments, psychological warfare camouflages the most horrific war 
crimes and makes them seem to be acts of virtue and valour that are 
absolutely essential for military, ?Victory.?

Language lies at the heart of propaganda. The language of propaganda, 
psychological warfare and perception management is grounded in ancient 
principles that have been well known to leading sages, philosophers and 
intellectuals for thousands of years. Confucius believed that the 
disintegration of Chinese society in his time was directly attributable 
to a general deterioration of the language.

Confucius sought to improve language in order to improve the society 
and culture. He wrote,

?The correct use of language leads to the correct behavior of people?

In the Mediaeval Era of Latin Europe, Dante realized the power of 
language to order society. Dante launched his quest for the perfect 
language to communicate the highest levels of understanding to the 
broadest number of people.

Dante taught that the development of a common language could lead to 
the political unification of Italy, and he proposed the establishment 
of a world government predicated on smooth, fluent and deeply 
integrated communications through a more perfect language.



Niccolo Machiavelli (1469 - 1527) 

In the Renaissance, Niccolo Machiavelli adapted his own theories on 
the political use of language to the high ideals of Confucius and 
Dante. Machiavelli wrote,

?Every one admits how praiseworthy it is in a prince to keep faith, 
and to live with integrity and not with craft. Nevertheless our 
experience has been that those princes who have done great things have 
held good faith of little account, and have known how to circumvent the 
intellect of men by craft, and in the end have overcome those who have 
relied on their word.?

In order to give a vivid example of a prince who used language as 
craft, or spin or propaganda, Dante described the political 
machinations of Pope Alexander VI. He wrote,

?One recent example I cannot pass over in silence. Pope Alexander VI 
did nothing else but deceive men, nor ever thought of doing otherwise, 
and he always found victims; for there never was a man who had greater 
power in asserting, or who with greater oaths would affirm a thing, yet 
would observe it less; nevertheless his deceits always succeeded 
according to his wishes, because he well understood this side of 
humanity.?

In the twentieth century, George Orwell emerged as one of the leading 
philosophers of the Machaivellian abuse of political language. Orwell 
wrote his classic dystopian novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four, and he 
introduced his theories of Doublethink and Newspeak. Orwell defined 
Doublethink as,

?? the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one?s mind 
simultaneously, and accepting both of them. ? To tell deliberate lies 
while genuinely believing in them?

Orwell realized that the totalitarian state would redefine the 
purposes of language. The purpose of Newspeak, is to wage psychological 
warfare to manage the political perceptions of the populace. He wrote,

?The purpose of Newspeak was to eliminate the possibility of 
thoughtcrime . . .to make all other modes of thought impossible. It was 
intended that when Newspeak had been adopted . . . a heretical thought 
should be literally unthinkable, at least so far as thought is 
dependent on words.?

For Orwell, the Machiavellian political abuse of language had 
distorted society into an increasingly malevolent form of tyranny. He 
wrote,

?Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder 
respectable.?

In Orwell?s future, Newspeak and Doublethink would eradicate the 
possibility of protest, sedition, insurgency and rebellion against the 
state.


George Orwell (1903 - 1950) 

In the first years of the twenty-first century, Doublethink became the 
hallmark of the Bush Era. George Bush, Dick Cheney and their minions in 
Washington adopted Doublethink and Newspeak to coerce and impel 
political acceptance of their outrageous policies of perpetual war 
promulgated by a reactionary totalitarian government that is 
indistinguishable from the fascism and Nazism of the early twentieth 
century.

The core doctrine of the Bush Era is pre-emptive war. When Bush argues 
for the right to wage war to prevent war, he invokes Orwellian 
Doublethink by holding two contradictory beliefs simultaneously while 
believing both of them: that war is undesirable while a war to prevent 
war is desirable.

The contradiction activating the Bush Doctrine is invisible to Bush, 
Cheney and their minions in Washington and elsewhere for they are the 
victims of Doublethink. In academic discourse, the Bush Doctrine of pre-
emptive war has been equated with the idea of committing suicide 
because of the fear of dying.

In the Bush Era, the American public are bombarded by a continuous 
stream of propaganda designed to elicit their political support for 
perpetual war and war crimes as well as for a strong, centralized 
government headed by a President who is little more than his ceremonial 
title indicates, a Unitary Executive functioning as Commander-in-Chief 
who is indistinguishable from a military dictator.



US military class at Fort Bragg, North Carolina in social influence, 
perception management and propaganda. 

Manufacturing consent for perpetual war is the primary enterprise of 
the Bush-Cheney government. Not only are citizens heavily taxed to 
support the increasingly undemocratic policies of the Bush-Cheney 
government, they are subjected to a constant barrage of propaganda 
beseeching them to provide political support for policies that 
undermine their constitutional rights to freedom from unreasonable 
searches and seizure, habeas corpus and the freedom of speech. Many 
Americans are alarmed that the USA is now rated 53rd on the World Press 
Freedom Index where it is tied for that dubious distinction with the 
states of Tonga and Croatia.

Bush?s propaganda engines of perpetual war are driven by: xenophobia; 
the demonisation of immigrants; fears of foreign cultures ? especially 
Muslims ? and the persistent application of fear and terror to the body 
politic.

The Bush White House governs by public relations. Tony Snow ? a former 
news presenter for the right-wing Fox News Network ? has become the 
official spokesman for the Bush-Cheney White House revealing the 
priority of propaganda to the political objectives of the Bush regime.

Confucius wrote,

?The correct use of language must begin at the very top of 
government.?

In contrast to Confucius, the blatant perception management and 
propaganda of the totalitarian regime is abundant, clear and constant. 
For example, Dick Cheney adopted the Hitlerian technique of the big lie 
to launch the Iraq War, when he promised the American people,

?I?m confident that our troops will be successful, and I think it?ll 
go relatively quickly . . . Weeks rather than months.?

Swiftly after the horrific tragedy of 9/11, Bush defined the 
thoughtcrime of today by stating,

?Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists.?

The modern state demonizes its opponents in order to manufacture 
public consent for war. In the Bush Era, the demonization of Muslims 
has been constant. Long a central them in the fire and brimstone 
culture of American evangelical Christianity, the demonization of 
Muslims has exploded into the mainstream of western civilization. In 
order to understand this phenomenon more clearly, we must examine a 
particularly revealing aspect of this shameful legacy of American 
religious traditions to focus briefly on the theological work of an 
ancestor of the current president, George W. Bush.

The Reverend George Bush was a cousin of President George W. Bush?s 
grandfather. Reverend Bush?s theological writings are well known to the 
Bush family, but propaganda officials of the Bush government have used 
their powerful offices to suppress and camouflage this revealing 
relationship in the American media ? as well as shielding it almost 
entirely from the global media. In April, 2005, a propaganda official 
named Todd Leventhal of the Office of Countermisinformation confirmed 
that Reverend George Bush was, indeed, a relative of President George 
W. Bush and his father, former President George H. W. Bush.



Reverend George Bush (1796 - 1859) 

In 1837, the Reverend George Bush wrote a book titled, The Life of 
Mohammed: Founder of the Religion of Islam, and the Empire of the 
Saracens. It should be needless to state that the Reverend George Bush 
has little complimentary to say about the founder of one of the world?s 
great religions. Worse. Reverend George Bush launched what should be 
considered a deliberate attack on Mohammed, his teaching and the 
religious tradition that he founded, Islam. The Reverend Bush 
constantly referred to Mohammed as an, ?impostor.? He wrote,

?(Mohammed?s) whole history makes it evident, that fanaticism, 
ambition, and lust were his master passions . . . An enthusiast by 
nature, he became a hypocrite by policy; and as the violence of his 
corrupt propensities increased, he scrupled not to gratify them at the 
expense of truth, justice, friendship and humanity.? (Link: http://www.
muhammadanism.org/bush/bush_mohammed.pdf)

From the theological writings of his ancestor, it cannot be disputed 
that the family of President George Bush has been incubating 
Islamophobia for at least four generations.

In the current generation of the Bush family, the George Bushes have 
surrounded themselves with a fawning coterie of Islamophobic 
evangelical Christian Zionists. For example, Franklin Graham is a 
family friend of the Bushes. Franklin Graham controls a vast and 
influential religious network called the Billy Graham Evangelical 
Association that has an annual income of more than $100,000,000 ? most 
of which is tax exempt. Even today, although the vast majority of the 
American people oppose Bush?s wars, Franklin Graham?s followers 
zealously support Bush?s wars and his deeply unpopular neoconservative 
presidency.

Franklin Graham has made explicit statements articulating his peculiar 
Islamophobic theology. He stated,

?The God of Islam is not the same God of the Christian or the Judeo-
Christian faith. It is a different God, and I believe a very evil and a 
very wicked religion.? 

This statement reveals that Franklin Graham is poorly informed in the 
field of comparative religions, a tragic intellectual disability for a 
professional evangelist.

The demonization of Muslims in popular American culture is overt, in-
your-face and taken as a matter of course. In the massively popular 
television series 24, a Muslim villain named ?Marwan,? held the 
American hero, Jack Bauer, hostage. Muslims frequently provide the 
villains in 24 in a process of demonization that will reverberate for 
generations.

Confucius taught,

?The ruler must correct his own behavior for the people to follow his 
leadership.? 

In Bush?s America, the President and his retinue frequently demonize 
whole nations and peoples. For example, the ?Axis of Evil? statement by 
President Bush demonized two Muslim nations as well as one Asian nation 
fostering a climate of fear, terror, Islamophobia and a generalized 
dread of all racial minorities.

In his State of the Union address in 2002, George Bush stated,

?North Korea is a regime arming with missiles and weapons of mass 
destruction, while starving its citizens. Iran aggressively pursues 
these weapons and exports terror, while an unelected few repress the 
Iranian people?s hope for freedom. Iraq continues to flaunt its 
hostility toward America and to support terror. The Iraqi regime has 
plotted to develop anthrax, and nerve gas, and nuclear weapons for over 
a decade. This is a regime that has already used poison gas to murder 
thousands of its own citizens ? leaving the bodies of mothers huddled 
over their dead children. This is a regime that agreed to international 
inspections ? then kicked out the inspectors. This is a regime that has 
something to hide from the civilized world. States like these, and 
their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil,?

Unfortunately, President Bush, Vice President Cheney and Prime 
Minister Tony Blair are not the only leaders who contribute to the 
climate of terror and fear through the media.



Many religious leaders in America frequently demonize Islam and 
condemn Muslims. In Europe, His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI made some 
insensitive remarks that many Muslims believe were hostile to Islam ? 
because they contribute to the growing climate of Islamophobia.

At a high-profile address in Regensberg, His Holiness Pope Benedict 
XVI quoted Emperor Manuel II Paleologus,

?Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will 
find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the 
sword the faith he preached.?



The process of demonizing Muslims and manufacturing Islamophobia is 
now a global phenomenon. An example is the Disney film, Aladdin, that 
was released in the early 1990s. Many of the American soldiers now 
serving in Iraq saw Aladdin during their childhoods when they were 
vulnerable to psychological programming and the demonization of foreign 
cultures portrayed as inimical to core American values. In Aladdin, the 
villains are all depicted as Arabs speaking with Arabic accents, while 
Aladdin is portrayed as an American youth with an American accent. This 
tactic is nothing less than the transparent demonization of Arabs ? ie. 
Arabophobia.



Aladdin as an American defeats the evil vizier, Jafar, an Arab. 

The propaganda of Islamophobia infiltrates society through the 
propaganda pronouncements of government and religious leaders that lead 
to the contamination of the mainstream media. The headlines of 
newspapers in the Occupied Territories proclaiming, ?Vigilantes take up 
arms, vow to expel, ?Muslim Filth?? incite cultural hatred, ie. 
Islamophobia. These headlines expose attitudes that are the products of 
cultural prejudices compounded by the global media campaign designed to 
propagate Islamophobia as the primary strategy to promote perpetual 
war.

?HELL, THE MUSICAL COMES TO THE VATICAN? read the headline on the BBC 
News coverage of the announcement that the Vatican has recently 
authorized a new popular opera based on Dante?s Divine Comedy ? one of 
the greatest works of Christian literature. But, is there a hidden 
agenda behind the launch of this major new artwork? The BBC reported,

?(Marco Frisina), a Vatican composer is to stage an opera based on 
Dante?s Divine Comedy, with visions of Heaven, Hell and Purgatory. . .
Organisers have asked permission for the premiere to be held at the 
Vatican in the presence of Pope Benedict XVI.? BBC

While this story seems innocuous enough, we should turn to The Divine 
Comedy to examine its potential for promoting the demonization of 
Muslims and Islamophobia.

In Inferno, the first part of The Divine Comedy, Dante wrote his 
description of the torments of Hell. In the Inferno: Canto XXVIII, 
Dante places ?Mahomet,? ie. Mohammad, in one of the most terrible, 
tortuous and tormenting tableaus in Hell.

Undergoing an infinite series of traumatic mutilations, Dante?s 
?Mahomet? is tormented by a Satanic torturer armed with a massive sword 
called a ?falchion.? The sword-wielding demon slashes, lacerates and 
mutilates ?Mahomet? repeatedly in an eternal cycle of Satanic 
vengeance. After each one of these horrific woundings, ?Mahomet? 
wanders along a circuitous path whereupon his mortal wounds heal only 
to be confronted again by the same sword-wielding demon who slashes him 
- again and again and again in an unending cycle of Hellish torture, 
mutilation and punishment. When Dante witnesses this dreadful scene, 
?Mahomet? turns to him, opens the gaping wound in his chest and says,

?See now how I rend me;
How mutilated, see, is Mahomet;
In front of me doth Ali weeping go,
Cleft in the face from forelock unto chin;
And all the others whom thou here beholdest,
Disseminators of scandal and of schism
While living were, and therefore are cleft thus.
A devil is behind here, who doth cleave us
Thus cruelly, unto the falchion?s edge
Putting again each one of all this ream?

In 1869, the Christian artist, Gustave Dore illustrated Dante?s 
Inferno. Dore?s illustration of ?Mahomet? did not create global 
pandemonium at the time. In the twentieth century, Salvador Dali 
produced some of the most outstanding Christian works of art including: 
Christ of St John of the Cross and The Madonna of Port Lligat. One of 
his lesser-known works is his ?Mahomet,? whom he depicts as slashed and 
lacerated following the model in Dante?s Inferno.



Dali?s mutilated Mahomet 1959 

Given the course of events in the first years of the twentieth century 
from the language and wars of the Bush-Cheney government and the 
statements of Pope Benedict XVI in Regensberg, it is only prudent to 
ask the following question. Will the forthcoming Vatican opera contain 
any Islamophobic elements that might enflame international tensions and 
foment wars against Muslim nations?

Confucius taught that the ruler must govern via his moral authority. 
He wrote, ?The moral character of the ruler is the wind, the moral 
character of those beneath him is the grass. When the wind blows, the 
grass bends.?

We have seen how the rulers, presidents, vice-presidents, religious 
leaders and the Pope have contributed to the demonization of Muslims 
and the fomentation of Islamophobic wars.



The death toll for the wars of the Bush Era is a secret number. Highly 
qualified scientists at Johns Hopkins University calculated that 
655,000 Iraqis had died in the first three years of the war. It is now 
one year later. We do not know the number of the deaths, 
dismemberments, disabilities, disfugurations, ravages, rapine and 
capricious slashings, shootings, woundings, burnings, explosions and 
anarchic homicides of the Bush Era, but we do know that secret number 
is still ascending.

For his leading role in manufacturing wars and the infinity of war 
crimes that are boiling out of the cauldrons of war, George Bush is an 
indictable war criminal. Last year, the European press reported that 
Bush had negotiated the purchase of a vast rancho in remote parts of 
Paraguay, a nation that refuses to extradite war criminals.

Driven by despair and disgusted with the treachery of their leaders 
who have cooperated with the warmongers, the people of the planet are 
mobilizing like never before in human history.

Empowered by their common sense of decency, their desire for justice 
and their love of peace the people of our planet are revolted by their 
disastrous leadership. There is a growing sense of urgency.

The pace of change is gaining momentum. The people are seizing the 
moment to make an impact on their political institutions to bring war 
criminals to justice.

The future is in the hands of ordinary people ? like those who are 
reading these words.





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


References

Accuracy in the Media: Misinformation, Mistakes, and Misleading in 
American and Other Media / Todd Leventhal, Chief of the Counter-
Information Team, U.S. Department of State; Dante Chinni, Senior 
Associate, Project for Excellence in Journalism

The Life of Mohammed by the Rev. George Bush, AM

Hell the musical comes to Vatican

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