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“Decades ago, in order to field test the economic theories that were formulated by the right wing think tanks at The Chicago School, Friedman and his disciples descended like locusts upon Latin America. The results were devastating: Democratically elected governments were systematically overthrown and brutal dictators friendly to US business interests were installed in their place—all of which were subsidized by US tax dollars with the complicity of the CIA.”

By Charles Sullivan

10/03/07

One can no longer understand US governmental policy on the basis of conventional language or traditional wisdom. Language itself and its long-established meanings were long ago twisted and distorted in order to deceive the people. Now war is peace and terror and occupation is liberation. In order to make sense of what is happening, it is important to understand everything within the context of a specific economic philosophy, and the distorted capitalist system that spawned it.

That ideology was crafted by a diminutive economist named Milton Friedman, at the University of Chicago some five decades ago. The holy trinity of Friedman’s version of capitalism—privatization of the public domain, corporate deregulation, and deep cuts in social spending—has resulted in enormous societal inequity and socio-economic classes. It has given us the haves and the have-nots, the haves and the have-mores.

Friedman and his disciples, collectively known as ‘The Chicago School’ do not believe in a minimum wage—much less a living wage, unions, worker rights, environmental protections, worker safety, or any other kind of restraint imposed upon corporations. In Friedman’s view, the market should rule and profitability should be the guiding principle, the end results always justifying the means.

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Cyrano’s Journal Online and its semi-autonomous subsections (Thomas Paine’s Corner, The Greanville Journal, CJO Avenger, and VoxPop) would be delighted to periodically email you links to the most recent material and timeless classics available on our diverse and comprehensive site. If you would like to subscribe, type “CJO subscription” in the subject line and send your email to

“…..maze of cubicles where artists, copywriters, and concept men work day and night to define the products of The Nation.”

By Adam Engel

10/2/07

Awakened midnight nobody home. Alone against the music of the Angry Young.
Kid outside screamed poems into a mike. Squat amp dragged behind him on a wagon. Surrounding friends clapped stomped cacophonous. Launched his dithyrambs against The City. Cannonades of sing-song bass.

Josh razed Jericho with song.

“Turn off the NOISE and tune in The VOICE of The Nation.”

That ad from somewhere I remember. Subway maybe. Turned on the stereo. Fight noise with noise. Lonely like I’ve never. Unbearable rip. Inside. Alone me in the middle of the night.

Tried to reach The VOICE myself. Dialed, the line was jammed. WSOS after midnight. The VOICE beseeched by the Sleepless of The Nation.

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Cyrano’s Journal Online and its semi-autonomous subsections (Thomas Paine’s Corner, The Greanville Journal, CJO Avenger, and VoxPop) would be delighted to periodically email you links to the most recent material and timeless classics available on our diverse and comprehensive site. If you would like to subscribe, type “CJO subscription” in the subject line and send your email to

“This, then is the alchemy of fictionalized history, the pixie-dust of national self-esteem and hubris. We seem to think it is our national burden to transform base water into blessed wine. We think we are Jesus.”

By Andrew S. Taylor

Memory and identity are inextricably interdependent properties. One’s memories form the narrative of the self, and one’s sense of “self” is the primary means by which one’s memories are given meaning in the present. Together, these two properties largely determine the choices we make. The primary complication, of course, is that memory is selective, especially when subjected to the biases of perceived needs. Inconvenient disjunctures in the narrative-of-self may be pruned away from consciousness, left to fall by the wayside. This unfortunate fact of human nature explains why we so often see even bright, well-intentioned individuals marching confidently into the viper’s nest.

What is true for individuals is also true for nations when it comes to the question of national memory and national identity. A nation may collectively look to the established narrative of the past for guidance in the present, as well it should. But this only works when the past is correctly apprehended. If the historical narrative is false, decisions in the present will be based on false premises.

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Cyrano’s Journal Online and its semi-autonomous subsections (Thomas Paine’s Corner, The Greanville Journal, CJO Avenger, and VoxPop) would be delighted to periodically email you links to the most recent material and timeless classics available on our diverse and comprehensive site. If you would like to subscribe, type “CJO subscription” in the subject line and send your email to

EDITORS’ PREAMBLE: Boyish and all-American-looking GOP language whore Frank Luntz has perverted further (a feat in itself!) the sordid and utterly immoral “art” of political p.r. The raves he receives by fellow establishment whores like Time Magazine are eloquent commentary on how “American civilization” operates in corporate terms. On his own website, he touts his horn thusly:

“Frank Luntz is one of the most honored communication professionals in America today. “Time Magazine” named him one of “50 of America’s most promising leaders aged 40 and under” and he is the “hottest pollster” in America according to the “Boston Globe.” Frank was named one of the four “Top Research Minds” by Business Week and was the winner of the coveted Washington Post “Crystal Ball” award for being the most accurate pundit in 1992. Public Television’s Bill Moyers had this to say about Frank: “He’s a magician with a gift for the politics of words and what words best connect with the hearts and minds of the public.” Said comedian Al Franken: ” Asking Frank Luntz if he understands public opinion is like asking Julia Childs if she knows how to make a soufflé.”

By The Rockridge Institute

The radical Right’s messaging and framing infrastructure doesn’t seem so fearsome if you know how to spot its weaknesses.

The radical Right is acutely aware of cases where the general public has progressive values and would ordinarily reject their agenda. The Right’s approach to such cases is deception, often through the use of Orwellian language — language that means the opposite of what it says.

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Cyrano’s Journal Online and its semi-autonomous subsections (Thomas Paine’s Corner, The Greanville Journal, CJO Avenger, and VoxPop) would be delighted to periodically email you links to the most recent material and timeless classics available on our diverse and comprehensive site. If you would like to subscribe, type “CJO subscription” in the subject line and send your email to

“Instead of identifying the themes in ‘Interventions’ and giving a thorough appraisal, National Journal writer Jonathan Rauch just gives a disinterested, curt and pompous dismissal of an outsider, whose opinions are clearly samplings of dementia to a Brookings scholar - an insider.”

By Jonathan Lenglain

9/6/07

Love him or hate him, the reaction good ol’ Noam provokes among elite writers is always instructive. In hurling invectives at him writers from major newspapers never fail to simultaneously mock the common man and his grievances against power and/or disillusionment with the media as well. Perfect examples of irate elitism.

This is still true even though Chomsky has become almost palatable to the major press since Bush began his outrages on democracy. His last two books were reviewed by the New York Times in respectful if unfavorable terms, which is fine and at least professional.

Yet his work is still liable to be harshly ridiculed and dismissed, in such a way that Chomsky readers can’t help but see as an elite repudiation of their own concerns and importance. It’s a big insult when popular ideas are rejected outright without a care in the world, and the Washington Post’s treatment of Chomsky’s latest: “Interventions” is another such exercise in elitist hate.

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Cyrano’s Journal Online and its semi-autonomous subsections (Thomas Paine’s Corner, The Greanville Journal, CJO Avenger, and VoxPop) would be delighted to periodically email you links to the most recent material and timeless classics available on our diverse and comprehensive site. If you would like to subscribe, type “CJO subscription” in the subject line and send your email to

“For although our President has lied and destroyed three countries during his term, it is irrelevant shit like this Gonzales scandal that gives the Congress, the press and the deluded a sense of justice.”

By Jonathan Lenglain

9/2/07

Who decides when there’s a scandal? It can’t be us regular folk, for although we can stage the largest political protests in world history denouncing the lies of an American President (like those on Feb. 15th, 2003, according to Guinness,) there has yet to be a fire as far as the media establishment can see. For all the talk about a failed presidency among today’s journalists and broadcasters, no major media outlet actually investigated the lies of this administration and conclusively settled the issue. No major newspaper or news program yelled “fire!”

Thankfully, some of us do shriek and blister in an inferno, and those who see dishonesty as a grave crime did just that before the white-hot lies of the White House. Those lies included the link between Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaeda, the false claim that Iraq could harm the UK within minutes, or that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. But despite the unprecedented scale of public protest, no headlines in the style of yellow journalism reading “SCANDAL!!: PRESIDENT MISLEADS AMERICA” were to be found.

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Cyrano’s Journal Online and its semi-autonomous subsections (Thomas Paine’s Corner, The Greanville Journal, CJO Avenger, and VoxPop) would be delighted to periodically email you links to the most recent material and timeless classics available on our diverse and comprehensive site. If you would like to subscribe, type “CJO subscription” in the subject line and send your email to

By Patrice Greanville

9/1/07

There’s a widespread assumption in leftwing circles that increasing concentration of media ownership is, ipso facto, the main if not sole culprit for the appalling performance of mainstream journalism in our time. Surely there’s a lot to decry, but is media consolidation and deregulation the cause for this calamity? And if the American media have indeed fallen from grace, as it is claimed, where in time do we locate this mythical “golden period” when the media establishment did measure up to its social mandate?

That the American media are palpably in what we might call today a pathetic and degenerate state, if not a free fall toward irrelevancy, should be obvious to thoughtful observers. This reflects the larger forces at work: As US capitalist democracy and general culture evolve due to their inexorable dynamic into ever more predatory and cynical iterations (Bush is more a symptom of the disease than its cause), so do the “relative” quality of the nation’s formal institutions, whether they be at the political center or adjunct, such as the media. But I think that attributing the obscenely bad performance of the corporate media—and television in particular—to concentration is somewhat erroneous. I realize this is by now, mainly thanks to the work of Ben Bagdikian and others, an article of faith on the liberal left. The usual mantra is “It’s the media concentration, stupid!”. But in order for me to believe that claim, that a few decades ago, when diversity of ownership was more widespread than now, everything was honkey dorey in Ed Murrow heaven, you’d have to show me first a period when the American media was substantively better than today, and that, friends, is hard to do, no matter how many media icons you roll out to worship.

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Cyrano’s Journal Online and its semi-autonomous subsections (Thomas Paine’s Corner, The Greanville Journal, CJO Avenger, and VoxPop) would be delighted to periodically email you links to the most recent material and timeless classics available on our diverse and comprehensive site. If you would like to subscribe, type “CJO subscription” in the subject line and send your email to

“Think of the role Judith Miller played in the New York Times in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. Yes, her work became a scandal, but only after it played a powerful role in promoting an invasion based on lies.”

The following is a transcript of a talk given by John Pilger at Socialism 2007 Conference in Chicago this past June:

The title of this talk is Freedom Next Time, which is the title of my book, and the book is meant as an antidote to the propaganda that is so often disguised as journalism. So I thought I would talk today about journalism, about war by journalism, propaganda, and silence, and how that silence might be broken. Edward Bernays, the so-called father of public relations, wrote about an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. He was referring to journalism, the media. That was almost 80 years ago, not long after corporate journalism was invented. It is a history few journalist talk about or know about, and it began with the arrival of corporate advertising. As the new corporations began taking over the press, something called “professional journalism” was invented. To attract big advertisers, the new corporate press had to appear respectable, pillars of the establishment-objective, impartial, balanced. The first schools of journalism were set up, and a mythology of liberal neutrality was spun around the professional journalist. The right to freedom of expression was associated with the new media and with the great corporations, and the whole thing was, as Robert McChesney put it so well, “entirely bogus”.

For what the public did not know was that in order to be professional, journalists had to ensure that news and opinion were dominated by official sources, and that has not changed. Go through the New York Times on any day, and check the sources of the main political stories-domestic and foreign-you’ll find they’re dominated by government and other established interests. That is the essence of professional journalism. I am not suggesting that independent journalism was or is excluded, but it is more likely to be an honorable exception. Think of the role Judith Miller played in the New York Times in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. Yes, her work became a scandal, but only after it played a powerful role in promoting an invasion based on lies. Yet, Miller’s parroting of official sources and vested interests was not all that different from the work of many famous Times reporters, such as the celebrated W.H. Lawrence, who helped cover up the true effects of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in August, 1945. “No Radioactivity in Hiroshima Ruin,” was the headline on his report, and it was false.

Consider how the power of this invisible government has grown. In 1983 the principle global media was owned by 50 corporations, most of them American. In 2002 this had fallen to just 9 corporations. Today it is probably about 5. Rupert Murdoch has predicted that there will be just three global media giants, and his company will be one of them. This concentration of power is not exclusive of course to the United States. The BBC has announced it is expanding its broadcasts to the United States, because it believes Americans want principled, objective, neutral journalism for which the BBC is famous. They have launched BBC America. You may have seen the advertising.

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Cyrano’s Journal Online and its semi-autonomous subsections (Thomas Paine’s Corner, The Greanville Journal, CJO Avenger, and VoxPop) would be delighted to periodically email you links to the most recent material and timeless classics available on our diverse and comprehensive site. If you would like to subscribe, type “CJO subscription” in the subject line and send your email to

Wikipedia on Public Relations: “One of Bernays’ early clients was the tobacco industry. In 1929, he orchestrated a legendary publicity stunt aimed at persuading women to take up cigarette smoking, which was then considered unfeminine and inappropriate for women with any social standing. He initially consulted with psychoanalyst A. A. Brill, who told him that cigarettes were symbolic of the male penis. Therefore, if one wanted women to take up the habit of it was necessary to first connect the act of smoking to the idea of challenging the established male power in society. Women would smoke, he said, if the cigarette was a statement against the male-dominant ways, because this way women would symbolically have their own penises.”

By Ramzy Baroud

8/18/07

It was Edward Bernays who fine-tuned the art of Public Relations in the twentieth century. Using many of the psychoanalytic theories put forward by his uncle Sigmund Freud, he developed a mastery of public manipulation, suggesting that such manipulation was essential to democracy itself. Bernays strongly believed that people are simply ’stupid’ and in need of being told how to behave, what to believe, what to eat, what to wear and how to vote. The outcomes of such an experiment reverberate to this day.

Some historians credit Bernays’ efforts in the 1920s and 30s for turning the modern citizen into a modern consumer. Not only did he convince Americans that a ‘hearty breakfast’ must include eggs and bacon, as opposed to the traditional toast and coffee, he also managed to persuade women at the time that cigarettes were a symbol of man’s power and domination; to challenge the male sense of superiority, women needed to smoke. A few public stunts later, sales of cigarettes (which Bernays termed ‘torches of freedom’) soared, eventually doubling the market for tobacco manufacturers, who, amongst many other businesses, were Bernays’ clients.

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Cyrano’s Journal Online and its semi-autonomous subsections (Thomas Paine’s Corner, The Greanville Journal, CJO Avenger, and VoxPop) would be delighted to periodically email you links to the most recent material and timeless classics available on our diverse and comprehensive site. If you would like to subscribe, type “CJO subscription” in the subject line and send your email to

“Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney avoided Vietnam with his Mormon missionary work, and high draft lottery number. Last week, after delivering a speech in Bettendorf, Iowa, calling for a “surge of support” for our forces in Iraq, Romney was asked why none of his 5 sons had joined the military. “They are showing support for their nation,” said Romney, “by helping me get elected because they think I’d be a great president.” Romney’s net worth exceeds two hundred million dollars.”

By Rand Clifford

8/11/07

A CorpoMedia masterpiece has recently been published by Michael Barone, senior writer for U.S. News and World Report. The title: New global study points to hope. [1] The study in reference is the Pew Global Attitudes Project’s poll of 47 nations. The Pew Resource Center, funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts, likes to call itself a Washington Fact Tank. [2]

Could it be that Barone is satisfied with his ad-hominem attacks on Al Gore having minimized the threat of global warming, so in this article at least, Barone felt compelled to feed Americans highly-pure CorpoMedia pap? “Most striking” is how he described the fact that only 1 out of 4 Americans are positive about the direction of the nation. An ensuing flourish of CorpoMedia bait-and-switch seasoned with indirection and omission assigns blame to the low job ratings of W, and congress. Partisanship is trotted out—Democrats are spoiling the party. Then The People get spanked with: “But when one considers that America has not suffered another Sept. 11 and that is has enjoyed a surging and prosperous economy, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that citizens of this most blessed country are registering a verdict that is in tension with reality.”

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