Please send as far and wide as possible. Thanks, Robert Sterling Editor, The Konformist http://www.konformist.com HOLLYWOOD'S COMMANDER IN CHIEF Hey Kids, Don't Do Drugs. (Now Where's My Money?) Suckers that we are, we always believed that Hollywood had secret influence on the White House. We knew that the president routinely called Steven Spielberg for advice. We knew that movie stars could show up at the White House gate and gain entrance simply by flashing their gleaming million-dollar teeth. Jack Valenti, Alec Baldwin, Ron Silver, Warren Beatty - - they were as omnipresent at state dinners as the Secret Service. Now we know we had the whole thing backward. The Hollywood "influence" was just the smoke screen. The hideous truth: The White House runs the entertainment industry. TV shows. Movies. The hairstyles and cosmetic surgery options of the stars. All this comes straight out of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. That tough, no-nonsense, always-savvy president played by Martin Sheen on "The West Wing" is not inspired by President Clinton - he's written by him. Slap me if I imagined this: A movie called "Air Force One" has terrorists taking over the president's plane - only to be thwarted by the tough-as-nails, Ramboesque president himself. Clearly, a script straight from the Oval Office. We also are forced to recall the movie "The American President." The president is a widower, and so he gets to date around. Do you see a certain someone's fingerprints all over that one? Now we know what the White House staff has been doing for the past seven years, other than answering subpoenas. Who has time to work on campaign finance reform when you're under the gun to finish a script for "The Drew Carey Show"? Could you have anticipated the Kosovo invasion if you were also working out the syndication rights for "Ally McBeal"? The official story so far is that this is just an attempt to get anti-drug messages on the airwaves. Salon, the online magazine, disclosed this week that the White House's Office of National Drug Control Policy has been reviewing scripts and advance footage of such TV shows as "ER" and "Cosby." The networks were given financial incentives worth millions of dollars to put anti-drug messages in their shows. But you know that's just the start of it. This White House is shameless in its deal-making and spin-doctoring. It understands that everything has a price--a night in the Lincoln Bedroom, coffee with the president, the dialogue in "Touched by an Angel." Almost certainly it has offered Hollywood an entire menu of plot devices, character developments and scripted messages, each with its own financial incentive: * $1,000: Reference to first lady as "beautiful and incredibly senatorial." * $2,000: Allusion to President Clinton's "intelligence, charm and pantherish animal vigor." * $3,000: On "NYPD Blue," Andy Sipowicz goes through trailer park with a $10 bill and turns up someone named "Paula Jones." * $4,000: Minor character named "Mr. Gore" discovers way to use Internet to repair Antarctic ozone hole. * $5,000: On new version of "Perry Mason," a character named "Mr. Starr" always loses to Mr. Mason. * $10,000: "Mr. Starr" is held in contempt of court and is thrown into "Oz" prison. * $30,000: Very bad, hard-to-watch things happen to "Mr. Starr" in "Oz" prison and he confesses under duress that he is part of a "vast right-wing conspiracy." * $50,000: On "The X-Files," aliens make illegal campaign contributions to the Republican National Committee. * $100,000: Lunatic politician named "Speaker Gingrich" revealed as person who shot down Col. Henry Blake's plane on "M*A*S*H." And finally: * $1 million: Remake of "Titanic" in which pushy ship executive named "George W. Bush" elbows aside women and children and sneaks onto lifeboat. ***** White House Doctors 'ER,' et al. NewsMax.com January 14, 2000 In its zeal to infuse anti-drug messages into the consciousness of televiewers, the Clinton administration has sneaked into their subconscious. There's more plot to the plot than television program fans realized. It's not in the credits, but credit the White House with a major role. With eager cooperation of commercial TV, the White House drug czar's office came up with a scheme that puts millions of dollars of found money into the networks' pockets and at the same time subliminally slides the administration's message into the minds of the viewing masses. Viewers haven't even been aware of it, but as many as 100 of their favorite programs - from "ER" to "Home Improvement" to "Beverly Hills 90210" - have been programmed right out of the White House. Story lines and plots have been "suggested" by the White House. Scripts have been submitted by networks for review in advance to the drug czar. And, what at first may sound innocent enough, the nets have shown their work to the White House after the doctored programs were aired. The rationale is: "We knew what you wanted us to have the program get across, and here's the proof." Why the need to show proof? The answer: to be paid. The details are in the deal the White House has cut with the five largest networks - ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC and Warner Brothers - according to Salon.com, which broke the story: In 1997, in response to President Clinton's campaign to deploy taxpayer dollars to fight drug use, Congress approved spending $1 billion for anti-drug advertising over five years. Under that law, networks that got paid by the government to run those commercials had, in effect, to charge only half-rate. Uncle Sam paid the full rate for the spots, but the nets then had to give away a dollar-for-dollar match of free air time for public-service anti-drug ads by non-profit groups that were also working hand-in-glove with the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. Networks were not thrilled to see millions of dollars of potential ad revenues evaporating into the free time they were giving away. The president's drug czar, Barry McCaffrey, devised one of those win-win ways out. He would give the nets "credits" from having to give away free spots in return for anti-drug messages their producers would weave into program plots. If the program plot wasn't sufficiently "on message," the White House would withhold the credits. The nets got that message. To win those credits - thus freeing up precious air time it then sold to commercial sponsors at the full rate - the nets made sure their programs got the desired White House message across in their plot lines. Among those whose episodes were suggested and/or approved by the White House were "Cosby," "The Drew Carey Show," "The Practice," "General Hospital," "7th Heaven," "Chicago Hope," "Beverly Hills 90210," "Providence," "Touched by an Angel," "Home Improvement," "ER," "Promised Land," "Boy Meets World," "Trinity," "The Smart Guy," "Sabrina the Teenage Witch" and "Wayans Bros." The money the nets made on this plot-tinkering is not chump change. The New York Post said the White House "valued the programming messages it had approved at $22 million." The nets can't see why this isn't all well and good - after all, a socially worthwhile message is getting across (drug users are losers in the virtual life of the doctored TV dramas) and the nets are getting richer. What's wrong with that? If anyone has trouble with taxpayers' money going into the sit-com business, it hasn't made the news. But those who worry about bureaucrats in Washington engaging in mass-comm mind-bending are speaking out. "This is the most craven thing I've heard of yet," one of the media watchdogs, Andrew Schwartzman of the Media Access Project, told the Post. He termed it "turning over content control to the federal government" and denounced it as an outrageous abandonment of the First Amendment." "It's one thing to appropriate money to buy ads, another thing to spend the money to influence the public subliminally," he was quoted by the Washington Post. "And it's monstrously selfish and irresponsible on the part of the broadcasters." Robert Weiner, a spokesman for the drug control office in the White House, thought it a great idea for the government to ghost-write a prime-time program "which is a very positive statement and has the proper message on drugs and is accurate. "There's nothing wrong with that. They've given us positive programs. If you've got a good 'ER,' that's certainly as important as an ad." It all raises the question of where the government can, and should go, in influencing attitudes and actions of people toward a desired goal - with or without their knowledge it's being done. ***** http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2000/01/13/drugs/index.html Drug money How the White House secretly hooked network TV on its anti-drug message A Salon special report. - - - - - - - - - - - - By Daniel Forbes Jan. 13, 2000 | Advertisements urging parents to love their kids and keep them off drugs dot urban bus stops across America. Anti-drug commercials fill Channel One in the nation's schools and the commercial breaks of network TV -- most notably a comely, T-shirt-clad waif trashing her kitchen to demonstrate the dangers of heroin. We've come a long way from Nancy Reagan's clenched-teeth "Just Say No." Few Americans, however, know of a hidden government effort to shoehorn anti-drug messages into the most pervasive and powerful billboard of all -- network television programming. [...] With this deal in place, government officials and their contractors began approving, and in some cases altering, the scripts of shows before they were aired to conform with the government's anti-drug messages. "Script changes would be discussed between ONDCP and the show -- negotiated," says one participant. Rick Mater, the WB network's senior vice president for broadcast standards, acknowledges: "The White House did view scripts. They did sign off on them -- they read scripts, yes." [...] Andrew Jay Schwartzman, president of the Media Access Project, a public interest law firm, says, "This is the most craven thing I've heard of yet. To turn over content control to the federal government for a modest price is an outrageous abandonment of the First Amendment ... The broadcasters scream about the First Amendment until McCaffrey opens his checkbook." Former FCC chief counsel Robert Corn-Revere, now at the law firm Hogan & Hartson, calls the campaign "pretty insidious. Government surreptitiously planting anti-drug messages using the power of the purse raises red flags. Why is there no disclosure to the American public?" [...] ***** Mon, 17 Jan 2000 (On Clinton's Dept. of TV programming story) Comment Brasscheck [EMAIL PROTECTED] 1-15-00 On Clinton's Dept. of TV programming It's old hat really and I'm surprised none of the commentators on this story pointed to the Office of War Information (OWI) set up under the Roosevelt regime which started all this. A little history: July 1941 - FDR creates the Office of the Coordinator of Information putting close friend Bill Donovan in charge. Donovan, a Wall Street lawyer, laid the foundations for what later became the CIA. Early 1942 - FDR splits the "white" propaganda function from the covert function, calling the former the Office of War Information (OWI). The OSS takes over "black" propaganda efforts as well as intelligence gathering and covert operations. 1942 - Close colleague of Bill Donovan, Asst. Secretary of War, James J. McCloy, establishes the Psychologic Branch within the War Departments intelligence division. It later evolves into the Psychological Warfare Division (more on that later) The OWI did things like send plot lines and characterization suggestions to the producers of soap operas, comic books, and other mass entertainments. Some of their guidelines: Japanese were to be portrayed as treacherous and British were to be portrayed as heroic. After the war, graduates of the Psychological Warfare Division, OSS, and OWI essentially ran the US news media and publishing industries An overstatement? Here's a short list of positions occupied by OWI graduates in 1953: * The publishers of Look, Time, Fortune, and several dailies * Editors of magazines such as Holiday, Parade and the Saturday Review. * The Board Chairman of CBS and dozens of key network executives * The heads of Viking, Harper and Brothers, and Farrar * Ike's chief speech writer (FDR began the tradition of US presidents leaving their speech writing to others) * The editor of Reader's Digest Int'l division * At least six partners of major Madison Avenue advertising firms. (Recently passed away adman David Ogilvy was a star aid to the UK intelligence expert who taught Donavan how to set up a proper intelligence service.) And you wonder why the US news media marches in lock step... Christopher Simpson nails all this, and much, much more in his outstanding history: "The Science of Coercion: Communication Research and Psychological Warfare 1945-1960" (Oxford University Press, 1994) ============================================== Brass Check - http://www.brasscheck.com "...if only the press were to do its duty, or but a tenth of its duty, this hellish system could not go on." - William Cobbett, Rural Rides, 1830 "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." - Thomas Jefferson =========================================== ***** LP RELEASE: Anti-Drug TV Shows Thursday, January 20, 2000 [EMAIL PROTECTED] ----------------------------------------- NEWS FROM THE LIBERTARIAN PARTY 2600 Virginia Avenue, NW, Suite 100 Washington DC 20037 World Wide Web: http://www.LP.org ----------------------------------------- For release: January 21, 2000 ----------------------------------------- For additional information: George Getz, Press Secretary Phone: (202) 333-0008 Ext. 222 E-Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ----------------------------------------- Drug office's dollars-for-propaganda deal on TV is "insidious censorship" WASHINGTON, DC -- The White House drug office is spending millions of dollars to plant anti-drug messages in such popular TV programs as "ER," "Beverly Hills 90210," and "The Drew Carey Show" -- which means the TV networks have become the "de-facto propaganda department" of the government, the Libertarian Party charged today. "The First Amendment is not under attack -- it's up for sale," said the party's national director, Steve Dasbach. "By acquiring the power to influence the content of popular TV programs, the federal government is guilty of blurring the line between entertainment and propaganda, weakening the separation between the media and government, and engaging in a kind of insidious economic censorship." Over the past week, a bombshell revelation by Salon.com that the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy used financial incentives to reward TV networks for broadcasting anti-drug messages in popular shows has aroused a fierce debate over government control of the media and artistic integrity. The complicated dollars-for-propaganda arrangement began in 1997, when Congress allocated $1 billion for the Drug Control Policy office to run anti-drug advertisements over five years. In exchange for the massive ad purchase, the government demanded one free "public service announcement" for every TV commercial it purchased. At first, the networks agreed. But with the economy booming and the price of ads rising, the six networks (ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, The WB, and UPN) became reluctant to give away ad times. So the Drug Control Policy office offered to swap ad time for anti-drug messages inserted into prime-time sitcoms and dramas. To confirm that the anti-drug material met with government approval, bureaucrats from the Drug Control Policy office reviewed more than 100 scripts of shows like "Cosby," "Touched by an Angel," and "Chicago Hope," sometimes in advance. The clandestine deal netted the networks $22 million in advertising credit. But the arrangement is drawing fierce criticism from Libertarians, who say both the government and the TV networks have behaved irresponsibly. "Bureaucrats in the Drug Control Policy office should not be in the business of deciding which sitcoms are government-approved," said Dasbach. "At the same time, TV networks should not allow themselves to become the de-facto propaganda department of the government. If we want to be a free, democratic nation, we need an independent press -- not TV networks that are eager to be bribed with government advertising dollars." The arrangement is particularly troubling, said Dasbach, because the anti-drug campaign is both a health issue and a political issue. "Any discussion of drugs has a political dimension," he noted. "And the danger is that the government's anti-drug crusade is really political propaganda masquerading as a public health campaign. "Yes, drug abuse is a serious health issue, and TV networks, non-profit organizations, and medical groups have the right and responsibility to present honest, accurate information about the problem. However, to the degree the government uses its economic clout to exaggerate the dangers of drugs, to frame its War on Drugs as a moral issue, or to cut off discussion about the important political issue of reforming national drug policy, then it becomes pure propaganda," he said. "That's wrong, and that's why letting government bureaucrats have any control over TV programming is dangerous. The First Amendment -- and the content of TV shows -- shouldn't be up for sale to government bureaucrats spending our tax dollars to broadcast sneaky political propaganda." Disinfo.Con: February 19, 2000 http://con2000.disinfo.com/ Disinfo.Con will be the first event of its type in New York since the legendary Nova Convention, honoring author William Burroughs, in 1979. Featuring a line-up of speakers drawing from the best of the underground media, new science and far fringes of the art scene, Disinfo.Con 2000 will turn New York City's majestic Hammerstein Ballroom into an 11 hour Technicolor dream house of revolutionary thought, visionary art and lysergic lectures. The event will be one part rave, one part performance, and one part mind fuck. * RU Sirius * Grant Morrison * Robert Anton Wilson * Genesis P-Orridge * Paul Laffoley * Joe Coleman * Douglas Rushkoff * Adam Parfrey * Kenn Thomas (Steamshovel Press) * Robert Sterling (The Konformist) * Greg Bishop (The Excluded Middle) * Howard Bloom will present a special video lecture. There will also be an exclusive preview of the new Disinfo Nation TV series produced for Channel 4 in the UK, featuring a behind the scenes look at the Montauk Project, a biographical short about Timothy Leary, the brain damaged snuff film carnage of "Uncle Goddamn," Salvador Dali advertising Alka Seltzer and more! Disinfo.Con 2000 will take place on Saturday February 19, 2000 at the Hammerstein Ballroom, 311 West 34th Street off of 8th Avenue in New York City. Doors open 10 am; the event starts at 11 am and finishes at 11 pm. The Ballroom is walking distance from Penn Station and The Port Authority Bus Station. There are also a limited number of rooms at a special conference rate reserved at the New Yorker Hotel, next door to the Ballroom. Passes for the full 12-hour event cost $99.95 and for the evening session only $49.95. Attendees can register online at <http://con2000.disinfo.com/> http://con2000.disinfo.com. ***** |d|i|s|i|n|f|o|r|m|a|t|i|o|n| http://www.disinfo.com free e-mail your boss can't read: http://www.disinfo.net Merchandise to bolster subversion: http://headshop.disinfo.com The Disinformation Company, Ltd. If you are interested in a free subscription to The Konformist Newswire, please visit http://www.eGroups.com/list/konformist/ and sign up. Or, e-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the subject: "I NEED 2 KONFORM!!!" (Okay, you can use something else, but it's a kool catch phrase.) Visit the Klub Konformist at Yahoo!: http://clubs.yahoo.com/clubs/klubkonformist ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Body Paint, Chocolates, & Roses Oh My! http://click.egroups.com/1/1151/2/_/1406/_/950120288/ -- 20 megs of disk space in your group's Document Vault -- http://www.egroups.com/docvault/konformist/?m=1
