That’s the Ministry of Defence page on “Contact with the Media and Communicating in Public”, in case you were wondering.
∞
July 3, 2009
"During 1918 the CPI [Committee on Public Information*] set up fourteen foreign-language bureaus and made them responsible for developing, among their people, Americanization sentiment and support for the war…The foreign-language bureaus…were largely responsible for the petition presented to President Wilson on 21 May 1918, asking that the fourth of July be especially recognized as a day for the foreign-born to demonstrate their loyalty to their adopted country. Wilson agreed. With the President’s stamp of approval the CPI set to work to plan an enthusiastic celebration for what was to be called Independence Day."
Alex Carey, Taking the Risk Out of Democracy: Corporate Propaganda Versus Freedom and Liberty
*Also known as the Creel Committee
(via publiccommunication)
let's
- get it on
- go crazy
- stay together
- dance
- talk about sex
- get physical
- push things forward
- go away for a while
- ride
- hear it for the boys
- go to bed
- have a party
- get out of this country
- make love
- not shit ourselves
- lynch the landlord
- get fucked up
- make love and listen to Death From Above
"For every Nato casualty there are reckoned to be more than 100 Afghan casualties, so it may take some time for the marines to convince the local population in Helmand that they are there to protect, not kill them."
The frank and at times contentious views of vice-chancellors on topics such as academic freedom and the utilitarian value of degrees have been prematurely released online.
The comments were made by ten UK vice-chancellors interviewed by Canadian researchers working on a paper for a leading higher education journal.
The 90-minute conversations, which took place in 2004-05, were transcribed and copies were sent to those interviewed for approval before the quotes were used.
However, the peer-reviewed paper, “Perspectives of UK Vice-Chancellors on Leading Universities in a Knowledge-Based Economy”, was published online on 16 June by the Higher Education Quarterly before permission to use their names had been gained from all the interviewees.
It has subsequently been removed, but not before a copy, with all comments fully attributed, was provided to Times Higher Education by the publisher, Wiley InterScience.
In a section on academic freedom, one vice-chancellor speaks of the need to have a “network of people involved in intelligence-gathering to be able to deal swiftly with even the faintest hint of revolution”.
The same vice-chancellor also offers a controversial interpretation of the value of a degree.
“We all know that education is a commodity that can be bought and sold, often at a very high price,” he says. “So universities are busy doing that - charging students a large amount of money to study in England because it is a popular destination. Branding and marketing take the front seat, and education is in the back.”
Another vice-chancellor said he was concerned that universities would be sidelined by their “conservative refusal to compromise”.
“Corporations will create private universities when they perceive that university training is inadequate, too costly, unfocused and doesn’t pay off in increasing employee loyalty,” he says.
∞So, Exactly When Are We All Changing Our Twitter Avatars To Bananas In Support Of The People Of Honduras?
(via feastingonroadkill)
"The administration is relying on the US media to limit the political damage resulting from its role in the Honduran coup and the exposure of its hypocrisy in relation to the Iranian elections. In contrast to the media’s coverage of Iran, there have been few breathless reports, amateur videos or Twitter feeds coming from Tegucigalpa."
"Seen in the context of Honduras’ historical role as a center of US-backed counterrevolution, the ouster of Zelaya constitutes a sharp warning to the working class in the Americas. Prompted by concern over the political ramifications of Zelaya’s links to Venezuela, a US-backed coup in Honduras could well be the signal for a broader regional campaign by US imperialism against Venezuela and allied regimes throughout the continent."
"
US diplomats worked closely with the Honduran opposition to Zelaya. A US official speaking anonymously confirmed to the New York Times that US Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Thomas A. Shannon, Jr. and US Ambassador to Honduras Hugo Llorens spoke to “military officials and opposition leaders” in the days before the coup. He explained: “There was talk of how they might remove the president from office, how he could be arrested, on whose authority they could do that.”
The official speaking to the Times complained, however, that the administration did not expect that the Honduran army would go so far as to carry out an overt military coup. The Obama administration was evidently seeking to engineer a de facto coup, but with a gloss of constitutional legality. Thus Washington’s main complaint about the Honduran coup is not that the army intervened in politics. Rather, it is that the Honduran army’s open intervention has exploded the democratic veneer that the bourgeois media tries to give to US foreign policy.
