All Entries Tagged With: "propaganda"
How Americans are propagandized about Afghanistan
- Glenn Greenwald – Salon.com -
On February 12 of this year, U.S. forces entered a village in the Paktia Province in Afghanistan and, after surrounding a home where a celebration of a new birth was taking place, shot dead two male civilians (government officials) who exited the house in order to inquire why they had been surrounded, and then shot and killed three female relatives (a pregnant mother of ten, a pregnant mother of six, and a teenager) who sought to help the victims. The Pentagon then issued a statement claiming that (a) the dead males were “insurgents” or terrorists, (b) the bodies of the three women had been found by U.S. forces bound and gagged inside the home, and (c) suggested that the women had already been killed by the time the U.S. had arrived, likely the victim of “honor killings” by the Taliban militants killed in the attack.
Although numerous witnesses on the scene as well as local investigators vehemently disputed the Pentagon’s version, and insisted that all of the dead (including the women) were civilians and were killed by U.S. forces, the American media largely adopted the Pentagon’s version, often without any questions. But enough evidence has now emerged disproving those claims such that the Pentagon was forced yesterday to admit that their original version was totally false and that it was U.S. troops who killed the women:
Full Story: How Americans are propagandized about Afghanistan – Glenn Greenwald – Salon.com.
HHS Contracts With PR Firm Responsible For ‘Propaganda’ Videos During The Bush Administration
ProPublica reports today that the Department of Health and Human Services has hired the massive PR firm Ketchum to help win consumer trust about electronic medial records with funds from the stimulus. But, as ProPublica’s Sebastian Jones and Michael Grabell note, Ketchum has a controversial history of pushing propaganda during the Bush administration:
The irony? The firm chosen for the job — Ketchum Inc. — was hip-deep in controversy a few years ago for producing a series of fake TV news stories that violated a federal ban on propaganda. The company also drew fire for channeling taxpayer funds to a conservative pundit to promote the Bush administration’s education policies.
In 2004, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) concluded that video news releases developed by Ketchum to tout changes to Medicare under Bush’s prescription drug benefit were “covert propaganda” because they did not identify that the government was the source of the news reports. A 2005 GAO report found that similar video releases developed by Ketchum to promote No Child Left Behind also constituted “covert propaganda.”
Full Story: Think Progress » HHS Contracts With PR Firm Responsible For ‘Propaganda’ Videos During The Bush Administration.
Terrorism: the most meaningless and manipulated word
Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com -
Yesterday, Joseph Stack deliberately flew an airplane into a building housing IRS offices in Austin, Texas, in order to advance the political grievances he outlined in a perfectly cogent suicide-manifesto. Stack’s worldview contained elements of the tea party’s anti-government anger along with substantial populist complaints generally associated with “the Left” (rage over bailouts, the suffering of America’s poor, and the pilfering of the middle class by a corrupt economic elite and their government-servants). All of that was accompanied by an argument as to why violence was justified (indeed necessary) to protest those injustices:
I remember reading about the stock market crash before the “great” depression and how there were wealthy bankers and businessmen jumping out of windows when they realized they screwed up and lost everything. Isn’t it ironic how far we’ve come in 60 years in this country that they now know how to fix that little economic problem; they just steal from the middle class (who doesn’t have any say in it, elections are a joke) to cover their asses and it’s “business-as-usual” . . . . Sadly, though I spent my entire life trying to believe it wasn’t so, but violence not only is the answer, it is the only answer.
Full Story Glenn Greenwald – Salon.com.
Ridicule of Conspiracy Theories Focuses On Diffusing Criticism of the Powerful
The label “conspiracy theory” is commonly used to try to discredit criticism of the powerful in government or business.
For example, just this week – after Tony Blair was confronted by the Iraq Inquiry with evidence that he had used lies to sell the Iraq war – Blair dismissed the entire Iraq Inquiry as simply being part of Britain’s “obsession with conspiracy theories“. (Not only did Blair know that Saddam possessed no WMDs, but the French this week accused Blair of using of ‘Soviet-style’ propaganda in run-up to the Iraq war).
Of course, the American government has been busted in the last couple of years in numerous conspiracies. For example, William K. Black – professor of economics and law, and the senior regulator during the S & L crisis – says that that the government’s entire strategy now – as during the S&L crisis – is to cover up how bad things are (“the entire strategy is to keep people from getting the facts”).Similarly , 7 out of the 8 giant, money center banks went bankrupt in the 1980′s during the “Latin American Crisis”, and the government’s response was to cover up their insolvency.
And the government spied on American citizens (even before 9/11 … confirmed here and here), while saying “we don’t spy”. The government tortured prisoners in Iraq, but said “we don’t torture”.
In other words, high-level government officials have conspired to cover up the truth.
8 Reasons Fox Is Not a News Organization
PR for the GOP? Yes. Platform for right-wing hatemongers? Definitely. But a news organization? Definitely not.
Even before Barack Obama was elected to the presidency, Rupert Murdoch had declared war on him via the personalities of Fox News Channel, a subsidiary of Murdoch’s media conglomerate, News Corp.
Since Obama’s election, the cable channel’s hosts and paid analysts have launched a full frontal assault on the president, smearing his nominees, calling him a racist and suggesting that his administration was trying to persuade disabled veterans to off themselves.
Now the fearmongers at Fox are crying foul since the president and his aides declared Fox not to be a news organization. Earlier this month, White House Communications Director Anita Dunn called Fox an “arm” of the Republican Party. Obama went even further, suggesting this week that Fox “is operating basically as a talk-radio format,” and we know what that means: A format in which the most provocative opinions dominate the discourse and facts are optional.
Full Story: 8 Reasons Fox Is Not a News Organization | Media and Technology | AlterNet.
Who Is Rick Scott And What Type Of Health Care System Is He Advocating?
VIDEO REPORT: Who Is Rick Scott And What Type Of Health Care System Is He Advocating?
This Sunday, the front group Conservatives for Patients’ Rights will be airing a 30-minute documentary with “horror stories” aimed at chipping away public support for reforming our health care system. Ironically, the leader and financier of the organization, private health care executive Rick Scott, is actually credited with transforming the American health care system into the profit above-all-else culture that is currently plaguing America.
Rick Scott is not only known for his efforts to build the “McDonald’s” of the health care industry, but his company was also forced to pay a $1.7 billion fraud settlement, the largest health care fraud settlement in U.S. history, for systematically stealing from taxpayers.
ThinkProgress has compiled a video report detailing who Rick Scott is, and what type of health care system he is defending. Watch it:
Frank Luntz: It doesn’t matter what Obama’s health care plan says, we’ll still call it ‘government takeover.’
Frank Luntz: It doesn’t matter what Obama’s health care plan says, we’ll still call it ‘government takeover.’
In an interview with the New York Times, GOP wordsmith Frank Luntz — who recently penned a health care messaging memo instructing Republicans to attack President Obama’s health reform efforts by criticizing the deficiencies in foreign health care systems — concedes that Republicans will label Obama’s reform effort a “government takeover” of health care, regardless of the actual proposal:
Is it a correct description of the president’s plans for reform?
We don’t know what he is proposing. We want to avoid “a Washington takeover.”
But that’s not at issue. What the Democrats want is for everyone to be able to choose between their old, private health-insurance plan and an all-new, public health-insurance option.
I’m not a policy person. I’m a language person.
Krauthammer: I will say things in my column even if I don’t believe what I’m saying.
OPS: Paid propagandist 
Krauthammer: I will say things in my column even if I don’t believe what I’m saying.
On May 1, Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer conceded in a column that waterboarding is torture. Krauthammer argued that torture is justifiable “under two circumstances” and that in those cases “you do what you have to do. And that includes waterboarding.” But in an interview on Dennis Miller’s radio show today, Krauthammer said that he didn’t mean it when he wrote that waterboarding is torture:
MILLER: And I’m going to move beyond that and say the pertinent question to me is, is it necessary. Where do you stand on this?
KRAUTHAMMER: You know, I’m in the midst of writing a column for this week, which is exactly on that point. Some people on the right have faulted me because in that column that you cite I conceded that waterboarding is torture. Actually, I personally don’t think it is cause it’s an absurdity to have to say the United States of America has tortured over 10,000 of its own soldiers because its, you know, it’s had them waterboarded as a part of their training. That’s an absurd sentence. So, I personally don’t think it is but I was willing to concede it in the column without argument exactly as you say to get away from the semantic argument, which is a waste of time and to simply say call it whatever you want. We know what it is. We know what actually happened. Should it have been done and did it work? Those are the only important questions.
Listen here:
Fox News Continues to Hallucinate About a Socialist/Fascist Menace — And It’s Causing Real Damage
Fox News Continues to Hallucinate About a Socialist/Fascist Menace — And It’s Causing Real Damage
Fox news’ insane rants about the impending onset of socialism/fascism has trickled into mainstream media. This is extremely dangerous.
Last week, conservative factions within the Republican National Committee circulated an e-mail urging party leadership to brand as a “socialist” anyone who advocates even moderate changes to the government’s role in society.
It’s clear that the overlords at Fox News Channel already got that memo and decided to ratchet the volume up a notch — to 11.
According to Politico, RNC member James Bopp Jr. proposed a resolution that would acknowledge that President Obama wants “to restructure American society along socialist ideals” and call upon the Democratic Party to rename itself the “Democrat Socialist Party.”
“Just as President Reagan’s identification of the Soviet Union as the ‘evil empire’ galvanized opposition to communism,” Bopp wrote, “we hope that the accurate depiction of the Democrats as a Socialist Party will galvanize opposition to their march to socialism.”
ABC News Intentionally Misleading Viewers with RFK-Obama Clean Coal Story
ABC News Intentionally Misleading Viewers with RFK-Obama Clean Coal Story
Here is the first paragraph and a box on the left side of the page:
“Clean coal is a dirty lie,” says environmentalist Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who calls President Barack Obama and other politicians who commit taxpayer money to develop it “indentured servants” of the coal industry.
The reader is left with the distinct impression that Robert Kennedy Jr. called President Obama an indentured servant to the coal industry today. RFK has been calling politicians “indentured servants” for years. One problem: he didn’t actually say it about President Obama. Essentially, ABC pulled together a collection of old quotes and mashed them together out of context to create tension in their story.
Here’s RFK on July 7, 2007 at Live Earth:
Now we’ve all heard the oil industry, and the coal industry, and their indentured servants in the political process telling us that global climate stability is a luxury that can’t afford -that we have to choose now between economic prosperity on the one hand, and environmental protection on the other – and that is a false choice. In 100% of the situations, good economic policy is identical to good environmental policy.
And here he is on December 12th, 2008, referring to President Bush, testifying before the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming:
via ABC News Intentionally Misleading Viewers with RFK-Obama Clean Coal Story : EnviroKnow.
Obama Campaign’s Multi-Million Dollar Propaganda Firm Deployed in Iraq to Advise on “New Media”
Obama Campaign’s Multi-Million Dollar Propaganda Firm Deployed in Iraq to Advise on “New Media”
With Iraq in ruins, Obama sends a politically connected firm, along with reps from AT&T, Google, and Twitter to build ‘smart power’ in Baghdad.
The U.S. State Department has announced it is sponsoring a “New Media Technology” delegation to Iraq to “explore new opportunities to support Iraqi government and non-government stakeholders in Iraq’s emerging new media industry.” Of all of the areas in Iraq in desperate need of attention, its “emerging new media industry” is not the one that pops to mind. Things like clean water, electricity, right of safe return for refugees and an end to the occupation seem more pressing than increasing Nouri al Maliki’s Twitter followers. But unfortunately, that’s how U.S. priorities in Iraq seem to work.
Anyway, the super star tech delegation, according to the State Department press release, includes “a mix of CEOs, Vice-Presidents and senior representatives” from “AT&T, Google, Twitter, Howcast, Meetup, You Tube and Automattic/Wordpress.”
But the final company listed as participating in the delegation begs for some sort of special review: Blue State Digital, a firm which boasts its services were “Critically important to President Obama’s victory” in the November election. Indeed, federal campaign spending records indicate that the Obama campaign paid the firm at least $2,864,138 in 2007-2008, including more than $700,000 on election day.
Meet the Press and the media’s distortions of the prosecutions debate
Meet the Press and the media’s distortions of the prosecutions debate – - Glenn Greenwald
Whatever else one thinks about the debate over investigations and prosecutions for Bush crimes, there is no question that huge numbers of Americans — likely majorities — favor them. And that was true even before the release of the most graphic and stomach-turning evidence yet: the 4 DOJ memos released this past week which describe the torture in detail. The assertion that “most Americans” don’t want investigations — whether made by media stars to argue against investigations or Obama supporters to justify the immunity the President wants to extend to everyone involved — is factually false.
A USA Today poll from February — headlined: “Poll: Most want inquiry into anti-terror tactics” — found “two-thirds of those surveyed said there should be investigations into allegations that the Bush team used torture to interrogate terrorism suspects and its program of wiretapping U.S. citizens without getting warrants,” and “four in 10 favor criminal investigations.” A Gallup poll from mid-February found that between 60 to 70% of Americans favor investigations for torture, warrantless eavesdropping and DOJ politicization, and that majorities of Democrats (and more than 40% of all Americans and independents) favor criminal prosecutions. Only small percentages of independents — between 25-38% — oppose investigations for each of the three lawbreaking allegations. A Washington Post/ABC News poll from January similarly found that a majority of Americans (50-47%) — and an overwhelming majority of Democrats (69%) — believe that the Obama administration should investigate whether the Bush administration’s treatment of detainees was illegal. While polls can vary based on how the questions are asked, every poll shows substantial percentages favoring investigations.
These facts about public opinion are virtually always excluded from establishment media discussions, and those who advocate investigations and prosecutions — the view held by large percentages, if not majorities, of Americans — are virtually never heard from. That’s because the belief that elites should be exempted from all consequences when they break the law is as close to a trans-partisan religious tenet of Beltway culture as it gets.
via Meet the Press and the media’s distortions of the prosecutions debate – Glenn Greenwald – Salon.com.
Fox military analyst/consultant for F-22 contractor shills for F-22 while discussing pirates.
OPS: “Product Placement” in the “News” Whoda Thunk?
Fox military analyst/consultant for F-22 contractor shills for F-22 while discussing pirates.
Last year, the New York Times revealed that numerous cable news “military analysts” never disclosed their ties to military contractors. Yesterday, Lt. Gen. Tom McInerney appeared on Fox News to discuss the Somali pirates situation, and managed to use it as an opportunity to shill for the F-22:
McINERNEY: I’d put F-22s and combat air patrol out there, two of them, with tankers. … The reason I’d put the F-22s is because they can go 1.6 to mach 2, and they have a very quick reaction time and a 20 millimeter canon.
Gawker flagged the appearance and noted that McInerney, conveniently, worked as a consultant to Northrop Grumman, a major contractor for the F-22. Watch it:
Where Did the Worst of Bush’s Cronies Go? To Work for Corporate Media.
Where Did the Worst of Bush’s Cronies Go? To Work for Corporate Media. - By Eric Alterman,
In a post-Bush world Karl Rove and friends have just as deadly a job, only these days you’ll find them posing for the media as pundits.
When you consider the respective achievements of the folks who peopled the upper echelons of the Bush administration, I think you’ll agree that after their incompetence, ideological obsession, and general malevolence, their most impressive characteristic was, and remains, their audacity.
Think about it: George W. Bush is widely considered to be, if not America’s worst president ever, than certainly in the bottom four or five. His legacy to his successor includes: the worst economic crisis in eighty years, two unsuccessful wars, a thoroughly corrupt Justice Department, the destruction of time-honored civil liberties and hard-won rights, and the widespread contempt of almost everyone on the planet who was not a committed member of the conservative Republican base. And yet not only did Bush and company never own up to the catastrophic consequences of their actions, they gave one another medals for it. (It’s only a rumor, however, that Bush tried to rename the Presidential Medal of Freedom the “Heckuva Job” medal.)
Rice: ‘No One Was Arguing That Saddam Hussein Somehow Had Something To Do With 9/11′
Rice: ‘No One Was Arguing That Saddam Hussein Somehow Had Something To Do With 9/11′
On PBS’s Charlie Rose yesterday — six years after the eve of the Iraq invasion — former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice discussed the decision to invade Iraq. Rice said she has had no “second thoughts” about striking the country, and when pressed by Rose on whether Saddam Hussein had connections to 9/11, Rice blankly said that “no one” believed in such a link:
ROSE: But you didn’t believe it had anything to do with 9/11.
RICE: No. No one was arguing that Saddam Hussein somehow had something to do with 9/11.
ROSE: No one.
RICE: I was certainly not. The President was certainly not. … That’s right. We were not arguing that.
Rose also tried to press Rice on whether Cheney pushed the link, but she didn’t answer. Watch it:
Fox News Edits Clip To Suggest That Biden Recently Declared ‘Fundamentals Of The Economy Are Strong’
Fox News Edits Clip To Suggest That Biden Recently Declared ‘Fundamentals Of The Economy Are Strong’
This afternoon, Fox News’s Martha MacCallum introduced a segment highlighting Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Christina Romer’s claim yesterday that the “fundamentals of the economy are sound.” “After weeks of economic doom and gloom, the Obama administration is now singing a slightly different tune,” MacCallum said.
She then played clips of Romer and other administration officials making seemingly positive comments about the current state of the economy. One of the clips was of Vice President Biden saying, “The fundamentals of the economy are strong!” After the segment, MacCallum said, “All right, well the mantra for the weekend is clear, looking at what was said over the course of the shows on Sunday.” Watch it:
Fox News Runs With GOP Talking Point That White House Is Focusing On Limbaugh To Distract From The Economy
Fox News Runs With GOP Talking Point That White House Is Focusing On Limbaugh To Distract From The Economy
Yesterday, Politico reported on an alleged “strategy” to paint hate radio talker Rush Limbaugh as the face of the GOP, and claimed that it was “hatched” by Democratic strategists and is “being guided in part from inside the White House.” From there, Greg Sargent detected a “new media meme” that the White House “is entirely to blame for the Rush Limbaugh story getting so much media attention and turning into a media circus.”
Today, Limbaugh charged that the White House is “playing manipulative games with washed up talking heads, targeting me on the taxpayer dime. This country doesn’t need another administration playing dirty tricks and making enemy lists.”
WSJ claims Americans want Reagan’s economic policies, but Americans disagree.
OPS: More nonsense from the Reich. The Murdock Journal propaganda machine is in overdrive. Fascism, trying to save itself.
WSJ claims Americans want Reagan’s economic policies, but Americans disagree.
In the his Wall Street Journal column today, Deputy Editor Daniel Henninger asserts that in the face of President Obama’s economic plans, Republicans should “relearn the core idea handed down to them by Ronald Reagan,” which he says is the idea “known as economic growth.” “Freed to choose between these two competing ideas, I’m guessing many voters would go for growth,” claims Henninger. But a new poll out today from Fox News shows that Americans actually prefer Obama’s approach over Reagan’s:
via Think Progress » WSJ claims Americans want Reagan’s economic policies, but Americans disagree..
THEY BELIEVE THEIR OWN PROPAGANDA?….
The Washington Monthly
THEY BELIEVE THEIR OWN PROPAGANDA?….
It’s the subject of perennial debate: when Republican officials repeat obvious falsehoods, are they deliberately trying to deceive, or are they just woefully confused?
While there are compelling cases to be made for each side, once in a while we get strong evidence for the latter. For example, Dick Spotswood, a California-based columnist, visited Washington, D.C., last week, and spent some time on Capitol Hill. He shared this tidbit (via Kos) from his notebook:
Met with Republican Rep. Mary Bono Mack from Riverside County’s Coachella Valley. While a social moderate, Sonny Bono’s widow is a solid conservative. Talked to her about Obama’s $780 billion stimulus legislation. She’s outraged that the plan has “$1 billion wasted on a magnetic-levitation train from L.A. to Sin City” — all at Nevada Sen. Harry Reid’s doing.
After expressing my doubt that the Las Vegas line was actually in the bill’s language, Bono Mack directs her staff to “get him the bill, it’s right there, show him.” A few minutes later, a staffer emerges with a copy and quietly says “it’s not in the bill.”
Now, I’m sure that was embarrassing for the congresswoman, but
WSJ (and FauxNews) Spins Negative About Record Numbers for Obama
WSJ (and FauxNews) Spins Negative About Record Numbers for Obama
The NBC/Wall Street Journal poll yesterday shows record support for Barack Obama, and that’s how NBC writes the story. The Wall Street Journal and its blog writers are seeking vigorously to find the dark clouds within those silver linings. As the market runs on confidence, we should blame poor performance on the WSJ’s negative bent.
Commentary By: Steven Reynolds
This is interesting. NBC and the Wall Street Journal commissioned a poll about the Obama Presidency. The numbers appear to show that Barack Obama is enjoying unprecedented support at a time when the Republican Party is seen as inept at solving economic problems. Well, that’s how the poll is reported at MSNBC. Here’s the first few paragraphs there:
via All Spin Zone » WSJ (and FauxNews) Spins Negative About Record Numbers for Obama.
“Tea Party Movement” Planned Months Ago by GOP Billionaires – FRAMESHOP:
“TEA PARTY MOVEMENT” PLANNED MONTHS AGO BY GOP BILLIONAIRES
Bloggers reveal how the latest so-called “populist” revolt against the federal government was a pre-planned PR stunt funded by right-wing billionaires with a history of trying to defeat Barack Obama.
Jeffrey Feldman, Editor-in-Chief
Frameshop, Feb 28, 2009
Populist revolt against the U.S. government is all the rage in the Republican Party, these days. As they tell the story, the public is so outraged by the recovery and reinvestment efforts of the Obama administration that Americans everywhere are turning out to overthrow the tyrannical king of the federal government by re-enacting the Boston Tea Party.
Funny thing, though: it turns out this whole “populist” movement was a planned PR stunt funded by big-money right-wing backers of the GOP who specialize in faking grassroots movements to drum up opposition to Barack Obama.
via FRAMESHOP: “Tea Party Movement” Planned Months Ago by GOP Billionaires.
Lobbyists Line Up to Torpedo Speech Proposals – WSJ.com
Lobbyists Line Up to Torpedo Speech Proposals .
WASHINGTON — Industries from health care to agribusiness to mining that stand to lose under President Barack Obama’s policy agenda are ramping up lobbying campaigns to derail or modify his plans.
The day after Mr. Obama formally laid out his policy goals in his first address to Congress, the former chief executive of HCA Inc. unveiled a $20 million campaign to pressure Democrats to enact health-care legislation based on free-market principles.
“What you see is when the government gets involved, you run out of money and health care gets rationed,” former CEO Richard Scott said Wednesday, after announcing the creation of Conservatives for Patients Rights.
Greg Palast: Damn that Lincoln. Abe’s to blame for Jindal | BuzzFlash.org
Greg Palast: Damn that Lincoln. Abe’s to blame for Jindal | BuzzFlash.org.
A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION
by Greg Palast
Damn that Abe Lincoln. When Louisiana and Mississippi seceded from the Union, a sensible president would have sent them a box of chocolates with a note, “Goodbye and good riddance.”
Tonight, following Barack Obama’s budget presentation to Congress, effectively the president’s first State of the Union Address, the Republicans have chosen to give their party’s response, the governor of the state that wanted to leave the Union, Louisiana’s Bobby Jindal.
Jindal’s going to tell us that Barack Obama is a terrible President because Obama wants to require states such as Louisiana to extend unemployment insurance to — get this — the unemployed! (Technically, the federal government would pay 100% of the cost of reforming Louisiana’s and Mississippi’s Scrooge-sized benefit requirements.)
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The oligarchs openly talking about a coup d'état in America?
Multi-millionaire lobbyist Grover Norquist is calling for the impeachment of President Obama. In an interview with the right-wing National Journal - Norquist warned that if President Obama wins re-election and decides to let the Bush tax cuts for the top 2% expire at the end of the year - then Republicans will "have enough votes in the Senate in 2014 to impeach [him]."What does that mean? It means that the super rich in America - and their political operatives like Norquist in Washington, DC - have now compared a tiny tax increase on the wealthy to high crimes and treason - the only Constitutional basis Congress can use to impeach a President. It sounds like the oligarchs are now openly talking about a coup d'état in America.-Thom(Do you think will try it? Tell us here.) -
LEGALIZE Democracy
" We the corporations" On January 21, 2010, with its ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court ruled that corporations are persons, entitled by the U.S. Constitution to buy elections and run our government. __________
MOVE to AMEND
a project of the CAMPAIGN TO LEGALIZE Democracy
Help end Corporate personhood
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The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. 
