On September 1st of last year, the Soviet Union shot down Korean KAL 007, killing 269 people, and the immediate response here was that this proves that the Russians are the most barbaric people since Attila the Hun or something, and therefore we have to step up the attack against Nicaragua, set in MX missiles, put Pershings in West Germany, and increase the military system. In fact, the immediate main reaction here was great euphoria on Wall Street, where commentators pointed out that defense stocks have never looked better, you know, the big rise in defense stocks. All of this was because of this barbarous act, which is the worst thing that ever happened in human history. The story was given unbelievable coverage. Not only the story, but the American government interpretation of it, which is roughly what I've just said, was given the kind of coverage that I doubt has ever been given to any story in history... Just to give you an indication, the New York Times publishes an index volume, very densely printed thing, you practically need a magnifying glass to read it, big pages... For the month of September alone, the index volume is 7 pages, just on this... And it's all from the standpoint of the government, namely, here're these unbelievable monsters, for no reason other than sadistic love of massacre, killed 269 innocent people. Well, the government story gradually eroded and collapsed, and now basically nothing's left of it, except some funny questions. Like, what was that Korean airliner actually doing over the most sensitive area of Russian airspace? And why didn't the American reconnaissance jets nearby, RC-135 or... Why didn't they signal to the plane, as they certainly had the ability to do, to get out of the region? And what was it doing there in the first place, how come it was on a great circle route? It's very hard to imagine by a navigational error. There're all kinds of questions like that, and those questions have essentially collapsed the government case, as was sort of quietly admitted in the small print after the political capital has been made. But there're some other things, which are never discussed, which I think are even more important. So let me mention a couple. Right in the middle of all of this furor about the Korean airliner, on November 11th in fact, there was a 100 word item in the New York Times, devoted to the interesting fact that UNITA, which is a group that we call 'freedom fighters', supported by us and South Africa, in Angola, they took credit for shooting down a civilian Angolan jet, killing 126 people. Now, there was no RC-135 in the area, confusing the issue, maybe jamming radar. It was just pure, plain, premeditated murder. Got 100 words in the New York Times. February 9th this year, UNITA took credit for downing another civilian jet. That one wasn't even mentioned, you gotta read the foreign press to find that one out. Now, under the very confused circumstances of KAL 007, if that was the worst atrocity in human history, well, what about the freedom fighters that we support along with South Africa? Who did something much worse, they just purposely shot down a civilian jet. I mean, granted, the only people killed were black or something, but putting that aside, why is it any different? In fact, it's a lot worse. And in fact, since we're the ones who support them, we're the worst barbarians in history, way worse than the Russians. So let's go back a little further, those who have a little bit of memory could remember some other cases. For example, in October 1976, a Cubana airliner was blown up, with 76 people killed, including the Olympic gold medal winning fencing team of Cuba, and the bomb was placed on the plane by the CIA. It was placed by a CIA agent, he's known, he continued to be a CIA agent, continued to carry out other atrocities... Or let's go back a little further. In February 1973, Israel shot down a civilian jet over the Sinai, killing 110 people. The plane was lost in a sand storm. It was about 2 minutes flight time away from Cairo. No confusion, no ambiguity. The orders came from the highest center of the high command. Now this was sort of noticed, there were a couple of references to this in the middle of the KAL 007 business. Predictably, a series of lies were produced, in the New York Times and elsewhere, saying that the situation was totally different because Israel has taken responsibility and paid compensation. If you look back, you find that Israel did not take responsibility, and refused to pay compensation. They agreed to something else, what's called ex gratia compensation, meaning just sort of pure humanitarian aid, which is easy enough because we paid for it. But they refused to pay compensation, because that would imply responsibility, and they refused any responsibility. In fact, what they did is exactly what the Russians did: they put a couple of pilots on television, and they told how what they did was exactly right and just, and they tried to blame the French pilot, he didn't know how to fly... Couple of days after that, Golda Meir came to Washington. She was asked no embarrassing questions about this; the press didn't bother. And she returned home with new military aircrafts. That's the way we responded in that case. There was also editorial comment. The New York Times, which was outraged beyond anything about the Russians, it also had something to say in this case. It had an editorial saying that 'No useful purpose is served by acrimonious debate over assignment of blame'. That was the phrase in this situation of tension... Well, if you look back a little further, you can find other things too. For example, in 1955 an Air-India plane was blown up, with many people killed. In fact, including the people killed was the whole Chinese delegation to the Bandung Conference, the neutralist conference that was held in Indonesia. Turned out the bomb was planted by a CIA agent, who later defected and told the story... The purpose of the operation was to kill Zhou Enlai, who was supposed to be on the plane but by accident had gotten off. So they killed the rest of the delegation, plus everybody else, but not him... And if you bother, you'll find other cases too. All of this is ignored. The one case which was even mentioned, the Israeli one, was falsified... While we have this huge hysteria whipped up about the worst monsters in history... And the press went along with this, virtually 100%. The LA Times is the only newspaper in the US that I know of, that published an honest account of the Israeli case, by Robert Scheer. He published a straight factual account, which gave essentially what I've just said. The other cases were never mentioned -- maybe there's something that I've missed -- but the rest of the press didn't mention any of this stuff. Now, here is an example of the way a really well-disciplined propaganda system works. Total obedience, total subservience to state propaganda. When the state says, 'Whip up hysteria against the evil empire', everybody starts yelling, jumping up and down, and screaming about the evil empire... [Q: how do you pull that off?] That's a very interesting question. See, if it happened in, say, Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union, we know how they pulled it off. Namely, an order came from the Ministry of Truth, and everybody had to obey it. Now that didn't happen here. Here it happened in the way American propaganda always works: by servility and cowardice and class interest. In other words, we have a relatively centralized media, and there are great advantages to subordinating yourself to external power, which in fact represents your interests anyhow. The mass media are basically big corporations, and they share the interests of other major corporations, which means the interests represented by the state. So it's not too surprising that they'd tend to support state power; what is interesting is the uniformity, the virtual lack of deviance. The fact that in a country as complex as this, one article should appear, referring to one of these incidents, and the others I suppose were barely reported at all. This is something that you find over and over again when looking at the American propaganda system. So for example, take the invasion of South Vietnam. How did we succeed, for 22 years, in preventing essentially 100% of scholarship from referring to a historical event that occurred. Namely, the American invasion of South Vietnam. There is no such event. Take a look in the encyclopedias, the history books, the specialized monographs, and you'll see that there's no such event as the invasion of South Vietnam in 1962, or aggression against South Vietnam - it's just not there... We have a very intricate system, and it does it with consummate skill, and with great success. So on major issues, you just get no deviation at all.

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