Just Like "Capricorn One"

In the 1978 SciFi drama, "Capricorn One", a failed space effort to land on mars forces the American government to stage a phony mars landing on a Hollywood set. The White House has taken a big cue from this using a Hollywood set to fake success from their failures for a photo-opt event.

On January 22, 2003, the White House used an empty warehouse owned by J.B. Logistics Shipping Company to stage a "Capricorn One" event. A huge painted canvas was contracted to a graphics company to be appear as a full warehouse of American manufactured goods to the cameras. This is a classic Hollywood visual trick. Painted canvases appear as vast locations to a camera, as the eye cannot tell the difference on film. Once placed in this empty warehouse, this painted canvas appeared like a successful American factory full of American manufactured goods waiting to be shipped.

White House staffers were handed costumes and were dressed as factory workers, for this propaganda play for the cameras, and empty boxes that were marked as "Made In China", had phony large "Made In America" labels pasted on to add more realism to this propaganda film. Bush then gave an address claiming how strong the American economy supposedly was, in this Hollywood type set for this White House propaganda film. Former Soviet dictator, Josef Stalin had similar propaganda films made. Most Russians had never seen Stalin, so a handsome actor was used in widely distributed propaganda films to portray Stalin. Most Soviet citizens believed their leader to be this handsome actor, instead of the cruel and twisted actual Soviet leader. In the same way, an empty warehouse is made into a Hollywood set for Bush White House propaganda films to mislead the public about the American economy.

But it doesn't end with that. Both Dick Cheney and Dr. Condoleezza Rice both have coordinately claimed to the press that the Iraqi insurgency is in it's final "throes" in the last few days. Yet no evidence of this exists. In fact the insurgency appears far stronger than ever. Just this morning 26 or more have been killed, and possiby more than 80 wounded in coordinated car bomb, machine gun and mortar attacks. In the last two days, more than 20 were killed in a popular restaurant. And each day brings new American dead as well. Insurgent attacks across Iraq now number about 70 a day. Reconstruction projects are stalled because of violence. Only 12% of Iraqis now have electricity because of violence. And hunger and poverty among the Iraqi public are growing. Disatisfaction in the Iraq government is growing in response to the worsening life for many in Iraq. And 2,000 American Marines backed by aircraft bombings are locked in fierce fighting with dug-in insurgents who control many villages outside of Baghdad. Yet in coordinated false statements, both Cheney and Rice falsely claim that Iraqi insurgents are in their final "throes", intended to mislead the public for propaganda purposes.

Whether it's making use of propaganda films with painted sets and costumes, or false media statements, this administration trades in outright lies and falsehoods to promote it's messages. In this regard this administration is no better than that of Hitler or Stalin who also made extensive use of propaganda films and false public statements to promote their message for their own corrupt governments. Corrupt governments trade in propaganda and lies. The Bush Administration is no exception.