The Father of Spin: Edward L. Bernays and the Birth of Public Relations

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Lobster Issue 44 (Winter 2002/3)

[…] Before long, Bernays was helping Israel to lobby the US military and recasting India as a worthy recipient of $1bn-worth of aid. He became the propaganda master mind in overthrowing Guatemala’s elected government on behalf of the United Fruit Company (who were worried that the country’s socialist regime would harm profits). Mind you, Bernays […]

The Road to 9/11

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Lobster Issue 54 (Winter 2007/8)

The Road to 9/11: Wealth, Empire, and the Future of America Peter Dale Scott London and Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007, prices in the UK from £16.95   The first third of this book, 120 pages or so, is part parapolitical and part deep history of America from Nixon to Ronald Reagan’s first election … Read more

Gone but not forgotten

Lobster Issue 19 (1990)

[…] of the Labour Party, a core position: can socialists be pro-nuclear? The cold-war warriors of Labour never attempted to develop a left foreign or defence policy, never mind a socialist one. Stewart remained firmly on the extreme right of the party on what were, for the Americans, key policy issues. He even went as […]

A vote in the can is worth two for George Bush

Lobster Issue 48 (Winter 2004)

The apparent re-election of George W. Bush as US President seems to have its roots in a mechanical failure. On 12 March 2004, a car went out of control on a busy highway and propelled itself in front of an 18-wheeler. The driver – an African-American clergyman called Athan Gibbs – was killed outright. Gibbs, … Read more

Updating and Ongoing

Lobster Issue 26 (1993)

[…] ‘Application of Extremely Low Frequency Electromagentic Fields to Non-Lethal Weapons’. Anybody who has wondered why I have been running — however incompetently — the material on ELF, mind control etc. since Lobster 19, please note. This stuff is for real: potentially this is the biggest military technology development since the hydrogen bomb. Spooks bending […]

A Note on MRA, CIA and L. Ron. Hubbard

Lobster Issue 39 (Summer 2000)

A Note on MRA, CIA and L. Ron. Hubbard In response to my snippet in issue 38 (p.22) on Moral Rearmament and the CIA, Daniel Brandt (1) sent me the following from Miles Copeland’s, The Game Player: Confessions of the CIA’s Original Political Operative (London: Aurum Press, 1989, pp. 176-177). This is a nice demonstration … Read more

The View from the Bridge

Lobster Issue 41 (Summer 2001)

Mandy’s place in things On 12 June 1999 The News, Portugal’s weekly English-language paper, ran this comment on the Bilderberg meeting which had then just taken place in Portugal. The 47th Bilderberg Conference has come to an end. Members and one-off participants have departed as discreetly as they arrived. Lines of black limousines, unmarked except … Read more

Tittle-tattle

Lobster Issue 52 (Winter 2006/7)

BAP There was a nice little twist to be observed by followers of the British American Project when Home Office minister Baroness Scotland dashed to Washington this summer seeking to prevent the extradition of the NatWest Three, caught in the long shadow of Enron. The old friend of Tony and Cherie Blair was a young … Read more

Bank-havens: Exposures Of The Rich

Lobster Issue 4 (1984)

As a recent TV programme (James Bellini’s ‘The Polite Conspiracy’ 4th April 1984 BBC2) made clear, the rich have devised some artful ways of avoiding tax. Of course they also have a government committed to drastically reducing their tax ‘burden’ (e.g. Nigel Lawson’s abolition of investment income surcharge, formerly payable on high unearned incomes). Naturally, … Read more

The Party of Business and the Business of Parties

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Lobster Issue 44 (Winter 2002/3)

[…] are presumably all institutionally incorruptible, although I wonder if that dream would stand up to close examination. (3) ‘New’ Labour is as yet only a state of mind – the Labour Party remains the Labour Party, warts and all. It is right that these warts be exposed, for the slow pace of reform may […]

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