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Time4Hemp shares an editorial cartoon below about FAKE NEWS.

The Time 4 Hemp Broadcasting Network is a digital media outlet that shares factual information which is difficult to locate elsewhere. This broadcasting network is dedicated to exposing the lies embedded in FAKE NEWS created and released as FACT by the United States government about cannabis hemp. Make it a point to visit our archives often and share them with your friends.

Since the 1930’s, the United States government has actively hidden factual information about cannabis hemp and replaced it with propaganda promoting an agenda formulated by the fossil fuel industry, the pharmaceutical industry, and the paper industry along with many government leaders.

One example of this is the film ‘Hemp for Victory’. This 14-min black and white short  was produced by the United States Department of Agriculture during World War II and released in 1942. It explains the many uses of hemp and encourages farmers to grow as much as possible.

Before 1989, the film was relatively unknown. The United States government denied ever having made such a film. The United States Department of Agriculture library and the Library of Congress told all interested parties that no such movie was made by the USDA or any branch of the US government. They further stated that had any such film been produced, all copies of such film would have been destroyed over the years.

Two VHS copies were recovered and donated to the Library of Congress on May 19, 1989 by Jack Herer. The only known copy in 1976 was a 3/4″ broadcast quality copy of the film that was originally obtained by William Conde from a reporter for the Miami Herald and the Ethiopian Zion Coptic Church of Jamaica. In 1988 it was given to Jack Herer in trust that he would make it available to as many people as possible.

Even today the United States government actively engages in producing propaganda about cannabis hemp. The Drug Enforcement Administration heads the nation’s drug war. As part of that, it’s done a lot to push messaging that marijuana is dangerous — at times struggling to admit that pot isn’t as dangerous as heroin. On January 10, 2017, the DEA’s Twitter account put out a chart making the case for why this kind of messaging is, in its view, necessary:

CHALLENGE: Over the long term its proven that the perception of drug harm is correlated w/use, a trend that’s going in the wrong direction

  

In the DEA’s interpretation, this chart shows there a correlation between perceptions of risk and a drug’s use. Sure enough, the chart largely exemplifies that: As the perceived risk of tobacco rose, its use among 12th graders declined. And there’s a similar, although not quite as clean, story with pot, with marijuana use among 12th graders going up and remaining relatively flat as risk perceptions have dropped.

But there’s another reading of this chart that the DEA in particular won’t like — one that argues against the DEA’s work in prohibiting marijuana and cracking down on its use.

Tobacco, after all, has been legal for the entirety of the DEA’s chart. Yet all this time, the perception of how risky it is has gone up and its use has declined. That’s because of various policies, including education campaigns, mandatory warning labels, public and workplace smoking bans, and higher taxes on tobacco products.

Marijuana, meanwhile, has remained illegal on the federal level. Yet, as the DEA’s chart shows, its use has continued fluctuating and perceived risk has continued dropping despite the hundreds of thousands of arrests each year for pot possession.

While most of the world was celebrating the holidays, President Obama signed into law the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act on December 23, 2016.  It turns out to be one of the most horrendous attacks on our Freedoms done by that administration.  Buried in the pages of that Act is the ‘The Countering Foreign Propaganda and Disinformation Act’.  It’s one of the few time in political history that the Senate, the Congress and the White House were ALL in full agreement.  It is a straight out assault on the First Amendment.

To briefly summarize, what this means now is the government will be the arbitrator of Truth and through an appointed agency, the new government agency will determine what is and what is not FAKE NEWS.  It is doesn’t line up with their standards, it will be considered propaganda and/or disinformation and the perpetrators of it will be punished.

This enables media outlets such as CNN to declare themselves to be an OFFICIAL Government News Source. As an official government news source, CNN is allowed to possess documents that the average citizen cannot.  This is why it is OK for CNN to have copies of Wiki Leaks documents about Hilary Clinton’s emails, but if the average citizen has copies of those documents, that person will be arrested.  Therefore, the only way to get the TRUTH is to get it from a government approved source.

It should be interesting to note: CNN has be frequently exposed as an outlet of FAKE NEWS over the years. You can find many examples on YouTube alone. They produced FAKE NEWS for the Iraq War.  They produced FAKE NEWS for a report from Ukraine. Nancy Grace and Ashleigh Banfield hold a split-screen interview in same parking lot on CNN while pretending to be in two different places in the world. The 3 examples are just the tip of the iceberg. If you have time to do your own research, you will quickly discover that CNN is just one of many networks that produce FAKE NEWS on a regular basis. Another form of FAKE NEWS are the soft story press release. This is a report that is released to the public as news when, in reality, it is an advertisement for a product . Here is another example of this for ice cream. The best of this is called Native Advertising. George W Bush admitted the White House plants fake news reports. The recent Presidential election was another example of FAKE NEWS. By now, everyone is aware of the members of the media who were on the Clinton pay-roll and the effect that had on the networks reporting about the candidates.

As with any legislation attempting to dodge the public spotlight the Countering Foreign Propaganda and Disinformation Act of 2016 marks a further curtailment of press freedom and another avenue to stultify avenues of accurate information. Introduced by Congressmen Adam Kinzinger and Ted Lieu, H.R. 5181 seeks a “whole-government approach without the bureaucratic restrictions” to counter “foreign disinformation and manipulation,” which they believe threaten the world’s “security and stability.”

Also called the Countering Information Warfare Act of 2016 (S. 2692), when introduced in March by Sen. Rob Portman, the legislation represents a dramatic return to Cold War-era government propaganda battles. “These countries spend vast sums of money on advanced broadcast and digital media capabilities, targeted campaigns, funding of foreign political movements, and other efforts to influence key audiences and populations,” Portman explained, adding that while the U.S. spends a relatively small amount on its Voice of America, the Kremlin provides enormous funding for its news organization, RT.

“Surprisingly,” Portman continued, “there is currently no single U.S. governmental agency or department charged with the national level development, integration and synchronization of whole-of-government strategies to counter foreign propaganda and disinformation.”

Long before the “fake news” meme became a daily topic of extensive conversation on such discredited mainstream portals as CNN and WaPo, H.R. 5181 would task the Secretary of State with coordinating the Secretary of Defense, the Director of National Intelligence, and the Broadcasting Board of Governors to “establish a Center for Information Analysis and Response,” which will pinpoint sources of disinformation, analyze data, and — in true dystopic manner — ‘develop and disseminate’ “fact-based narratives” to counter effrontery propaganda.

In short, long before “fake news” became a major media topic, the US government was already planning its legally-backed crackdown on anything it would eventually label “fake news.”

U.S. Senators Rob Portman (R-OH) and Chris Murphy (D-CT) today announced that their Countering Disinformation and Propaganda Act – legislation designed to help American allies counter foreign government propaganda from Russia, China, and other nations – has been signed into law as part of the FY 2017 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) Conference Report. The bipartisan bill, which was introduced by Senators Portman and Murphy in March, will improve the ability of the United States to counter foreign propaganda and disinformation from our enemies by establishing an inter-agency center housed at the State Department to coordinate and synchronize counter-propaganda efforts throughout the U.S. government. To support these efforts, the bill also creates a grant program for NGOs, think tanks, civil society and other experts outside government who are engaged in counter-propaganda related work. This will better leverage existing expertise and empower our allies overseas to defend themselves from foreign manipulation. It will also help foster a free and vibrant press and civil society overseas, which is critical to ensuring our allies have access to truthful information and inoculating people against foreign propaganda campaigns.

“Our enemies are using foreign propaganda and disinformation against us and our allies, and so far the U.S. government has been asleep at the wheel,” Portman said. “But today, the United States has taken a critical step towards confronting the extensive, and destabilizing, foreign propaganda and disinformation operations being waged against us by our enemies overseas. With this bill now law, we are finally signaling that enough is enough; the United States will no longer sit on the sidelines. We are going to confront this threat head-on. I am confident that, with the help of this bipartisan bill, the disinformation and propaganda used against us, our allies, and our interests will fail.”

“The use of propaganda to undermine democracy has hit a new low. But now we are finally in a position to confront this threat head on and get out the truth. By building up independent, objective journalism in places like eastern Europe, we can start to fight back by exposing these fake narratives and empowering local communities to protect themselves,” said Murphy. “I’m proud that our bill was signed into law, and I look forward to working with Senator Portman to make sure these tools and new resources are effectively used to get out the truth.”

NOTE: The bipartisan Countering Disinformation and Propaganda Act are organized around two main priorities to help achieve the goal of combating the constantly evolving threat of foreign disinformation from our enemies:

The first priority is developing a whole-of-government strategy for countering THE foreign propaganda and disinformation being wages against us and our allies by our enemies. The bill would increase the authority, resources, and mandate of the Global Engagement Center to include state actors like Russia and China as well as non-state actors. The Center will be led by the State Department, but with the active senior level participation of the Department of Defense, USAID, the Broadcasting Board of Governors, the Intelligence Community, and other relevant agencies. The Center will develop, integrate, and synchronize whole-of-government initiatives to expose and counter foreign disinformation operations by our enemies and proactively advance fact-based narratives that support U.S. allies and interests.

Second, the legislation seeks to leverage expertise from outside government to create more adaptive and responsive U.S. strategy options. The legislation establishes a fund to help train local journalists and provide grants and contracts to NGOs, civil society organizations, think tanks, private sector companies, media organizations, and other experts outside the U.S. government with experience in identifying and analyzing the latest trends in foreign government disinformation techniques. This fund will complement and support the Center’s role by integrating capabilities and expertise available outside the U.S. government into the strategy-making process. It will also empower a decentralized network of private sector experts and integrate their expertise into the strategy-making process.

With the likes of WaPo having already primed the general public to equate “Russian Propaganda” with “fake news” (despite admitting after the fact their own report was essentially “fake”), while the US media has indoctrinated the public to assume that any information which is not in compliance with the official government narrative, or dares to criticize the establishment, is also “fake news” and thus falls under the “Russian propaganda” umbrella, the scene is now set for the US government to legally crack down on every media outlet that the government deems to be “foreign propaganda.”

Government controlled news is not a concept that only recently made it difficult to decipher truth from fiction. Members of the Marijuana/Hemp Movement are fully aware that the term ‘Yellow Journalism’ was invented to label the intentional misinformation presented as truth by J Randolph Hearst through his media empire.

The term was coined by Erwin Wardman, the editor of the New York Press, in the mid-1890s to characterize the sensational journalism that used some yellow ink in the circulation war between Joseph Pulitzer’s ‘New York World’ and William Randolph Hearst’s ‘New York Journal’. The battle peaked from 1895 to about 1898, and historical usage often refers specifically to this period. Both papers were accused by critics of sensationalizing the news in order to drive up circulation, although the newspapers did serious reporting as well.

The decision of the United States Congress to pass the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 was based on poorly attended Congressional hearings and reports based on questionable studies. In 1936 and 1937, the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN) noticed an increase of reports of people smoking marijuana. The Bureau drafted a legislative plan for Congress seeking a new law, and the head of the FBN, Harry J. Anslinger, ran a campaign against marijuana. Newspaper mogul William Randolph Hearst’s empire of newspapers used the “yellow journalism” pioneered by Hearst to demonize the cannabis plant and spread a public perception that there were connections between cannabis and violent crime. Hearst owned millions of acres of forest which he used to harvest trees for paper pulp for his newspapers. He made a lot of money from doing this since he also sold his pulp to many companies as well.

Several scholars argue that the goal was to destroy the hemp industry due to its competitive edge against trees in making paper and against fossil fuel in creating oil. Hearst worked in association with Andrew Mellon and the Du Pont family in efforts to rid the earth of this plant. Scholars point out that the invention of the Decorticator made hemp a very cheap substitute for the wood pulp that was used in the newspaper industry. This 1938 three-page article in ‘Popular Mechanics’ called ‘HEMP – The New Billion dollar Crop‘ covers the Decorticator and its impact on harvesting this crop.

Government influence of the United States media was brought out into the open in the 1970’s with Operation Mockingbird, a campaign by the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to influence media in the US and internationally. It was reportedly organized as an independent office by Frank Wisner in 1948. After 1953, when Allen Dulles was appointed as head of the CIA, he took a strong role in overseeing the operation, which already had influence with 25 newspapers and wire agencies. The operation has been documented as operating at least during the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s.

The unit recruited leading American journalists into a propaganda network to help present the CIA’s views. It funded some student and cultural organizations and magazines as fronts. As it developed, it also worked to influence foreign media and political campaigns, in addition to activities conducted by other operating units of the CIA. The CIA’s use of journalists continued unabated until 1973, when the program was scaled back. When George H.W. Bush was appointed as director of the CIA in 1976, the program of paying journalists for cooperation was announced to have ended. Their voluntary cooperation was encouraged

In 1966 Ramparts magazine published an article revealing that the National Student Association was funded by the CIA. It was the first time the agency was revealed to have interfered with US domestic activities. The United States Congress investigated the allegations and published a report in 1976.

Other accounts of these activities have also been published. The media operation was first called Mockingbird in Deborah Davis’s 1979 book, ‘Katharine the Great: Katharine Graham and The Washington Post’.

At various times, under its own authority or in accordance with directives from the President of the United States or the National Security Council staff, the Central Intelligence Agency has attempted to influence domestic and international public opinion, and sometimes law enforcement.

The Central Intelligence Agency has made use of mass media assets, both foreign and domestic, for its covert operations. It was first reported on in the late 1960s, when it became known that the Congress for Cultural Freedom was largely funded by the CIA. In 1973, the Washington Star-News reported that CIA had enlisted more than thirty Americans working abroad as journalists, citing an internal CIA inquiry ordered by CIA director William E. Colby. The Church Committee was the first congressional committee established in the 1970s to look specifically into the CIA’s past activities. Some classified information in the (unpublished) report of the Pike Committee was leaked to ‘The Village Voice’, which showed more details on the CIA’s media manipulation.

The Committee mentioned that the: “The CIA, as no doubt every other major intelligence agency in the world, has manipulated the media. Full-time foreign correspondents for major U.S. publications have worked concurrently for CIA, passing along information received in the normal course of their regular jobs and even, on occasion, travelling to otherwise non-newsworthy areas to acquire data. Far more prevalent is the Agency’s practice of retaining free-lancers and “stringers” as informants…CIA acknowledges that “stringers” and others with whom the Agency has a relationship are often directed to insert Agency-composed “news” articles into foreign publications and wire services. U.S. intelligence officials do not rule out the possibility that these planted stories may find their way into American newspapers from time to time, but insist that CIA does not intentionally propagandize in this country.”

Since psychological operations can involve many variants of truth, it is useful to know the formal definitions used in the Intelligence Community. These definitions come from the Operations Coordinating Board (OCB), which, in 1954, was the White House organization that approved or disapproved covert and clandestine activities. Policy-level control has always been under the Department of State.

White Propaganda is acknowledged as an official statement or act of the U.S. Government, or emanates from a source associated closely enough with the U.S. Government to reflect an official viewpoint. The information is true and factual. It also includes all output identified as coming from U.S. official sources.

Authorized to engage in white activity directed at foreign audiences are: The State Department, USIA, the Foreign Operations Administration (a predecessor of the Agency for International Development), the Defense Departments and other U.S. Government departments and agencies as necessary.

Gray Propaganda is deliberately ambiguous. The true source (U.S. Government) is not revealed to the target audience. The activity engaged in plausibly appears to emanate from a non-official American source, or an indigenous, non-hostile source, or there may be no attribution.

Gray is that information whose content is such that the effect will be increased if the hand of the U.S. Government and in some cases any American participation is not revealed. It is simply a means for the U.S. to present viewpoints which are in the interest of U.S. foreign policy, but which will be acceptable or more acceptable to the intended target audience than will an official government statement.

Responsibility for gray is assigned to the OCB designee, USIA and State. The following criteria will assist in determining the responsibility for the execution of a proposed gray activity. If the answer to any of the three questions below is affirmative, the activity is the sole responsibility of the OCB designee. If government interest is not to be revealed but the answer to all three questions listed below is negative, the activity may fall within the charter of State, USIA or the OCB designee:

1. Would the disclosure of the source occasion serious embarrassment to the U.S. Government or to the agencies responsible for the information activity?

2. Would the activity or the materials disseminated be seriously discredited if it were to become known that the U.S. Government was responsible?

3. Would the outlet be seriously damaged if it were to become known that the activity is subsidized or otherwise assisted by the U.S. Government?

Black Propaganda appears to emanate from a source (government, party, group, organization, persons) usually hostile in nature. The interest of the U.S. Government is concealed and the U.S. Government would deny responsibility. The content may be partially or completely fabricated, but that which is fabricated is made to appear credible to the target audience. Black activity is also usually designed to cause embarrassment to the ostensible source or to force the ostensible source to take action against its will. Black propaganda can be considered clandestine, as the source is unknown.

In the mid-1990s, the CIA named Chase Brandon, an operations officer who was assigned to South America, as liaison to Hollywood. Brandon’s film credits include ‘The Recruit’, ‘The Sum of All Fears’, ‘Enemy of the State’, ‘Bad Company’ and in the ‘Company of Spies’. He has consulted for television programs including ‘The Agency’, ‘Alias’ and ‘JAG’. He has appeared on Discovery, The Learning Channel, The History Channel, PBS, and A&E. He has been interviewed on ‘E! Entertainment’, ‘Access Hollywood’, and ‘Entertainment Tonight’.

‘The Guardian’ journalist, John Patterson, criticizes the CIA assistance as being only to complimentary productions, including not running material, such as “the original pilot episode of The Agency, which was pulled. It featured the spymasters preventing a plot by a Bin Laden-backed terrorist cell to blow up a fictionalized Harrods. The airing of such an episode might have pointed up the real CIA’s corresponding lack of success in foiling the World Trade Center attacks.”

According to Brandon, the agency would not endorse Spy Game, starring Robert Redford and Brad Pitt. The final rewrite “showed our senior management in an insensitive light and we just wouldn’t want to be a part of that kind of project”, said Brandon, who also withheld approval from 24, a Fox series about a fictional intelligence agency, CTU, that also suggests all is not hunky-dory in the company’s upper echelons. And The Bourne Identity, based on the 1984 novel by Robert Ludlum, was “so awful that I tossed it in the burn bag after page 25”

The United States Intelligence Community appropriated usage of the term ‘disinformation‘ in the 1950’s. U.S. intelligence utilized the tactic during the Cold War and in conflict with other nations. The New York Times reported in 2000 that during the Central Intelligence Agency effort to substitute Mohammed Reza Pahlavi for then-Prime Minister of Iran Mohammad Mossadegh, the CIA placed fictitious stories in the local newspaper. Reuters documented how subsequent to the 1979 Soviet Union invasion of Afghanistan during the Soviet–Afghan War, the CIA put false articles in newspapers of countries with predominantly practitioners of Islam, inaccurately stating Soviet embassies had “invasion day celebrations”. Reuters noted a former U.S. intelligence officer said they would attempt to gain the confidence of reporters and use them as a secret agent, as a way to impact a nation’s politics by way of their local media.

In October 1986, the term gained increased currency in the U.S. when it was revealed two months previously, that the Reagan Administration government had engaged in a disinformation campaign against then-leader of Libya, Muammar Gaddafi. White House representative Larry Speakes said reports of a planned attack on Libya as first broken by The Wall Street Journal on 25 August 1986 were “authoritative”, and other newspapers including The Washington Post then wrote articles saying this was factual. United States Department of State representative Bernard Kalb resigned from his position in protest over the disinformation campaign, and said: “Faith in the word of America is the pulse beat of our democracy.”

The executive branch during the Presidency of Ronald Reagan kept watch on disinformation campaigns through three yearly publications by the United States Department of State: Active Measures: A Report on the Substance and Process of Anti-U.S. Disinformation and Propaganda Campaigns (1986), Report on Active Measures and Propaganda, 1986–87 (1987), and Report on Active Measures and Propaganda, 1987–89.

To further detail the many ways the government has censored truth and broadcasted FAKE NEWS would cause this short report to grow into a large book. Over the years, the CIA along with many other government agencies, have strong-armed the entertainment industry in order to promote its own agenda. I would encourage you to research this topic on your own when you have time to do so. When you do, keep in mind the words of Edgar Allen Poe: “Believe only half of what you see and nothing that you hear.”