Ben Elliot Quotes

No section of the American populace has been more completely deceived by the forces interested in keeping the truth from the people than America's youth.

Media manipulation in the U.S. today is more efficient than it was in Nazi Germany, because here we have the pretense that we are getting all the information we want. That misconception prevents people from even looking for the truth.

It is hard to tell which is worse; the wide diffusion of things that are not true, or the suppression of things that are true.

I think that much of the truth has been withheld from the American people.

It is well known that in war, the first casualty is truth - that during any war truth is forsaken for propaganda.

There are people who are very highly paid to cover the truth and who will protect their clients.

It is very dangerous to write the truth in war, and the truth is very dangerous to come by.

Of all newspaper presses, I never heard anyone deny that the American is the worst.... [N]othing is easier than to make the people know only one side of a question; few things are easier than to keep them altogether from the knowledge of any particular affair; and, worse than all, on them [the American people] may easily be practiced the discovery that lies may work their intended effect, before the truth can overtake them. It is hard to tell which is worse; the wide diffusion of things that are not true or the suppression of things that are.

The first casualty when war comes is truth.

I feel sad when I realize how much truth is being changed or obscured in the American media.

Among the calamities of war, may he justly numbered the diminution of the love of truth, by the falsehoods which interest dictates, and credulity encourages.

What's public is propaganda, what's secret is serious.

The presentation of an issue can no longer be controlled.

Our Pentagon has a reputation for not telling the truth.

Politics won't allow for the truth.

If you want to rip the heart out of a democracy, you go after the facts. That's what modern authoritarians do. You lie. All the time. Then, you say it's your opponents and the journalists who lie.

There are things that go public, and everything that comes out is not the truth.

We are struggling with the global war on the truth. And if what we used to think of as the domain of the Soviets, the kind of celebration of lies and press as propaganda, that now we realize is not something that is unique to the Soviet state. It's within ourselves as well here in the West.

As truth is Washington's worst enemy, everyone associated with the truth is Washington's enemy.

I am particularly horrified by the use of propaganda and the manipulation of the truth and the revision of history.

The foulest damage to our political life comes not from the 'secrets' which they hide from us, but from the little bits of half-truth and disinformation which they do tell us. These are already pre-digested, and then are sicked up as little gobbits of authorised spew. The columns of defense correspondents in the establishment sheets serve as the spittoons.

If deliberate distortion of reality by corporate media could be effectively prosecuted in the United States, the entire industry would be behind bars.

Don't worry over what the newspapers say. I don't. Why should anyone else? I told the truth to the newspaper correspondents - but when you tell the truth to them they are at sea.

George Orwell's contention was that it is a sure sign of trouble when things can no longer be called by their right names and described in plain, forthright speech.

I think 20th century media were about tricking people - and the beauty of the Internet is you can't lie anymore.