Benjamin Disraeli Quotes
Without publicity there can be no public support, and without public support every nation must decay.
Benjamin Disraeli, 1804-1881, British Prime Minister (Tory), Speech, House of Commons, August 8, 1871
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
The George W. Bush administration was a very ideological one as opposed to pragmatic. They would not tolerate public officials who would say anything that might undermine an administrative ideological position. In particular, they did not want government scientists releasing any data or information that was not totally consistent with their ideology and program. They introduced a new policy within the government whereby no one could talk to a reporter or make a public speech or deliver a professional paper without first getting approval of administration “public affairs” agents first. Government scientists and other officials had never before been censored like this. Important scientific studies were not made public where they might not support the administration ideological positions. See {614691}.
This is the earliest use of “spin” and “spin doctors” in a political context that we have found.
Steward, then a retired Army PR man, when Iraq invaded Kuwait, was concerned that Kuwait a wealthy oil country controlled by a small royal family, grossly undemocratic, where women could not even vote, would not be a cause that Americans would be willing to suffer causalities over. He was unaware at the time but a huge campaign, much of it fraudulent, was being orchestrated by the giant PR firm of Hill & Knowlton. That together with the low casualties and the real atrocities that the Iraqis committed, carried the day.
She was testifying about the atrocities of the Iraqis in their invasion of Kuwait. However, this was completely fraudulent and deliberated orchestrated, the result of a huge campaign orchestrated by the Kuwait Embassy and Hill & Knowlton, America’s largest PR firm. She was actually the daughter of the Kuwaiti Ambassador to the United States. When she testified, she was only identified by her first name “Nayirah” with the explanation that if her last name were disclosed, her family in Kuwait would be the victims of Iraqi reprisals. She appeared all over America whipping up support for the First Iraq War. The image of the Kuwaiti babies being left to die on the hospital floor became the icon for support for the war. Ironically, there was more than ample justification for America’s role in the war without making up fictions like this. However this quotation to many is an example of the fraudulent schemes and lies that war advocates will resort to in order to manipulate public opinion.
Federal Authorities arrived with press officers and a bevy of reporters and issued statements to the press while there were thousands of people in dire straits with many of them dying with no food, medical care or relocation from flooding water.
Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield, KG, PC, MP, FRS, was twice Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, serving in 1868 and from 1874 to 1880. He was a member of the British Conservative Party and played a central role in the creation of the modern Party, defining its policies and its broad outreach. Disraeli is remembered for his influential voice in world affairs, his political battles with the Liberal Party leader William Ewart Gladstone, and his one-nation conservatism or "Tory democracy". He made the Conservatives the party most identified with the glory and power of the British Empire. He is the only British prime minister to have been of Jewish birth. He was also a novelist, publishing works of fiction even as prime minister.
