Red White & Blind

Did CIA Director William Casey really say, “We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false?”

This is the provocative quote I use for the Introduction to my new book, Red White & Blind. It appears right at the outset of the book. Despite the quote appearing in countless memes and webpages, I should have provided a clear source for it in the text. I somehow overlooked it when I was compiling the book’s exhaustive sources and footnotes. Yes, despite compiling 50 pages of citations, I missed this one.

So, let’s provide it here. There is a useful Quora page where this quote is discussed. The page has been edited a bit, but a man named Greg Smith produces an email with former White House campaign staffer Barabara Honegger, who was in the meeting at which Casey expressed this troubling intention. I’m posting this email here in the event it is removed from the Quora page:

Ex-DCI Bill Casey's quote was attributed online as reported only by Mae Brussell, and so I bounced it off Barbara Honegger because I knew she worked for Mae B back in the day. Here's what I got from her in [an email] response:

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Barbara Honegger
Date: Sun, Sep 21, 2014 at 11:19 PM
Subject: Re: Conference on THE WARREN REPORT AND THE
JFK ASSASSINATION : FIVE DECADES OF SIGNIFICANT DISCLOSURES
To: Greg Smith
I told Mae about it when we worked together ...
On Sun, Sep 21, 2014 at 10:32 PM, Greg Smith wrote:

Thanks Barbara! That's priceless. The web attributes it to Mae B only, and therefore, it's discounted in chat and group conversations on social media. You might want to give it better street cred? Your call!

On Sep 21, 2014, at 8:59 PM, Barbara Honegger wrote:

>     Seriously -- I personally was the Source 
>     for that William Casey quote.  He said it 
>     at an early Feb. 1981 meeting in the
>     Roosevelt Room in the West Wing of 
>     the White House which I attended, and 
>     I immediately told my close friend and 
>     political godmother Senior White House 
>     Correspondent Sarah McClendon, who 
>     then went public with it without naming 
>     the source ...  
>     On Sat, Sep 20, 2014 at 2:49 PM, Greg Smith wrote:
>
>         Love to, but can't break away. I'll definitely get the DVD for future very intense scrutiny! On that note, in the words of the infamous William J. Casey, "We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." 

>
>         On Sep 17, 2014, at 1:25 AM, Barbara Honegger wrote:
>>         I'm going to try to go to the historic conference.  
>>         Please try to as well... 
>>         Barbara  
>>         On Tue, Sep 16, 2014 at 8:34 PM, Jerry Policoff wrote:  
>>         Re: Conference on THE WARREN REPORT AND THE
>>            JFK ASSASSINATION : FIVE DECADES OF 
>>            SIGNIFICANT DISCLOSURES

The pilot episode of RW&B is here.

The book is done. The online book release is just a week away. I’m excited and a bit nervous now to turn to the other part of this endeavor: the show.

Yes, Red White & Blind will also be a video channel and podcast. My intention is to create a place where you and me and all of us can work together to uncover disinformation and bias in the media. I plan to host interviews with other journalists that you’d like to hear from and to do my own investigations into the most perplexing media stories of the day. This channel will be a place where we use a Balanced Media Diet to more clearly understand the world around us. The ultimate aim is to break the spells of mainstream news narratives in real time and uncover the stories behind the story.

I hope you’ll join me, show me my blind spots, and work to discern your own. We all have our blind spots. I’ve learned so much in the last three years writing this book, and I aim to learn much more in the next three years. I don’t have all the answers. I don’t even have all the questions yet. This is a journey, not a set of predetermined truths. 

Pilot Episode: Epstein

This first episode looks at the highly informative and highly troubling case of Jeffrey Epstein. How was he able to run an absolutely abominable pedophilia rape ring at the apex of the power structure of the Western World for twenty years?

Tuesday February 7, 2023

Tony Brasunas is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Red White & Blind – Book Release

Feb 7, 2023 5:30 PM Pacific Time / 8:30 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting

Meeting ID: 898 2927 6118
Passcode: curious
One tap mobile
+16694449171,,89829276118#,,,,3466107# US +16699006833,,89829276118#,,,,3466107# US (San Jose)

Dial by your location
+1 669 444 9171 US
+1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose)
+1 346 248 7799 US (Houston)
+1 719 359 4580 US
+1 253 205 0468 US
+1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma)
+1 305 224 1968 US
+1 309 205 3325 US
+1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago)
+1 360 209 5623 US
+1 386 347 5053 US
+1 507 473 4847 US
+1 564 217 2000 US
+1 646 931 3860 US
+1 689 278 1000 US
+1 929 205 6099 US (New York)
+1 301 715 8592 US (Washington DC)
Meeting ID: 898 2927 6118
Passcode: 3466107
Find your local number: https://us05web.zoom.us/u/l3GQoMWm

The launch of Red White & Blind at Aqus Cafe was a peak experience of my life. It was so much more than I’d envisioned.

The rain was coming down in sheets outside, and it was a beautiful respite in the cozy confines of the cafe. I expected 20 people and then 60 showed up. The place was packed. It went silent as I shared my gratitude and read the passages I’d selected. That was wonderful. But it was the discussions that occurred after I read from the book that moved me most. Each question was deeper than the last.

It’s clear that many, many of us have felt stranded or abandoned by the dominant media narratives that purport to tell us what is happening in our world. Even more of us have lost connection with friends or family because of the polarized media landscape.

We talked about the problems, the narratives, and the lies. We talked about the possibilities too, the goals of Red White & Blind: media consciousness, a balanced media diet, and connecting with each other.

I’ve been trying to piece together photos and video to do the event justice and share it with you, but I don’t have the time or expertise to do it.

So I’m going to do something else. I’m going to do it again, this time online. As several of you suggested, I will host an Online Book Release and Conversation. I will share Red White & Blind with those of you who weren’t able to make it to Petaluma.

I would be delighted if you would participate. I would be honored if you might contribute your presence and thoughts to this book release.

Please join the conversation if you feel inspired.

Red White & Blind

Online Book Release
Tuesday, February 7th
Starts 5:30pm PST / 8:30pm EST
5:30pm – Celebratory toast & casual chat with the author
6:00pm – Book release
zoom meeting details >

Please reserve the time now in your personal calendar. I will be thrilled to see and hear from you as I release this book into the world.

Here is the Facebook event and the Zoom invitation.

I’ll see you there on the 7th.

Our news media here in America is as distorted as the Chinese news media that I wrote about in Double Happiness. The problem is most people here don’t realize it because American propaganda techniques are much more sophisticated, and because two relatively similar viewpoints are allowed to vociferously disagree.

After years of work and research, I’m delighted to announce my new book is now published.

RED WHITE & BLIND: The Truth About Disinformation and the Path to Media Consciousness

After being censored by Huffington Post in 2016, I realized something I’d long suspected. The “media narrative” in mainstream corporate American media is tightly controlled. Some people see it, some don’t, but the trend is that people are increasingly noticing this deception, this comprehensive bias, this set of blinders on the truth. The emerging trend is media consciousness, which is dissolving consensus reality, and this is both dangerous and scary — and preparing us for a better world.

Red White & Blind explores this and much more.

Stay tuned to the Red White & Blind media channel for more.

Tony’s Story

Tony Brasunas grew up on a commune in West Virginia. Before leaving for China, as a teenager at Amherst College, he studied Chinese, music, writing, and Computer Science, and meandered into a thoughtful and lonely social and political conservatism.

Directionless after college, perhaps expecting something more from the planet, Tony applied just after the deadline to Princeton in Asia, and he was swiftly bundled off to Guangzhou, China, to teach English. The ensuing journey broke him open. His body tasted death in hospitals and Tibetan monsoons, his heart opened up and slammed shut and opened again, and some unknown inner sage awoke and suggested he trust his intuition.

Double Happiness: One Man’s Tale of Love, Loss, and Wonder on the Long Roads of China (December 2013, Torchpost) masterfully retells that awakening against a backdrop of a modern, changing China.

Excerpts from the manuscript have appeared in the book China, an anthology of travel writing on China published by Travelers’ Tales Press, and in Travelmag, a British online travel magazine.

Writing ‘Double Happiness’

The second journey Tony undertook was writing it all down, editing it, and transforming the journey that changed his life into a story and a book. His third journey was launching a campaign on Kickstarter to gather the money and energy to publish it. And this is his fourth journey — sharing his story with the world.

In the years since China, Tony has slaked bouts of wanderlust by crisscrossing the Andes of Peru, backpacking through Germany and France during a World Cup, and sneaking illegally into Tibet.

Tony speaks passable Mandarin, Spanish, and English, and perhaps that’s why he was asked one fragrant spring evening in Kunming, China to play guitar on a radio station. The host on Kunming’s STAR 101.8 FM asked him why his songs were about a young woman. “Ta shi shei?” (Who is she?) inquired the host. Tony had met her at a nearby cafe, he replied, and she had become his tutor, his teacher of the Chinese that is spoken aloud, not just written in textbooks. “She’s on the roof right now with a radio,” Tony added with a smile. “She has a basket of strawberries and is hoping to hear me play guitar.”

Two weeks later, Tony was arrested and interrogated in Tibet.

The Timeline

Double Happiness was published internationally in trade paperback on December 12, 2013. Hardcover and e-book versions followed in January 2014. The audiobook, narrated by Brasunas, came out in January 2015.

In May 2014, at the Paris Book Festival, Double Happiness won best in Biography / Autobiography. Press release >

In July 2014, Double Happiness was named ForeWord Travel Book of the Year, Silver Winner. Press release >

In September 2014, the Living Now Book Awards (recognizing “Books For Better Living”) named Double Happiness best inspirational memoir.

The Publisher – Torchpost

All blogs, magazines, newspapers, and social media are welcome to request publicity materials, interviews, or review copies of Double Happiness.

Torchpost 415-647-8587 1612 Bay Street Alameda, CA 94501 info {at} torchpost {dot} com www.torchpost.com/books/Double-Happiness

Download Mini Media Kit

For a “white paper” description of the book, a normal-resolution book cover image, and a normal-resolution author photo, download the miniature media kit [ZIP].

Author Photos

SmallMediumLarge

SmallMediumLarge

Download Book Cover Images

SmallMediumLarge