After reading The New York Times piece “The Plot to Subvert an Election” I put the paper down with a single question.
Why, after two years of allegations, indictments, and claims to proof of this, that, and the other did the newspaper of record—well, once the newspaper of record—see any need to publish such a piece? My answer is simple: The orthodox account of Russia-gate has not taken hold: It has failed in its effort to establish a consensus of certainty among Americans. My conclusion matches this observation: The orthodox narrative is never going to achieve this objective. There are too many holes in it.
“The information age is actually a media age,” John Pilger, the noted British–Australian journalist, remarked during a symposium four years ago, when the Ukraine crisis was at its peak. “We have war by media; censorship by media; demonology by media; retribution by media; diversion by media—a surreal assembly line of obedient clichés and false assumptions.” Pilger revisited the theme in a piece last week on Consortium News, arguing that once-tolerated, dissenting opinion has in recent years “regressed into a metaphoric underground.”That's what propaganda is — a battle to control minds and controlling the narrative. Those who control the narrative control the agenda and, more importantly, the hidden agenda that is actually driving policy and strategy.
There are battlefields in Syria, Ukraine, Yemen, and elsewhere, but perhaps the most consequential battle now being fought is for our minds....
Of course, this is nothing new. What is different now is the medium, with the introduction of the Internet and social media.
Consortium News
The Battle for Our Minds
Patrick Lawrence
Patrick Lawrence
2 comments:
“There are battlefields in Syria, Ukraine, Yemen, and elsewhere, but perhaps the most consequential battle now being fought is for our minds....”
All wars are ultimately fought for control of the mass mind; i.e. for control of the mass narrative. The war with Japan ended in the 1940s, but the war against National Socialist Germany and the USSR continues to this day.
The war of the rich against the rest is eternal. The war against socialism in all its forms, expressions, and manifestations has raged since the dawn of civilization.
That said, I think that Patrick Lawrence makes an error…
“The orthodox account of Russia-gate has not taken hold: It has failed in its effort to establish a consensus of certainty among Americans. The orthodox narrative is never going to achieve this objective. There are too many holes in it.”
On the contrary, the objective is is to keep average Americans divided and bickering, rather than uniting against their neoliberal owners. The Russia-gate hoax (and the “#Resistance”) has succeeded in this objective. Rich oligarchs crush the peasants, who respond by attacking anyone who wears a MAGA hat. Female peasants attack male peasants as “sexists.” Sexually deviant peasants attack straight peasants as “homophobic.” Pathologically intolerant liberals attack conservatives as “intolerant.” Pathologically stupid conservatives attack liberals as “communists.” Everyone attacks everyone else as a “Nazi.”
Far above this cesspool float rich neoliberals, who look down at the cattle and laugh with delight. They rule because the peasants insist on being Frankos.
No one seriously believes the Russia-gate hoax, but this does not matter, since the purpose of hoaxes is to keep the peasants divided and enslaved. Logic, proof, and evidence are counter-functional to this purpose.
It’s like people who argue about religious dogma. Their bickering can only continue as long as their idiocy remains evidence-free.
I found my friendly neighbour the other day putting Conservatives leaflets through the front doors of my street. If only she knew, I thought, what a bunch of crooks the Conservatives were? Should I tell her, I thought, but i decided not to bother. If i said Assad was the good guy, she just wouldn't be able to make sense of that at all.
I picked up the Sun newspaper while waiting in a fish and chips shop the other day. In it they were running down Corbyn calling him a 'socialist'. They didn't have to say what a socialist was, but they framed the word socialism to mean something really terrible It meant communist, terrorist supporter, high taxes, Russian asset, street protestor, bad guy. A union leader will get the same treatment.
Over the years the propaganda has been drilled in so people are programmed to hate socialism. Jeff Gates says how we are all programmed throughout our lives and then we automatically knew jerk to the right stimuli.
Socialists and union members are people who start strikes and then fight with the British police force, ' our good guys', etc. They're the ruffians in the streets. The union guy who keeps asking for more money. It goes on an on. This propaganda is programmed in everyday.
In negotiations union leaders are said to demand, while the management pleas. It's never the management that demands and the unions that plea.
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