Coded reality?

[Rubo]

Dr. Nancy Snow spent two years working within the ranks of America’s official propaganda organ, the United States Information Agency, and then surgically exposed the inner workings of the organization in her acclaimed publication, Propaganda Inc.

Fascinating article if interested the full version http://www.guerrillanews.com/counter_intel..._inc/index.html

 

When you hear terms like ‘democracy’, ‘peaceful co-existence’, and ‘diversity’ — these are coded terms for, really, promoting commercial interests and a consumer-driven culture. That should concern us a bit because the more that we are appealed to as consumers, the less we are appealed to as citizens… the less sense of knowledge and understanding we have as citizen agitators. And it’s important, really, to be agitators within a free and open society.

If that’s what we are.

But when we hear about promoting the American way of life, you need to understand that in a political-economic context. It’s really more about promoting the notion that official sources have of power… and promoting what the official sources of that economic power say. Because economic power is private power. Economic power is also the State, the government, working in concert, in a healthy marriage, with private power. So the government really acts as a shadow to private power.

Now, what is private power? Private power would be the very, very top levels of the multi-national corporations that are really promoting, now, a commercial culture of people, not working truly independently, but for conglomerates. That is, a way of life that is really getting away from ownership at the grass-roots level and giving up ownership, giving up power to incredibly concentrated avenues of power that are really more totalitarian than they are democratic.

The conundrum for us in the United States is that we are socialized to believe that we are truly free, that we are truly democratic. And all I would say is: ‘Well, let’s look at how we actually get elected officials into office. There is an incredible amount of money that goes into that system where you really, practically, either have to be a millionaire or have to have a whole list of millionaires to even think about running for so-called public office. So we have a very, very concentrated private source for our public officials. Which means that it’s basically a farce. We don’t have a true democracy, we don’t really have a truly representative form of government. We have elites who showcase themselves as really representing the people but these are very, very well-connected business people, for the most part, lawyers… the elites whom the U.S government would target, in a propaganda sense, in other countries. And they are always public officials when they are running for office. But once they are in and they are doing their fund-raising, it’s very clear that they are operating in a network that is very limited and, really, is closed off to the rest of us out here. And I’m referring to the 80% or so of the masses, the 3/4 of us — if not more, maybe 90% - who are really not involved in the decision-making process of our political economy, of our legislation and government. Who are really, sort of, left to join a few very limited public interest groups that have limited power, that are under-funded and whose message is diluted and is not really disseminated, like a good propaganda campaign, to the rest of country to really and truly empower people at the grass roots.

Let me ask you this then: do you think that people in other countries are aware of the farce — as you call it — of American democracy? Of the reality… of the system and the way that it operates? More so than the majority of the people here? And, secondly, do you think that there is a cynicism developing outside of our borders… one that has become so dispassionate that some foreign nationals may even feel a sense of vindication for what happened on September 11? Because they have seen how our total sense of political apathy has led to harm being inflicted on their own people, as a result of U.S. foreign policy?

Well, I think that 9-11, as a point of reference, was, to many Americans — I heard it often said - it was a loss of our innocence. And I really thought, when I woke up to the news that day, that it was chickens coming home to roost. It was a wake up call.

And that wake up call is that we need, again, to know how the world understands us, views us. And I do believe that growing up in countries that are on the receiving end of American business interests, of American military interests, of American commercial interests… even led by multi-nationals, which are nevertheless, perhaps, U.S.-based — there is no question that when you are on the receiving end of that kind of influence, that you are probably going to have a better understanding of the incredible power that is concentrated in that country. And you’re probably going to question, ‘how did that come about?’ And you may, because of your geography, be surrounded by countries and citizens of those countries who are questioning that, just as you are.

It is a position, again, for many countries in the world who just don’t have the kind of concentrated power that the United States has, that really forces people to begin to question that. It’s amazing to me, when you think about the United States… if indeed we are as we say we are, this superpower, then why is our international coverage so limited and why are so many of our U.S.-based media nothing but cheerleaders for the institutions of power — both government and private power — of the United States? Why are they not — as our ‘perception managers’, which, really, reporters are — why are they not questioning and critiquing and really holding the government/private power marriage accountable for its consequences in the world?

Well, they’re not doing that because the U.S. media work in concert, they are the offspring of this government/private power marriage. And so they act, really, more as official spokespeople for the ‘official’ sources of their information. Most of the talking heads on television, the bulk of those people are really representing the interests of the political establishment in Washington and the financial establishment in New York. They are not representing, really, the concerns and considerations of the majority of the American people. And there is nothing conspiratorial about that. That’s the natural way of doing business. That’s the way that it has always been for the United States.

And when you make the point about hypocrisy… you know, on the one hand, we think of ourselves as a good country, as a good people. But then on the other hand, many people in the world are also saying, ‘Yes, but you also do a lot of harm.’

 

So what do you guys think about democracy and propaganda?