20 June 2013
In his book, 'Propaganda', published in 1928, Edward Bernays
wrote: "The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organised habits
and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those
who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible
government which is the true ruling power of our country."
The American nephew of Sigmund Freud, Bernays invented the
term "public relations" as a euphemism for state propaganda. He
warned that an enduring threat to the invisible government was the truth-teller
and an enlightened public.
In 1971, whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg leaked US government
files known as The Pentagon Papers, revealing that the invasion of Vietnam was
based on systematic lying. Four years later, Frank Church conducted sensational
hearings in the US Senate: one of the last flickers of American democracy.
These laid bare the full extent of the invisible government: the domestic
spying and subversion and warmongering by intelligence and "security"
agencies and the backing they received from big business and the media, both
conservative and liberal.
Speaking about the National Security Agency (NSA), Senator
Church said: "I know that the capacity that there is to make tyranny in
America, and we must see to it that this agency and all agencies that possess
this technology operate within the law... so that we never cross over that
abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return."
On 11 June 2013, following the revelations in the Guardian
by NSA contractor Edward Snowden, Daniel Ellsberg wrote that the US had now
fallen into "that abyss".
Snowden's revelation that Washington has used Google,
Facebook, Apple and other giants of consumer technology to spy on almost
everyone, is further evidence of modern form of fascism - that is the "abyss". Having
nurtured old-fashioned fascists around the world - from Latin America to Africa
and Indonesia - the genie has risen at home. Understanding this is as important
as understanding the criminal abuse of technology.
Fred Branfman, who exposed the "secret"
destruction of tiny Laos by the US Air Force in the 1960s and 70s, provides an
answer to those who still wonder how a liberal African-American president, a
professor of constitutional law, can command such lawlessness. "Under Mr.
Obama," he wrote, "no president has done more to create the
infrastructure for a possible future police state." Why? Because Obama,
like George W Bush, understands that his role is not to indulge those who voted
for him but to expand "the most powerful institution in the history of the
world, one that has killed, wounded or made homeless well over 20 million human
beings, mostly civilians, since 1962."
In the new American cyber-power, only the revolving doors
have changed. The director of Google Ideas, Jared Cohen, was adviser to
Condaleeza Rice, the former secretary of state in the Bush administration who
lied that Saddam Hussein could attack the US with nuclear weapons. Cohen and
Google's executive chairman, Eric Schmidt - they met in the ruins of Iraq -
have co-authored a book, The New Digital Age, endorsed as visionary by the
former CIA director Michael Hayden and the war criminals Henry Kissinger and
Tony Blair. The authors make no mention of the Prism spying programme, revealed
by Edward Snowden, that provides the NSA access to all of us who use Google.
Control and dominance are the two words that make sense of
this. These are exercised by political, economic and military designs, of which
mass surveillance is an essential part, but also by insinuating propaganda in
the public consciousness. This was Edward Bernays's point. His two most
successful PR campaigns were convincing Americans they should go to war in 1917
and persuading women to smoke in public; cigarettes were "torches of
freedom" that would hasten women's liberation.
It is in popular culture that the fraudulent
"ideal" of America as morally superior, a "leader of the free
world", has been most effective. Yet, even during Hollywood's most
jingoistic periods there were exceptional films, like those of the exile
Stanley Kubrick, and adventurous European films would have US distributors.
These days, there is no Kubrick, no Strangelove, and the US market is almost
closed to foreign films.
When I showed my own film, 'The War on Democracy', to a
major, liberally-minded US distributor, I was handed a laundry list of changes
required, to "ensure the movie is acceptable". His memorable sop to
me was: "OK, maybe we could drop in Sean Penn as narrator. Would that satisfy
you?" Lately, Katherine Bigelow's torture-apologising 'Zero Dark Thirty'
and Alex Gibney's 'We Steal Secrets', a cinematic hatchet job on Julian
Assange, were made with generous backing by Universal Studios, whose parent
company until recently was General Electric. GE manufactures weapons,
components for fighter aircraft and advance surveillance technology. The
company also has lucrative interests in "liberated" Iraq.
The power of truth-tellers like Bradley Manning, Julian Assange, and Edward Snowden is that they dispel a whole mythology carefully constructed by the corporate cinema, the corporate academy and the corporate media. WikiLeaks is especially dangerous because it provides truth-tellers with a means to get the truth out. This was achieved by 'Collatoral Murder', the cockpit video of an US Apache helicopter allegedly leaked by Bradley Manning. The impact of this one video marked Manning and Assange for state vengeance. Here were US airmen murdering journalists and maiming children in a Baghdad street, clearly enjoying it, and describing their atrocity as "nice". Yet, in one vital sense, they did not get away with it; we are witnesses now, and the rest is up to us.
The power of truth-tellers like Bradley Manning, Julian Assange, and Edward Snowden is that they dispel a whole mythology carefully constructed by the corporate cinema, the corporate academy and the corporate media. WikiLeaks is especially dangerous because it provides truth-tellers with a means to get the truth out. This was achieved by 'Collatoral Murder', the cockpit video of an US Apache helicopter allegedly leaked by Bradley Manning. The impact of this one video marked Manning and Assange for state vengeance. Here were US airmen murdering journalists and maiming children in a Baghdad street, clearly enjoying it, and describing their atrocity as "nice". Yet, in one vital sense, they did not get away with it; we are witnesses now, and the rest is up to us.
[borrowed from http://johnpilger.com/articles/understanding-the-latest-leaks-is-understanding-the-rise-of-a-new-fascism]
Please note that "our" mainstream media, "our" Congress, and "our" leaders are doing their best to make sure that they DO get away with it. Is that what we want? The rest is up to us, but WE are just sitting on our asses doing nothing.
Nothing begets nothing.
Please note that "our" mainstream media, "our" Congress, and "our" leaders are doing their best to make sure that they DO get away with it. Is that what we want? The rest is up to us, but WE are just sitting on our asses doing nothing.
Nothing begets nothing.
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