{"id":19597,"date":"2021-10-23T14:25:32","date_gmt":"2021-10-23T14:25:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/?p=19597"},"modified":"2021-10-23T14:26:51","modified_gmt":"2021-10-23T14:26:51","slug":"manufacturing-ignorance-keeping-the-public-away-from-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/2021\/10\/23\/manufacturing-ignorance-keeping-the-public-away-from-power\/","title":{"rendered":"Manufacturing ignorance: keeping the public away from power"},"content":{"rendered":"

The following article was first posted by Media Lens.<\/strong><\/p>\n

MANUFACTURING IGNORANCE: KEEPING THE PUBLIC AWAY FROM POWER<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n


\n<\/a>In their classic book on the news media, \u2018Manufacturing Consent\u2019, Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky presented a \u2018propaganda model\u2019 of how the major broadcasters and newspapers operate. Whereas the \u2018mainstream\u2019 media declare that their aim is to educate, inform and entertain the public, their\u00a0actual<\/em>\u00a0societal purpose \u2018on matters that are of significance for established power\u2019 is to avert any \u2018danger\u2019 that the public can \u2018assert meaningful control over the political process\u2019 (Herman and Chomsky, \u2018Manufacturing Consent\u2019, Vintage, 1988\/1994, p. 303).<\/p>\n

As media analyst Lance Bennett wrote:<\/p>\n

\u2018The public is exposed to powerful persuasive messages from above and is unable to communicate meaningfully through the media in response to these messages\u2026. Leaders have usurped enormous amounts of political power and reduced popular control over the political system by using the media to generate support, compliance, and just plain confusion among the public.\u2019 (Ibid., p. 303)<\/em><\/p>\n

Thus, rather than manufacturing public\u00a0consent<\/em>\u00a0for elite policies and priorities, manufacturing public\u00a0ignorance<\/em>\u00a0is the more desirable and effective goal. After all, explicit public \u2018consent\u2019 is typically not required for the UK government, for example, to\u00a0attack<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0the welfare system,\u00a0underfund<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0carve-up<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0the NHS for commercial purposes,\u00a0sell arms<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0to Saudi Arabia to bomb\u00a0Yemeni civilians<\/strong><\/a>,\u00a0sabre-rattle<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0in the Indo-Pacific to \u2018counter\u2019 China, or\u00a0increase<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0its nuclear weapons arsenal by\u00a040 per cent<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Significant public activism and opposition to state-corporate power need to be rooted in widespread shared public knowledge. But, in the absence of adequate public knowledge, and thus the reduced \u2018threat\u2019 of an informed populace participating in a real democracy, power is more or less free to do as it pleases.<\/p>\n

Take a recent Reuters\u00a0news report<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0following the death of Colin Powell, one of the perpetrators of the\u00a0supreme international crime<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0of invading and occupying Iraq. Like a parody from the satirical website\u00a0The Onion<\/em><\/strong><\/a>, the article was titled: \u2018Powell remembered as \u201cone of the finest Americans never to be President\u201d\u2019.<\/p>\n

As Matt Kennard of Declassified UK\u00a0noted<\/strong><\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u2018The wildest thing about Western establishment media is its journalists aren\u2019t even working under threat of prison or violence.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018They do state propaganda \u2013 and sanitise our worst war criminals \u2013 totally off their own back. Incredible discipline and dedication to serving power.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

Recall that, in February 2003, as the US and allies were preparing to invade Iraq, US Secretary of State Colin Powell had addressed the United Nations Security Council, dramatically holding up a small glass vial he said could contain anthrax, a biological weapon.<\/p>\n

\u2018Saddam Hussein and his regime will stop at nothing until something stops him,\u2019 stated Powell, arguing that Iraq was deceiving UN weapons inspectors. He claimed that he was providing \u2018facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence\u2019. Powell\u2019s presentation was seemingly watertight, based on supposedly undeniable evidence, and it was reported as such by an obedient \u2018mainstream\u2019 news media across the globe.<\/p>\n

But it was all lies, and it is\u00a0\u2018irrefutable\u2019<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0that Powell \u2018consciously deceived the world\u2019, as US political analyst Jon Schwarz noted. Around\u00a0one million Iraqis died<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0as a result of the invasion-occupation, while many more millions became refugees, the country\u2019s infrastructure devastated.<\/p>\n

With her customary sardonic wit, the Australian political writer Caitlin Johnstone\u00a0described<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0the infamous image of Powell holding a vial while addressing the UN Security Council as a \u2018viral anti-war meme\u2019:<\/p>\n

\u2018Over the years Powell\u2019s meme has been an invaluable asset for opponents of western military interventionism and critics of US propaganda narratives about empire-targeted nations, serving as a single-image debunk of any assertion that it is sensible to trust the claims US officials make about any government that Washington doesn\u2019t like.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

For the benefit of credulous, power-friendly journalists and anyone else who believed that Powell had made just one mistake that he bitterly regretted for the rest of his life, she added:<\/p>\n

\u2018Powell\u2019s other contributions to the world include\u00a0covering up and participating in war crimes<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0in Vietnam,\u00a0facilitating atrocities<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0in Central America, and\u00a0destroying Iraqi civilian infrastructure<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0in the Gulf War. But it\u2019s hard to dispute that his greatest lasting legacy will be his immortal reminder to future generations that there is never, ever a valid reason to trust anything US officials tell us about a government they wish to bring down.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

She added:<\/p>\n

\u2018Be sure to remind everyone of Powell\u2019s sociopathic facilitation of human slaughter often and loudly in the coming hours. Public opinion is the only thing keeping western war criminals from The Hague, after all, and those war criminals are keenly aware of this fact. At times like these, they suddenly become highly invested in making sure that regular people \u201crespect the dead,\u201d not because they respect any human alive or dead, but because they cannot allow the death to become an opportunity to amplify and change public opinion about their egregious murderous crimes.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

The Persecution Of Julian Assange<\/strong><\/p>\n

As we have recently observed in media alerts (here<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0here<\/strong><\/a>), the state-corporate media, including and especially BBC News, have been complicit in keeping the public largely ignorant about the case of Julian Assange. Likewise, the case\u2019s likely terrifying implications for further limiting public knowledge about what governments and big business actually get up to. As founder of WikiLeaks, Assange has probably done more than anyone in at least a generation to expose the war crimes of the US and its allies.<\/p>\n

The revelations that the CIA had\u00a0plans<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0to kidnap or even kill Assange,\u00a0almost<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0entirely\u00a0ignored<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0by\u00a0BBC News<\/strong><\/a>, has prompted concerned\u00a0calls<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0from advocates of \u2018press freedom\u2019 (such as it is in the West). The American Civil Liberties Union, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Knight First Amendment Institute, Committee to Protect Journalists, and Reporters Without Borders are among the signatories of a\u00a0letter<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0demanding that the case against Assange be dropped.<\/p>\n

Next Wednesday, a substantive U.S. appeal hearing will be heard at the High Court in London. Lord Justice Timothy Holroyde, the High Court judge who reversed an earlier court order to bar the U.S. from appealing Assange\u2019s medical issues, will preside over the hearing.\u00a0According<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0to\u00a0Consortium News<\/em>\u00a0legal analyst Alexander Mercouris:<\/p>\n

\u2018It is highly unusual for a judge who has already ruled in favour of one party to continue on the bench. In most cases, fresh judges would be brought in who have had no part in earlier rulings for either side.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

Mercouris called the decision \u2018extremely disturbing news\u2019 and \u2018very worrying. Nothing in this case is proceeding as it should do.\u2019<\/p>\n

Nina Cross has\u00a0examined<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0the insidious role of the BBC in the state-sponsored persecution of Assange. First, in an overview of BBC history, she showed that:<\/p>\n

\u2018Britain\u2019s most powerful \u201cnational asset\u201d helps keep the British people in check while serving imperialism.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

In the case of Assange, the BBC has helped \u2018to control the narratives around the stripping of Assange\u2019s asylum\u2019, typically presenting him as someone who is attempting to evade the law.<\/p>\n

Cross\u00a0added<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0that the BBC is serving:<\/p>\n

\u2018the interests of the British state apparatus, enabling a culture of impunity by spoon feeding its audience government narratives, manipulating perception, and promoting ridicule and disdain.\u00a0The persecution of Assange that increasingly looks like a slow assassination by the UK and US authorities could not be so conceivable without a servile media.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

She continued:<\/p>\n

\u2018The impunity to persecute Assange has been enabled by the BBC through omission and silence. Instead of practising journalism it has turned a blind eye to abuses of the British authorities and those of its allies. The BBC\u2019s behaviour is contrary: anti-journalism, anti-truth.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

This is not new. As Noam Chomsky has\u00a0observed<\/strong><\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u2018Governments will use whatever technology is available to combat their primary enemy \u2013 their own population.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

In this sense, BBC News is a form of technology that the UK government deploys to keep the British population away from the levers of power.<\/p>\n

The \u2018Illusion Of A Democratic System\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

Take the case of UK arms sales. A new\u00a0film<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0report<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0by Matt Kennard and Phil Miller of Declassified UK investigated the largely-hidden role of a factory owned by arms exporter BAE Systems in the Lancashire village of Warton. The factory supplies military equipment to the Saudi Arabian regime, enabling it to continue its devastating attacks on Yemen which, for years, has been suffering the world\u2019s\u00a0worst humanitarian crisis<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Kennard and Miller noted that:<\/p>\n

\u2018Boris Johnson recently visited Warton and claimed the BAE site was part of his \u201clevelling up agenda\u201d. No journalist covering the visit seems to have reported the factory\u2019s role in a war.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

Back in London, Declassified UK interviewed Molly Mulready, who was a lawyer at the Foreign Office from 2014-19. She was responsible for giving legal advice in relation to exporting arms to the Middle East. She said:<\/p>\n

\u2018Boris Johnson was very casual and jokey when we would go in to talk to him about arms to Saudi Arabia. We would go in to brief him about Yemen and he would joke around and waste everybody\u2019s time and it was a bit mind blowing because you know, you\u2019re discussing civilian casualties, you\u2019re discussing the fact that innocent people have died and that British supplied bombs have played a part in that.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

In 2017, Campaign Against Arms Trade took the UK government to court over the export of weaponry from places like Warton to Saudi Arabia. Mulready was tasked with trying to defend the government: \u2018something she now bitterly regrets.\u2019 Clearly upset, she told Kennard and Miller:<\/p>\n

\u2018I\u2019m so ashamed that I had anything to do with it. There have been tens of thousands of civilians killed in the bombing and there are millions of people who are food insecure. There are children in Yemen who are starving to death. The Saudis seem to have absolutely no compassion whatsoever.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

The arms sales violate the UK government\u2019s own licencing laws, Mulready believes, and contribute to Saudi war crimes.<\/p>\n

As Kennard and Miller concluded:<\/p>\n

\u2018Yet they [UK arms sales] continue, along with the weekly cargo flight we filmed.\u2019\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

The Morning Star\u00a0reported<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0Mulready\u2019s important testimony. But, according to our search of the ProQuest newspaper database, no other British newspapers have done so.<\/p>\n

In a recent\u00a0interview<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0with Lowkey, the British rapper and political activist, Kennard\u00a0said<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0that in his work as a journalist he wants to \u2018pierce the propaganda bubble\u2019. He\u00a0emphasised<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0the \u2018illusion of a democratic system\u2019 in the UK:<\/p>\n

\u2018We do not live in a democracy. That\u2019s what people need to understand. This is not a democratic state. Britain is an oligarchy.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

On the tragicomic notion that \u2018Britain is a force for good in the world\u2019, he\u00a0commented<\/strong><\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u2018It\u2019s an amazing mythology. It\u2019s mirrored by the US. They have this thing called \u201cAmerican exceptionalism\u201d which is how America operates very differently along principled lines; very differently to all superpowers. They don\u2019t deal with [their own] interests, etc. It\u2019s literally the intellectual level of about a five-year-old.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

Kennard continued:<\/p>\n

\u2018But the interesting thing about our society is you cannot work in any elite part of the intellectual industries unless you believe it\u2026I\u2019m looking every day at the reality of what Britain does in the world. And they are a force for reaction. They are a force for repression. They\u2019re a force for militarism. They\u2019re a force for destroying hope wherever it appears. They\u2019re a junior partner to the US, but they\u2019re actually an integral player. And the imperial operations of both are quite similar.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

What is the way ahead then? Rather than looking for a \u2018saviour\u2019, such as Labour centrists Sir Keir Starmer or Andy Burnham, Kennard\u00a0suggested<\/strong><\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u2018Let\u2019s focus on different strategies, i.e. building extra-parliamentary movements and understanding what Labour\u2019s role in the British polity is, which is to support the British establishment, and absorb the radical left and neutralise it.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018There Are No Climate Leaders\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

As we have often emphasised in our work, in this era of worsening climate instability, time is rapidly running out. Climate activist Ben See\u00a0observes<\/strong><\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u2018Very few people seem aware that we only have about three or four years left before Earth\u2019s species start being smashed by catastrophic 1.5\u00b0C of global warming in the context of toxic pollution, deforestation, etc. Perhaps our media and education systems are\u2026utterly inadequate?\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

The forthcoming United Nations COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, starting on 31 October, will doubtless generate yet more \u2018blah, blah, blah\u2019, as Greta Thunberg so memorably\u00a0summed up<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0all the decades-long, political hot air on climate. She rightly\u00a0observed<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0that:<\/p>\n

\u2018no one treats the crisis like a crisis, the existential warnings keep on drowning in a steady tide of greenwash and everyday media news flow.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

She added:<\/p>\n

\u2018The truth is there are no climate leaders. Not yet. At least not among high-income nations. The level of public awareness and the unprecedented pressure from the media that would be required for any real leadership to appear is still basically nonexistent.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

During COP26, we can expect plenty of coverage of tense negotiations and exhausted delegates finally delivering an \u2018agreed\u2019 outcome. But there will be zero or negligible attention given to the unjust system of global economics that is driving humans into oblivion.<\/p>\n

The endless corporate drive to\u00a0privatise the planet<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0was highlighted in a recent\u00a0article<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0by journalist and researcher Whitney Webb titled, \u2018Wall Street\u2019s Takeover of Nature Advances with Launch of New Asset Class\u2019. She reported:<\/p>\n

\u2018Last month, the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE)\u00a0announced<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0it had developed\u00a0a new asset class and accompanying listing vehicle<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0meant \u201cto preserve and restore the natural assets that ultimately underpin the ability for there to be life on Earth.\u201d Called a natural asset company, or NAC, the vehicle will allow for the formation of specialized corporations \u201cthat hold the rights to the ecosystem services produced on a given chunk of land, services like carbon sequestration or clean water.\u201d These NACs will then\u00a0maintain, manage and grow<\/strong><\/a>the natural assets they commodify, with the end of goal of maximizing the aspects of that natural asset that are deemed by the company to be profitable.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

Simply put, capitalists are seeking to control, not just ecosystems as \u2018financial assets\u2019, but the rights that people around the world have to \u2018ecosystems services\u2019, including the benefits that humans receive from Nature:<\/p>\n

\u2018These include food production, tourism, clean water, biodiversity, pollination, carbon sequestration and much more.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

The estimated \u2018monetary value\u2019 of Nature\u2019s \u2018assets\u2019 have been priced at $4,000 trillion. Webb concluded:<\/p>\n

\u2018Thus, NACs open up a new feeding ground for predatory Wall Street banks and financial institutions that will allow them to not just dominate the human economy, but the entire natural world.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

The obscenity of this is almost beyond belief. Randall Wray, a professor of economics in New York,\u00a0warned<\/strong><\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u2018From the get-go, capitalism has been all about exploitation. Marx\u2019s followers will point to exploitation of workers, but that\u2019s the tip of the iceberg. Capitalism originated in the large plantations of the New World, exploiting the slaves, and Africa itself \u2014 which bore the burden of producing the humans that would be kidnapped and shipped across the seas to create the Old World\u2019s wealth. It exploited the environment of America\u2019s seemingly infinite natural resources, abandoning the land it exhausted, moving ever westward in its genocidal conquest of the continent. It spewed its waste into the water, the air, and the bodies of creatures great and small. It put a money price on the formerly free communal resources so that it could exploit them to extinction.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

He added:<\/p>\n

\u2018Capitalism has always been celebrated for its presumed efficiency. In fact, it is supremely inefficient. It survives only because it is the greatest system ever developed for exploitation of man and nature. It pushes costs off to the environment, \u201cother\u201d people, families, governments, and our \u201cfuture.\u201d It is ever on the lookout for new frontiers of exploitation. And in that quest, human survival is at risk.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

Do not expect to be hearing much, if any, about all this from the state-corporate media in the weeks, months and years ahead; or however much time\u00a0homo sapiens<\/em>\u00a0has left.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

22.10.21<\/strong><\/p>\n

This article was first posted at:\u00a0https:\/\/www.medialens.org\/2021\/ manufacturing-ignorance-keeping-the-public-away-from-power\/<\/p>\n

_____________<\/p>\n

also see:-<\/p>\n

1. Gaslighting the public: serial deception by the state-corporate – Media Lens<\/strong><\/p>\n

Gaslighting the public: serial deceptions by the state-corporate media<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n