From: Mark Steven Heyman (markheyman@infoproconsulting.com)
Date: Fri Jan 14 2005 - 07:03:12 GMT
Hi all,
Here are some ideas Keith and I have been kicking around, submitted
here for comment by anyone interested.
msh said:
Well, more accurately, in the ways the USG is similar to the GF [God
Father], the USG is not a good guy. I'd be willing to argue that
they are not as dissimilar as you believe: both act to protect and
advance the interests of a favored few. But we can drop the GF
analogy.
keith said:
That's why I didn't like the analogy. To make it fair you've had to
qualify it, and in qualifying it we've managed to make it
meaningless. In the ways the USG is similar to Mother Teresa, the USG
is a very good guy...
msh says:
This is a little slippery. You've blanked out my statement that the
USG (and all states) and the GF are not as dissimilar as you believe,
in that they act in the interest of the powerful few. This doesn't
mean that their actions do not from time to time have some positive
trickle down effect on the majority of citizens.
But let's imagine the most ridiculous of worlds and say that States
are 90% benevolent. Does this mean we should simply accept the other
10% of their actions? Especially when these actions are performed in
our names and with our tax dollars? It seems to be that you are
trying to justify or ignore or downplay the bad by emphasizing the
good. I think the good is good, but we shouldn't spend a lot of time
patting ourselves on the back about it. What would be the point?
msh then brought in some heavy weights (Tolstoy and Ramsey Clark):
1) States are violent by their very nature, so I don't want to be
singling out the USG; they just happen to be the state with the most
violent means at their disposal.
keith:
States are capable of compassion as well as aggression.
msh asks anyone:
Can you provide an historical example where a state acted out of
compassion, when the action meant relinquishing power?
msh continued:
2) the first enemy of any State is its own people; the people must be
controlled for the State to perform its function, which is to
maintain and enhance the power of the elites who finance it. In a
dictatorship, control is by means of the bludgeon and boot;
keith said:
I think Orwell describes some of this very well. However the
prophetic 1984 didn't actually come to pass. The Human spirit did
(in lots of cases) manage to overcome totalitarianism.
msh says:
I'm not sure how well you remember 1984, but here are numerous ways
in which the totalitarianism exemplified in that novel have come to
pass in the US and, I bet if you look carefully, you'll see
similarities in the UK, or any other powerful "democratic" state.
DOUBLETHINK
"Doublethink" is defined in the book as "the power of holding two
contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting
both of them." In Oceania in 1984, citizenship meant "not thinking --
not needing to think."
In USUK in 2004, there's a little known but essential power concept
known as '"perception management," which operates under the principle
that truth is unessential. Truth simply becomes what the Party is
able to convince the electorate is true. In USUK, during the run-up
to the latest invasion of Iraq, government officials practiced
perception management every time they announced their certainty that
Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, as well as connections to Al
Q'aeda and the September 11 attacks.
The Big Brother government in 1984 alternated between war and
alliance with two competing states. The official enemy can change
from one speech to another, sometimes even within the same speech,
and the audience immediately accepts the new reality. They have no
choice. In Oceania, In 1984, "The heresy of heresies was common
sense."
This doublethink of perception management is sometimes inadvertently
affirmed by those in power. In a recent NYT article a senior Bush
advisor scoffed at people who exist in 'the reality based community,"
who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of
discernable reality. That's not the way the world works anymore.
We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality."
A state government that creates its own realities is bad enough. But
even more spooky is when citizens of that state accept the
manufactured reality despite overwhelming evidence of what could
politely be called contradictory truths. When asked whether USUK
should have gone to war without evidence of a WMD program or support
to Al-Qaeda, a clear majority of Bush/Blair supporters said no. Yet
these same people continue to support the war, suggesting a cognitive
dissonance of doublespeak proportions, or at least an inability or
refusal to accept "discernable reality."
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
Right after September 11, Bush swore that he would stop at nothing to
kill or capture the attackers. This was right after he allowed a
plane full of Saudi Arabians, including bin Laden's relatives, to
leave the country, without being questioned. Six months later,
while laying the ground work to divert most of USUK military
resources to a war against Iraq, Bush said of bin Laden, "He's a
person who's now been marginalized...I just don't spend that much
time on him...I truly am not that concerned about him." By April,
2002, less than a year before the invasion, Joint Chief of Staff
Chairman Myers followed that with: "The goal has never been to get
bin Laden."
PERMANENT WAR
In Oceania in 1984, the state remained perpetually at war against one
vague and interchangeable enemy or another. This largely abstract and
perpetual war served to fuel hatred and nurture fear, thus
engendering popular support for Big Brother's totalitarian goals,
both domestic and international.
The USUK war against terrorism has become ever more vague. Although
we are told our leader's resolve is steady and the mission clear, we
seem to know less and less about the enemy. What began as a war
against Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda quickly morphed into a war
against Afghanistan, followed by comical warnings about an "Axis of
Evil," the targeting of terrorists in some 50 to 60 countries, and
the ongoing atrocities against Iraq. Exactly what will constitute
success in this amorphous war remains deliberately unclear, but the
one thing the Bush/Blair alliance has made certain is that the war
will continue "indefinitely."
THE MINISTRY OF TRUTH
In Oceania in 1984, the Ministry of Truth served as Big Brother's
propaganda arm. The Ministry not only spread lies to suit its
strategic goals, but constantly re-wrote and falsified history. This
is a practice that has become increasingly commonplace in USUK houses
of power, where transcripts are routinely sanitized to remove
official gaffes, where accounts of intelligence warnings prior to
Sept. 11 get spottier with each retelling, as do the accounts of
evidence supporting the notions of Iraqi imminent threat. At the
same time, the facts surrounding our leaders' past financial
dealings and cozy connections to power, both domestic and
international, are subject to continual revision, with all negative
reflections consigned to the black hole of inconvenient truths.
Surprisingly, the Bush admin has been surprisingly up front about its
deceptive intentions. For example, the Pentagon announced a plan to
create an Office of Strategic Influence to provide false news and
information abroad, to help manipulate public opinion and further its
military objectives. There was a public outcry, and the Pentagon
said it would close the office, an announcement to be taken with a
ton of salt, considering it emanated from a place that just announced
it was planning to spread misinformation. But you gotta admire the
irony.
THE INFALLIBLE LEADER
In Oceania, in 1984, an omnipresent and all-powerful leader, Big
Brother, commanded the total, unquestioning support of the people. He
was both adored and feared, (mostly feared, remember the God Father)
and no one dared speak out against him, lest they be met by the wrath
and power of the state.
Bush and Blair and all their pretty ones are less menacing of course,
but Bush in particular makes little effort to conceal his desire for
greater power. On no fewer than three occasions, he's said how much
easier things would be if he were dictator. By abandoning many of
the checks and balances established in the Constitution to keep any
one branch of government from becoming too powerful, Bush has already
achieved the greatest expansion of executive powers since Richard
Nixon. His approval ratings remain remarkably high, and his minions
have worked hard to cultivate an image of infallability, including
obscuring the fact that, during his 2001 inauguration ceremonies,
thousands of people protested what they knew to be a stolen election
by throwing eggs and vegetables at the presedential "parade."
Incredibly, these images of protest were nowhere to be seen on
national television. This manufactured illusion of presedential
infallability was nowhere more apparent than during a recent
commencement address Bush gave at Ohio State University, where
students were threatened with arrest and expulsion if they protested
the speech. They were ordered to give him a "thunderous ovation," and
they did.
BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING
The ever-vigilant eye of Big Brother kept constant tabs on the
citizens of Oceania in 1984., using two-way telescreens to monitor
people's every move while simultaneously broadcasting party
propaganda.
Our television sets force-feed plenty of propaganda both commercial
and political, but don't yet look into our living rooms (as far as we
know). However, public video surveillance has gonads pumping in law
enforcement, with cameras being deployed everywhere from sporting
events to public beaches. The Bush administration has also announced
plans to recruit millions of Americans to form a corps of citizen
spies, a snitch-squad to serve as "extra eyes and ears for law
enforcement," reporting any suspicious activity as part of a program
dubbed Operation TIPS -- Terrorism Information and Prevention System.
And thanks to the hastily passed USA Patriot Act, the Justice
Department has sweeping new powers to monitor phone conversations,
Internet usage, business transactions and library reading records.
Best of all, law enforcement need not be burdened any longer with
such inconveniences as search warrants or probable cause.
THOUGHT POLICE
In Oceania in 1984, the omnipresent Thought Police were charged with
eradicating dissent and ferreting out resistance. The TP carefully
monitored all unorthodox or potentially subversive thoughts. Our
leaders, as the far as we know, are not prosecuting thought crime
yet, but many have been quick to question the patriotism of anyone
who dares criticize their handling of the war on terrorism or
homeland defense. Take, for example, the way Attorney General John
Ashcroft answered critics of his anti-terrorism measures, saying that
opponents of the administration "only aid terrorists" and "give
ammunition to America's enemies. "
Even more ominous was the stern warning White House Press Secretary
Ari Fleischer sent to Americans after Bill Maher, host of the now
defunct "Politically Incorrect," called past U.S. military actions
"cowardly." Said Fleischer, "There are reminders to all Americans
that they need to watch what they say, watch what they do, and this
is not a time for remarks like that; there never is."
So what would it take to turn so-called democracies into the kind of
societies that Orwell warned about, societies that envision war as
peace, freedom as slavery and ignorance as strength? Would it happen
overnight, or would it involve a gradual erosion of freedoms with the
people's consent? This is something to think about; and we need to
think about it BEFORE we are programmed to Believe, not after. I
dunno. So powerful was the state's control over people's minds in
Oceania in 1984 that, eventually, everyone came to love Big Brother.
Perhaps in time we all will, too.
msh continued:
3) in any state with a modicum of free expression, the means of
control must be more subtle, such as by convincing people they live
in a democracy, and that what they think really matters.
keith
Well, it must be working on me. I think I live in a democracy, and I
think what I think really matters.
msh says:
I think upon investigation you will discover that your stream of
ideas are given meaningful voice only as long as they don't overflow
the banks of official opinion. Do you believe that the voices of the
millions of UK citizens who turned out against the invasion of Iraq
were given a representational voice in your news media? Compare the
coverage of the ant-war demonstrations with the repetitive and
unrelenting coverage of the government line.
Look at the evidence that's been accumulated by Herman, McChesney,
Bagdikian, Chomsky, Solomon, about the way the major media, the sort
of agenda setting media, the national press, radio and television,
operate to filter and emphasize the boundaries of acceptable
discussion. This is where is shaped and sent forth the opinions that
you hear, the kinds of information that comes through, the sources
that are given voice. I think, if you look, you will find some
pretty surprising things about your "democratic system." I highly
recommend the work being done by the Davids at MediaLens, if you'd
like some analysis of thought control in the UK.
msh:
4) "[We need] to liberate this country from corporate oligarchy;
they control our lives. This is not a democracy, it's a
plutocracy. The people don !/ t rule here, wealth rules, the
corporations rule. They rule the Congress, they elect the
President, they run the Pentagon, they own the media."
4) I agree up to a point, and I think the recent trend is negative,
however, I feel that I have more chance of influencing things that I
would have even 50 years ago. The wealthy elite don't get everything
there own way, less now than ever before, don't you think?
msh says:
Look back earlier in this thread, where I offered to my friend Platt
some stats that would indicate that the gap between rich and poor is
greater than ever, and ever growing. But, yes, they, the "wealthy
elite" don't get everything their own way. The question is, why
should a small minority be permitted to benefit at the expense of the
majority, AT ALL?
keith summarized:
I find all of this TOO pessimistic. Not that these aren't in some
ways valid points, but they go too far. If all of this were true
then this discussion forum for one would have been shut down many
years ago.
msh says:
Shutting down the internet is not so easy, especially as it
contributes to profit-making; but there have been attempts to control
it. Besides, you don't need to "shut down" dissenting opinion with
boot and truncheon: In a socio-economic system controlled by wealth,
you simply buy up the bandwidth. This is what happened to radio and
tv, and this is what is happening with the web. As long as wealth
and privilege go hand in hand, the outcome is inevitable. Though it
remains for now a powerful alternative to mainstream commercial
media, the internet is rapidly becoming just another home shopping
network. Whether or not this conversion is completed is up to people
like us.
on another issue, msh said:
Uh, oh. I think Sam and I touched on the distinction between violent
imperialism and the occasional benevolent imperial deed, the later
never a successful apology for the former. This sort of argument can
be, and has been, used to justify slavery in the American south. You
know, "Look at all we've given these people: they have food,
clothing, a roof, plenty of work. Where would they be without us?"
Is this a valid justification for slavery? I trust you get the
point.
keith says:
I get your point, but I don't think you got mine. My point was that
the Romans had a positive effect on the evolution of the human
species and improved the lives of a great many people, and laid in
place a legacy that we benefit from today - but that not everyone
would have felt that at the time. I suppose I was trying to pitch
forwards a couple of hundred years. What will the historians say
about the American Empire?
msh says:
Oh, I think I got your point. I can understand some stuff. I
disagree that whatever positive effects the Roman Empire had "on the
evolution of the species" would not have been possible without the
concomitant brutality against and enslavement of non-Romans.
As for waiting a couple hundred years to see if modern day brutality
will result in some benefit for some future folks, my guess is that
people on the receiving end of the boot may find this option less
palatable than others.
...
on another issue msh said.
The McDonalds come in AFTER the application of the sword. IOW, the
sword, whether military or economical hegemony, the violence in Iraq
or the subtler violence in NAFTA (imposed law backed by the sword),
clears the way for the corporations. In either case, it is certainly
not a matter of democratic nations wilfully choosing to be immersed
in advertising and essentially meaningless options, to have their
political decisions pre-empted by a corporate oligarchy. (See Ramsey
Clarke, above.)
Keith Says:
Well, my point is that there is a cultural invasion at work across
the world. There is a McDonalds in every major city across the world,
and that not all of them have been put there by tanks and cruise
missiles. I don't know that this is necessarily a good or bad thing.
msh says:
Your use of the term "cultural invasion" is apropos, as it suggests
an aggressive action against an unwilling population. What evidence
do we have that this cultural invasion of business interests is any
more welcome than any of the 40 or more USUK or USSR or Russian or
Chinese military invasions of various countries since the end of
WWII? Is there any reason to believe that people who did not want a
fast-food outlet on every corner had any more influence on the
decision-makers than the millions who protested the Iraqi Invasion?
Your view here seems to be "If it happens then that's what the people
want." To me, this axiom is not nearly so self-evident.
Best to all, and thanks for any comments,
Mark Steven Heyman (msh)
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