I. Manufacturing Consent
To say that mainstream media is controlled is an understatement. We’ve gone far past the time of relatively semi-covert CIA programs such as Operation Mockingbird where “some 3,000 salaried and contract CIA employees were eventually engaged in propaganda efforts.” Those days are long gone; the mainstream media is now openly scripted (2-pdf) to manufacture consent.
“We're not analyzing the media on Mars or in the eighteenth century or something like that. We're dealing with real human beings who are suffering and dying and being tortured and starving because of policies that we are involved in, we as citizens of democratic societies are directly involved in and are responsible for, and what the media are doing is ensuring that we do not act on our responsibilities, and that the interests of power are served, not the needs of the suffering people, and not even the needs of the American people who would be horrified if they realized the blood that's dripping from their hands because of the way they are allowing themselves to be deluded and manipulated by the system.” - Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media, 1992
For example, in the following three videos, Conan O'Brien’s Team Coco provide excerpts from a few mainstream media ‘news’ outlets, showing the full extent of the homogeneity of the script. As Conan states, “that’s kind of scary!”, “I find it frightening.”
II. Our Politicians are Scripted
It’s also important to keep in mind that it’s not just the mainstream media that has been scripted for conformity. Majority of our politicians as well have been scripted to present a uniform front. They are, in essence, puppets, the strings for which are firmly in the hands of the plutocrats (2, 3).
A good example of the boldness of the puppet masters in revealing their hand, taunting us as if naught could be done, is presented below. In the following video, chronicling events from 2003, we witness Stephen Harper and John Howard reciting a near identical speech where they urge their respective countries to join the Coalition of the Willing and support the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
The question we should be asking ourselves is; who wrote this script? It’s a safe bet to assume that the speech did not originate from either party, and this is not just some conspiracy theory. As Noam Chomsky points out in a 2006 Q&A session, “The people who run the country are those in political office, but much more importantly their associates and the concentrations of private economic power.”
“To tell you the honest truth, I doubt very much that George Bush has much to do with policy formation, I mean, the way the President is more or less like royalty in the United States. So the Queen of England opens Parliament with a speech, right, but nobody asks whether she believes it, or whether she understands it. Her role is a ceremonial role. It’s a role that’s connected with unity of the people, patriotism, obedience, and so on and so forth. The content is something else, that’s by people who run the country.
“The people who run the country are those in political office, but much more importantly their associates and the concentrations of private economic power. That’s where the country is really run, and that shouldn’t be a big secret either. America’s leading social philosopher John Dewey, who’s right very mainstream American, he pointed out that once, that as long as we have what he called industrial feudalism rather than industrial democracy - that means tyrannical totalitarian institutions running the economy – command economies basically, instead of industrial democracy where workers control management, as long as we have that than ‘politics will be the shadow cast by business over society’, and that’s approximately accurate. It’s not like the State has no independent choices, it does, but an amalgam.
III. Mainstream Media’s Script
As to how mainstream media goes about the business of manipulating its audience? The following two videos are a good introduction to this topic.
An excellent in-depth four-part documentary series exploring how our governments and the mainstream media go about the business of manufacturing consent available through, “The Century of the Self” (easily found online). A shorter introductory documentary on why we are being bombarded with the same message from centralized powers through, “Human Resources: Social Engineering In The 20th Century”.
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