Elena: I'm presenting this article because it deals with the power of the media to control people's minds even against their well being... like in cults. It is no different to the "dogma" and what all this exposes is the fact that people do what other people are doing and approve what they sense the majority is approving. What is in the "news" is perceived as what is acceptable, what "we" are thinking, and going against it requires a knowledge and a consciousness above average.
Eventually we'll need to realize that there is an objective power to "expression" independent of the political discourse. The powerful "necessity" to "belong" to a "community" makes people choose to listen to what they sense is the "majority" and even if those in the media are not the majority, they are the one's who are most heard. People perceive them as the "truth" that is accepted. Language sculpts people's "mind frames" and people react "en masse" to it because there's an instinctive tendency to "group" our selves with the "strongest" even if the strongest are in fact acting against the majority.
These raises questions: Why do those in power act against the majority? Because they are themselves acting instinctively acquiring as much economic, social and political power? That is in fact the "natural" tendency of the instinctive center? The instinctive center "naturally" tends to posses? Like in animals people functioning under the predominance of their instinctive dimension must "posses" land, goods, power unable to understand the difference between "possessing" and "sharing"?
I do not understand how human beings pretend to find solutions to the multiple conflicts we face without a knowledge of the human being. What Systems of Knowledge do is give us a sound foundation on which to place the different forces in action. From the perspective of the instinctive center the behavior of people in the "right wing" is absolutely coherent. The impulse to own, hold, posses power and all its attributes for themselves and only for themselves is no different to animal clans protecting their territory. In that "frame of behavior" power is hierarchically structured and its clearest expression is the fascist model with a dictator at the center of the status quo. In such model, people relegate their own authority in the authority of the dictator. In the animal framework, it is the alpha dog as leader of the group. It works perfectly in animal life. But when that model is used for human life the result is "inhuman".
What then would be a human model? A human model would imply the capacity of each individual to act from his own authority without relegating his own power to another. The capacity to act for the well being of every other human being not in his own detriment but with the willingness to sacrifice his own tendency to act from the instinctive center amassing more for his and her own self than what is beneficial for the whole. The power to decide on what is human and inhuman behavior cannot be relegated by any human being, each has to have enough consciousness and will to live up to it when necessary. The majority of atrocities that we are witnessing today occur from the hands of those at the blind service of power in the military, who willingly carry out the will of power and only realize their absurd behavior after they've much suffered if they manage to survive. Young people in the military are no different to people in cults. Young people are inspired by "the nation" in a similar way that people are inspired by the "spiritual" and the "spiritual" is as manipulated by the guru and its inner circle as "the nation" is manipulated by the class in power.
Democracy or the power of the people can only be achieved by individuals conscious of their own power and their willingness to act for the well being of mankind. I doubt democracy is possible as long as we are divided into "nationalities". We are technically advanced enough for globalization but not conscious enough to assume the responsibility of a "human" order. In such an order people from all nations would need to assume that the aim is to rationally distribute the goods that we ALL own for the benefit and survival of each and everyone. First we would need to stop spending on arms and start spending on peace. that people are inspired by the "spiritual" and the "spiritual" is as manipulated by the guru and its inner circle as "the nation" is manipulated by the class in power.
Democracy or the power of the people can only be achieved by individuals conscious of their own power and their willingness to act for the well being of mankind. I doubt democracy is possible as long as we are divided into "nationalities" against each other. We are technically advanced enough for globalization but not conscious enough to assume the responsibility of a "human" order. In such an order people from all nations would need to assume that the aim is to rationally distribute the goods that we ALL own for the benefit and survival of each and everyone. First we would need to stop spending on arms and start spending on peace. Put all our effort on developing technology for a “sound” “exploitation” of resources. It does seem clear today that the means to use sun and wind and electromagnetic energy that will not contaminate like oil are available and that what is holding that step is the race for economic power. Again the instinctive centre in people working against the well being of humanity.
Such consciousness to act for the well being of the whole and the capacity to sacrifice one’s self in that status quo, need not act against the individuals and their potential expansion. One of the problems today is that people think that money must be the result of their work but what money is giving a few is what everyone should have a right to. The problem is the “excesses” that money is being used for. A human being has only “so much”, only “so many” possibilities and we would all be a lot richer if we trusted each other instead of mistrusting. I wonder if “trust” is a purely human experience. In the animal realm we find that there must be trust in the puppy towards the mother, trust in the clan to the leader otherwise there would be no “obedience”. What’s interesting is that in the human being obedience should never be given to “instinctive” “power” but to “consciousness”. Obedience should be at the service of the Trust that every individual has on our integrity as human beings. Obedience should be an objective force at the service of justice: humaneness. Humaneness is what is trustworthy and people should obey to humaneness and every time what is human is “disobeyed” “inhumaneness” ensues.
To be able to understand what is human we would have to agree on certain principles, we would have to have the possibility of agreeing and people cannot agree on what they don’t even know. Every human being is human. Every human being is conscious of his and her own humanity. Every human being is conscious of treating another humanly or inhumanly. But hardly anyone knows what being human means.
In “essence” all people are conscious of their humanity but in “personality” very few people know in practice what it means to be human, what rights or obligations that implies. Individually most people are conscious of their being and feel their joys and sufferings but most individuals are unconscious of the scope of their social existence as human beings.
The human being today seems to be enough of an individual but not enough of a human being: a social puppy.
If we look at an individual life, most people are conscious of themselves as individuals throughout their childhood and teenage years but to be mature means to realize that one has responsibilities towards others. Mankind today continues to act like a child and teenager who does not understand its responsibilities towards others. People in power in every nation pulling towards their own benefit and not that of their people or all of mankind simply express the state of consciousness of mankind today: it’s the rule of the instinctive centre, the natural condition of “animal” consciousness amongst human beings.
How much can we “blame” our selves for such condition? Blame is not the answer but the possibility of assuming responsibility not for our mistakes but for our crimes seems to be the only possible answer towards taking the step from a purely “instinctive animal order” to a “conscious human order”. We need to understand the sphere of the law as an objective reality to actualize our human will. The fact that the laws are being manipulated at will by economic interests shows how far the instinctive center has overpowered human life. The law represents the human will and to be able to use the military to condition obedience to a political system of Trust amongst human beings is the right use of the law and its armed force.
Going back to this article on the media, until we understand the power of the media to communicate with each other, we will not have begun to live our human soul out. It is not the power of the media to brainwash each other to submission to power what can make us more human, it’s the power of the media to communicate more humanly what can develop trust amongst our selves. Without trust, we are nothing but animals living our lives instinctively like a pack of wolves.
The Disappearance of Keith Olbermann By Robert Parry
January 22, 2011 |
http://readersupportednews.org/off-site-opinion-section/71-71/4691-the-disappearance-of-keith-olbermann
Keith Olbermann’s abrupt departure from MSNBC should be another wake-up call to American progressives about the fragile foothold that liberal-oriented fare now has for only a few hours on one corporate cable network.
Share this article |
Though Olbermann hosted MSNBC’s top-rated news show, “Countdown with Keith Olbermann,” he disappeared from the network with only the briefest of good-byes. Certainly, the callous treatment of Olbermann by the MSNBC brass would never be replicated by Rupert Murdoch’s right-wing Fox News toward its media stars.
At Fox News, the likes of Bill O’Reilly, Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity have far greater leeway to pitch right-wing ideas and even to organize pro-Republican political events. Last November, Olbermann was suspended for two days for making donations to three Democratic candidates, including Arizona’s Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who was wounded in the Jan. 8 shooting in Tucson.
Now, with Olbermann’s permanent departure on Friday, the remainder of MSNBC’s liberal evening line-up, which also includes Rachel Maddow, Ed Schultz and Lawrence O’Donnell (who will fill Olbermann’s 8 p.m. slot), must face the reality that any sustained friction with management could mean the bum’s rush for them, too.
The liberal hosts also must remember that MSNBC experimented with liberal-oriented programming only after all other programming strategies, including trying to out-Fox Fox, had failed – and only after it became clear that President George W. Bush’s popularity was slipping.
In nearly eight years at “Countdown,” Olbermann was the brave soul who charted the course for other mainstream media types to be even mildly critical of Bush. Olbermann modeled his style after legendary newsman Edward R. Murrow, who stood up to excesses by communist-hunting Sen. Joe McCarthy in the 1950s, even borrowing Murrow’s close: “Good night, good luck.”
But MSNBC’s parent company, General Electric, never seemed comfortable with Olbermann’s role as critic of the Bush administration, nor with the sniping between Olbermann and his Fox News rival, O’Reilly, who retaliated by attacking corporate GE on his widely watched show.
In 2009, the New York Times reported that GE responded to this pressure by having GE chairman Jeffrey Immelt strike a deal with Murdoch that sought to muzzle Olbermann’s criticism of O’Reilly, in exchange for O’Reilly muting his attacks on GE.
Olbermann later disputed that there ever was a truce and the back-and-forth soon resumed. But it was a reminder that GE, a charter member of the military-industrial complex and a major international conglomerate, had bigger corporate interests at play than the ratings for MSNBC’s evening programming.
So, too, will Comcast, the cable giant that is assuming a majority stake in NBC Universal, which controls MSNBC. The Washington Post reported on Saturday that sources at MSNBC quashed speculation that Olbermann’s departure was connected to the Comcast takeover, which was approved by federal regulators this week.
Media Orphans
The troubling message to progressives is that they remain essentially orphans when it comes to having their political interests addressed by any corporate news outlet. While the Right has built its own vast media infrastructure – reaching from newspapers, magazines and books to radio, TV and the Internet – the Left generally has treated media as a low priority.
Though some on the Left saw hope in the MSNBC evening line-up, the larger reality was that even inside the world of NBC News, the other content ranged from the pro-Establishment centrism of anchor Brian Williams to the center-right views of MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough to CNBC’s mix of free-market extremism and corporate boosterism.
While gratified to be given a few hours each night on MSNBC, the Left surely had nothing to compare with Murdoch’s News Corporation and its longstanding commitment to a right-wing perspective on Fox News and News Corp.'s many other print and electronic outlets.
As I wrote in an article last November, “Olbermann and the other liberal hosts are essentially on borrowed time, much the way Phil Donahue was before getting axed in the run-up to George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq, when MSNBC wanted to position itself as a ‘patriotic’ war booster.
“Unlike News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch, who stands solidly behind the right-wing propaganda on Fox News, the corporate owners of MSNBC have no similar commitment to the work of Olbermann, Rachel Maddow and Ed Schultz.
"For the suits at headquarters, it’s just a balancing act between the ratings that those shows get and the trouble they cause as Republicans reclaim control of Washington.”
Those corporate priorities also were underscored in the pre-Iraq invasion days when MSNBC dumped Donahue, then the network’s biggest draw. But Donahue had allowed on some guests critical of Bush’s planned war.
After the invasion in March 2003, MSNBC’s coverage was barely discernable from that of Fox News, with both networks superimposing American flags on scenes from Iraq and producing pro-war promotional segments showing heroic images of U.S. soldiers being welcomed by happy Iraqis (with no scenes of the war’s carnage). [See Consortiumnews.com's "America's Matrix."]
The ongoing significance of America’s media imbalance is that it gives the Right enormous capabilities to control the national debate, not only during election campaigns but year-round. Republicans can deploy what intelligence operatives call “agit-propaganda,” stirring controversies that rile up the public and redound to the GOP’s advantage.
These techniques have proved so effective that not even gifted political speakers, whether the savvy Bill Clinton or the eloquent Barack Obama, have had any consistent success in countering the angry cacophony that the Right can orchestrate.
One week, the Right's theme is “Obamacare’s death panels”; another week, it’s “the “Ground Zero Mosque.” The Democrats are left scrambling to respond – and their responses, in turn, become fodder for critical commentary, as too wimpy or too defensive or too something.
The mainstream media and progressives often join in this criticism, wondering why Obama let himself get blind-sided or why he wasn’t tougher or why he can’t control the message. For the Right and the Republicans, it’s a win-win-win, as the right-wing base is energized, more public doubts are raised about the President, and the Left is further demoralized.
Like Clinton before him, Obama has reacted to this political/media landscape by shifting rightward toward the “center,” further alienating his liberal base. Many on the Left respond by denouncing Obama as a sell-out and deciding to either sit out elections or vote for a third party.
This dynamic has been instrumental to the Right’s political victories over the past three decades even as those policies – from Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush – have worsened the lives of middle- and working-class Americans.
The sudden disappearance of Keith Olbermann from television is another ominous omen that this dynamic will continue.
[For more on these or related topics, see Robert Parry’s Lost History and Secrecy & Privilege, which are now available withNeck Deep, in a three-book set for the discount price of only $29. For details, click here.]
Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush, was written with two of his sons, Sam and Nat, and can be ordered at neckdeepbook.com. His two previous books,Secrecy & Privilege: The Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq and Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth' are also available there.
To comment at Consortiumblog, click here. (To make a blog comment about this or other stories, you can use your normal e-mail address and password. Ignore the prompt for a Google account.) To comment to us by e-mail, click here. To donate so we can continue reporting and publishing stories like the one you just read, click here.
No comments:
Post a Comment