Over
ninety years ago political analyst Walter Lippmann noted how the masses
overwhelmingly rely on subjective views–“the pictures in our heads,” or
what he termed “stereotypes”–to make sense of the world. “The
stereotype,” Edward Bernays elaborated, “is the basis of a large part of
the work of the public relations counsel.”[1]
These views mirror those of an elite
class that Lippmann and Bernays were pleased to serve—an elite that,
taken as a whole, now retains several thousand such minds throughout
government and the private sector working. These social scientists and
public relations technicians proceed under the broadly-held assumption
that as more “qualified” parties are enfranchised enact realpolitik, the
public must necessarily be condemned to flounder in Plato’s cave.
Along these lines, Australian
propaganda researcher Alex Carey observed how among all countries in the
world the United States has the greatest tendency for possessing a
“Manichean” worldview—one where social and political phenomena are
typically perceived as binary opposites of good-evil, sacred-satanic,
and so on. This observation is reaffirmed in more recent research.[2]
Such
a belief system is anticipated and encouraged by the carefully-crafted
propaganda and disinformation that pervades government pronouncements
and corporate news reportage and commentary on both foreign and domestic
affairs.
US public opinion is overall against
military action against Syria. Yet this attitude obscures the fact that a
similar majority doesn’t understand that the Obama administration and
its allies have for over two years supported an intense guerrilla war in
Syria that has killed close to one hundred thousand inhabitants and
displaced over one million.
A
New York Times-commissioned public opinion poll reveals that while
Americans are skeptical of President Obama’s attempt to sell them a new
war, with seventy-two percent wishing to refrain from inflicting “US
democracy” on Syria. A subsequent question suggests the American
public’s unfamiliarity with the grave situation in that country.
“Based
on what you have seen or read,” the poll asks, “do you think the Syrian
government probably did or probably did not use chemical weapons
against Syrian civilians?” An overwhelming seventy-five percent
responded that it “probably did,” ten-percent said that it “probably did
not,” and the remaining fifteen-percent had no opinion.[3]
In
other words, nine out of ten Americans are unmindful toward the true
geopolitical underpinnings of the Syrian crisis apart from White House
propaganda and its heavy reverberation via the corporate media.
A
Pew Research Center poll offers similar findings, with fifty-three
percent replying that there is “clear evidence” that Bashar al-Assad’s
government “used chemical weapons against civilians”, versus
twenty-three percent responding that there was “not clear” evidence of
such, and an amazing twenty-four percent claiming ignorance.[4]
Obama
and Secretary of State John Kerry’s position that Assad is guilty of
such crimes is based on doubtful evidence that initially included a
photograph taken in Iraq in 2003 of a child leaping over piles of
shrouded bodies.[5]
On the other hand, the “rebels”
operating in Syria have clear chemical weapons capabilities. This was
proven in May when members of the Al-Nusra front were caught by Turkish
police preparing to deploy two kilograms of sarin gas inside Turkey and
Syria.[6]
Yet
such observations may be easily obscured or dismissed—particularly for
the educated classes–as the guardians of proper thought deem them among
the many “anti-American conspiracy theories,”[7] a term that intends to
short-circuit any inquiry among those inclined think twice about
conflicting information in news reports.
The
experts who craft the “war on terror” propaganda recognize how truly
effective publicity must be direct and unambiguous. The official
narrative rests on the still broadly-held notion that that US and its
allies are “the good guys.”
Proclamations
concerning the triumph of genuinely independent fact-based analytical
reports of the tragic situation in Syria are thus premature. Despite the
cracks and fissures in the official “war on terror” narrative initiated
by alternative media, it is still more or less accepted by a US
populace that the western-backed Al-Qaeda mercenaries operating in Syria
are indeed “protesters,” “activists,” and “rebels.”
The
effectiveness of such propaganda rests in the fact that such figures
are routinely depicted throughout mainstream news outlets wielding
machine guns, grenade launchers, and other sophisticated weaponry while
they frolic throughout the country.
9/11
and the subsequent brutal and calculated military onslaughts that have
unfolded Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and now Syria cannot emerge as
prevailingly uncontested historical events without a citizenry relegated
to the hinterlands of what passes for today’s civil society—indeed,
without a mass man willing to abandon his own reason and embrace the
carefully constructed pictures in his head.
This text which now includes the video was updated on September 23, 2013.
Notes
[1] Walter Lippmann, Public Opinion, New York: The New Press, 1997 (1922); Edward Bernays, Crystallizing Public Opinion, New York: Ig Publishing (1923), 115.
[2] Alex Carey, Taking the Risk Out of Democracy: Corporate Propaganda Versus Freedom and Liberty, Andrew Lohrey, ed., Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1996. See also “Majority of Americans Believe in the Devil–Especially Republicans, Blacks, and Women,” UK Daily Mail, September 20, 2013.
[3] Mark Landler and Megan Thee-Brenan, “Survey Reveals Scant Backing for Syria Strike,” New York Times, September 10, 2013.
[4] “Public Opinion Runs Against Syrian Air Strikes,” Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, September 3, 2013.
[5] “’CIA Fabricated Evidence to Lure US Into War with Syria,’” RT.com, September 9, 2013; Julie Wilson, “Bombshell: Kerry Caught Using Fake Photos to Fuel Syrian War,” Infowars.com, August 30, 2013.
[6] “Turkish Police Seizes 2 kg of Sarin Gas From Al-Nusra Militants,” Voltaire.net, May 31, 2013.
[7] Jon Lee Anderson, “Putin and the Syria Conspiracy Theory Problem,” The New Yorker, September 6, 2013. See also, Jamelle Bouie, “Enough Already: Syria Wasn’t A False Flag Operation,” The Daily Beast, September 10, 2013.
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