While many pundits and talking heads label President Donald Trump’s attack against the main stream media as childish and unnecessary, the fact of the matter is that his rhetoric and attacks against “fake news” is not only poignant, it is necessary. Why? Because it shines the light on a clear and present danger to our national security.
No one can argue that the necessity of free, open, and unfettered elections is the cornerstone to any independent society, especially that of a Constitutional Republic…or democracy. But what happens when corporations and big government work in concert to control the narrative in order to create “manufactured consent.”
Manufactured consent was originally coined by a journalist named Walter Lippmann in his 1922 book titled “Public Opinion.” In his publication he states, emphatically, that the concept of a free and open Democracy is convoluted and misguided. As such, it is up to the media and news to control the narrative.
“The pertinent facts are never provided completely and accurately as a fraction of the whole, they are often arranged to portray a certain, subjective interpretation of an event. Often, those who know the “real” (true) environment construct a favorable, fictitious pseudo-environment in the public mind to suit private needs. Propaganda is inherently impossible without a barrier of censorship between the event and the public. As a consequence, the mass communication media, by their very nature as vehicles for informational transmission, are essentially vulnerable to manipulation [emphasis added].”
He proffers the notion that the truth and the news do not always have a symbiotic relationship. Instead, Lippmann suggests that the news should serve, not as a source of truth or objective information, but as an interpreter of current affairs that is carefully constructed to “evoke an emotional response or outcome.” That flies in the face of the First Amendment, and the inherent power of the fourth estate (The Press) to act as a check-and-balance on the government.
Fast-forward several decades and the concept is once again reintroduced in the 1988 publication by Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky, entitled “Manufacturing Consent.”
In their “manifesto,” Herman and Chomsky go further and explain how applying the concept of manufacturing consent to the mass-media industry is not only necessary, but extraordinarily effective. They argue that news outlets “are effective and powerful ideological institutions that carry out a system-supportive propaganda function…” They further argue that this is possible because it is impossible for news outlets to be unbiased. Like any business, they are driven by profits.
This is the reason why the only stories that tend to get published or broadcast today are the ones that:
- Create an emotional reaction (because people are controlled by their emotions).
- Are guaranteed to divide people.
- Can be publicized in “sound bites” so that no critical thinking is necessary.
Why? Because the government (deep state) and the media don’t want you asking too many questions. The last thing anyone wants is for the American public to ask questions and dig into the malfeasance and downright illegal activities being undertaken by the government and mass media.
This is why corporations and much of the government strictly control what information is released to the public and what information is destroyed and removed from the national narrative. The sole deciding factor? What suits their needs and keeps them in power.
But what if someone actually challenges the system and asks legitimate questions? They are labeled, attacked, and silenced. Which is why it’s so important for President Trump to continue his challenge against “fake news.”
You see, while the concept of “Manufacturing Consent” was popular among unorthodox “free-thinkers,” it was pretty much ignored by most of America. The concept was way too outlandish—those that believed it were considered paranoid. By many, it is considered a conspiracy theory.
But what is “Conspiracy Theory” and where the hell did it come from? Believe it or not, the concept was created by the CIA way back in 1967 and was their way of dealing with the leaked Warren Report. The Warrant Report was an official investigation into the assassination of John F. Kennedy, and it was leaked to agencies all over the world.
The CIA, in a desperate attempt to stifle the report and to clean up the proverbial “can of worms” that had been opened created and then implemented the concept of a “conspiracy theory.”
The concept of “conspiracy theory” lies in painting a picture that the information being brought to light, or the questions being asked, are illegitimate and rooted in paranoia, lunacy, and falsity. Of course, it’s impossible to provide the evidence when the government is controlling it or destroying it—Hillary Clinton and the 40,000 vanished emails.
Of course, this belies the point that by painting someone or something as a conspiracy and then broadcasting that message over and over again in the mainstream media, you create enough doubt in the “public eye” to keep anyone from taking the report or its allegations seriously.
This proved extraordinarily effective with the Warren Report and has now become a standard operating practice within multiple government agencies.
For example, during Operation Mockingbird in the 1950s through ’70s, the CIA paid several well-known domestic and foreign journalists (from big-name media outlets like Time, The Washington Post, The New York Times, CBS, and others) to publish CIA propaganda. The Church Committee finally exposed the activities in 1975.
This is why when any employee for a news station or news publication who refuses to comply with company ideology or “talking points” is heavily scrutinized, is torn apart by their “contemporaries” and then labeled and attacked so as to lose credibility. They are eventually labeled a “conspiracy theorist.”
If you believe in a conspiracy theory it means you doubt your government and you are paranoid. You are labeled the new catchword of the day—an “extremist.”
Questioning the media and the “fake news” makes you an extremist and a believer in conspiracy theories. After all, the argument made is that we don’t censor the truth in America. The First Amendment protects our rights to freedom of speech and the press; therefore, censoring the truth can’t be done…or so we’ve been told.
But what happens when the very institutions we trust to provide that truth are the very same ones feeding us propaganda and falsified information. The truth is that the “freedom of the press” clause in our Constitution is now giving the press unfettered power that goes unchecked. In short, the press now makes outrageous and unsubstantiated claims…and there is no one that can keep them in check and to keep them honest (except maybe Donald Trump).
Just look at the accusations that surfaced against Judge Roy Moore in the Alabama race…and how they disappeared when he lost. Look at the Russia collusion story and how, after over a year, there is still no evidence. Look at the accusations of chemical use by Assad in Syria and the actions we took following the allegations. The list goes on.
This propaganda is how we got involved with the Iraq War. Anyone who followed the facts (and not the mainstream media) could easily see that our involvement in Iraq was unnecessary and unwarranted. And so the around-the-clock propaganda (I mean news) started. The constant barrage of weapons of mass destruction, genocide, and more. The mainstream media brought in countless “experts” to weigh in on the situation along with politicians, war heroes, and anyone else that was “pro” war. Antiwar and opposing viewpoints were shut out of the conversation almost completely. Those that they could not silence were made to look unpatriotic and uncaring.
Let’s look at the testimony of a young girl. In 1990, a 15-year-old girl named “Nayirah” testified before the U.S. Congress that she had seen Iraqi soldiers pulling Kuwaiti babies from incubators, causing them to die. The testimony helped gain major public support for the 1991 Gulf War, but, despite protests that the dispute of this story was itself a conspiracy theory, it was later discovered that the testimony was false. The public relations firm Hill & Knowlton, which was in the employ of Citizens for a Free Kuwait, had arranged the testimony. It turned out that she had taken acting lessons on request of the CIA and was actually the niece of a major politician in Kuwait. Nayirah was later disclosed to be Nayirah al-Sabah, daughter of Saud bin Nasir Al-Sabah, Kuwaiti ambassador to the USA.
The Congressional Human Rights Caucus, of which Congressman Tom Lantos was co-chairman, had been responsible for hosting Nurse Nayirah, and thereby popularizing her allegations. When the girl’s account was later challenged by independent human rights monitors, Lantos replied, “The notion that any of the witnesses brought to the caucus through the Kuwaiti Embassy would not be credible did not cross my mind… I have no basis for assuming that her story is not true, but the point goes beyond that. If one hypothesizes that the woman’s story is fictitious from A to Z, that in no way diminishes the avalanche of human rights violations.” Nevertheless, the senior Republican on the Human Rights Caucus, John Edward Porter, responded to the revelations, “by saying that if he had known the girl was the ambassador’s daughter, he would not have allowed her to testify.”
This silencing of the opposition is actually addressed and discussed in the book “Manufacturing Consent.” This type of operation is known as “flack” and is the mechanism by which opposing and dissenting voices are silenced. Anyone that dares to challenge the “approved narrative” is denounced by the “establishment” (read Deep State) and thus removed from the public debate. Those that suppress and attack these dissenting voices are labeled “experts” and are compensated generously by private interest groups, political activists (read George Soros), and the very mainstream media outlets that are putting them on the air…all the while trying to pretend they are impartial “experts.”
The entire affair can be boiled down into two distinct elements: push the positive, burry the negative. That is really all you need to “manufacture consent.” As Joseph Goebles so elequontly stated: “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”
Enter social media.
We have behemoths that literally control the public dialog at the touch of a button. Tech giants like Google and Facebook pose a clear danger to our Republic. Now more than ever it is easier to “manufacture consent.”
It is a known fact that social media is currently the most influential vehicle for receiving information. Facebook and other tech giants like it can, through a simple “tweak” of its algorithm, decide who sees what and for how long. These companies have no oversight and shield themselves under the First Amendment. There are no limits to their power and there is no check-and-balance. Just look at what was done to Diamond and Silk, two conservative African- American women who had a very successful following. Heaven forbid you should challenge the narrative…or “leave the plantation.” There page was shut down by Facebook, and nary a plausible reason given.
These giant tech companies—Facebook and Google being the principal ones—have almost unchallenged power and an extraordinary influence over media companies. They can literally steer millions of people (traffic) wherever they want with a click of a button. They control who, how, where, and when people get information.
It is now almost impossible to determine how much control advertisers, private interest groups, government, and social media power houses have over the global flow of information. But what I do know is that we certainly are NOT getting the truth.
Wake up America! Asking questions and challenging the status quo or the public narrative is not unpatriotic. To the contrary…questioning everything is the patriotic thing to do.
