Chris Floyd: Embedded Bellwether: The Paper of Record Prepares the Public for More Slaughter

[laststeamtrain]

Embedded Bellwether: The Paper of Record Prepares the Public for More Slaughter
Written by Chris Floyd

Noam Chomsky, among others, has noted how faithfully and thoroughly the corporate American media advances the agenda of the state, achieving a near Pravda-like degree of servitude without any need for the kind of overt, direct control once practiced by Pravda's Soviet masters. This is done, in large part, unconsciously; that is, most of the practitioners (and all of the owners) of the corporate media share the same assumptions and values of the nation's ruling elite. They don't have to be told to believe what the elite believe; they believe it already.

Naturally, there are factional rivalries among the elite, played out most vividly every four years in the presidential campaigns, where two candidates with mutual assumptions and values split hairs over side issues to get their faction to take a turn at the top; and thus various bits of the corporate media tend to line up more closely with one faction over the other. But on the core values of the modern American power structure -- the use of overwhelming violence to achieve political ends (chiefly, the predominance of the American elite over world affairs as far as possible); the primacy and privilege due to wealth, and the burning need to preserve that primacy at the expense of everyone else, if need be; and the ineffable, ineradicable, mystical goodness of the imperial state, which can never really sin nor err, except, perhaps, from the misapplied excess of its own forever-good intentions (liberating the oppressed, safeguarding national security, etc.) -- there is no genuine disagreement. For the American elite, the principle of governance that Richard Nixon and George W. Bush openly adopted -- "If the president does it, it's legal" -- is always operative on a larger scale: "If America does it, it's good, or was meant to be good, even if it does turn out wrong every now and then" (generally due to the perceived "incompetence" of the particular faction in power, or perhaps the ingratitude and unworthiness of the recipients of America's benevolence.)

With these shared values reaching across the bipartisan divide in politics, and suffused throughout the commanding heights of American society (and through much of general population as well, especially the doctrine of America's mystical goodness), it's no wonder that a high degree of consensus -- a widespread "conventional wisdom" -- is so readily formed on the major issues of the day. Of course, this conventional wisdom shifts over the years, as the agendas of the elite factions shift in response to various events and trends; but at any given time, it is so powerful and pervasive as to be almost invisible.

One of the great bellwethers of conventional wisdom is of course the "paper of record," the New York Times. The paper's factional leaning is well-known -- it tends toward the extremely tame, pro-empire, pro-oligarchy center-right stance known rather laughingly as "liberalism" in the United States -- but that has never prevented it from performing its duty as a pipeline for the propaganda of power. One of the most vivid examples of this was the paper's key role in preparing the public mind to accept, even applaud, an act of naked military aggression against Iraq -- even though this murderous campaign was led by rivals of the Times' factional soulmates among the elite.

Now the Times' faction has one of its own in power, which doubtless makes the stovepiping of propaganda even easier, more congenial -- indeed, even more unconscious -- for the great Gotham bellwether. A story in Monday's paper is a good case in point. Written by C.J. Chivers, embedded with American ground troops in Afghanistan, it shows the "liberal" paper preparing the American public to accept, even champion, a bloody escalation of the conflict -- including a subtle "justification" for the great increase in civilian casualties that will come with Obama's "surge" in Central Asia.

In the wretchedly stilted, obfuscating prose that characterizes so much of the Times' writing -- especially the more propagandist pieces -- Chivers tries to have it both ways, readying reader for more bloodshed while dangling sugar plums of "hope" to ease the coming pain:

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[marmar]

1. "pro-empire, pro-oligarchy center-right stance known rather laughingly as "liberalism" in the (US)"

:applause: Marmar SCREAMS from the "Amen" corner !!!! So sad, but oh so true. What's considered "liberal" in America is center-right or just plain right in many places.

[laststeamtrain]

3. "If America does it, it's good, or was meant to be good, even if it does turn out wrong ..."

I've been impressed by the number of times I've recently heard the "you're part of the blame America first club" meme here on DU. Battle cry of the American Exceptionalist.

There didn't used to be so many ignoramuses on DU. I guess they're center-right middle-of-the-roaders who bailed on Bush. That or party aparachiks always trying to move everything to the right. Corporate whores or their stooges.

[Citizen Worker]

2. Vicious liberals

This piece reminds me of what a friend said just a few days
ago in response to pressure from friends and colleagues to
vote for Obama.  His response was, "you don't know how
vicious liberal democrats can be."