by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley
One of the reasons the U.S. government is such a danger to world peace, is U.S. “public acceptance and approval of nearly every crime committed by our government.” Americans pretend to believe in due process of law, but are quick to condemn to death any foreign leader that gets on the wrong side of the U.S. propaganda machine.
Freedom Rider: Propaganda
by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley
“If an American president decides that the elected head of state in other country must go, then go he must.”
German chancellor Angela Merkel said that Russian president Vladimir Putin was not “in touch with reality” and was “in another world.” At least that is how the New York Times quotes an unnamed source. Those words have been repeated by reporters, bloggers, pundits and late night talk show hosts numerous times over the past week. Unfortunately there are a few problems with this often repeated quote. There is no proof that Merkel said such a thing at all, and if she did that she meant he was unstable, as many Americans happily and ignorantly assert. Logic and real reporting show that such a statement was highly unlikely. No matter. It has endlessly been reported as fact. Welcome to American style propaganda.
It is impossible for most Americans to think that their country and their government are not beloved around the world. That attitude is due to the relentless propaganda we are subject to our entire lives. We are told our nation is the best, richest, most just, and most deserving. After years of brain washing we are subject to a cynical collaboration between politicians and big business, the same big businesses who run our media outlets and determine what we’ll see and what we should think about what they choose to reveal.
This perversity has many negative consequences. Among them is the public acceptance and approval of nearly every crime committed by our government. If an American president decides that the elected head of state in other country must go, then go he must. The president of Haiti was literally kidnapped by the United States and taken out of his country, with hardly any outcry from Americans. If the Venezuelan people vote for a leftist government and make the same choice in election after election, we are told to ignore the will of that population and join our government in opposing another people’s choice.
“The Obama administration is determined to make good on neo-con fantasies of United States world domination.”
The current target of government and media propaganda is Russian president Vladimir Putin. When George W. Bush was president he bestowed the silly moniker Putey Pute and the press followed right along in declaring Putin an A OK kind of guy. He was a friend of our president who knew how to do a deal when called upon and who wouldn’t rock America’s boat.
Fast forward another ten years or so. When the United States and NATO nations set their sights on making Ukraine a puppet fiefdom, the president of the superpower next door said not so fast. Suddenly he was no longer Putey Pute, but an enemy to be hated, feared or derided as a figure of fun. The Obama administration is determined to make good on neo-con fantasies of United States world domination, and anyone who stands in the way is the next target of propaganda from within the government and without.
Photos taken on one day five years ago showing a shirtless Putin are shown again and again. One gets the impression that he rarely wears any clothing. The same media who considered Putin good copy because he hunts, fishes, pilots planes, swims with dolphins and drives formula one race cars now use the same information to convince Americans that he is either a brute or a fool who can and should be bent to their country’s will.
The anti-Putin hysteria and joke telling began in earnest when he put a stop to Obama’s plan to attack Syria, Russia’s ally. Even the recent Winter Olympics became a victim of the United States propaganda machine. In truth, every Olympics is an opportunity for corruption, theft, and displacement of thousands of people. The Sochi games were no worse in those regards but tales of mismanagement and possible terror attacks were magnified because Uncle Sam’s enemy du jour was on worldwide display. When the United States and NATO attempt to make Ukraine a puppet fiefdom met resistance, no stone was unturned in the anti-Putin propaganda fest.
“The anti-Putin hysteria and joke telling began in earnest when he put a stop to Obama’s plan to attack Syria, Russia’s ally.”
Like good little scribes the media follow the White House line that German chancellor Angela Merkel would assist in bolstering the United States position vis a vis Putin. The networks and newspapers were so eager to curry favor that they omitted any mention of reports that the NSA tapped Merkel’s personal cell phone for a period of ten years. Of course bringing up that story would force coverage of whistle blower Edward Snowden’s revelations. That is a sore subject for the White House and has of course been relegated away from the front pages now that public compliance is so urgently needed.
The media also omitted the fact that Putin speaks German. The two leaders literally speak the same language and both are targets of United States efforts to control the world and turn everyone into a subject of domination or an enemy. It may be Obama administration wishful thinking that Merkel will carry America’s water but there is no reason for anyone else to believe such nonsense.
The New York Times happily picked up the bone left by the Obama White House but didn’t bother telling readers that Merkel’s staff disputed the account. The German newspaper Die Welt reported that "The chancellery was not pleased with the reporting on the conversation. They claim that what the chancellor said was that Putin has a different perception on Crimea, which is why she is pushing for a fact finding mission on the matter."
We will never know her exact words but we do know the most important fact of all. The United States government creates and disseminates propaganda to assist in having its way with the world. They have ready and willing compatriots in the corporate media and an apathetic or uniformed public. That mixture is a recipe for lying to be undisputed and for wrongs to go on without protest. Propaganda is not a word meant just for other countries but for ours too. There is official propaganda right here in America and pretending it doesn’t exist only strengthens a system which will put itself and the rest of the world on a course of ultimate destruction.
Read against the terrible incineration of Rafah today, this poem of resistance and refusal, by Palestinian poet Samih al-Qasim, is as powerful now as it was fifty years ago.
I spoke to William Sakawa, a producer and reporter with the Nairobi-based media outlet African Stream, about Kenyan President William Ruto’s agreement to invade Haiti for the US.
"Hearing! Hearing! Hearing!" is the latest from BAR's Poet-in-Residence.
This week’s featured authors are Jeanelle K. Hope and Bill V. Mullen. Their book is The Black Antifascist Tradition: Fighting Back From Anti-Lynching to Abolition.
Despite the undeserved loyalty of Black people to the Democratic Party, lawmakers continue to push policy that ignores concerns about climate change and environmental damage in their communities.
