Manufactured Hysteria Over Russia Requires 24/7 Upkeep

31 May 2017

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by executive editor Glen Ford

The ruling class and its media are most vengeful against Donald Trump, not based on issues of justice and equality, but because he showed that middle America was “nowhere near as gung-ho for endless war” as had been assumed. This triggered an existential crisis for the U.S. imperialism. If Trump’s people were not the war constituency, then who was? The hate-Russia machine roared into frenzied action.

Manufactured Hysteria Over Russia Requires 24/7 Upkeep

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by executive editor Glen Ford

“The demonization must be constant, so that the sheer weight of the propaganda masquerading as news convinces the public that the targeted nations and leaders are worthy of their hate.”

Even at the height of the Cold War and the depths of McCarthyism, the U.S. corporate media was never even remotely as consumed with Russia as they are, today. The obsession with the Kremlin is a manufactured hysteria, a result of the panic that engulfed the U.S. ruling class -- and its media -- during last year’s election. What scared them witless, was the reaction of so-called “middle Americans” -- white conservatives that call themselves Christian and “patriotic” – to Donald Trump’s statements on lessening tensions with Moscow and getting the U.S. out of the regime change business. Trump’s supporters didn’t bat an eye. It soon became clear that Trump’s base was nowhere near as gung-ho for endless war and confrontation as the rulers, and most of the rest of us, had assumed. And, that was very bad news for the War Party, which had gathered together in Hillary Clinton’s big tent. Because, if Donald Trump’s “middle Americans” – or “deplorables,” as Hillary called them -- could not be counted on to applaud every war that their rulers chose to launch, then where was the reliable constituency for war? If not Trump’s people -- who?

The rulers -- from the spy chiefs in Washington to the Lords of Capital on Wall Street -- were terror-struck at the sudden realization that the national constituency for war was way short of a majority, and that the middle Americans they depended on to hate whoever they were instructed to hate might have other concerns than Russians and overthrowing Arab governments. The lack of war fever in middle America signaled an existential crisis for the ruling class, whose dreams of world conquest require never-ending war.

“Some Democratic operatives lost their minds amid all the crazy noise.”

The rulers now had to relearn a lesson: that war fever must be fed, throughout the 24-7 news cycle. The demonization must be constant, lies without let-up, so that the sheer weight of the propaganda masquerading as news convinces the public that the targeted nations and leaders are worthy of their hate. This is a retail, volume business, based on accumulation of impressions. After Trump eked out an Electoral College victory, the cascade of lies about Syria and Russia became a Niagara, so loud and incessant that some Democratic operatives lost their minds amid all the crazy noise. Black Los Angeles Congresswoman Maxine Waters, who in the mid-Nineties dared to accuse the CIA of being behind the crack cocaine epidemic, now accepts as the gospel truth every word the so-called “intelligence community” utters sliming Trump and the Russians. The Democrats are now the War Party, based on the polls, harboring about twice as much hatred for Russia as Republicans do. So-called liberal Democrats and phony “progressives” have allowed themselves to be convinced that the jihadist Islamic head cutters that the CIA and the U.S. military trains in Syria are not the same as the jihadist Islamic head cutters that the U.S. claims to have been at war with since at least 9/11.

But, the rulers still have a fundamental problem, because the Democratic base is not reliable as a long term war constituency. That had always been the assumed role of white middle America. But, as it turns out, there is no natural war constituency majority in the U.S. Therefore, the War Party will just have to keep screaming and lying, louder and louder, to keep the fever going.

For Black Agenda Radio, I’m Glen Ford. On the web, go to BlackAgendaReport.com.

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