by John Pilger
What is modern propaganda?For many, it is the lies of a totalitarian state. In the 1970s, I met Leni Riefenstahl and asked
her about her epic films that glorified the Nazis. Using revolutionary camera
and lighting techniques, she produced a documentary form that mesmerized
Germans; her Triumph of the Will cast Hitler's spell.
She
told me that the "messages" of her films were dependent not on
"orders from above" but on the "submissive void" of the
German public. Did that include the liberal, educated bourgeoisie?
"Everyone," she said.
Today,
we prefer to believe that there is no submissive void. "Choice" is ubiquitous.
Phones are "platforms" that launch every half-thought. There is Google
from outer space if you need it. Caressed like rosary beads, the precious
devices are borne heads-down, relentlessly monitored and prioritized. Their dominant theme is the self. Me. My
needs. Riefenstahl's submissive void is today's digital slavery.
Edward
Said described this wired state in his book Culture and Imperialism as taking
imperialism where navies could never reach. It is the ultimate means of social
control because it is voluntary, addictive and shrouded in illusions of
personal freedom.
Today's
"message" of grotesque inequality, social injustice and war is the propaganda
of liberal democracies. By any measure of human behavior, this is extremism.
When Hugo Chavez challenged it, he was abused in bad faith; and his successor
will be subverted by the same zealots of the American Enterprise Institute,
Harvard's Kennedy School and the "human rights" organizations that
have appropriated American liberalism and underpin its propaganda. Historian
Norman Pollack calls this "liberal fascism." He wrote,
"All
is normality on display. For [Nazi] goose-steppers, substitute the seemingly
more innocuous militarization of the total culture. And for the bombastic
leader, we have the reformer manque, blithely at work [in the White House],
planning and executing assassination, smiling all the while."
Whereas
a generation ago, dissent and biting satire were allowed in the "mainstream,"
today their counterfeits are acceptable and a fake moral zeitgeist rules.
"Identity" is all, mutating feminism and declaring class obsolete.
Just as collateral damage covers for mass murder, "austerity" has become
an acceptable lie. Beneath the veneer of consumerism, a quarter of Greater
Manchester is reported to be living in "extreme poverty."
The
militarist violence perpetrated against hundreds of thousands of nameless men,
women and children by "our" governments is never a crime against
humanity. Interviewing Tony Blair ten years on from his criminal invasion of
Iraq, the BBC's Kirsty Wark gifted him a moment he could only dream of. She
allowed Blair to agonize over his "difficult" decision rather than
call him to account for the monumental lies and bloodbath he launched.
One
is reminded of Albert Speer.
Hollywood
has returned to its Cold War role, led by liberals. Ben Affleck's Oscar-winning
Argo is the first feature film so integrated into the propaganda system that
its subliminal warning of Iran's "threat" is offered as Obama is
preparing, yet again, to attack Iran. That Affleck's "true story" of
good-guys-vs-bad-Muslims is as much a fabrication as Obama's justification for
his war plans is lost in PR-managed plaudits. As the independent critic Andrew
O'Hehir points out, Argo is "a propaganda movie in the truest sense, one
that claims to be innocent of all ideology." That is, it debases the art
of film-making to reflect an image of the power it serves.
The
true story is that, for 34 years, the US foreign policy elite have seethed with
revenge for the loss of the Shah of Iran, their beloved tyrant, and his
CIA-designed state of torture. When Iranian students occupied the US embassy in
Tehran in 1979, they found a trove of incriminating documents, which revealed
that an Israeli spy network was operating inside the US, stealing top
scientific and military secrets. Today, the duplicitous Zionist ally - not Iran
- is the one and only nuclear threat in the Middle East.
In
1977, Carl Bernstein, famed for his Watergate reporting, disclosed that more
than 400 journalists and executives of mostly liberal US media organizations
had worked for the CIA in the past 25 years. They included journalists from The
New York Times, Time, and the big TV broadcasters. These days, such a formal nefarious
workforce is quite unnecessary. In 2010, The New York Times made no secret of
its collusion with the White House in censoring the WikiLeaks war logs. The CIA
has an "entertainment industry liaison office" that helps producers and
directors remake its image from that of a lawless gang that assassinates,
overthrows governments and runs drugs. As Obama's CIA commits multiple murders
by drone, Affleck lauds the "clandestine service ... that is making
sacrifices on behalf of Americans every day ... I want to thank them very
much." The 2010 Oscar-winner Kathryn Bigelow's Zero Dark Thirty, a torture-apology, was all
but licensed by the Pentagon.
The
US market share of cinema box-office takings in Britain often reaches 80 percent,
and the small UK share is mainly for US co-productions. Films from Europe and
the rest of the world account for a tiny fraction of those we are allowed to
see. In my own film-making career, I have never known a time when dissenting
voices in the visual arts are so few and so silent.
For
all the hand-wringing induced by the Leveson inquiry, the "Murdoch
mold" remains intact. Phone-hacking was always a distraction, a
misdemeanor compared to the media-wide drumbeat for criminal wars. According to
Gallup, 99 percent of Americans believe Iran is a threat to them, just as the majority
believed Iraq was responsible for the 9/11 attacks. "Propaganda always
wins," said Leni Riefenstahl, "if you allow it."
-----
John Pilger, Australian-born, London-based journalist,
film-maker and author. For his foreign and war reporting, ranging from Vietnam
and Cambodia to the Middle East, he has twice won Britain's highest award for
journalism.
For his documentary films, he won a British Academy
Award and an American Emmy. In 2009, he was awarded Australia's human rights
prize, the Sydney Peace Prize. His latest film is "The War on
Democracy."
-----
De Antiwar.com, 15/03/2013
Foto: Leni Riefenstahl durante la filmación de El triunfo de la voluntad (1934)
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