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 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.
The 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 10 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 w ar 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 murder 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 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."
See also:
"defining subjective opinion through imagined political adversaries with malevolent ulterior motives is now typically carried out in mass mediated form that provides one with their own sense of purpose and moral rectitude. ... Manufactured political opinion also become deeply ingrained in the public mind through shared cultural figures and artifacts"
"defining subjective opinion through imagined political adversaries with malevolent ulterior motives is now typically carried out in mass mediated form that provides one with their own sense of purpose and moral rectitude. ... Manufactured political opinion also become deeply ingrained in the public mind through shared cultural figures and artifacts"
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