Chavez Again

I had a talk with a good friend about my thinking concerning what I wrote on my last post, “Hugo Chavez?”. I thought I ought to clarify some of my thoughts lest I appear to be a REAL WACKO. No, I don’t endorse or condone Chavez’s behavior toward the United States. My most crucial point was that IF the United States were in the condition of economic and political distress that Venezuela has been in for the last century and a guy like Chavez came along, he would be viewed as a hero in many respects. He seems, however, to be groping for a totalitarian regime, not anything similar to the democracy I endorse.

Chavez snubs his nose at the symbol of world economic and political might and his reasons are his own. However, once again, the American media paints him with a very black brush and so the American public views him in that light. The media has become accustomed to contorting the facts and adding their own political slant in order to accomplish their own political ends, rather than just reporting the facts. The media these days is not interested in reporting the news, it is interested in shaping the way the public views local and international events, the public thinking in general. The media is a tool used by certain power brokers to shape the thinking of the democratic public.

Our democracy is founded on the ability of the public to critically evaluate a set of circumstances and make an educated choice from a set of options. Increasingly, this fundamental of American democracy is being eliminated by Big Media’s control of the information being put out. When I want my child to make a certain choice, I may put forth two virtually identical options, i.e. “do you want to have green beans or green beans with carrots for dinner?”. She then chooses exactly what I wanted her to choose, without necessarily realizing she didn’t have a choice. Some select individuals, perhaps a great many, have taken upon themselves the role of the good parent, supposing the American public to be ignorant and simple-minded enough to just go along with the single option that is put out. They don’t believe the majority of Americans to be intelligent enough to actually govern themselves. The disturbing thing is that the American public is proving them right.

The Nazis, prior to World War II, used propaganda quite extensively to grip the support of the German public. Their propaganda campaign was quite successful and it is clear what the result was. My great fear on this subject is with the grip the media has on the minds of the people, what could an ill-intentioned individual or individuals, with some degree of sway in the media, do with that kind of control over information.

A good example of this is George W. Bush in the lead up to the Iraq war. My economics professor in college (I’ve mentioned him before) said that a democracy would never choose to go to war preemptively. George Bush and his goons had sufficient control over what information was put out that there was very little question in the public mind as to whether or not it was the correct course of action. Even now, with all the evidence contradicting those initial claims much of the public still believes, due to media involvement, that it was the correct thing to do. When will the American public begin to realize it is being duped?

Perpetuating Lies & Propaganda

Not long ago I received an email from a well intentioned brother which read something like this: “location of Babylon – Iraq; location of Ur (city of Abraham’s birth) – Iraq; Location of Nineveh – Iraq; location of Babylonian captivity – Iraq;” etc. for about 3 full pages. At the end of the propaganda there was a blurb something like this: “There is a verse in the Koran that says: The Lion (Saddam) will awaken the sleeping Eagle (America) and the Eagle will proceed to destroy the Lion along with all the Lion’s neighbors and bring balance to the force in the Middle East.” Of course it gave a “chapter and verse” so I, of course, took out my Koran and looked it up. Of course, there was no such verse, so I got online and looked up all the key words in the “verse” in several different online versions of the Koran. And of course, there was no such verse, nor anything like unto it. I wrote him, and all the people he had forwarded it to, explaining that the notion was bogus, that perhaps the places and other facts therein described were accurate, but the climax of the note was completely bogus. Later, I got a return email from my brother. He was thoroughly offended. Coincidently, I also got an email from my uncle who said he appreciated the fact check.