I accuse certain elements in our mainstream media of deliberately creating mass confusion concerning what is true and what is not, through broadcasting some shows that have reasonable credibility, and some shows that contain propositions that have credibility of maybe 0.1 per cent, and a huge number of shows that fall somewhere in between, half credible, 25%, 75%. Maybe this stimulates the critical facultires of some of us, creating a healthy skepticism about what we see in the media. But from speaking with various fellow citizens, I think it creates a great deal of confusion among others.
I think the motivation of creating mass confusion is a deliberate effort to "Confuse and rule", in addition to the principle of "Divide and rule" with wedge issues about abortion, whether to allow same sex unions to be called "marriage", and so forth.
If you confuse people enough, they don't know what to vote for so they stay away from the polls. They come to believe all politicians are corrupt. They come to to believe that they cannot tell which end is up.
The mainstream media has repeatedly repeated the atrocious lie of "dysfunction in Washington because neither side will agree" as though both sides are equally to blame, instead of correctly pillorying the Republican leadership for being an amoral set of pols taking positions so much against the interests of the broad mass of Americans that personally I would impeach them for treason, had I the power to do so.
George Orwell would have a field day looking at American mass communications in year 2014, just 30 years after you know what. In college I took a course in mass communications taught by Erwin Scheuch, a German who looked like a mini version of Cary Grant, pacing back and forth on the lecturing stage, chain smoking. He taught that simple misrepresentations can be very effective. He spoke of the case of Erwin Rommel. The British had overwhelming 3 to 1 superiority in troops, and adequate equipment. The Germans were poorly supplied and were exhausted. The British press built up Rommel as the Desert Fox, immensely clever, immensely powerful, immensely well equipped with the latest weapons. Britain's defeat of Rommel (aided by the U.S) was built into an enormous victory to the British public, and did wonders for British morale.
Noam Chomsky is an astute observer of American mass media and mass psychology. He tells how Ronald Reagan was never that popular in the polls, and yet after he retired, was built up into a demi-god by the Republican dream machine. I will never forget the day Mr. Reagan was shot in Washington. I was playing hooky from a conference, shopping in a Bethesda electronics store, which was chock a block with televisions. All of a sudden there was an announcement that Mr. Reagan had been shot. I was amazed at the response of the other people in the store. They did not seem in the least bit fazed or emotionally aroused. Flashing back to November 22 1963 I recall seeing people weeping at the news of JFK's assassination. So, the unloved Reagan became, in retrospect, the great hero who defeated the evil empire, who made us wake up and smell the coffee, after the doomsaying Jimmy Carter, who was of course a far better President than Reagan, who was destroyed by the mass media for threatening certain powerful interests.
But there is nothing new under the sun. Gore Vidal tells the same story about Hearst circa year 1898-2006, cheering on our attempt to acquire a global empire in emulation of the Brits. And when I look back at the New York Times at the time when we stole Hawaii from the natives, the NYT was there cheering on the thieves. The free press has seldom been free. The British Guardian is about the least unfree English-language major daily that I know of.
This is a pretty messy draft. I will appreciate comments.