This Holiday Season,
Don’t Buy It

December 12, 2005
R. D. Kushner

Until Democracy gets underway in Iraq, with the promise of free speech and peace and justice for all, the United States government demonstrated the virtues of real Democracy by resorting to, “a multimillion-dollar covert campaign to plant paid propaganda in the Iraqi news media and pay friendly Iraqi journalists monthly stipends.” This tactic, as reported in the New York Times last week, is troubling in that it shows, among other things, that the Iraqi media may be as easy to manipulate as the American media.

This example of the American government manipulating news information in Iraq, offers an excellent opportunity to examine the symbiotic relationship between the United States Government, special interests, and the news media. The corroboration and cooperation between these three entities, although not quite Orwellian, can be explained by an array of congruent agendas which revolve around the concentration of power and capital. The interdependence between government, big business, and the main stream media is as old as society itself; but in a modern Democracy, these relationships are more cunning and carcinogenic.

Most Americans, and other supporters of Democracy, would agree that, the “media,” the so-called “free press,” should be unmarred by propagandistic content. The information disseminated by this quasi-public institution is assumed to be above the fray of deliberately “paid” news content. Articles are assumed to be fact; and where they are not, they are labeled editorials. In this way, the “news” of the “free press” takes on the dignified air of an omniscient and independent arbiter of history.

This lofty goal is of course an illusion. The media is, first and foremost, a business. And like all businesses media corporations answer to one call, and one call only: profit. This does not mean that media companies can do anything they want in search of profit. Media corporations are subject to the same market forces that drive the success or failure of all consumable goods. If caught lying, cheating, stealing, shirking responsibility, reacting ineffectively during a national disaster, hatemongering, killing innocent civilians in foreign countries, invading sovereign nations on faulty evidence, distorting facts, exercising fiscal irresponsibility, or polluting the environment, the public can shut down the mightiest of corporations by pulling their consumer support; in theory. If only the United States Government was held to the same level of accountability...

Although the American media runs the gamut from Amy Goodman to Rush Limbaugh, on the whole the media machine, specifically the main-stream media giants, give the public what it wants. Television viewers, newspaper readers, and magazine subscribers are the consumers of the advertising that provides these media outlets with the necessary financing to run their operations. If a media organization ostracizes its viewers or readers by taking a stand on “objectionable” or “polarizing” content, then advertising suffers and so do profits. That’s bad for business.

In response to the banality of most of the main stream media’s reporting, a host of other information outlets have emerged both online and in print. 527 Groups like MoveOn.org and Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, editorial satirists like Bill O’Reilly, comedians like Dennis Miller, and political pornographers like Ann Coulter, offer editorial content which, in varying degrees, is divorced from what reasonable people refer to as reality [the list above is ordered from reality to fantasy]. The opinions presented by these organizations are clearly and deliberately politically motivated; there is no pretense of impartiality to the editorial content propounded.

Politicians on the other hand speak as if they are being impartial; as if they are divining their fact-based opinions from the vast ecosystem of American vox populi. Politicians want Americans to believe that they are serving the public without pride or prejudice; that their decisions are motivated by what’s best for all Americans. Aside from their pretense as “representatives,” politicians have agendas and ulterior motives; these can be determined, in part, by their vociferously expressed opinions. Just because they yell loudly and persistently does not mean that politicians are right; they are merely expressing their opinions.

Their opinions are largely shaped by lobbying groups, which work for corporations, and donate huge sums of money to these government officials in the form of campaign contributions. Through these lobbying efforts, these lawfully sanctioned bribes, corporations seek increased profit through government legislation; and contrary to establishment rhetoric, corporate profit is not always in the best interest of the American public. On issues as varied as global warming, energy policy, health care, and Social Security, the opinions of politicians, and the businesses which support them monetarily, are at odds with what’s best for Americans.

Politicians advertise a panacea for all society’s ills; they asseverate solutions to problems – but just who these solutions best serve is often clouded by rhetoric. Fortunately, it is often not very difficult to decipher the ulterior motives of political legislation; one must merely look at the organization which represents the biggest cheering section, to determine who will benefit most. The American media is conspicuously silent when it comes to holding the government accountable for the impact of special interest legislation on the well-being of the American public. Although newspapers and reporters may occasionally run an ephemeral article about a “gift” to big business, coverage of the real social impacts rarely, if ever, evolve into sustained scrutiny and analysis. Whether the result of impotence or incompetence, the media acts as an accessory to the ignominious collusion between Government and business in the United States.

The main stream media is a slave to public opinion because of advertising; and that public opinion is also determined in large part by advertising – whether in the form of political lobbying or corporate marketing. Where the information begins and the propaganda ends is indeed a mystery. The Business Party [Democrats and Republicans alike] is running the American Government, and the biased rhetoric that is emanating from Washington is tainted with the money from contributors who have sacrificed their moral obligations at the altar of commerce.

In an open society where opinion is molded by both hard facts and mere opinions, it is up to the consumers of information, the American public, to make up their minds about the issues presented to them. But when opinion masquerades as fact, where lies are cloaked in truth, a perverse reality unfolds and all of humanity suffers. Those who have the most money, or the loudest voices write the world’s history; and all the while they use words like “Democracy,” “Freedom,” and “Victory” to camouflage the true nature of their editorial content.

The media is not the problem any more than it is the solution. It is a mechanism for information distribution that is subject to fluctuations of market and political forces. In America, the “free press” is at the whim of the “free market.” The results of this destitute relationship are not yet clear. What is clear, however, is that the American government supports policies that subjugate the free press and the free market when it suits their needs. In Iraq, the newly established “free press” is already being damaged; in America the damage is already done. If either country is going to embrace Democracy, it will take honesty and courage; not just weapons and propaganda. Otherwise, nobody is going to buy it.