Muddied: Propaganda and the Authoritative Narrative
The establishment is happy to report that old W. is the sweet, harmless old guy we should adore, while figures like Greenwald, Snowden, and Assange are distorted and suppressed.
There's something backwards about 2021. Something about people appearing one way, and upholding something completely different. Looking cool and acceptable without the use of critical thought at all is often the standard operating procedure in this country. Just look at George W. Bush these days.
Old W. is on a comeback tour, but none of his "hit" songs were ever considered timeless— although they likely are, for worse, timeless in some foreign lands— so the charming Texas kid is laying out new setlists with a different band behind him producing a different sound. Think Vanilla Ice metamorphosing into a lounge singer. Yup, we are looking at an unmistakable war criminal— one who led a national effort to misinform the public with his administration, donors, and loyal propagandists— transform into sensitive painter who— tHaNk GoOdNeSs!— hates Donald Trump.
You may have seen it, those at the Today show or, my personal favorite, Jimmy "The Man Show" Kimmel, laughing it up with our old cowboy president who was renowned for driving golf balls in defiance of terrorism and who was the first ever national shoe-dodging champion. It was naturally applauded, especially when hollow words, rehashed time and time again, were spewing non-controversial, simple things like disinformation is a problem.
Inject that piece of information straight into your veins and see how it feels. If it feels like wet cement drying up and clogging your blood flow, then you likely have a low tolerance for the malarkey typically accompanying old W. However, if it tranquilizes you, that's a problem, or rather that's the problem.
It's enraging, but not in the least bit surprising. That is, to see the establishment mingle so jovially with the mainstream media. In fact, Bush's comeback tour is perhaps more of a reunion tour with the disseminators of authoritative information.
In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, recall the installation of the stepping stones of war propaganda that created the grand path to the United States' invasion of Iraq in order to topple Saddam Hussein.
The hard push to convince people to invade— and it needed to sound convincing, of course, in this classic instance of manufactured consent— was ultimately wrong, admittedly so, but the facts behind it were twisted because there was no intelligence mistake or a wrong bet in the interest of being overtly cautionary. Rather, it was a flat out lie, and a lie supported by opinion writers at many legacy outlets (think Jeffery Goldberg, David Frum, and those types). Again, it should be enraging, but not a surprise that disinformation regarding the status of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq was a manipulation imposed on the public with absolute impunity.
That's to be expected from authority, especially authority held to no ethical standards. Certainly, the intelligence community were intent on not letting a crisis go to waste following 9/11 either, since it allowed the opportunity for powerful hands to encroach upon the public's right to privacy. Siraj Hasmi as featured on Glenn Greenwald's Other Voices as part of his Substack, wrote about how some of the most powerful inflicted the most severe attacks on American democracy from within:
"Following 9/11, the Bush administration, in conjunction with Congress, expedited the passage of the Patriot Act, a wide-sweeping national security law that infringed on the civil liberties of every American in the name of fighting terror. The Fourth Amendment became a relic of the past as the government's power to surveil and spy on its own citizens reached its peak. Individuals who shared names with persons of interest or suspected terrorists, including U.S. citizens, landed on government no-fly lists, restricting their right to freely move about the country for dubious reasons and with no due process or recourse. And even worse, many had their right to due process eviscerated when they were detained by the newly-created Department of Homeland Security and found themselves at Guantanamo Bay without even being charged with a crime."
Not only was a horrific crisis turned into a geopolitical conquest, it was turned into a reduction of civil liberties.
This topic of domestic surveillance made momentous headway when whistleblower Edward Snowden, through Glenn Greenwald and others, leaked many hidden truths about the spying campaign being utilized by the NSA. It turned out to be some of the most important reporting this country has ever seen and it was naturally propagandized by the establishment as a threat to the security of the nation. As a result of the red alert reaction from the establishment and its talking heads regarding the leaking of documents that laid out the vast surveillance program being implemented, the truth was not plucked out of thin air, but rather muddied, misconstrued, and downplayed just enough that people either held tightly to their patriotism or brushed off the critical reporting.
Recall, another instance of misinformation by way of old W. when he said that Snowden, an individual whistleblower, single handedly "damaged" the security of the United States.
It's almost funny coming from him. Plus, he highlights the seamless nature of establishment presidents since he did, indeed, establish the programs that degraded a significant portion of people's civil liberties, and his successor continued them— just like he continued the wars, the subservience to Wall Street, and the casting away of any accountability for tremendous greed.
It's not a battle between truth and misinformation. It never has been with those of immense power. Rather, they maintain a narrative that allows their power to expand by constructing an artificial narrative: the authoritative narrative.
With a deceptive thumb on the scale of what is deemed the factual narrative, a name like Julian Assange comes to mind. Assange and WikiLeaks (which has never had to retract a single story in its existence— and that used to mean something) was transformed from beacon of light in a land of darkness to borderline Bond villain. After revealing lies regarding the wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq, the truth was obsolete when the powers that be declared war on truth in favor of control.
That control, as it turns out, could sustain itself if they could simply alter the image of Assange. Naturally, when the polarizing, Tasmanian devil-like character of Donald Trump (who will go down as one of the largest distractions in national discourse) hit the scene as Hillary Clinton's opponent in 2016, the potential link was clear and artificially imposed, implying that Trump, WikiLeaks, and Russia (of all things) were working together. The leaking of DNC emails was not about boosting Trump— not in the slightest. Rather, it highlighted the intraparty corruption that intentionally quelled Bernie Sanders' momentum and dismantled his ability to win the Democratic primary, a feat he likely would have accomplished by comparison to the far less popular Hillary Clinton.
Because it highlighted some unflattering realities behind establishment superstar Hillary Clinton's "historical" ascent towards the presidency, it was flipped around into a foreign-backed smear campaign— a strategy we are all but used to by now with incessant uses of Russia this and Kremlin that.
Of course, that was a stretch and a flat out lie, but the implementation of the DNC's quick counter jabs as well as their corporate media-backed defense caused any clarity on the matter to be irretrievable to most of the public. It was easy to say: Trump bad, Clinton good, therefore Assange is a Russian asset working on behalf of Trump. And with Americans' unalterable reality of being stuck with a busy life, any grasp on the situation was formed by way of the false, authoritative narrative that hung low for them in disingenuous fashion, the way it always has.
These recent historical examples are not where it ends, as one can probably imagine. The power dynamic in this country is constantly finding a way to influence the public into accepting any authoritative narrative as absolute truth, usually by caking it with mud and grime to make it fit their agenda. It's happening today, and with new targets, new phraseology, and new platforms.
Today, it fundamentally works the same way: you have the establishment authority working with the legacy media and corporate outlets to construct, sell, and uphold a narrative as objective truth. Just now, there are more factors at play, but nevertheless, the same ceaseless cycle continues.
The influence from the top is supported by the corporate press. As a business whose success depends on reliable optics, the press upholds the word of the establishment (sometimes copying and pasting their press releases word for word) and smears independent outlets out of a struggle to appear as the preeminent source of trustworthy information. To make matters worse for independent outlets, they rely on big tech platforms (you know, Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook) to get their reporting out there, but these platforms, in conjunction with their connections to power through donations, lobbying, and involvement in administrations have an incentive to suppress independent voices. Add to it smears of these independent sources by the widely influential corporate press, and advertisers begin cowering from the "controversy," which in turn makes platforms like YouTube restrain and even ban some channels.
With all of this as the deceptive face of facts and of the mainstream thought bubble, it is then reinforced by people who have no expertise whatsoever, but who undoubtedly have influence on many millions of Americans. And once that impression is made, it's hard to change people's mind.
Any challenge to the narrative, whether mere skepticism or fully backed up rebukes, are seen as unacceptable and misrepresented as something "toxic," Russian-backed, or hateful. Blind faith and obedience, on the other hand, is rewarded.
One of the main threats to the authoritative media, and thus one of its main targets is none other than Glenn Greenwald. And as the months have progressed since his resignation from The Intercept and his move to Substack, more and more knives are out for him.
Well, Seth Rogan said it, so it must be true. Right?
Over the last six or seven weeks, Greenwald has trended on Twitter at least six different times. And with impeccable consistency, the outrage was almost entirely misinformed and filled completely with hot air.
"My friend Glenn Greenwald has lately become a fixation of American propaganda, playing the role of the traitorous outcast, a cross of Emmanuel Goldstein and Satan," Matt Taibbi wrote in a review of Greenwald's new book Securing Democracy: My Fight for Press Freedom and Justice in Brazil.
Taibbi's comparison is accurate. Greenwald has been cast as this "toxic," right wing contrarian to the "good" of the establishment, who is a danger to democracy with his independent writing and opinions.
Truth be told, Greenwald is none of those things. Based on his reporting, he is only a danger to the stability of the establishment, and based on his successful move to Substack, he threatens the success of legacy and corporate outlets as well. As both competitors and the disseminators of the authoritative narrative, the legacy outlets have targeted Greenwald, one of the most prominent voices calling out the establishment's hypocrisy and corruption today, including the inaccuracies and sometimes utter lies that the media have reported.
From supporting the rights of free speech to calling out the media for stories they covered like the lies behind Capitol Police officer Bria Sicknick's death, the Russian bounty hoax in Afghanistan, as well as their utilization of censorship and narrative manipulation, Greenwald has remained precise in his reporting, and all the more independent.
His book, Securing Democracy: My Fight for Press Freedom and Justice in Bolsonaro’s Brazil, details how he, his husband, and others broke the story of government corruption orchestrated by a Brazilian judge and some prosecutors to convict hundreds of political leaders and business figures, including the publicly popular former president, in prison.
Needless to say, it is in similar fashion to his challenge of the U.S. ruling class that Greenwald is a thorn in the side of the Bolsonaro regime. And yet, he is still being smeared and demonized by the very powers he tries to hold accountable. It is clear that real journalism is not welcome when it is aimed at the inner workings of the powerful.
Perhaps what makes this especially ridiculous is that when Greenwald wants to feature his reporting on cable news, only Fox News will have him on. Not only is it that MSNBC, CNN, NBC, ABC, and CBS won't have him on, but that those who see him on Fox News impulsively attribute the appearance to Greenwald chanting the same beliefs as the network. That's ridiculous, because whenever Greenwald goes on there, he is calling attention to something not being covered— he is not supporting or seconding any of Fox News' own propaganda, but rather using the largest platform possible to attain the widest coverage of his reporting.
Ironically enough, nobody bats an eye when Iraq War architect Bill Kristol guiltlessly goes on ABC or when former-CIA director John Brennan appears on MSNBC and CNN reciting CIA press releases. People, with no context, see Greenwald next to Tucker Carlson and assume they must agree on everything, refusing to actually listen to the topic at hand. Those topics include the growing tensions on the Russia-Ukraine border and the misinformation surrounding it, and the cruel detainment of Julian Assange, among others.
Speaking of Assange, he is still to this day being tortured by the government while being held captive at Belmarsh prison. The heinous attempts to extradite him and the thoughtless suppression of coverage on the matter are signs of a ruling class that yearns to maintain control of the power in this country. The establishment has learned over the decades not to put up with leaks in information akin to Daniel Ellsberg's 1971 release of various portions of the Pentagon Papers that, much like WikiLeaks' Afghanistan War Diaries and Iraq War Logs, revealed many obfuscated truths regarding the Vietnam War that were kept in the dark in the interest of manipulating public opinion.
Directing the flow of information with force and the promotion of propaganda have lent a lot of success to the establishment. Think about George W. Bush, the vastly unpopular president, the Texas miracle that somehow ended up winning two elections, the lead voice of the misinformation behind the greed and degradation of foreign peoples through the invasion of Iraq, and the infringement on American civil liberties at home with the mass utilization of surveillance programs in the name of the war on terror. The establishment is happy to report that old W. is the sweet, harmless old guy we should adore now, while figures like Greenwald, Snowden, and Assange are distorted and suppressed.
Any time the top of the power dynamic attempts to make angels out of demons and turn people who are just doing their jobs into villains, one should not discredit the big whiff of skepticism wafting through the air.
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