For a very long time I've been pointing out that in the battle against the corporatist forces that have taken over our entire government and society, the number one priority should be counter-propaganda.
I've argued that the effects of the corporate propaganda we've being exposed to 24/7 account for 70 to 80 percent of the reason we've (the citizenry) been duped into acquiescing to our own enslavement.
We've been duped into giving up constitutional rights, into pitting public employees with good benefits vs. increasingly desperate and oppressed (an impoverished) private-sector employees, into pitting unionized workers vs. non-unionized workers, into privatization of the prison system, the public education system, and larger and larger segments of the public sector.
We've been duped into accepting the proposition that Wall Street criminal racketeering cartels (still in operation) can commit the biggest heist in history almost in plain-sight, and they can get away with it with total impunity; into accepting that government officials can commit war crimes and fraud with total impunity, and that there is nothing we can do about it.
Most of the conditioning that has slowly turned the U.S. population into a docile and increasingly oppressed people is the result of the combination between economic insecurity and the effects of the mind-numbing propaganda we are being exposed to.
The reason the tiny group of debased, greedy and parasitic corporatist oligarchs and their tools in government (both parties) have been so successful at controlling the minds of tens of millions of people in this country is because the information people are exposed to on a daily basis is designed to manipulate, to spread certain narratives, lies, misinformation, and propaganda.
That's the only way they can get away with stripping us of our constitutional rights, and exploiting us, for if a large enough number of the population became fully aware of what's happening, the whole thing would stop like that, overnight.
I'm starting to get a flickering of hope that this understanding is spreading, little by little ("PBS, Council of Foreign Relations & THIRD WAY Connections.")
And that's why I'm observing what Glenn Greenwald is doing with the drip-drop release of information about criminal, unconstitutional, profiteering, and fraudulent National Security Agency total-information-awareness program.
This gives me hope that at last, finally, people get it... Counter-propaganda has to be as deliberate, strategic, timed, etc., as the propaganda is trying to counteract. It is truly a non-stop battle.
If I was a reporter and had a treasure-trove of information (like Greenwald has), I would follow exactly the same pattern he is following. Release some of the bomb-shells initially, and then advice that there is much more to come... Then watch the squirmy, shifty, snake oil salesmen, corporatist hucksters at the top of the echelon of our for-profit corporate-controlled national security apparatus, and their debased on the take politicians tools, come out with lies, subterfuge, and misinformation.
And then on cue, boom!, you release something else that clearly exposes these parasites for the treasonous lairs they are. And they try to cover up the latest lies, and boom, again release something else, drip-drop. Manipulate the debased U.S. media propaganda tool.
You see, is not that hard. That's why I keep preaching in my writing that we are almost there, when it comes to being able to effectively challenge the increasingly brutal and corrupt oligarchy.
The oppression is there, the anger is there, the sense of betrayal is there. All we need is organization, solidarity, and most importantly, a shared understanding that our number one priority (regardless of the issue at hand, whether we're talking about climate change, the attack on women, workers' rights) should be to understand the need of engaging in a 24/7 propaganda war. Without that understanding, we are not going to be able to make any significant progress in removing the corporatist parasites that have taken over the country.
I'm eternally grateful to Bradly Manning, Edward Snowden, and all the whistle-blowers that have been persecuted by the corrupt government, and to Glenn Greenwlad and The Guardian.
Yes, it is painful to see great patriots and heroes suffer the consequences of their bravery at the hand of corporatist sociopaths; to see great men of conscience incarcerated and condemned while true criminals of the highest order not only remain free, but continue to profit from their crimes.
But karma is a bitch, as they say. There will be a day of reckoning, once the population realizes what's happening. But we have to engage in counter-propaganda to inform the larger society about the nature of the system. Once that happens in large-enough numbers, we will be on our way to restoring democracy and the rule of law.