General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsAn entire American generation
has been brainwashed with the very finest and most insidious propaganda techniques. How and by whom?
Begin with the memo future Supreme Court justice Powell wrote to the US Chamber of Commerce in 1971, which lays out a strategy for 'conservatives' to get the corporate message out through a broad array of coordinated efforts. This is when we began to see right-wing AM talk radio springing up.
Then, fast forward to 1981, when Ronald Reagan slithered into the White House and began busting unions. His systematic destruction of the Air Traffic Controller's union is considered one of the biggest blows to American labor in the twentieth century.
In 1987, the snake Reagan committed a further great crime against freedom; he vetoed the reauthorization of the Fairness Doctrine.
This had far reaching consequences in that it allowed big corporations and billionaires like the Koch Brothers, Rupert Murdoch, the Mercers, and more, to put their Ayn Randian ideas into a systematic propaganda organ and have those ideas echoed through the cars and work trucks of millions of American middle class workers.
Instead of truth, these people now were subjected to a steady bombardment of corporate propaganda designed to make them good, docile consumers, haters of government, and 'rugged individualists' who are ever watchful, and ever fearful, that our government might 'give' away something to people who 'didn't earn it,' because, dang-nab-it, we pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps here in 'Murika, and we're ignorant and proud of it!
In the meantime, beginning in the early 1950s big tobacco hired a PR firm called Hill & Knowlton to cast doubt on scientific findings showing smoking to be a causal factor in lung cancer. These firms, now known as Merchants of Doubt, are hired by industrial clients such as Conoco and Monsanto to put out pseudo-scientific 'studies' that 'refute' the findings of the actual scientific community.
The result of all this: George Carlin can tell you better than I....
If you want to know more, here are some very good book titles:
Howard Zinn - A People's History of the United States
Edward Herman & Noam Chomsky - Manufactured Consent
Naomi Klien - The Shock Doctrine AND This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs the Climate
Good luck to us all. It will take years of resistance to turn this around and dig ourselves out of the big capitalist shit-hole we've been buried in. Why do you think Trump won? BILLIONS of dollars were behind him along with decades of systematic and sophisticated corporate propaganda.
Believe these things, or you are NOT a good American:
Pull yourself up by your bootstraps!
Don't give anybody anything they didn't earn!
Helping the poor just promotes their dependency!
Climate change is a hoax!
The earth is 6,000 years old.
We need to teach creationism side by side with evolution.
Women should earn less and stay at home to bear and raise children...
Privatize! Deregulate! Gut social programs!
The private sector can ALWAYS do it better, faster and cheaper...
Sigh. And many, many others. How many of these corporate memes have touched you? How many have tempted you to believe? How many trolls on this site have been successful in driving a wedge between those who supported Bernie and those who supported Hillary?
Sculpin Beauregard
(1,046 posts)It explains the methodical undermining of democracy by billionaire Koch Bros in a decades-long multi-pronged plan.
Koch efforts and money are directly responsible for today's GOP. It's a must-read.
stevepal
(109 posts)90-percent
(6,829 posts)Yes, we've been up to our eyeballs in corporate propaganda designed to keep us docile and ignorant for at least forty years.
PSYOPS. THEY LIVE!
Thanks for a very important post. They got us by the balls and be happy with what you've got.
-90% Jimmy
JudyM
(29,251 posts)trolls or bots, for the most part, just couldn't care less about the big picture of healing the party.
andym
(5,444 posts)is an intrinsic part of the American identity, that makes America special. However, the promotion of selfish individualism above all, a la Ayn Rand, has changed America-- it's why conservatives wield so much power in America. As you mention, the role Justice Powell played along with the success of Reagan, and the rise of the cadre of conservative billionaire political manipulators has transformed and continues to transform America toward economic libertarianism.
The democratic party has moved rightwards economically to catch the receding liberal wave that used to define a cornerstone of civics: government action for the common good. The long-standing fights on DU between supporters of "moderate" economic policies (DLC/Bill Clinton) and more traditional liberal economic policies (Kucinich and Sanders) partly reflects the fundamental change that has occurred.
PatrickforO
(14,582 posts)who genuinely believe in market solutions, and that is fine, but we've got to be sane as to how we approach those things economists call 'public goods.'
andym
(5,444 posts)that is not subject to too much cheating or monopolization and efforts to advance the community interest, from building highways to providing health care for everyone.
GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)First we would need to eliminate corporate influence over politics (reverse Citizens United.)
Then we would need to eliminate corporate influence over society (de-consolidate all media, get corporate money out of education.)
Finally we would need to introduce deprogramming (who gets to decide the messages?)
From that point it would take a generation and a half to undo the damage (~50 years.)
The corporate stranglehold on all social and political institutions is the really tough problem. Reversing it will take either an outright miracle or the collapse of civilization, whichever comes first.
Boomerproud
(7,958 posts)It's all right there in front of our faces-yet it persists. I can't say it any better than the OP.