more on propaganda

[mqbush]

There’s a difference between expressing an opinion, having a bias toward a particular perspective, and the quite different condition of concerted manipulation of emotions to get people to appear to support what is contrary to their self interest.

In a biographical interview (I can’t provide a link to it, so dismiss it if you wish), Rush Limbaugh said that he was once a minor radio voice, going nowhere, until he started sitting in small town bars, just listening to the complaints about the government and business, the state of our culture and institutions, world affairs,-sober topics slurred in unsober tones and terms. Rush wrote down all the bitter comments and started incorporating them into his radio show. The more he sounded like he commiserated with these bitter people, the more popular his show became. It’s no surprise Rush jumped like a nervous cat when Obama used the word “bitter.” This is Rush’s bread and bitter –uh, butter- that Obama was bringing into widespread discussion that Rush couldn’t control. So, presto, overnight there wasn’t a bitter person to be found, everyone was perfectly happy. Complaining about anything American is anti-American, you see, and only coastal city slickers are anti-American, not the people living in a spreading Appalachia, jobless hopeless,-naw, they’re not bitter about anything. That is, until Rush’s next broadcast, when every resentment gets pumped up into a sullen fury again, because exactly this emotion is apparently the most effective one for short-circuiting critical thinking. To anyone who doesn’t feel this emotion, Rush’s words are “astoundingly silly,…clownish.” But they create a sizeable demographic allied to the right not by reason, but by manipulated emotion. Rush’s professional and personal gain usefully dovetails with the needs of the power structure.

On the one hand, there’s a disgruntled demographic trying to change the government along rightist lines. On the other hand, criticizing the government is anti-American. When Bill Clinton was President, the right made a distinction between America and its government, and impeached him “for the good of the country.” But as soon as Bush stepped in, instantly it was anti-American to criticize the President. Of course everyone can see the inconsistency, and that should be enough to end it. That so many can see this inconsistency, and still support it, shows that it’s emotion, not reason, that’s at work here.

Sure, the left has emotions, too. The left’s “feeeeelings,” as some sneerers on the far right put it, are empathy and allied cooperative impulses. The far right’s feelings seem to be insecurity and compensatory needs to disrespect and dominate, but I could be wrong. But the left’s emotions are worked on by natural disasters, wars, political and corporate piracy, while the right’s emotions are worked on by the Rushes and the Roves and the O’Reillies we’re getting so sick of. True conservatives were/are sensible people with respectable views. But they were “too” protective of states’ rights, local rights, independent thought, making it hard for the more power/money greedy marauders to have their way. So the “neos,”-neo-conservatives for military and political power, neo-liberals for economic piracy,-needed to destroy the old conservativism, via a long-term, multi-faceted program of propaganda. It is this program that I’m talking about in this thread. Critics of this topic say that the left is highly propagandist, apparently because the left expresses itself at all. Expressing a view is not propaganda.

See my earlier essay, "It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood," in mqbush's journal.

[arendt]

1. K&R. This is exactly the kind of deconstruction of propaganda we need more of...

Great distinction, very clearly explained.

arendt