The War on Terrorism and the US Propaganda Machine Essay -- September

The War on Terrorism and the US Propaganda Machine Totalitarian regimes control their people by bludgeoning and incarcerating them. Critics of Western societies claim that democratic governments maintain approval for their actions through the "manufacture of consent", a cryptic and insidious form of propaganda. "How?", you ask skeptically. By framing the debate, the theory says. By setting up a debate between two opposing acceptable views--one slightly left of government policy, and the other slightly right--the media can marginalize the radicals and legitimize the party line. Thus the debate surrounding the war in Vietnam was a debate of the hawks ("If we keep fighting we can win") vs. the doves ("It's too costly; we're fighting a losing battle"). There was no question of our right to interfere in the mainstream media, no question of the purpose of the war. You can see the same framing of debate in the US media's coverage of the "war on terrorism". If you look for it, anyway. It all sounds like a conspiracy theory, though, doesn't it? It seems rather far-fetched that the government is controlling the media, even if National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice did "suggest" that the networks broadcast only "abridged" versions of any future appearances by Osama bin Laden and friends. It's much more plausible that the big companies control the government, but I'm not going to open that kettle of fish. So let's forget about conspiracies for the moment, and simply focus on the media coverage: are we getting a fair shake? Increasing numbers of Americans don't think so. Despite the fact that UK is our strongest ally in this conflict, their media has been considerable more even-handed in cov... ...s a "war on terrorism", but kills countless innocent Afghanis because their government refused to give over bin Laden without some evidence of his involvement in the WTC attacks. But if that's the radical view, and the media comments above are mainstream, we'd do well to broaden our scope. British support for the war has fallen drastically, and is now outnumbered by those opposed. If you'd like to find out why, you'll have to look further than CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, etc. Try the Guardian, the Independent, BBC, Fair.org, or just search Google for Noam Chomsky + Afghanistan. Even if our dangerous ignorance is not the result of a conspiracy, we've still got plenty of good reason to alleviate it. Surely we're educated and critical enough to decide for ourselves what constitutes a valid perspective. We don't need the purifying filter of the mainstream media.