Does media propaganda influence and misinform public opinion?

[xxxxxx666666]

Does media propaganda influence and misinform public opinion?

The obvious answer is, of course, "yes".

Nevertheless, aside from the obvious i.e. spreading false information and villifying minorities, how does the Does media propaganda influence and misinform the general population and what would be the best way to turn the media around to ensure a communist revolution!?!

To continue from:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/anti-white-hate-t184181/index7.html

Based on the suggestion by Klaatu.

Feel free to fire away!!!

[Klaatu]

Thanks for starting this thread. I would like to ask: Is media propaganda dangerous to the working class?

[Sinister Intents]

Yes very much so comrade! Look at news outlets, they spout shit, distort the truth, and all of it is bourgeois and state owned media. I'd make a better post but my cellphone sucks.

[RedGuevara]

I absolutely believe that media misinforms the public. For instance I watched part of an interview that Fidel Castro did with Barbara Walters. There was a segment talking about how Cubans appeared happy and even when asked said they were happy and then Barbara Walters went on to say that even though the Cubans are happy the conditions they live on is very poor and poverty is high etc. She completely missed the point that everyone is fed and educated even if the resources are low, which can be attributed to the blockade.

Also you never are given the opposite side of the story when it comes to international relations. There is censorship in America just not on the part of the bourgeois media. The whistle blowers Manning and Snowden are prime examples. As soon as the truth is revealed in America, your blacklisted and charges are trumped up so that the one who reveals the information goes to jail for "treason".

So overall the WHOLE story is never truly exposed and is nitpicked to fit the convenience of the American government so the American public are led blindly like sheep.

I understand I used America as an example but I'm sure the same can be said anywhere there is a capitalist nation such as Britain.

[GiantMonkeyMan]

Of course the bourgeois media misinforms or is disengenuous about events under the guise of being impartial and unbiased. However, it is clear that not all people believe the bullshit spewed. This is generally due to the fact that material conditions dictate conciousness; if there's a lot of strike action and protest movements going on, for example, workers would be less likely to believe negative reporting about worker's movements. Also, education plays a role, giving individuals the tools they need to critically analyse aspects of the media and reject bourgeois propaganda.

At the crux of it, the media is an industry like any other and it is down to the proletariat to seize it just like any other industry.

[Petrol Bomb]

I'm tired, but I would like to point out a couple things in addition to nitpicking and flat out misinformation.

One thing that I think is important is what questions are asked. It seems to me that media outlets ask precisely the right questions in order to frame the issue in a certain way, so as to construct walls in which discussion of the issue remains, and likely also to steer towards a certain view in particular as well.

The second and last thing that I want to point out is which choices are presented in the discussion. In other words, what options are there to deal with the issue at hand? When speaking of politics (in America), you are pretty much presented with either Democrats or Republicans. Both are there to up the ruling class. Rarely do you even see any alternatives mentioned. My guess is that they don't want to even criticize alternatives, so as to not have people thinking about them. This ties in closely with my first point, as this is caused by what questions are asked.

[DasFapital]

I know there are many Chomsky haters on here but I will post this link
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PQhEBCWMe44&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DPQhEBCWMe44

[AmilcarCabral]

Humans are survival animals, who when are in danger behave according to their self-defense mechanism to avoid any potential threat and danger to their lives. What I mean is that as long as americans can still find food, average americans joes and janes will still rely on mainstream TV news channels and mainstream newspaper sources such as (CNN NEWS, FOX news, ABC news, CBS news, NBC news, UNIVISION, TELEMUNDO, Washington Post, The New York Times, etc).

While only a minority is awake and into alternative news sources, 9-11 truth movement, anti-war movement, Occupy Protests and other grass roots movements. But the majority is still too much into mainstream politics. There would have to be a situation in USA in which the pound of chicken would rise to more than 5 dollars per lb (The current price is 1 dollar per lb), a gallon of milk to about 25 dollars, a pizza to about 50 dollars, a pound of cheese to about 30 dollars and all the other goods and services rising 5 times the current price, or even more.

I think that situation will come around the year 2016. The other day I heard a comment by Thom Hartmann in his show The Big Picture in the Russia Today News, that the economy of USA will totally collapse and grind to a halt around 2016, or even earlier than that. So it is safe to assume that an objective revolutionary situation is around the corner in USA. So the radical marxist communist left of America better be ready with a powerful vanguard communist workers party for that moment which will be a very good moment for communists of America to take advantage of that situation


.



Does media propaganda influence and misinform public opinion?

The obvious answer is, of course, "yes".

Nevertheless, aside from the obvious i.e. spreading false information and villifying minorities, how does the Does media propaganda influence and misinform the general population and what would be the best way to turn the media around to ensure a communist revolution!?!

To continue from:

revleft.com/vb/anti-white-hate-t184181/index7.html

Based on the suggestion by Klaatu.

Feel free to fire away!!!

[tuwix]

I would like to ask: Is media propaganda dangerous to the working class?

As a tool of maintaince of class status quo, yes.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Not to be ridiculous, but . . . the medium is the message.
Which is to say that mass media, irregardless of its particular content, conforms to the needs of capitalist hegemony in a more subtle sinister way. This was certainly the case with radio and television, beaming identical messages across entire nations and homogenizing discourses. With the internet, this becomes more complex, with content produced and consumed in an even more particular way, allowing the fetishization of increasingly intimate relationships. Rather than an "overt" homogenization, this produces a homogenization that is coded as infinitely personal. Facebook essentially means that our relation to our "friends" are increasingly defined by production, eroding some of the last terrain on which the social was unmediated by the commodity form.

:confused:

[xxxxxx666666]

I know there are many Chomsky haters on here but I will post this link
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PQhEBCWMe44&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DPQhEBCWMe44

Interesting video you got there, I am most interested in the claim that "East Timor-type atrocities" are happening "all the time".

Would someone care to provide some more light on this?

As well as information that is not well known or suppressed?

And I also wonder: Why, to all you Chomsky haters, and maybe others as well, do you hold the views you do?

[DasFapital]

There are many atrocities committed by US back regimes that go largely unnoticed by the public, like the right wing death squads that operated in El Salvador and Guatemala in the 1980s or the American government's current support for Israel as it oppresses the Palestinians. There is a general trend among the mainstream media to underplay these crimes while focusing more attention on crimes committing by enemies of the United States.

[AmilcarCabral]

Yeah you are right, and talking about Facebook, I just would like to say that for some reason I do not know and I cannot explain, the great majority of Facebook leftists are too centrists, too reformists, too bourgeoise liberals. And there are very few radical marxists in Facebook. Maybe that's because the great majority of Facebook leftists are part of the middle class. And the middle class, live in the middle class, follow a middle class philosophy of life and that class by their nature, peer pressure and all that is too anti-marxism. That's why I had to cancel my Facebook account, because it is not even a great place for rational scientific debates. The way Facebook is built, stimulates narcissisms, attention-seeking behaviour, competition and does not stimulate a cooperative altruist loving mutualist environment with a communist philosophy of love and tolerance.

That's why I had to quit Facebook, it is a waste of emotional and mental energies for communists



Not to be ridiculous, but . . . the medium is the message.
Which is to say that mass media, irregardless of its particular content, conforms to the needs of capitalist hegemony in a more subtle sinister way. This was certainly the case with radio and television, beaming identical messages across entire nations and homogenizing discourses. With the internet, this becomes more complex, with content produced and consumed in an even more particular way, allowing the fetishization of increasingly intimate relationships. Rather than an "overt" homogenization, this produces a homogenization that is coded as infinitely personal. Facebook essentially means that our relation to our "friends" are increasingly defined by production, eroding some of the last terrain on which the social was unmediated by the commodity form.

:confused:

[Remus Bleys]

And I also wonder: Why, to all you Chomsky haters, and maybe others as well, do you hold the views you do?
Chomsky is a mixed bag.
His stuff on the media is great, and he seems like a smart guy.
However, a lot of his politics are reminiscent of the enlightenment and he mixes his anarchism with classical liberalism... something most leftists are diametrically (dialectically?) opposed to.
For instance, his insistence that the Founding Fathers would have been socialist is... irrelevant at best. Or the fact that he is so attached to "anti-authoritarian" (a word inherently loaded and idealist) and his insistence on such things as "rights" and whatnot.

[LiamChe]

My answer would definitely be yes. The media's purpose is for Bourgeoisie state propaganda first and information last. The media would try anything in it's power to discredit or spread falsehoods about a revolutionary movement. This is pretty much the case in any country

[AmilcarCabral]

Remus: you are right about Chomsky. And I would add that many of the liberal progressive intellectuals like Michael Parenti, Chris Hedges, including Noam Chomsky, Tom Engelhart, Jeremy Scahill, Tariq Ali, Juan Cole, Amy Goodman, Michael More, Cindy Sheehan, Norman Solomon, David Sirota, Laura Flanders, Richard Wolff, Medea Benjamin of Code Pink, Bill Moyers, Patrick Cockburn of counterpunch.org, Mike Whitney, Shamus Cooke, and other progressive intellectuals are great in their critisism against capitalism, imperialism, Israel, wars, Wall Street, government corruption, the concentration of wealth in few and poverty in the many and all the other negative features of capitalism. But where they suck and fail is at a solution. They only talk about the problems, but they never offer the masses a scientific marxist solution like the formation of a communist labor front, a communist front composed of all leftists, competing in the next 2016 elections as an option for most americans who are taxed to death, billed to death and stressed to death because capitalism seems not to be working anymore in America.

So that's why I say that the marxists, leninists, maoists, trotskists, stalinists anarchist-leftists and all radical leftists will have to think about how can the radical left of USA create a political party as a real option for most americans for 2016 or 2020 elections






Chomsky is a mixed bag.
His stuff on the media is great, and he seems like a smart guy.
However, a lot of his politics are reminiscent of the enlightenment and he mixes his anarchism with classical liberalism... something most leftists are diametrically (dialectically?) opposed to.
For instance, his insistence that the Founding Fathers would have been socialist is... irrelevant at best. Or the fact that he is so attached to "anti-authoritarian" (a word inherently loaded and idealist) and his insistence on such things as "rights" and whatnot.

[Remus Bleys]

Remus: you are right about Chomsky. And I would add that many of the liberal progressive intellectuals like Michael Parenti, Chris Hedges, including Noam Chomsky, Tom Engelhart, Jeremy Scahill, Tariq Ali, Juan Cole, Amy Goodman, Michael More, Cindy Sheehan, Norman Solomon, David Sirota, Laura Flanders, Richard Wolff, Medea Benjamin of Code Pink, Bill Moyers, Patrick Cockburn of counterpunch.org, Mike Whitney, Shamus Cooke, and other progressive intellectuals are great in their critisism against capitalism, imperialism, Israel, wars, Wall Street, government corruption, the concentration of wealth in few and poverty in the many and all the other negative features of capitalism. But where they suck and fail is at a solution.Not really. They attack it on the surface, but only attack it in its current manifestation. They do not attack the essence of imperialism, war, capitalism; their belief is that these things are "bad" in the way it is done. They are perfectly fine with capitalism as a thing. Their critique of war and imperialism can change radically (most times depending on who is in charge) and the consistent one's don't see war or imperialism as an extension of capitalism, but as an independent thing (just look at the title of Hedge's book alone - War is A Force that Gives Us Meaning). These are their views, and their critique reflects that, and thus, their criticisms are irrelevant to the class struggle.


They only talk about the problems, but they never offer the masses a scientific marxist solution like the formation of a communist labor front, a communist front composed of all leftists, competing in the next 2016 elections as an option for most americans who are taxed to death, billed to death and stressed to death because capitalism seems not to be working anymore in America.Well, no, they don't, because they are liberal. From the sounds of this, you are liberal too. Congress cannot bring about socialism.


So that's why I say that the marxists, leninists, maoists, trotskists, stalinists anarchist-leftists and all radical leftists will have to think about how can the radical left of USA create a political party as a real option for most americans for 2016 or 2020 electionsAre you a recruiter for the CPUSA?
What will the maoists do?
And give me a break - the trotskyists can't even form a group without a hundred splits.

[Per Levy]

Remus: you are right about Chomsky. And I would add that many of the liberal progressive intellectuals like Michael Parenti, Chris Hedges, including Noam Chomsky, Tom Engelhart, Jeremy Scahill, Tariq Ali, Juan Cole, Amy Goodman, Michael More, Cindy Sheehan, Norman Solomon, David Sirota, Laura Flanders, Richard Wolff, Medea Benjamin of Code Pink, Bill Moyers, Patrick Cockburn of counterpunch.org, Mike Whitney, Shamus Cooke, and other progressive intellectuals are great in their critisism against capitalism, imperialism, Israel, wars, Wall Street, government corruption, the concentration of wealth in few and poverty in the many and all the other negative features of capitalism. But where they suck and fail is at a solution. They only talk about the problems, but they never offer the masses a scientific marxist solution like the formation of a communist labor front, a communist front composed of all leftists, competing in the next 2016 elections as an option for most americans who are taxed to death, billed to death and stressed to death because capitalism seems not to be working anymore in America.

So that's why I say that the marxists, leninists, maoists, trotskists, stalinists anarchist-leftists and all radical leftists will have to think about how can the radical left of USA create a political party as a real option for most americans for 2016 or 2020 elections

a few things, you critizise liberals for not haveing "scientific marxist solution" and i wonder why should they have such a thing? they arnt marxists they are liberals.

also you "solution" is liberal through and through, first of all a pan-leftists party, wich is nothing else than useless fantasy, will never happen since many of these tendencies you list have completly different views and tactics. it would be a useless party, impotent by the fact that everyone would fight everyone. second of all, you propose that a solution to capitalism can come through the ballotbox.

also, "capitalism seems not to be working anymore in America", you are so very wrong, capitalism works actually very well right now, since you know, the rich are getting even richer with each year, so capitalism works the way it is supposed to work.

[LiamChe]

So that's why I say that the marxists, leninists, maoists, trotskists, stalinists anarchist-leftists and all radical leftists will have to think about how can the radical left of USA create a political party as a real option for most americans for 2016 or 2020 elections

Because Social Democracy is always in the interest of the Proletariat :rolleyes:. A party like that could not possibly serve the interests of the Proletariat, let alone usher in a Socialist government.

[AmilcarCabral]

I forgot to say it like this: "Capitalism seems not to be working anymore in America for the great majority of low-wage workers and the oppressed". I didn't mean that capitalism is not working for the rich. I meant it from the perspective of a regular Mcdonalds worker, unemployed, undocumented people and the oppressed in general.

And you are right competing in the capitalist electoral system of USA and rising to the White House thru elections will not destroy capitalism and replace it with a workers-dictatorship.

But authentic leftists with the goal of seeing an aunthentic socialist system (worker's government) in America and in other countries will have to work a lot harder at spreading the authentic leftist philosophy to the masses (I know it's very hard to do that), but it must be done in order to see capitalism destroyed


.




also, "capitalism seems not to be working anymore in America", you are so very wrong, capitalism works actually very well right now, since you know, the rich are getting even richer with each year, so capitalism works the way it is supposed to work.

[Per Levy]

I forgot to say it like this: "Capitalism seems not to be working anymore in America for the great majority of low-wage workers and the oppressed". I didn't mean that capitalism is not working for the rich. I meant it from the perspective of a regular Mcdonalds worker, unemployed, undocumented people and the oppressed in general.

wich is still arguing that this was ever different, the poor and proles are exploited, always.that is the way capitalism works the only difference now, compared to lets say 40 years ago is that there is even more pressure on the working class.



And you are right competing in the capitalist electoral system of USA and rising to the White House thru elections will not destroy capitalism and replace it with a workers-dictatorship.

But authentic leftists with the goal of seeing an aunthentic socialist system (worker's government) in America and in other countries will have to work a lot harder at spreading the authentic leftist philosophy to the masses (I know it's very hard to do that), but it must be done in order to see capitalism destroyed

waht do you even mean with authentic? also i do want to ask why do you think that this is still a viable tactic? i mean its been done for almost a century and yet had little to no impact on how the working class reacts besides fueling the illusion that the ballotbox can change a thing. the cpusa did run for presidency for several times, in doing so did it reach more workers for its message? several leftist us parties doing the same thing today, have more people thought capitalism is shit because of that or because the economic pressure on them is getting higher and higher?

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

One way that certain bourgeois interests promote their worldview to the public is through a steady trickle of the same old stories again and again in the tabloid newspapers. This is exemplified in the Dacre Drip (http://www.mailwatch.co.uk/forum/viewforum.php?f=58), named for the Editor of the Daily Mail, Paul Dacre. That link provides a wealth of examples from said rag, going back many years. But other tabloids like the Sun and the Express use similar tactics of highlighting (and in some cases, outright fabricating) news stories liable to generate the right kind of moral outrage in order to further their strategy of dividing proletarians against themselves. Native against immigrant, employed against unemployed, straight white Christian against everyone else.

The effect on the quality of public discourse is nothing less than fucking toxic, and I long for the day when they are all swept the fuck away.

[cyu]

turn the media around to ensure a communist revolution

Occupations of media outlets have happened in both Oaxaca and Greece. They were a good example, however, they did not last long nor establish the kind of control and participation truly necessary for the liberation of the working class.

If it were up to me, I would suggest permanent media occupation, combined with self-defense. In other words:

1. Show up at your local media outlet. Armed.
2. Use violence only to defend youself if attacked.
3. Use the media to recruit more people to your cause, as well as encourage and teach others to occupy nearby media outlets.
4. Allow everyone a say in what is aired. If the richest 1% also want a say, they get 1% of the airtime.

...of course, while you're encouraging your neighbors to assume control of their own media outlets, you're also encouraging all employees to assume control of their companies.

[Remus Bleys]

Occupations of media outlets have happened in both Oaxaca and Greece. They were a good example, however, they did not last long nor establish the kind of control and participation truly necessary for the liberation of the working class. This is actually a good idea. Communists need an actual way to express their beliefs via mass media. The real question is how to do this.


If it were up to me, I would suggest permanent media occupation, combined with self-defense. In other words:
What? Are we forcibly taking over the media before a Revolutionary time?
To quote bordiga

It would be a mistake, however, to deduce from all these preceding considerations that the action of the political class party is merely that of a general staff which could by its mere will, determine the movement of the armed forces and their utilisation. And it would be an imaginary tactical perspective to believe that the party, after having created a military organisation, could launch an attack at a given moment when it would judge its strength to be sufficient to defeat the forces of bourgeois defence.

1. Show up at your local media outlet. Armed.
See above. How will this pan out? If we are to establish the media as a base to show our ideas, it is not a revolutionary moment is it?

2. Use violence only to defend youself if attacked.
Why? It is implied here that this is always the case, but why shouldn't the proletariat and communist take the offensive?

3. Use the media to recruit more people to your cause, as well as encourage and teach others to occupy nearby media outlets.
If we do not have mass support, how will the expropriation of the press turn out?


4. Allow everyone a say in what is aired.
Even the Reactionaries?

If the richest 1% also want a say, they get 1% of the airtime.
The 1% aren't our only enemies. And by this logic, the middle 1% and poorest 1% only get 1% of air time.

...of course, while you're encouraging your neighbors to assume control of their own media outlets, you're also encouraging all employees to assume control of their companies. The party cannot bring Revolution. It can only aid it, agitate it, and further it. The party's job is to help prepare the proletariat for revolution and guide it. However, only the proletariat can bring itself to Revolution. What you are advocating is the same problem that the secret society's had. A small group of people are not what makes revolution. A small group can lead it, but it requires mass support.

[emilianozapata]

The mainstream media is corrupt and a tool used to perpetuate lies and myths to the public for the beneficiary of the ruling class. They are deliberately responsible for distorting public opinion on certain subjects as a way to divide the population and get them to fight among themselves so this way the ruling class can maintain their power.

[cyu]

Are we forcibly taking over the media before a Revolutionary time?

Media control is just part of the revolution (or counter-revolution) - if you continue to allow capitalists to control the messages broadcast in mass media, then what you have is continual counter-revolution - and there will never be a time when revolution is "ripe".

This isn't to say you as one person will succeed in fighting off a squad of cops or security guards. Part of politics is building support - and when the snowball is big enough, then you can attempt things that would have failed before when the snowball was small.


why shouldn't the proletariat and communist take the offensive? If we do not have mass support, how will the expropriation of the press turn out?

These 2 are related. Most people already support self-defense. If the only violence involved in taking the media was in acts of self-defense, then people are much more likely to support and join you. Of course, you'll also have pro-capitalist agents engaging in false flag attacks in order to make leftists look bad. If you see someone (who claims to be on your side) attacking "pre-emptively" - might as well shoot him - it will only make you look better.


Even the Reactionaries? The 1% aren't our only enemies. And by this logic, the middle 1% and poorest 1% only get 1% of air time.

I wouldn't say principles used during the revolution should be different from the principles used after the revolution. I would say the same principles apply to both situations. Full media participation means full media participation. I would say that the reason pro-capitalist ideas currently hold sway is only because the mass media is controlled by capitalists. If leftists can't debunk pro-capitalist ideas even when capitalists are no longer in control, I would suspect you don't actually believe your own ideas are better.


The party cannot bring Revolution. It can only aid it, agitate it, and further it. The party's job is to help prepare the proletariat for revolution and guide it.

Party? Anarchists don't believe in parties. I do believe in helping revolution along though. Including arming employees with weapons, tactics, and strategies for media control and recruitment.

[Remus Bleys]

Media control is just part of the revolution (or counter-revolution) - if you continue to allow capitalists to control the messages broadcast in mass media, then what you have is continual counter-revolution - and there will never be a time when revolution is "ripe".
So... you are just talking about seizing control of the media after the revolution. do you think that anyone here disagrees with you on that?



This isn't to say you as one person will succeed in fighting off a squad of cops or security guards. Part of politics is building support - and when the snowball is big enough, then you can attempt things that would have failed before when the snowball was small.

So what to do in the meantime, which is what i was specifically critiquing.


These 2 are related. Most people already support self-defense. If the only violence involved in taking the media was in acts of self-defense, then people are much more likely to support and join you. Of course, you'll also have pro-capitalist agents engaging in false flag attacks in order to make leftists look bad. If you see someone (who claims to be on your side) attacking "pre-emptively" - might as well shoot him - it will only make you look better.

The revolutionary despises public opinion.
Communists do not fight for the moral high ground. We do not bend for public opinion. The proletariat will either be in a revolutionary situation and support us, or the proletariat will not be in a revolutionary situation and not support us. We are (or at least I am) Communist. Communists are revolutionary and thus do not care to be "defensive." The class war is already being fought and to shy away from it in favor of pacifism for "public opinion" (which will change depending on our situations. The revolutionary proletariat will support us through any means, the non revolutionary proletariat will not support us - the circumstances are highly at play here) reeks of class collaborationism, bourgeois morality, and liberal bullshit.



I wouldn't say principles used during the revolution should be different from the principles used after the revolution.
Which principles are you referring to specifically. I am principled, as should the Party be. However, I do not buy into liberal principles.

I would say the same principles apply to both situations. Full media participation means full media participation.
Wait...wait.. you think the bourgeoisie should be given air time on tv? :laugh:

I would say that the reason pro-capitalist ideas currently hold sway is only because the mass media is controlled by capitalists.
Yes, definitely this. What a marxist analysis you got going on there. :rolleyes:

If leftists can't debunk pro-capitalist ideas even when capitalists are no longer in control, I would suspect you don't actually believe your own ideas are better.

roflmao
you think that we will concern ourselves with debunking capitalists arguments after the revolution? Well, sure, but via propaganda.

Honestly, you're entire posts reeks of some absurd fetish of democracy, resulting from an individualist view of society, rather than seeing capitalism and the dictatorship of the proletariat as constant classes struggling - and ruthlessly suppressing eachother.



Party? Anarchists don't believe in parties. I do believe in helping revolution along though. Including arming employees with weapons, tactics, and strategies for media control and recruitment.
replace party with organizations and that quote becomes
"An organization cannot bring Revolution. It can only aid it, agitate it, and further it. An organization's job is to help prepare the proletariat for revolution and guide it."

[AmilcarCabral]

I wanna add something to this debate, maybe not so related with this specific topic of how the capitalist TV news channels in USA and capitalist newspapers (Like CNN news, FOX news, ABC news, CBS news, NBC news, UNIVISION NOTICIAS, TELEMUNDO, GALAVISION, New York Times, USA today, Washington Post and most local newspapers of most US cities) mind-control most US voters and US citizens into loving capitalism and hating socialism.

What I would like to add TV, newspapers, radio stations and the capitalist media in general is one way that US Empire prevents a communist revolution. But there is another way that USA rulers prevent in a very good way objective conditions for a communist rebellion to take place.

That strategy I think is something related with the movie The Matrix. the ecomomic, political, psychologist, urban planners, intellectuals, philosophers and the oligarchic mind-controllers of the masses, have planned the whole USA in a way that would look like a socialist workers republican democracy to the average american joes and janes (In the Matrix fake-world), but (in the real-world) it is an oligarchic, plutocratic, cleptocratic capitalist expansionist imperialist government.

This reason of how USA looks to an average dumb person as a workers republican democracy when it is really a capitalist empire, is another big impediment for an objective revolutionary condition to take place in America.

One of these features of how USA looks like a paradise of wealth for all americans is with the social programs, food-stamps, public schools. And cheap afordable cars, radios, TVs,food, like cheap low priced pizza and many other goods that people can find in USA at much lower prices than in many other countries.

Maybe that excess of easy available fast food, pizzas, cars, computers, and all the junk that people can still get at Wal Marts, K Marts, used clothes stores, and now with e-bay and many other things that americans have available to still live with relative peace is really an impediment for the needed collective anger in the majority of people that would lead to a communist revolution

.

[cyu]

you are just talking about seizing control of the media after the revolution.

Uh, no. I am saying preventing capitalists from dominating the media is part of the strategy of the revolutionary process itself. As I said, just because you consider yourself a revolutionary, I don't expect you to show up at a capitalist-controlled media outlet by yourself, and then be able to fight off squads of pro-capitalist minions. But that also doesn't mean you have to wait until After The Revolution (TM) to prevent capitalists from controlling the media.

There's a whole spectrum of revolutionary support, between the lone-revolutionary (presumably you) and enough support such that the revolution has already happened. At some point between the lone revolutionary, and the post revolution, there will be enough support to push capitalists away from their megaphones.

If that point is ignored, then I would say revolution will be slowed down. Not only will leftists have less ability to recruit, but capitalists will continue to stifle anti-capitalist thought as they always have.

So the question is, if we're not yet in a post revolutionary period, but you have gathered enough support to be able to assume control of the local media outlet, would you do it? Or would you tell people it's a waste of time?

[Gambino]

During the XIX Century and most of the XX Century, the mainstream media was under the control of a specific branch of capitalism, with its own agenda. Ruled by bourgeoisie families, with a more political than economic agenda, and used as a weapon in feuds against other capitalists. Since the late 1980s and early 1990s, with the establishment of the big media corporations, mainstream media became the battlefield for the different capitalist agents that constitute a corporation (banks, insurance companies, software developers, etc.) and the privileged way to communicate the corporation’s narrative.

The maistream media is a section of corporate capitalism. It is owned, controlled, funded and managed by corporate capitalists. It’s not a separate entity and, therefore, should be treated as a target or, at the very least, as a hostile agent.




The job of a revolutionary is not to court, infiltrate or take mainstream media, but, instead, to destroy its hegemony and to create alternative media outlets that are more suitable to convey the revolutionary message.

[cyu]

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/08/12/nprs-dina-temple-raston-passed-cia-funded-nsa-contractor-independent-fear-monger-snowden-reporting/

Morning Edition broadcast a story by NPR national security reporter Dina Temple-Raston, touting claims from Recorded Future that purported to vindicate the accusation that “revelations from Edward Snowden harmed national security and allowed terrorists to develop their own countermeasures.”

Recorded Future, the outfit that produced the government-affirming report, is anything but independent. it is funded by the CIA and U.S. intelligence community with millions of dollars. in 2010, it also filed forms to become a vendor for the NSA.

The connection between Recorded Future and the intelligence community is long known.

the investment arm of both the CIA and other intelligence agencies (including the NSA)—has seats on Recorded Future’s board of directors.

Temple-Raston knows all of this. in 2012, she noted that the firm has “at least two very important financial backers: the CIA’s investment arm and Google Ventures.

That is the company she’s featuring as some independent source that can credibly vindicate the claims of officials.

to pass it off as independent analysis without mentioning those ties is deceitful — especially when the reporter doing it clearly knows about those ties.

[cyu]

Was thinking about the relationship between media and the modern dictatorship. I'd venture that the invention of modern broadcast media (radio, TV) has given dictatorship a great boost - the main reason is that it has allowed one-way communication to be pervasive. Nothing helps a dictatorship strengthen their grip on power than pervasive one-way communication. Newspapers too are a form of broadcast media, and also suffer from one-way effects - but they are also slower in both delivery and absorption.

Future historians may mark the period in which broadcast media was dominant in human society as a new Dark Age in authoritarianism and oppression. May the internet crush that once and for all; and may other forms of communication bolster multi-directional and multi-party communication in human society.