Sunday, January 30, 2005

What's It All Aboot, Bill?

I was thinking the other day about what writer from the past can give us the most relevant information about the current political state of this country. The name I settled on was Josef Goebbels. We are living in what is increasingly becoming a propaganda-based society. We now learn that our right-wing federal government freely uses taxpayer dollars to fund propaganda; right-wing tycoons (Murdoch, Sinclair, Moon, etc.) use unabashedly biased media outlets to dish out an unrelenting diet of propaganda; and the establishment media cowers and goes along, lest it be accused of "liberal bias", or even worse, treason. In whatever hell to which he is properly consigned, Goebbels must be smiling in satisfaction -- his apt pupils have exceeded the accomplishments of their teacher.

One of Goebbels' lessons is that a successful propaganda operation must constantly create new enemies who pose a grave threat to the fatherland. The modern American right-wing propaganda machine follows that lesson to a tee. Even though the right-wing now exercises total control over the federal government and most media outlets, the right-wing still promotes the illusion that it is an embattled minority that is constantly in danger of being overrun by a powerful and ruthless bunch of liberal elitists, who despise and are despised by the overwhelming majority of the country, but who nevertheless use their status as so-called intellectuals in order to continue oppressing normal Christian, heterosexual Americans. For example, I recently caught a bunch of pundits on Fox News who were all complaining bitterly that the establishment media had reported on Bush's inaugural in a highly unfair, "leftist" manner. Now for some sick reason that I do not fully understand, I stayed up late into the night watching the television coverage of Bush's inauguration, almost driving myself insane in the process. To say that the coverage of Bush's inauguration was uniformly gushing is the height of understatement. I would love to know what programs the Fox pundits were watching; it might have done wonders for my mental state if I could have tuned into them.

Of course, there was no such coverage of Bush's inauguration bearing a liberal slant. But that is the point of propaganda. Propagandists deal with the management of perception, reality has nothing to do with it.

The right-wing's creation of imaginary enemies often reaches ludicrous proportions. I previously wrote about Fox News' absurd campaign about Christmas being under attack. Having thoroughly routed all those ruthless Christmas bashers out there, Fox News is now taking on a new dire threat to America: Canada. Fox News has recently run several programs with the theme that the Canadian Broadcasting Company is controlled by extreme leftists, who are trying to use their propaganda machine to the north to bring the fearful threat of Canadian might to bear to cause the destruction of our vulnerable, and misguidedly peace-loving nation. Bill O'Reilly in particular seems to really have it in for these monsters to the north. Unless we wake up soon to this Canadian threat by outlawing their so-called "bacon", by building walls to keep out those frigid air-masses they keep inflicting upon us, and by taking other steps to defend ourselves against their generally un-American ways, Fox tells us, it may be too late!

Fox has both an economic as well as an ideological motive for demonizing the CBC. Fox News has had trouble getting access to Canadian broadcast and cable outlets because Canadian regulators insist upon broadcasters carrying a minimum amount of Canadian content. Unlike the tools who run our FCC, Canadian regulators still adhere to the quaint notion that broadcasters have some obligation to serve the local community in which they operate. Needless to say, Fox News finds such notions of community service loathsome, and hence its decision to transform Canada into a grave threat to our national security.

Fox's anti-Canada campaign has already gotten some echoes in the real-life policies of the Bush administration, as Bush recently told the Canadian Prime Minister that unless Canada became more compliant with the United States in its conduct of the so-called war on terror, America would have to re-think its commitment to Canada's defense. I'm not sure exactly who it is that America is defending Canada against, but I guess the spectre of hordes of reindeer-riding Lapps mounting an invasion across the pole is something that really strikes terror into the hearts of many Canadians.

Michael Moore once made a comedy called "Canadian Bacon", to my knowledge his only non-documentary, which is about an American President suffering from low poll numbers who decides to remedy his problems by whipping up war hysteria against Canada. When I first saw this movie, I did not care for it because I thought that the premise was too far-fetched to make for an effective satire. Perhaps I should watch it again.

Bill O'Reilly and his buddies might also want to take a look at the movie in order to give some consideration as to whether or not their latest propaganda campaign runs the risk of back-firing and making them look like the bunch of idiots that they are. However, I doubt that Bill could tear himself away from his loofah long enough to do that.

In the meantime, be on the alert for beaver-tails and skunk-smelling beer.

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