Global capitalism is well insulated and defended. Labor and social movements – regarded as “bad for business” – are sabotaged; their candidates precluded from elections. It happened to Jeremy Corbyn (1, 2) and Bernie Sanders, twice. Teaching alternatives to capitalism has effectively been banned in English schools. There isn’t time to get into the violent, systematic dismantling of any nation that considers alternatives to neoliberal capitalism. But count the number of U.S. interventions since World War II:
Ideologically, the capitalist system is supported by well-financed Public Relations and Propaganda (PRP). Philips says, “Corporate media today are highly concentrated and fully international. Their primary goal is the promotion of product sales and pro-capitalist propaganda through psychological control of human desires, emotions, beliefs, fears and values. Corporate media do this by manipulating the feelings and cognitions of human beings worldwide, and by promoting entertainment viewing as a distraction to global inequality.” And again, “The transnational media and PRP industry are highly concentrated and fully global. Their primary goal is the promotion of capital growth through hegemonic psychological control of human desires, emotions, beliefs and values.”
Notably, “six major global media organizations offer a continuing ideological justification for corporate capitalism and diminish or censor information that questions the ongoing concentration of wealth and increasing inequality…the dominant ideological message from corporate media today is that the continued growth of the economy will offer trickle down benefits to all humans and save the planet.”
Corporate media are bankrolled by the ruling class. Johnstone says, “Advertising is a trillion-dollar industry worldwide because it works. And propaganda works much, much more effectively. […] An entire empire depends on keeping Americans too poor to compete politically with the plutocratic class which uses its wealth advantage to control the political/media class, and too propagandized to know that things ought to be different.”
Mainstream media’s primary directives are to turn a profit and serve upper-class interests. The Propaganda Multiplier says, “In that sense, it is logical that our traditional media – which are predominantly financed by advertising or the state – represent the geopolitical interests of the transatlantic alliance, given that both the advertising corporations as well as the states themselves are dependent on the transatlantic economic and security architecture led by the United States.”
Cory Morningstar says that media is a tool of the ruling class.
The control over social media is best demonstrated in the case of Parler.
Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post, Ted Turner owns CNN, Rupert Murdoch owns Fox and Michael Bloomberg owns Bloomberg; in a later post, you will see how much Bill Gates pours into the media. (The “MS” in MSNBC stands for Microsoft.) The New York Times is a medium for war propaganda. To secure a reporting job at The New York Times, you need to subscribe to the “mainstream oligarchic imperialist worldview”. The Guardian always requires a second look, going so far as to excuse child labor. I’ll admit to viciously referring to mainstream journalists, relative to independents, as “Empire Cucks” and “Imperial Bootlickers”. Would any billionaire-funded, government-aligned news outlet publish stories in conflict with their funder’s interests? Mainstream narratives suggest that the answer is no.
Corporate media content will show you extremists and call that “The Other Side,” cultivating deep divides in society. They peddle fear and monopolize your attention. They protect wealthy criminals. Read Ronan Farrow’s account of the extent to which the politico-media complex protects sex predators. Mainstream media is an essential element of the empire.
Johnstone says, “The most Orwellian tool of our rulers which does the most damage and affects the most lives is not surveillance, nor police militarization, nor government secrecy, but domestic mass media propaganda. You don’t need the ability to quash public uprisings if you can propagandize people away from rising up at all. And they can. And they do.”
We are kept divided, distracted and hard at work, encouraged to be self-involved; this ensures that the looting and plunder continues uninterrupted overhead.
The next part is Costs.
Chained To A Dead Hooker 