Tag Archives: propaganda

Our Shared Humanity

When our ancestors were hiding in the trees from predators the connections they had to each other were indispensable. They accounted for their ability to survive and eventually climb down to the earth. As time progressed this connection evolved into a great awakening of consciousness. They began to understand each other as more than the sum of their parts. A complex society developed out of our cooperation, ingenuity and shared empathy for one another. Eventually the commons, a place for the entire community to come together, was celebrated as essential. It was never perfect or a place devoid of cruelty, aggression or intrigue. But here our demons were dealt with in the open, and the natural world was revered and cherished as the source of all life. The concept of ownership was unknown. Resources such as water and land provided for everyone. And our ancestors, for the most part, maintained this era for eons.

As civilization evolved so did the complexities of our relationships with each other and with the world we live in. Most hunter-gatherer societies became agrarian. Hierarchical forms of governance developed and eventually imperialism commenced. Throughout this long period of human history kingdoms rose and fell, disease and famine were rampant, one people plundered another for resources and religion, and most of the world remained unmolested, wild and vast. Human society continued to, more or less, evolve; and despite some rather major set backs, scientific discovery gradually became accepted. Then came the discovery of fossil fuels. This is when civilization took a giant leap ahead, and the commons began their death spiral.

Powerful merchants and nobles in Europe and North America learned fast that they could amass enormous wealth through industrialization with the use of these new fuels. This led to a rise in the standard of living for many who languished under feudalism, but it also allowed for the powerful to impose new forms of exploitation and abuse. While famine and disease were reduced, global population exploded; and widespread pollution of the environment and the decimation of forests and wild lands burgeoned. By the mid-twentieth century, following a world war that killed over 60 million people, most of the remaining commons began to be dismantled to make way for a consumer driven, assembly line society.

The materialism and convenience this offered evolved into a global machine of corporatism whose appetites have become insatiable. But, in spite of all this, a piece of the enlightened dawning in our evolution as a species has been retained. Many still stand in wonder at the natural world and grieve at its demise. Most feel empathy for the suffering of others. And despite being immersed in a sea of mindless consumerism, human beings still yearn for a connection we once knew before materialism became the dominant force of our day.

The emergence of the social media at the beginning of this century signifies a collective longing for the commons of old. It has also been a powerful tool for dissent and activism; and has been instrumental in organizing protests against tyranny around the world. But in this medium individuals are easily categorized into camps or groups. It has made advertising far simpler and made corporations far richer. And it has forged a new era of social control and authoritarianism that emanates from the mentality of the mob. The vacuous, soul sucking maw of commercialism stalks every page. It offers us agency, while it robs us of one of the most precious liberties we have, our privacy.

In this age privacy is often looked at as a quaint vestige of a bygone era. Yet with its disintegration, the very essence of democracy is assaulted. The private is a sacred space in which to contemplate issues and construct critical thought before returning to the commons. But social media entices people to give this space up and turn over every piece of information. It is a place that has been created by corporate interests and informed by the surveillance state. And while its secrets are sacrosanct, the individual is expected to bare all lest they be suspected of a misdeed.

Social media is not going to go away as long as industrial civilization is around. And its algorithmic hypnotism, that undoubtedly creates new pathways in the brain for dopamine induced pleasure, will continue to hold most of us under its spell. But its days, too, are numbered. Without the machine of industrial society, social media cannot exist. It is dependent on mines in Africa and petrochemicals that are accelerating climate change. Those who place complete faith in technology do not pay attention to the enormous cost that is exacted from the planet or the billions of people who are mercilessly exploited to make all of this “first world” technology possible. They choose to ignore the mass extinction of species, the dying, acidified oceans, the super heated atmosphere, or the tens of thousands of people fleeing for their lives from these ravaged regions.

There are those that say; “the same thing was said about television; but the world didn’t end.” I contend that television did, in fact, end the world as we knew it. It, too, promised a deeper connection to each other and a better life. And it, too, provided a medium for authoritarianism. The corporate state was nourished by television, and it still dominates it like a plague. It, like the social media, influences our perception of the world and of ourselves. It sold us cigarettes, vanity and war; and in the process the commons, a place for all, was privatized and sold to the highest bidder.

In the days to come the social media, like television, will increasingly be used by the powerful for social control and disseminating propaganda for the corporate state. It has been, and will continue to be, a means of surveillance of those who dissent. And it will justify every brutality of a ruthless police state. The death machine of endless consumption will be celebrated on it until the last forest is felled and the last fish is taken from a dying sea.

But as industrial civilization draws closer to its end from the ravages of climate change, perpetual war and mass species extinction, the social media is the only thing modern society has left that even remotely resembles the commons of antiquity. It can be used by the powerful to nourish havoc, but it can also provide a space for the rest of us to make sense out of senselessness, and share our collective grief. Sadly, unlike those days of old, we may not have any trees to ascend back to when the earth has finally had enough of our pillage, and all that humanity has built crumbles to dust. But in the meantime we have within us a heritage that is deeper and richer than the emptiness of mindless consumption; our shared humanity.

Kenn Orphan 2014

As The Curtain Falls

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In the disintegrating days of any society, nationalism, political charade and vapid farce often become the dominant narrative of the elite. These serve as distractions from their malfeasance, and the malaise and dread that most people, whether conscious of it or not, are feeling at the deepest level of their psyche. They also reflect the mania that often grips the mind when disaster is looming. And unless we insulate ourselves within this rubric of duplicity, or are so busy with the tasks imposed on us by the act of living in a society with increasingly less agency, it is near impossible to ignore the ominous signs on the horizon. Reports about mass extinction, climate chaos and a rising militarized, totalitarian state are ubiquitous.

The other night I went out to the movies. This is not a big deal for many, but for me it is. I stopped going to see most Hollywood productions a while ago when I found myself increasingly alienated from the violent messages I saw being aggressively communicated. Much of it is nothing new.

Hollywood has always glamorized and championed patriarchy, gratuitous vulgarity, mindless consumerism and a detachment from the natural world. And it, ironically, has patted itself on the back for being at the forefront of social change, when historically it has dutifully supported and promoted the most entrenched, dehumanizing and churlish forms of racism, homophobia, misogyny, Islamophobia, and antisemitism. In truth it is the best mouthpiece for the status quo power class and a bulwark for the reactionary establishment. While conveniently recasting itself as a civil rights pioneer when all the hard work has been done, Hollywood takes credit for something it had once vehemently opposed.

Sitting there in the darkened theater, waiting for the film I chose to begin, I was barraged by a cacophony of violent jingoism in each preview of movies to come. The military was cast as the savior of the world, women were objectified in persistent, degrading stereotypes, and the “other” of foreign nations were dehumanized and vilified. Of course one can trace much of this back to WWII when the Japanese were portrayed as bloodthirsty, dim witted beasts.

This insidious racism soothed the American psyche into justifying the nuclear decimation of tens of thousands of civilians and assisted the acceptance of the forced internment of Japanese Americans into concentration camps. One can go back even further to 1915 to the infamous film “Birth of a Nation” which depicted Black men as rapists and a danger to the entire republic. What better way to vindicate the horrors of Jim Crow and decades of state sanctioned terror via lynching parties? But over the last decade there has been a surge of hyper-masculine, chauvinistic nationalism depicted in film and media with technical flare.

Sadly, in the midst of all of this, many in America, and to a lesser extent other Western nations, appear to be retreating into a form of infantilism, clinging to religious mythologies about “end times” and supernatural tampering with humanity, or nefarious government conspiracies around every corner. This is a common response to a sense of powerlessness. Ironically, these fantasies coincide with the very real prospect of collapse and even near term human extinction. But those who are confounded by reason, overwhelmed by a merciless onslaught of disinformation, and battered by class oppression, will often attribute calamity to the divine’s wrath at innocuous human rights and social issues like marriage equality or women’s reproductive freedom.

Hollywood nourishes this confusion by inducing a national amnesia regarding what their country has done and what crimes it is capable of committing, both at home and abroad. It achieves this by producing a never ending stream of series or movies that retell and re-frame Biblical stories, or are about natural disasters (most of which are implausible), supernatural beings like zombies or vampires that compete for gloulish and macabre attention, or imagined threats from foreign “others” who represent everything we despise.
In truth, the wealthy power class has always thrived on violence and the incitement of division. It has been and remains the currency that they use to hold on to power and maintain the barrier that insulates them from its consequences. It is the drug of choice for brutes and psychopaths; and when it is unbridled it deftly manages to hollow out the very core of human dignity. How else could the US military, which has a long, documented history of heinous human rights violations, convince young, disaffected youth to join their ranks to fight people abroad far more impoverished than they are? How else can they cajole them to defend an empty concept of liberty that has been systematically hacked away from them at home?

Ultimately, violence masks the alienation from society and estrangement from the natural world that so many of them feel. It is the doom of virtue and the supreme manifestation of despair. The plutocracy has become unbeatable through its use of it abroad; and it has deftly worked at militarizing the police at home. They have become masters at harnessing its seductive lure; and there is no armed resistance that can counter their forces. They eagerly manufacture new, re-branded enemies to divide and conquer the beset masses; and distract them from their powerlessness. But now we are teetering on the edge of global collapse and the charades are becoming a nightmarish, technologically advanced, spectacle. From desensitizing video games to movies extolling the glory of war; the machine of propaganda is at fever pitch.

As the US empire continues to expand its reach through its spread of military bases, and its constant antagonism of other world powers, like China in the South China Sea or Russia in the Ukraine, we can expect reactionary nationalism at home to be stoked further. It has even expanded the war on nature, as the US Navy prepares to conduct military exercises, the largest of their kind in history, in the pristine waters off Alaska and in the Arctic. And with the curtain falling on Western civilization through its own hubris, Hollywood will become even more manic and detached from reality than it is today. It is, after all, the global voice of corporate capitalism and it faithfully follows the dictates of Wall Street and the Pentagon. Sadly, it cannot do anything but limn the lies of empire, even as ecosystems fall around them and war and totalitarianism become permanent features of the 21st century. How long it will be able to cast its shadows on the wall of this cave, before it all comes down around them, is unclear. But we do have a choice on whether to continue watching the spectacle, or turn away in time to salvage some of what is left of our humanity and this world.

Kenn Orphan 2015

American Sniper and the Despicable Art of Propaganda

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American Sniper, the jingoistic flick produced by Clint Eastwood, the paragon of white supremacy and misogyny in the film industry, is emblematic of the malignancy of all militaristic societies. The story was based on the autobiography of Chris Kyle, a Navy SEAL who had bragged about killing 255 people in Iraq and dozens of Americans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. While Eastwood is no Leni Riefenstahl, he has proven himself to be one of the best American propagandists in modern times. In America today, neoliberal capitalism defines worth; and American Sniper garnered well over one hundred million dollars in its weekend debut. This obscene profit is a symptom of the grotesque, hyper-militarism that infects the American psyche.

It is a society that convinces young men and women to enlist in the military in order to kill people who never attacked them and occupy their lands in order to protect the very freedoms the empire, and its elite class, are hacking away at on the home front. Iraq never attacked the United States. It had nothing to do with the events of September 11, 2001. There were no weapons of mass destruction. In essence, the war in Iraq was state sponsored terrorism, and the US was the state that sponsored it. It was a lie that enabled the killing of hundreds of thousands of civilians. It was a lie that displaced over one million. And it was a lie that destroyed infrastructure leading to disease, in a nation already badly weakened by over a decade of US sanctions that killed at least 500,000 Iraqi children. The propaganda erected around this lie ensures that it will continue until finally the empire crumbles under its own hubris. It was against this backdrop that Kyle is quoted as saying; “Everyone I shot was evil. I had good cause on every shot. They all deserved to die.” This is the language of a psychopath. There are no grey areas, only black and white, and this is how the mad insanity of militarism is nurtured.

When thousands of soldiers return home scarred, mutilated, homeless, on food stamps and suffering with PTSD this society ignores them unless they wax on endlessly about being a proud murderer, or don their uniforms to sit beside some puss-oozing politician. Soldiers like Ethan McCord who saved the lives of Iraqi children targeted by US drones, or others, like Scott Olsen, who threw their medals away in disgust are never put into the spotlight. Their humanity is too much of a threat to militarism. Hollywood, and Eastwood, et al, are the corporate empire’s lapdogs. They skillfully tap into the angst of endemic American bellicosity, and temporarily relieve the malaise associated with aggressive and violent societies. They produce propaganda that glorify state-sanctioned, serial killers like Kyle, and disparage any one else that questions them, so that their profit margins are protected.

The term “cannon fodder” and its historic meaning have been largely forgotten or buried in modern times. But little, if anything, has changed about the true nature of imperialism, except that American propaganda has become more technologically and psychologically cutting edge in recruiting young people to fight in its needless wars. Films like American Sniper soothe the consciences of murderers, and their sponsors and apologists; and cajole more young people to become cannon fodder for the empire’s endless wars. In this despicable art, Eastwood has succeeded with flying colors.

Kenn Orphan 2015

The Hermit Kingdom vs. Hollywood

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The corporate media has been in a frenzy this week over the alleged hack into Sony Corporation by the government of North Korea. The hack prompted executives to sack the release of the low brow comedy “The Interview” which involved a scene in which the leader of the Hermit Kingdom is assassinated. There have been outcries among the elite railing against this “attack” on freedom of speech, and the apparent cowardice of a multinational corporation. As if any corporation anywhere exhibited any virtue, much less courage, when their bottom line was at risk.

Oddly enough when it was the US government doing the hacking (and spying) on other nation’s governments (including allies) and on American citizens the corporate press was either apathetic or chimed in with the hawks of Washington demanding the punishment of whistle blowers like Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning. It demonstrates how, in the neoliberal order of America, corporations rank higher in priority than ordinary people.

This latest manufactured outrage has Wall Street, the Pentagon and Hollywood’s fingerprints all over it. Celebrity sycophants to Washington’s political class like George Clooney have joined the chorus championing “freedom of speech.” Yet one would be hard pressed to find the same level of disdain when it comes to the horrific practices of the NSA, CIA, FBI and the DoD which include not only hacking, but torture and murder.

Hollywood has never missed a beat in producing films that parrot US foreign policy, celebrate the cupidity of Wall Street, or beat the drums of militaristic chauvinism. Ironically, it portrays itself as a bastion of free speech, but a scratch beneath the glitzy surface reveals a long, ugly history of corporate censorship. When it comes to understanding the hypocritical outrage from the ruling elite and celebrity class, all one need do is follow the money and the power. It is the only value they understand or will go out on a limb for.

Kenn Orphan 2014

Photo Credit: Michael Thurston/AFP/Getty Images

Miltarism: an Ideology of Death

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“Militarism has been by far the commonest cause of the breakdown of civilizations. The single art of war makes progress at the expense of all the arts of peace.” – Arnold J. Toynbee

Pablo Picasso’s Guernica depicts the tragic results of militarism. In this epic painting he captured the horror suffered by the residents of a small village in the Basque countryside, bombed mercilessly into ruins. It is a powerful display of the reality of war in that it shows the victims are disproportionately civilians, animals and the earth itself.

Since World War II more civilians have been killed in armed conflict, despite having protection under international law. Americans have largely been shielded from the atrocity that is war. We do not see the bodies of children blown apart by US drone strikes or the humiliation and terror that comes from being occupied by a foreign army. It is because of this ignorance that militarism has flourished.

Militarism is the aggressive reply to every social problem. It is extremely profitable and therefore a perfect partner of capitalism. Its merchants have been successful in convincing the public over and over to believe the insane contradiction of war bringing peace, bombs bringing democracy and occupation bringing justice. They are masters at massaging our innate fears, those fears that produce the most visceral responses to manufactured illusions of imminent danger.

The powerful pull out the most primitive emotional reactions in us, responses we developed in ancient fields when we needed to escape the very real predators that lurked around us throughout the long history of our evolutionary heritage. They stoke primal paranoia of the other and encourage scapegoating as a means of alleviating the anxiety associated with the unknown and the responsibility of ethical conscience. They distract us from their malfeasance. They provoke rage at imaginary threats against the homeland, the religion, the tribe. In essence, they manufacture the belief that militarism is inevitable, even desirable.

The boogieman needed to maintain militarism changes faces, but they are almost always two-dimensional figures whose evil is absolute. Whether they be communists or Islamists, the pretext is always the same; they are cast as an immediate threat to western civilization and must be dealt with in the most violent way possible. Unsurprisingly, this ideology has wreaked havoc around the world.

Decades of neoliberal economic policies, arms deals, military coups, toppling of democratically elected governments, and the support of practically every despotic and corrupt regime the world has ever known has created a 21st century map of the world that contains more human caused catastrophes than it does countries. This long and bloody history of exploitation has enabled fanatical or extremist movements, loosely based on religion, to sweep entire regions. It has deftly created them with each new massacre and atrocity borne as a gruesome trophy to its fury.

But the mayhem abroad inevitably returns home. Militaristic societies create a machine that eventually consumes them from the inside. They lurch towards self-destruction because they feed on the pillars that support them. The arts, humanities, and science all become casualties of their rapacious appetite for growth. Jingoism replaces critical thinking. Infrastructure crumbles and the social safety net is dismantled. The well being of their citizens is reduced to a hollow promise of protection against an imaginary enemy, while the real needs and dangers are ignored. Civil rights and liberties become nuisances that get in the way of the machine, and are therefore crushed.

Militarism is the religion of America. It is the cornerstone of our culture and the currency with which the state interacts with its citizens as well as its neighbors. It is the language mass media uses in its denigration of the poor, the immigrant and the downtrodden. It is the method used to address all forms of crime. It is the very core of our economic system, based upon the rape of the natural world and the exploitation of the weakest among us. And it is the wall that prevents us from achieving lasting peace and true justice.

Picasso’s Guernica serves not only as a warning, but also as a prediction. His painting underscores the tragic futility of militarism and how it always targets the most vulnerable. It is an ideology of death that builds nothing and takes everything. It is a monster that feeds off fear and, sadly at the beginning of the 21st century, shows no sign of slowing down.

Kenn Orphan 2014