It remains vital in a neoliberal ‘democracy’ that the press keeps the masses ‘passive and obedient’ by narrowing ‘the spectrum of acceptable opinion’ as much as possible. Hence the Trilateral Commission, a private organisation founded in 1973 at the instigation of David Rockefeller, which, together with then-National Security Advisor to President Carter, Zbigniew Brzeziński, and other prominent ideological policymakers, keeps a close eye on and helps shape the course of Western neoliberal capitalism. And when in the reformist 1970s Western populations demanded a different political course, the Trilateral Commission intervened in Western democracies by demanding that social control over the masses be increased, to prevent the existing power relations from being undermined. A few years later, the neoliberal policy of deregulation and privatization began throughout the West, which broke the influence of the trade unions and other reform-minded organizations, and career politicians adapted at lightning speed to what the PVDA opportunist Wim Kok called ‘the social constellation,’ which according to him was so powerful that there was ‘no point in striving’ for an ‘alternative’ that, according to him, did not exist. In this way, democratic professional politicians and, following in their footsteps, the mainstream media managed to make the neoliberal ideology acceptable in the West. It is not at all surprising that in such a system, democracy was gradually dismantled, so that today power lies primarily in the hands of the commercial banks and stock market speculators, assisted by corrupt politicians. But as always in capitalism, also neoliberalism creates its own contradictions. In The Common Good (2003), Noam Chomsky explains that since ‘workers have become redundant’ the question arose ‘what do you do with them? First of all, you have to make sure they don’t notice that society is unfair and try to change that, and the best way to distract them is to get them to hate and fear one another.’ In the book How The World Works (1992), Chomsky argues that the rich and their bureaucrats ‘need something to frighten people with, to prevent them from paying attention to what’s really happening to them. You have to somehow engender fear and hatred, to channel the kind of rage — or even just discontent — that’s being aroused by social and economic conditions.’
By the early 1980s, it was clear that Communism wasn’t going to remain usable as a threat for much longer, so when the Reagan administration came in, they immediately focussed on ‘international terrorism.’ Right from the start, they used Libya as a punching bag.
Now that even in a religious nation like the US, the Judeo-Christian God is worshipped only on Sundays and holidays, and ideology in the West has been reduced to insatiable consumerism, the only thing left for the state to discipline and mobilize its citizens is the fear of The Other. And so today, the mass media and political decision-makers are once again spreading the age-old message that “The Russians are Coming!” Politics and journalism can nowadays instantly present an idea that was previously ridiculed as “unthinkable” as so “inevitable that it is hard to imagine it ever being otherwise.” As a result, in this case, barely two decades after the total collapse of the Soviet Union and the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact, the Western press and politicians were once again able to portray the Russian Federation as a dangerous “expansionist” superpower threatening Europe, even though Moscow spends 13 times less on the military-industrial complex than NATO. How this propaganda works was demonstrated, among others, by the charlatan Hubert Smeets, who is subsidized by the Dutch state. This former deputy editor-in-chief of NRC Handelsblad is a wholesaler of stigmatizing statements such as that it ‘is typically Russian, to always turn everything around.’ His resentment against the Russians led, among other things, to reactions such as this: ‘Russia is very good at presenting itself as an equal and democratic country.’ Naturally, the NATO propagandist and as such mouthpiece of the Western elite does not that Russia, as the largest country in the world, presents ‘itself’ as ‘equal’ to the US. Hubert’s incendiary style and argumentation are typical of the age-old anti-Russia reporting of corrupt Western mainstream propagandists. One should not forget that even Smeets knows that former president Jimmy Carter stated in July 2015 that the US 'is just an oligarchy, with unlimited political bribery being the essence of getting the nominations for president or electing the president. The same thing applies to governors U.S. senators and congress members. So now we've just seen a complete subversion of our political system as a payoff to major contributors, who want and expect and sometimes get favours for themselves after the election is over… The incumbents, Democrats and Republicans, look upon this unlimited money as a great benefit to themselves. Somebody who's already in Congress has a lot more to sell to an avid contributor than somebody who's just a challenger.
https://theintercept.com/2015/07/30/jimmy-carter-u-s-oligarchy-unlimited-political-bribery/
We hear this ‘straight from the horse’s mouth,’ from an insider who knows what he is talking about, and not from an outsider like the taxpayer-funded polder propagandist Smeets, who claims all sorts of things in an attempt to please his masters and prevent the flow of money from The Hague to dry up. Here too, we are dealing with the spread of kitsch in everyday life. As the Czech-born author Milan Kundera has pointed out: ‘one can imagine the future without the class struggle or without psychoanalysis, but not without the irresistible rise of ready-made ideas which, fed into computers and propagated by the mass media, carry the danger of soon becoming a force that crushes all original and individual thought and thus stifles the real essence of European culture of our time.’ Kundera warned in his work that we have thus entered the domain of the kitsch. ‘The word kitsch refers to the attitude of someone who wants to please as many people as possible at any price. To please, you have to conform to what everyone wants to hear, to serve ready-made ideas, in the language of beauty and emotion. He moves us to tears of self-compassion over the banalities we think and feel.’ Kundera concludes that ‘based on the compelling need to please and thus attract the attention of the largest possible audience, the aesthetics of the mass media have inevitably become that of kitsch, and as the mass media increasingly encompass and infiltrate our entire lives, kitsch becomes our daily aesthetics and morality.’ Western art had earlier undergone the same process. Smeets may find it absurd that ‘Russia’ presents itself as a ‘democratic country,’ but why does he at the same time consider the USA as a ‘democratic country,’ when an insider like former President Jimmy Carter calls his country an ‘oligarchy’ — where power lies in the hands of a small elite belonging to the rich privileged class. Moreover, for half a century now, around 45 per cent of American voters have not voted in presidential elections, while only one-third of voters turn out for midterm elections. It is indicative of the corruption of Western democracy that Hubert, as a ‘con man,’ was promised 294,000 euros in taxpayers’ money by the Dutch state to spread anti-Russian propaganda, and at the same time is allowed to spout his dangerous, tendentious views in the self-proclaimed ‘quality newspaper’ NRC Handelsblad, while an independent journalists are barred. I will give a random example of how this intellectual corruption works. On September 11, 2013, 10 years after the start of the disastrous American invasion of Iraq, The New York Times printed an open letter from President Putin under the headline ‘A Plea for Caution From Russia,’ in which the Russian president made a plea for ‘peaceful coexistence,’ to prevent humanity from destroying itself in a world full of weapons of mass destruction. Without the intervention of journalists and opinion-makers of the commercial press, Putin addressed the American public directly, explaining from Moscow that ‘recent events surrounding Syria have prompted me to speak directly to the American people and their political leaders. It is important to do so at a time of insufficient communication between our societies.'
Relations between us have passed through different stages. We stood against each other during the cold war. But we were also allies once and defeated the Nazis together. The universal international organization — the United Nations — was then established to prevent such devastation from ever happening again.
The United Nations’ founders understood that decisions affecting war and peace should happen only by consensus, and with America’s consent, the veto by the Security Council's permanent members was enshrined in the United Nations Charter. The profound wisdom of this has underpinned the stability of international relations for decades.
No one wants the United Nations to suffer the fate of the League of Nations, which collapsed because it lacked real leverage. This is possible if influential countries bypass the United Nations and take military action without the Security Council's authorization.
The potential strike by the United States against Syria, despite strong opposition from many countries and major political and religious leaders, including the pope, will result in more innocent victims and escalation, potentially spreading the conflict far beyond Syria’s borders. A strike would increase violence and unleash a new wave of terrorism. It could undermine multilateral efforts to resolve the Iranian nuclear problem and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and further destabilize the Middle East and North Africa. It could throw the entire system of international law and order out of balance.
Syria is not witnessing a battle for democracy, but an armed conflict between government and opposition in a multireligious country. There are few champions of democracy in Syria. But there are more than enough Qaeda fighters and extremists of all stripes battling the government. The United States State Department has designated Al Nusra Front and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, fighting with the opposition, as terrorist organizations. This internal conflict, fueled by foreign weapons supplied to the opposition, is one of the bloodiest in the world.
Mercenaries from Arab countries fighting there, and hundreds of militants from Western countries and even Russia, are an issue of our deep concern. Might they not return to our countries with experience acquired in Syria? After all, after fighting in Libya, extremists moved on to Mali. This threatens us all…
If we can avoid force against Syria, this will improve the atmosphere in international affairs and strengthen mutual trust. It will be our shared success and open the door to cooperation on other critical issues.
My working and personal relationship with President Obama is marked by growing trust. I appreciate this. I carefully studied his address to the nation on Tuesday. And I would rather disagree with a case he made on American exceptionalism, stating that the United States policy is ‘what makes America different. It’s what makes us exceptional.’ It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation. There are big countries and small countries, rich and poor, those with long democratic traditions and those still finding their way to democracy. Their policies differ, too. We are all different, but when we ask for the Lord’s blessings, we must not forget that God created us equal.
https://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/12/opinion/putin-plea-for-caution-from-russia-on-syria.html
The call for long-term peace, written at a time when even CNN was forced to ask ‘Is America on the path to permanent war?’ did not please the chronic Russia-haters at all. From their ‘liberal ideology’ they are prepared to let the world run the risk of political conflicts escalating into disastrous military conflicts. That mentality has been the reason that the US has been at war for 93 per cent of its existence. The Russian leadership knows what it means to have to fight a world war on its own soil; in the Second World War 27 million Russians, civilians and military, died, and a large part of the European part of the Soviet Union was destroyed. That is why President Putin ended his open letter to the devout Americans with the words that ‘we are all different, but when we ask God’s blessing, we must not forget that the Lord created us as equals.’ The fact that Putin addressed the American people and politicians directly without the intervention of the sensationalist Western mass media did not sit well with NRC Handelsblad with its unconditional support for NATO. The news from President Putin therefore first had to be filtered, ‘interpreted’, as it is called in the current jargon. The evening paper therefore appeared with an unsolicited commentary a day later, apparently out of fear that the average quality reader would be confused by so much Russian openness and therefore had to be assisted in a correct understanding by a notorious Russia-hater paid by the state. Under the headline: ‘Putin stunts with opinion piece in NYT - read the explanation of his letter here,’ the NRC continued with:
'A new stunt in the diplomatic soap opera surrounding the Russian arms control plan for Syria. Putin addresses the American people directly in an opinion piece written in The New York Times. Read here an explanation of Putin's letter by Hubert Smeets, foreign editor of NRC Handelsblad.
First, a brief update: Minister Kerry told a journalist on Monday that Assad could prevent an attack on his country if he surrendered all his chemical weapons within a week. It was a casual remark, but Russia turned it into a serious proposal. Support from the international community followed. Obama keeps the possibility of military intervention open, but — although a delaying tactic is feared — prefers a diplomatic response to the poison gas attack. The Russian response, that is.
Today, Kerry and his Russian colleague Lavrov are talking to each other. And today, Putin's letter lands on the doormats of almost two million Americans. Putin's letter contains everything the Russians think about the situation in Syria, stated Hubert Smeets, who was previously a correspondent for NRC/Handelsblad in Russia. With the letter, Putin makes it clear that Russia is participating on the world stage.
To prevent the readership from forming its own opinion, Hubert Smeets tried to manipulate reality on behalf of the NRC and the Western military-industrial complex. That this is a striking example of biased action journalism is also evident from the following formulation: ‘Minister Kerry told a journalist on Monday that Assad can prevent an attack on his country if he hands in all his chemical weapons within a week. It was a casual remark, but Russia turned it into a serious proposal.'
How did Smeets and his interviewer know for sure that it was ‘a casual remark,’ and not a staged play to give the US and Russia room to maneuver, to prevent an armed conflict between the superpowers. What do outsiders such as Smeets and Remie (a web editor at the time) know about what is happening behind the facade? Nothing, of course, because they lack contacts, as I discovered quickly. For the Russians, Smeets is nothing more than one of those countless Western trolls from a small country, which obeys Washington with an exemplary cadaver discipline.
It was therefore not surprising that President Obama immediately took the Russian proposal seriously. Minister Kerry's remark was not 'casual,' but a signal to the Russian politicians, as later turned out. But because the NRC audience must constantly be convinced that according to Smeets' masters, 'the Russians' are no good, he invented the nonsense he described far removed from reality. Smeets' following formulation also speaks volumes:
Putin presents himself as a defender of the UN
According to Smeets, another key sentence is in the fourth paragraph of the letter:
'With this, Putin wants to say that if the US continues and keeps intervening militarily in Syria without a UN mandate, the United Nations will come to an end. Russia will then also act outside the UN. So Putin threatens to blow up the UN.'
As early as 1922, the American media ideologue Walter Lippmann, highly regarded by the establishment, stated in his standard work Public Opinion that 'public opinions must be organized for the press if they are to be sound, not by the press... Without some form of censorship, propaganda in the strict sense of the word is impossible. To conduct propaganda there must be some barrier between the public and the event. Access to the real environment must be limited before anyone can create a pseudo-environment that he thinks is wise or desirable.
The American professor Stuart Ewen, specialized in Media Studies, pointed out in his book PR! A Social History of Spin (1996) points out that 'Throughout the pages of Public Opinion, Lippmann had asserted that human beings were, for the most part, inherently incapable of responding rationally to their world.'
The advocates of the establishment have the task of neutralising the tension that naturally exists between 'critical reason and public discussion.' The 'free press' should maintain the status quo by 'forging mental agreement among people who — if engaged in critical dialogue — would probably disagree.' To prevent the masses — in Lippmann's words, 'a bewildered herd' — from going berserk, the images provided by the media must be limited to eliciting the desired attitudes, since 'the real environment is altogether too big, too complex, and too fleeting for direct acquaintance.' The individual in a mass society is, according to Lippmann:
'not equipped to deal with so much subtlety, so much variety, so many permutations and combinations. And although we have to act in that environment, we have to reconstruct it in a simpler model before we can manage it.'
Manichaean opinion makers such as Hubert Smeets play a central role in this process. Still, he is only one of the countless Western opinionmakers.
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