Public ignorance and indifference about major issues let US authorities get away with mass murder and much more.
In a June 1950 commencement address, Boston University President Daniel Marsh said, “If the [television] craze continues…we are destined to have a nation of morons.”
Long before the television age, political commentator Walter Lippmann called the US public a “bewildered herd… their function [to be] spectators [not] participants” in affairs of state.
Industrialist Henry Ford believed if ordinary Americans “underst[ood] our banking and monetary system [there’d] be a revolution before tomorrow morning.”
Governance in the US, other Western societies, and most other nations, is all about serving privileged interests exclusively, exploiting most others to benefit the rich and powerful.
Know-nothing Americans indeed let both extremist right wings of the nation’s war party wage hot war and by other means on humanity—at home and abroad.
Jefferson called an educated citizenry “a vital requisite for our survival as a free people.”
Madison warned that “[a] popular government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy, or, perhaps both.”
Jack Kennedy said, “The ignorance of one [US] voter impairs the security of all.”
The power of media propaganda keeps most Americans uninformed in the dark about vital issues affecting their rights, welfare, lives and futures.
Iran and Venezuela are in the eye of the US storm, “maximum pressure” Trump regime war on both countries by other means raging, most Americans ignorant about what’s going on.
Establishment media support what demands denunciation, manipulating the public mind for powerful interests, filling it with rubbish, suppressing vital hard truths.
Days earlier, worldwide solidarity with Venezuela rallies were held in the country and other nations—supporting the Bolivarian Republic, denouncing the Trump regime’s war by other means on its people, notably its economic blockade.
Millions of Venezuelans are signing a petition against it as part of a #No More Trump global mobilization.
Communication Minister Jorge Rodriguez said in the next 30 days through September 10, “people will sign a letter of rejection of the genocidal, racist, xenophobe” Trump.
Results will be sent to UN Secretary General Guterres, a symbolic gesture to a figure installed by the US to serve its interests.
US establishment media ignored mass pro-Bolivarian rallies and the petition drive—supporting the Trump regime’s war on Venezuela by other means.
Last May, media watchdog Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) reported that “international corporate media have long displayed a peculiar creativity with the facts in their Venezuela reporting, to the point that coverage of the nation’s crisis has become perhaps the world’s most lucrative fictional genre.”
Anti-Bolivarian social democracy propaganda war rages. Last week, establishment media falsely called Venezuela the “cocaine capital of the world.”
Earlier I wrote about the myth of a Venezuelan cocaine super-highway to the US, falsely accusing high-level Bolivarian officials of involvement in what they’re combatting.
Minister of Industries and National Production Tareck El Aissami explained that when he “headed the public security corps of my country, in 2008-2012, our fight against drug cartels achieved the greatest progress in our history and in the western hemisphere, both in terms of the transnational drug trafficking business and their logistics structures,” adding, “During those years, the Venezuelan anti-drug enforcement authorities under my leadership captured, arrested and brought 102 heads of criminal drug trafficking organizations not only to the Venezuelan justice but also to the justice of other countries where they were wanted.”
Venezuela is the leading Latin American nation in combatting the spread of illicit drugs. Falsely claiming its officials are trafficking in them by the Trump regime and major media is part of propaganda war on the country.
Support by Venezuela’s military for Bolivarian governance foiled attempts by Bush/Cheney, Obama and Trump to replace its authorities with US-controlled puppet rule.
Since establishment of the Bolivarian Republic, the NYT has waged propaganda war on its governance, supporting the US plot to return the country to client state status.
Its latest propaganda piece falsely claimed “Maduro [is] crack[ing] down on his own military… to retain power”—a Big Lie.
Further disinformation followed, falsely claiming “a majority of Venezuelans (are) left without sufficient food…”
Maduro’s Local Provision and Production Committees (CLAPs) program distributes subsidized food to around six million Venezuelan families in need, around two-thirds of the population, part of the nation’s participatory social democracy—an inconvenient fact the Times ignored.
It also falsely claimed Venezuelan “security forces [staged] at least five attempts to overthrow or assassinate the president.”
Indeed, numerous attempts were made to kill Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro. Obama succeeded in eliminating Chavez. Maduro survived so far.
The plots originated in Washington by three regimes, CIA dirty hands likely all over them—assassinations of foreign leaders and other key officials a longtime agency practice, another inconvenient fact the Times ignored.
Chavez and now Maduro were and continue to be bombarded with false accusations by hardline US officials, the Times, and other establishment media—while ignoring US high crimes of war and against humanity worldwide.
Without major media support for their imperial rage, hostile policies of US regimes wouldn’t get out of the starting gate.
Venezuela, Iran, China, Russia, Syria, and other nations are targeted by the US for their sovereign independence—part of its aim to rule the world and control its resources.
What’s most important to explain to the US public, the Times and other establishment media suppress facts—substituting disinformation, Big Lies, and fake news instead.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.” Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.
