Propaganda and Class Structure
Michael Parenti, 1988
excerpted from the book
Stenographers to Power
media and propaganda
David Barsamian interviews
Common Courage Press, 1992,
paper
p43
MP: I would define propaganda as the mobilization of information
and arguments with the intent to bring people to a particular
viewpoint. In that sense there could be false and deceptive propaganda,
and there could be propaganda that has a real educational value.
You can after all inform people and mobilize them toward truth.
In the United States the word "propaganda" is unrelievedly
negative. In certain other countries, propaganda has a more neutral
implication.
p44
MP: The first premise of propaganda in the United States today
is at doesn't exist, that there is no propaganda from the established
media and from the government and that we have only "information."
Propaganda is something that other people do. That's reflected
in that definition of a doctrine. And nobody in the United States
says they're selling or pushing a doctrine; they all say they're
just reporting it like it is. That's the first premise: the denial
that there is propaganda. The second quality of propaganda in
the United States is that it operates all the time and its major
dedication is to avoid any kind of confrontation regarding class
struggle in the United States. It denies any recognition that
there is exploitation of labor, that the rich exploit the poor,
that we exploit the third world, etc. We've now reached the point
where you can talk about racism and sexism, but you cannot really
talk about class power in America, and if you do, you are said
to be engaging in propaganda.
p46
It's no secret. The Council on Foreign Relations was formed in
1922 by John D. Rockefeller, Sr., Nelson Aldridge and by J.P.
Morgan. It's a council whose personnel are drawn from the corporate
elite, with some college presidents, academics, news media people,
and political leaders thrown in. The Council on Foreign Relations,
the Committee on Economic Development, the Trilateral Commission
are all organizations that have been formed, financed and staffed
by these corporate elites. They provide the personnel who then
serve in various administrations. The Council on Foreign Relations
has placed its members as Secretary of the Treasury, Secretary
of State or Secretary of Defense in every administration, whether
its Republican or Democratic.
Jimmy Carter had 12 members of the Trilateral
Commission in his cabinet, including himself and Walter Mondale.
The Trilateral Commission was started by David Rockefeller. These
elites have a capacity to place their members in the top decision-making
positions unequalled by any other interest group in America. There's
no labor union, no farmers' group, no teachers' group, there's
no pro-abortion or anti-abortion group that could hope to place
their leaders the way these people do. Their role is not to pursue
the interests of any one particular corporation. Their role in
these councils is to look at what are the common interests of
all the various multinational corporations, what is the common
interest, what is the common interest of the financial class.
p47
MP: You can't talk about these kinds of things in the mainstream
media because the media are owned by the very same people who
staff these councils and staff our top decision-making positions.
Capitalism is not only an economic system, it's an entire social
order. Its function is not just to produce cars and refrigerators
and make a profit for its owners. It also produces a whole communication
universe, a symbolic field, a culture, a control over various
social institutions like universities, museums and churches. Those
of us who have a view which is anti-capitalist are frozen out,
or we are consigned to small publications. You can say, well,
you're consigned to small publications because you don't have
that much to say or people don't care about what you're saying.
It's not true. People would be interested in our message if they'd
get a chance to hear it. And in any case, why not give them a
chance to reject it? Why don't we get a chance to get on networks?
Why don't we get the syndicated columns that appear in 300 newspapers?
Why don't we get space in the mass-circulation magazines, in Time
and Newsweek? Why don't we get commentaries on ABC, NBC, CBS?
Why don't we get on Nightline?
p49
MP: There will be times when dissident perspectives can come through
because the ideological control isn't all that efficient. Somebody
might get something in, but only once. Take, for example, the
time Bill Moyers described imperialism in Guatemala. He talked
about how a democratically elected government under Jacobo Arbenz
in 1954 was overthrown by the CIA with the instigation of the
multinationals in a country where 2 percent of the population
own 80 percent of the wealth and how today in Guatemala there's
no occupational safety controls, no labor unions, no minimum wage,
and much misery and poverty. He was able to say that in his report
on Central America once. You never heard it again. So occasionally
little things like that will come in.
Also, there's a pressure on owners and
publishers that they sometimes have to grant their news organizations
some modicum of independence. The news organizations themselves,
to be able to exercise their class control over the populace,
also have to sell; they have to create a product every day called
"the news." It's a highly processed manufactured product,
and they have to sell it to people. To sell it, it has to have
some credibility. To be able to exercise control you have to have
credibility. To have credibility you have to sometimes deal with
the real world. You can't say things like "We have nothing
to do with what's going on in Nicaragua," because everybody
knows we do. You can't say things like, "There's no pollution
problem." For the most part the media has to deal with some
of those issues, and when it does, it raises and introduces troublesome
questions. That then incurs the irritation of the right wing or
leaders like Ronald Reagan, who say, "why the hell do we
have to print that stuff"?
If the right wing had its way, the media
would be nothing but promo sheets for the ruling class: a lot
of July 4th celebration-type stories and anti-communist horror
stories and stories about the wonders of our economy and our system.
By the way, a lot of newspapers in this country are little more
than that. To the extent that some things do get through at times,
this actually enhances the legitimacy of the media. I don't think
the ruling classes appreciate what a terrific job the news media
do in this country. You have people thinking our media are independent.
When the right wing attacks them, they can portray themselves
as independent. When the government complains about their stories,
this puffs them up and gives them the illusion of independence.
p54
MP: The disinformation stories wouldn't go anywhere if it wasn't
for the U. S. press obligingly portraying them. We hear about
the occasions when there are differences between the mainstream
media and the government. What we don't hear about are the ...
95 percent of occasions where the mainstream media faithfully
propagate these disinformation stories which are often planted
by the CIA, sometimes planted abroad in newspapers that they may
own or that are friendly to them ...
p55
MP: My experience is that when I'm on alternative radio, I get
a chance to finish whole sentences and paragraphs. When I'm on
mainstream radio and TV (I've done crossfire twice, national TV
shows), the format is to have me on with at least two opponents
who then interrupt and cut in, scoff at what I have to say, quickly
label me a Leninist or Marxist or whatever, and send certain cues
out to their audience that "We've got a kook on our hands
here who's got a personal axe to grind and who's discontent because
we're not doing everything the way he wants it done." My
view is I don't want any society to do everything the way I want
it, I'd be worried about a society like that. But I'd like my
perspective, which is not personal to me, but which is represented
by millions of other people who organize and struggle, I'd like
that perspective to be represented.
p56
MP: I think alternative media is our only hope, media like community
radio stations like KGNU, and the Guardian and Monthly Review,
People's Daily World, In These Times, The Nation, The Progressive,
Z and other alternative publications. The trouble is that those
with class power, those with lots of wealth, can reach tens of
millions of people. Those of us with very little wealth can reach
only a small audience market. Because of our viewpoint we can't
attract much advertising. The advertisers are all part of the
business class. So we have little publications with limited circulation
teetering on the edge of insolvency. Most Americans have never
heard of The Nation, which is by the way only a liberal magazine.
That magazine has been publishing for 120 years, yet they haven't
heard of it. There are more people in America today who have heard
of and read USA Today than have read The Nation, and USA Today
has been around for about seven or eight years. That's because
Gannett can spend hundreds of millions of dollars to put their
rag up on satellite and get instant distribution. Within a couple
of years USA Today becomes the third-largest selling newspaper
in the country. It's a bubble-gum newspaper, a newspaper of the
television age with seven different colors, with stories rarely
longer than 500 words. So it's not that demand creates supply,
it's that supply creates demand. People could say, "Well,
you on the left don't sell much because nobody's interested in
your message." It's not true. The public doesn't even know
we exist and they've never heard our message.
The reason they don't hear us is that
we don't have the hundreds of millions of dollars to reach those
mass markets. Ideas don't float around in space. Ideas are mediated
through material forces. All human activity has a material base.
That's the essence of Marxism. It's not economic determinism,
although Marxists don't rule out economic determinism. The essence
of historical materialism is simply that all human activity has
a material base, and that material base is an ultimate determining
force in the development of human activity. Even the holy guru
who says material things mean nothing, spiritual things mean everything,
even he has to eat, and he is busy getting money from his followers.
Likewise with the dissemination of ideas. Given our limited material
resources, the alternative media reach limited audiences, but
we should keep at it.
p57
MP: The left is a catch-all term to mean people who do everything
from opposing the business abuse of the environment to opposing
the intervention in Central America to wanting the end of the
Cold War, and support cuts in military budgets. To people like
myself who want the end of multinational corporate capitalism
itself and want democratic socialism, I think the left is alive
and well. I have never believed we have been in a conservative
mood, I believe people voted for Ronald Reagan because the economy
was in such a mess and they were worried about their buying power.
They were facing double-digit inflation and 16 percent interest
rates, and the Republicans were right on that. They have a very
strong appeal to the middle class on that issue. That is, conservatives
are able to take the abuses of the system-which cause people to
be insecure-and use that to evoke a conservative response from
them.
p58
I think alternative media is our only hope, media like community
radio stations like KGNU, and the Guardian and Monthly Review,
People's Daily World, In These Times, The Nation, The Progressive,
Z and other alternative publications. The trouble is that those
with class power, those with lots of wealth, can reach tens of
millions of people. Those of us with very little wealth can reach
only a small audience market. Because of our viewpoint we can't
attract much advertising. The advertisers are all part of the
business class. So we have little publications with limited circulation
teetering on the edge of insolvency. Most Americans have never
heard of The Nation, which is by the way only a liberal magazine.
That magazine has been publishing for 120 years, yet they haven't
heard of it. There are more people in America today who have heard
of and read USA Today than have read The Nation, and USA Today
has been around for about seven or eight years. That's because
Gannett can spend hundreds of millions of dollars to put their
rag up on satellite and get instant distribution. Within a couple
of years USA Today becomes the third-largest selling newspaper
in the country. It's a bubble-gum newspaper, a newspaper of the
television age with seven different colors, with stories rarely
longer than 500 words. So it's not that demand creates supply,
it's that supply creates demand. People could say, "Well,
you on the left don't sell much because nobody's interested in
your message." It's not true. The public doesn't even know
we exist and they've never heard our message.
The reason they don't hear us is that
we don't have the hundreds of millions of dollars to reach those
mass markets. Ideas don't float around in space. Ideas are mediated
through material forces. All human activity has a material base.
That's the essence of Marxism. It's not economic determinism,
although Marxists don't rule out economic determinism. The essence
of historical materialism is simply that all human activity has
a material base, and that material base is an ultimate determining
force in the development of human activity. Even the holy guru
who says material things mean nothing, spiritual things mean everything,
even he has to eat, and he is busy getting money from his followers.
Likewise with the dissemination of ideas. Given our limited material
resources, the alternative media reach limited audiences, but
we should keep at it.
The left is a catch-all term to mean people
who do everything from opposing the business abuse of the environment
to opposing the intervention in Central America to wanting the
end of the Cold War, and support cuts in military budgets. To
people like myself who want the end of multinational corporate
capitalism itself and want democratic socialism, I think the left
is alive and well. I have never believed we have been in a conservative
mood, I believe people voted for Ronald Reagan because the economy
was in such a mess and they were worried about their buying power.
They were facing double-digit inflation and 16 percent interest
rates, and the Republicans were right on that. They have a very
strong appeal to the middle class on that issue. That is, conservatives
are able to take the abuses of the system-which cause people to
be insecure-and use that to evoke a conservative response from
them.
p 58
MP: The same people who are bringing us a militaristic and imperialist
Israel are bringing us the first-strike and Star Wars and the
escalation of nuclear weapons. They're the same people who are
bringing us the dope inflow into the inner cities, the collaboration
with the drug racketeers, the war in Central America. It's all
connected. That's why you have to move from a liberal complaint
to a radical analysis and see that you're dealing with class issues
here and make a class analysis.
p59
MP: [The ruling elites] know who their enemies are, and their
enemies are the people, the people at home and the people abroad.
Their enemies are anybody who wants more social justice, anybody
who wants to use the surplus value of society for social needs
rather than for individual class greed, that's their enemy.
Stenographers
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