Manipulation for the Masses

Posted by Matthew Crouch at 12:03

It seems I listen to a lot of the BBC World Service Radio perhaps too much but I have noticed a big shift in the mentality of its reports and analysis for the worse. Lately there has not been much by way of reports and certainly no analysis – it has been all “power of suggestion” used to tell the masses what to think… it’s getting infected by the unstoppable CNN effect. Mass manipulation as it were or shall we say Manipulation for the Masses? Not so long ago there was a big shake up at the BBC offices and one man was sacked while others were reported to have protested, I suppose this current ambiance of stupidity is the result of that loss. There was a time back when I was stuck in Ohio as a kid during the Thatcher years when I would stay up late just to listen to the BBC World Report on NPR (National Public Radio) local radio broadcast after midnight so no one in America’s interior would know what was really happening in the rest of the world. It was such a shock in those days to listen to the voice of Britain to hear about the rest of the world in unheard of terms. Back then none of the American news services would report or analyze like that. Well there won’t be any young coming of age and awareness to the rest of the world from Middle American with the help of the BBC’s World Service radio now for that can’t happen with the new CNN version of the BBC. Another success of the Bush I, Bush II (administration et al), Blair, Berlusconi, Murdock regime the planet is held under.

One such BBC example was yesterday in yet another tired report about the London bomb the only news about that was how exhausted and over worked and trying the hardest they can those good old London police are (sorry for the Yoda talk but I just saw Star Wars III). Excuse me but when did anyone ever have sympathy for a police officer? Talk about Power of Suggestion as a tactic for manipulating the masses. Tell the commuters not to mind one more infringement on their precious liberty because of terrorists. Don’t mind that there aren’t enough trains, tracks, to say nothing of seats or effective timetables in this day and age of the automobile! Just feel sorry for that over worked heroic policeman searching your bag. There are so many bags to search you know. Whatever happened to the days when on BBC TV (which has always been a bit more sensational than the stark Radio World Report) when on the YOUNG ONES the five star (on his forehead no less) punkish Adrian Edmonson character Vyvyan was like in every breath making fun of British Police and their ineptitude. Perhaps the London tube bombing was just more evidence of commuter frustration as Britain has never been able to, since Thatcher, get any of their trains to run on time or in any proper order. Privatization has its consequences. It's just much easier to Wag the Dog (re-watch the movie on DVD!) with reports about the CIA invention called “Al Qaeda” – it is pure mythology. I for one think there is no such thing as Al Qaeda “Networks”, “Links” or “Strongholds” or for that matter “Insurgencies in Iraq”. My lawd if the Americans were for corporatist energy reasons occupying Britain the BBC World Service Radio would not be referring to angry crowds of rock throwing Britishers as Insurgents. It is a bit rich when the nation that once carved up the part of the world it now demonizes as the Middle East with its own broadcasting corporation instead of trying to heal the region today.

When will a media report ever report on what it must be like to be on the other end of the occupation of Iraq? I mean “we are not all stupid people” (to quote Edina from Absolutely Fabulous regarding her humorous idea of a “stupidity tax”) and the BBC’s World Service was the last refuge in the Anglophone media for anyone who was slightly capable of thinking for themselves. As Eds said when she was in court ranting ““I know you know” - it is no accident that education in the Anglophone world has nose dived considerably since the Viet Nam war years for even that was certainly a planned tactical maneuver for manipulating the masses. First get the masses dumbed down then you can tell them what to think and believe. (Plus taxes really are in this day and age only for the stupid masses). It just takes patience and time. Look at this history of the careers of the henchmen now working for the father and son tag team of the Bush I and II administrations and see how far back they have had their fingers in the pot of the American government – these are the henchmen (including those patsy’s the high colonic Powell and that nasty bleeding rectal condyloma Rice – woo hoo freedom of speech – use it or loose it - was never so thrilling than to write like this!) who made this new world order of Ignorance. Don’t even get me started on Humpsvelds rump! These are the criminal horsemen of the apocalypse of ignorance and Blair is that whining accomplice of that George Michael poodle scratching at the door to be let out or worse caught on your pants leg hopping up and down... Just like Thatcher returned Britain back to the real Victorian Values of poor to non existent Health care, back to “work houses” now serving up greasy fast food for the poor, back to only education for an elite, while single-handedly undoing the Victorian made idea of transportation so has the Administration of America by the Bush family and their corporatitst henchman brought about a North American Dark Age that will take generations to recover from even if education was restored with the next left leaning enlightened administration.

What if history was a lie brought to you by the successful men of Capitalism? Perhaps everything is, as Moby’s unforgettable CD was titled, wrong? What if Bin Laden and his magnificent beard were a creation brought to you by the special branch wing of the CIA? What if Saddam Hussein was a Reagan invention? What if Iraq had not one drop of oil? Why is George Bush senior so closely linked to the CIA? How is it that the puppet of a president George Bush junior has a grandfather so closely linked to corporate investments with Nazi Germany? How is it that the First Lady of America killed someone while driving an automobile and has (passively) earned the titled First “Lady”? Why do the American’s want a family such as this running a land with such pervasive control around the world? What kind of world has been made for the masses and why? Why are the few people with such control on planet earth so afraid when we the masses are not? But the real question is why there is no one protesting to say nothing of mass protest? Speaking of Hitler there was a time when that Mr. Hitler spoke of the Queen of England being the most dangerous woman in Europe. It seems almost quaint now that tidbit of Euro-gossip from history. Applied to today’s reality of the multi-national corporate version of the Ministry of lies and Propagation to manipulate the masses perhaps the BBC is the new most dangerous entity and electronic Queen Bee in today’s Europe. This is all the new Music for the Masses otherwise known as manufacturing fear and totally unlike anything produced by that de groovy electronic band called Depeche Mode.

For all of this good for me cathartic ranting I do know that whenever I travel and I must use the services of my American Embassy – every visit reminds me that as an American citizen I am a nobody because I am not representing a corporations financial interests when I arrive at my country’s doorstep abroad in need of a basic tax payers service. I do know that whenever I cross borders into the Anglophone world that the passage is being squeezed tighter and more uncomfortable not because of any real threat of terrorists abroad but because of lies and misinformation brought about by that Siren of a propagandists mouthpiece known as broadcast media. Perhaps selfish political aims at controlling the masses are creating sinister figures like Bin Laden and the Al Qaeda Network to blame new technological inconveniences which will be applied to the very people who make up the masses. Perhaps it is this very incessant telling of lies to the listening and watching public disguised as news that is creating tomorrow’s ghosts and demons. Rest assured those very merchants of fear are already manufacturing what we the masses will need to buy to protect ourselves from the very consequences of the very fear they sold us in the first place. These henchmen of the apocalypse and their families have secured their dynastic place of comfort and luxury in history while resting on the backs of people like you and me who make up the small inconsequential pieces of what they refer to without a thought or care as the masses.