Careful information control

While my newshound buddies who spend their days reading see the Safeway shooting in Arizona as clear evidence that violent rhetoric from the right is a proximate cause -- an early chicken coming home to roost -- intelligent high school students around the country barely know of the incident, much less the analysis.

Careful information control in the imperial homeland has triumphed again.

As just one example among many, the Christian Science Monitor carefully distanced itself from making the kind of connection that bloggers and columnists all over the world have made, headlining: Nihilism or [former governor of Alaska]: What motivated Arizona shooting suspect? According to the CSM, the jury is still out.

In a related story about a watered down ammunition control bill being introduced quickly in Congress, they reported:

The National Rifle Association has posted news articles on its web site about the planned legislation focused on high-capacity clips, but has yet to respond specifically to the plans. When asked for a response, an NRA media liaison issued the same statement the organization has been putting out since the Tucson shootings: "At this time anything other than prayers for the victims and their families would be inappropriate."

At any other time -- such as a day in which 850 children were dying in Afghanistan, many from starvation -- it would be ok for the NRA to lobby Congress against the kind of gun control that most societies on our planet find to be prudent. Because violence in the U.S. and violent occupation of Afghanistan are UNRELATED! How dare I even include them in the same paragraph?

Manufactured consent works like this:

1) Insist that analysts who see connections are delusional. For example, insist that spending less by closing schools and cutting programs serving the mentally retarded elderly has nothing to do with citizens paying $10,000+ per household to occupy Iraq and Afghanistan for decades.

2) Flood the airwaves with celebrity gossip and ads for consumer goods. Make sure that thoughtful analysis of reported actual events is marginalized, and seems dull and tedious by comparison. Result: a citizenry whose young people often cannot identify their own country or most other countries on a map. Who, when asked where they are able to find news about foreign affairs, they may cite the headline feed on their AOL or Google web portal. But most will shrug and say, "Nowhere, really."

3) Employ highly paid hacks to publish sensational material -- such as a photo of a woman mutilated in the head by an abusive husband -- in prominent placements, with headlines advertising faux connections between violent occupation of a country and "protecting" its women from violence.

4) Embed journalists with the military. 'Nuff said.

5) Vilify and violently repress those engaged in signficant acts of bringing the truth of events to the public. Create sensational smears about them to distract the few members of the mass media consuming public who are aware of their efforts.

6) Tell a big lie e.g. "The war on terror makes the U.S. safer, because if we don't fight them (sic) over there, we will have to fight them over here." Keep telling it, loudly, over and over and over again.

Then, when the occasional crazed loner with way too much firepower lashes out at government officials, say it has nothing to do with politics. Say he was nuts and everyone knew it. It's a mental health issue. Say he was "left wing, quite liberal."

Make sure to use the word "liberal" to remind people of threatening statements online, like this one from Pete "The Carpenter" Harring, transition team chief for Maine's new Tea Party governor:

Liberals are like Slinkies...they're really good for nothing...But they still bring a smile to your face when you push them down a flight of stairs.

Whip up some more fear so that citizens clutch their firearms ever closer to their chests. Say the solution is not fewer guns, but more guns.

Make sure to use the incident to keep people afraid, very afraid.

Help people look away. For example, put the President on Faux News television during the Super Bowl. Generate a ton of fake news reporting the impending event.

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NV note of the day:
According to studies, those practicing non-violent action report a reduction of fear as a side effect.

If people are to be successful in liberating themselves from a regime that rules by fear, they must understand the methods and techniques to overcome its adverse effects. To this end, knowledge, discipline, and careful planning have proven to be effective.

Source: ON STRATEGIC NONVIOLENT CONFLICT: THINKING ABOUT THE FUNDAMENTALS (Helvey, 2004).