“The pen is mightier than the sword.” Many people learn this aphorism as children, but few are given the chance to ponder its full implications. In times of “crisis”, in other words, when the power structure is most vulnerable, authors who expose the weakness or seek to bring about the destruction of the current structure are targeted by the State for repression. There are many instances in history when this has occurred, and this tactic still occurs today, such as the imprisonment of the Tarnac 9 based on their role in producing “The Coming Inssurection” by the French government, or the forced redaction of “Operation Dark Heart” by the American government.
It is usually enough in our times, however, for corporate media to drown out any voices of dissent by simply having their versions of reality disseminated everywhere. Cable news channels have replaced ESPN and Muzak in many establishments as entertainment. This gives the illusion of an informed public, when in reality all that comes through the speaker is disinformation. MSNBC and FOX News serve the same class interests, but in different ways. Both seek to convince the public that voting for the Republicans or the Democrats will end the rapid degradation of their living conditions. Glenn Beck and Keith Olbermann portray themselves as the voice of the common man, speaking truth to the power of the global elite. It doesn’t take too much consideration to recognize the absurdity of their posturing.
The corporate media entities may side with different parts of the oligarchy, because like the nobility of old, it is never united except when there is a direct threat to its existence. But the corporate media outlets will always serve the interests of the upper class, who own them and the advertisers that keep them running. The Tea Party movement is the newest social movement in America to gain traction, but the movement has from its inception been shaped by the agendas of corporate media. This has become more obvious now that FOX News is trying to direct the anti-establishment anger of the movement toward electing Republican candidates who do not promise to stray at all from the traditional GOP platform, an irony that is largely lost on its participants.
The Tea Partiers, though they may have different political ideas from each other, mostly have political philosophies that when articulated obviously oppose this return to the politics of the previous decade. That’s why it was necessary for Glenn Beck’s rally to be all form and no content. Rather than take a stand for any particular platform, he gave a flowery speech about patriotism and the abstractions of freedom, and most of all, “taking our country back”. However, the country already belongs to multi-millionaires like him.
Because elections in the United States are almost always won based on who was able to afford to run the most media advertisements, the recent Supreme Court decision of Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission is a good guarantee that politicians seek to win elections will have to vote even more in line with the needs of the corporate class than they previously did. The Supreme Court has ruled that corporations are people, and that their money is free speech which must not be restricted. Unfortunately, the results of this will most likely be that such “speech” is the only that will be heard by the so-called representatives of government.
It’s not just that the current power structure treats corporations as people. They are the only entities treated as people. To the oligarchy, the masses of the general public are referred to as “human capital”, “consumers” or “voters”, all three of which in the current discourse betray an attitude of dehumanization, as though we are merely organic machines who are used to produce the ends required by the corporate class.
It will then become more necessary, to maintain the well-being of the people, to find new ways to distribute non-corporate media, in order to defend this erosion of our humanity. We must understand the old aphorism for what it really means: effective means of providing information (or disinformation, in the case of those who wish to obscure the reality) are weapons of war. The State will only tolerate “free speech” insofar as it is harmless to the interests of the power structure. As I’ve demonstrated, in our current condition there is often no need for repression, as it often very easy just to drown out any voice which articulates anything important. However, should we be successful in creating systems of information (in whatever form that may take) which can lead to genuine and popular oppositional movements led by and in the interests of the disenfranchised, we can expect to receive the full brunt of the State’s repression.
This is a risk which must be taken. Power and wealth have become increasingly concentrated in the hands of a small group over the last twenty years, and there is no indication that the disparity will do anything but grow in the next twenty years, should we not find some avenues for meaningful resistance. The drive, ingenuity and optimism of the American worker have been used quite effectively by the corporate class and their lackeys in the seats of government to lower our quality of life and force us to accept longer hours for less benefit. This same drive, ingenuity and optimism can and must be turned around against the power structure so that we are no longer forced to become agents of our own destruction.
Good introduction to a much needed discussion!