Controlled Mass Media
One of the hallmarks of a fascist state is controlled mass media. In totalitarian states this becomes comical. Supposedly, Kim Jung Un played an entire round of golf and had a hole in one on every hole. Supposedly, he doesn’t ever go to the bathroom. These were ridiculous claims and most people with a pulse can simply set it aside as ludicrous. Yet, if you don’t have access to the internet or to independent news sources you will probably believe a lot of it. Whether the dictator of North Korea is a great golfer or not really doesn’t matter. However, if we look at what is going on in Russia and Ukraine then it becomes deadly serious. Vladimir Putin is apparently taking on Nazism. For 90 percent of the world this notion is ridiculous. It is the ten percent that aren’t getting access to straight news that don’t understand the truth.
People often focus on mass media and the problems with mass media, but we have a bigger problem with smaller media. Print news is a dying business. There are tons of reasons for that. For one, they just have not managed to find a way to maximize new media sources like the internet to their advantage. Moreover, there were some bad business practices that they couldn’t correct. The Houston Chronicle for years could not consistently get us a paper. I’m not sure why. We moved a few different times and had different distributors, but the problem was the same. We subscribed to the Sunday New York Times and the Washington Post, but they couldn’t get that to us either.
We dealt with customer service and they didn’t seem to care until we threatened to unsubscribe. Finally, we did. In addition to the Chronicle there were tons of smaller newspapers that would cover local events. Sometimes it was local sports. Sometimes they were school board meetings and other smaller organizations. This has been noted before. The world really doesn’t change much on top. People can watch C-SPAN and the mass media outlets will always send people to Washington to cover what’s going on. The same is likely true of Austin and other statehouses. When the Chronicle and other papers shut down it means that no one is going to those school board meetings. When no one is there to watch then suddenly almost anything is possible. After all, who is there to stop them?
This is how things happen. It rarely ever starts off big. It usually starts with the grass roots. Small communities rail against critical race theory. Small communities call for the banning of certain books. Small communities call for curriculum to be changed to meet their worldview. When there is no one there to cover it then there aren’t enough people that will know what they are doing. You get the small minority and the small minority is almost always skewed one way or another. So, maybe it isn’t primarily a mass media problem. Maybe it is a local media problem. Democracy dies in darkness.
The credulity is the problem.
1Exactly! And this is how Corporate Fascism, aka Republicanism (a poisonous blend of White supremacy, Christian Nationalism and Corporate greed) laid out the Powell Memo blueprint for complete control and power 50 years ago by controlling the Main Stream Media etc, Education and the Courts. It was a call to arms, a guide to destroying Liberalism. A jihad for domestic extremists to overthrow our Democracy.
‘The memo that broke American politics, by
Robert Reich’ video included
https://www.rawstory.com/lewis-powell/
How the Corporate Takeover of American Politics Began | Robert Reich
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbbgfnpJN9w
‘The Scheme 1: The Powell Memo’
https://www.whitehouse.senate.gov/news/speeches/the-scheme-1-the-powell-memo
and oldies but goodies …
‘Thom Hartmann: Time to Overthrow Our Rulers’
https://www.alternet.org/2018/01/time-overthrow-kings
“Powell’s agenda included getting wealthy conservatives to set up professorships, setting up institutes on and off campus where intellectuals would write books from a conservative business perspective, and setting up think tanks. He outlined the whole thing in 1970. They set up the Heritage Foundation in 1973, and the Manhattan Institute after that. [There are many others, including the American Enterprise Institute and the Hoover Institute at Stanford, which date from the 1940s.]
And now, as the New York Times Magazine quoted Paul Weyrich, who started the Heritage Foundation, they have 1,500 conservative radio talk show hosts. They have a huge, very good operation”
https://newsarchive.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2003/10/27_lakoff.shtml
” Republican conservatives have constructed a vast and effective communication system, with think tanks, framing experts, training institutes, a system of trained speakers, vast holdings of media, and booking agents. Eighty percent of the talking heads on TV are conservatives. Talk matters because language heard over and over changes brains. ”
2https://www.huffpost.com/entry/what-conservatives-really_b_825504
Good piece, Nick, and good post, lex. Besides the internet misinformation network, I suspect smaller (and larger) newspapers in red areas have extreme pressure to go along with the right wing narrative in order to have any customers or advertisers. It’s been coming for decades as pointed out, but it’s been a perfect storm in the last 6 years or so. All of this has helped elevate the positions of people like MTG. Will be interesting to see what happens in the Georgia election investigation and indictments.
3Amazing how TFFG and Kim Jung Un are almost mirror images of one another.
Excellent take lex.
Steve, around here the local RW rag has been leading the charge, the area used to vote with a usual D majority [heavy Hispanic pop]. The rag has been wiping away for decades and it’s worked, raving RWNJs from one end of the county to the other, voting 75-80%+ Rethug now.
Abbutt’s a master at the game.
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Temp’s approaching 95F degrees now [on my calibrated instruments], we’re gonna at least tickle 100effingF degrees by 4-5PM peak…
Been inching up for a week, and will continue through the NOAA long range forecast period.
The whole ‘winter’s’ average daily temperatures have been 5-15+ degrees higher than the historical readings.
Ain’t no such thing as ‘global warming’ though. Just assk a local…
4Nick,
Your last paragraph sums up exactly what is happening the primarily rural county I live in. It started with protests of mask mandates and school closures over Covid and has resulted in a county run by right wing extremists. Little or no media coverage of these people until they started wielding their power. This will serve as a template to take over in rural counties across the country.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/02/21/michigan-christian-nationalists-00083251
5Thanks Steve from Beaverton and Sandridge! Nick always gets me thinkin. Thanks for link Mark!
6What we also need is a class on “How is Fascism evolving in 21st Century America?”, “What are the similarities between The Powell Memo and Fascism?”, and ” Extremism, Terrorism and Fascism: Comparisons and Contrasts”.
Have you read The Brainwashing of My Dad by Jen Senko?
7Controlled? Yes. Mass? Depends on which mass, the controlling few or the deplorables at which they aim their fascist propaganda. Media? Now you have us rolling with irony, Nick. We pulled the plug on cable TV before TFG rode down his gilded escalator. If we want the truth on daily events, we tune into the late-night comedians’ monologues. Supplement that with reading at the WMDBS and other reliable sites where truth and facts are the daily diet. Thanks, Ms. JJ Nick. Keep on keeping on with the good fight.
Linda @7 thank you for your reading suggestion. A suitable Family Reunion toast as we thank our luck that the “Dad” in the book title is none of our family members.
8If you haven’t seen the attached video of Stephen Colbert, it’s pretty good. He covers a lot of ground including Fox News, Putin and my favorite- Qevin Mccarthy. He has a picture of him which he says shows the “first successful transplant of an (assehole) to mouth.” I have to admit that’s my sense of humor. The video is in the attached-
9https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/2/22/2154340/-Colbert-on-McCarthy-Carlson-and-Fox?detail=emaildkre&pm_source=DKRE&pm_medium=email
And I just heard that the congress of Vogans are trying to FIX the infernalnet again!!!!!
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