{"id":2400,"date":"2011-03-17T09:03:01","date_gmt":"2011-03-17T15:03:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.blackactivistwg.org\/blog\/?p=2400"},"modified":"2013-06-20T14:49:57","modified_gmt":"2013-06-20T20:49:57","slug":"u-s-dictatorship-propaganda-and-hope-by-lenore-daniels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.blackactivistwg.org\/blog\/u-s-dictatorship-propaganda-and-hope-by-lenore-daniels\/","title":{"rendered":"‘U.S. Dictatorship? Propaganda and Hope’ by Lenore Daniels"},"content":{"rendered":"

Larry Pinkney was quoted in the article titled ‘U.S. Dictatorship? Propaganda and Hope’ by Lenore Daniels, published in Issue 418 of The Black Commentator on March 17, 2011<\/a>:<\/p>\n

But if we are to \u201cfight for something that is real,\u201d my colleague at the\u00a0Black Commentator<\/em>\u00a0Larry Pinkney says, we must \u201ctranslate Hope into action.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Below is the entire article republished from The Black Commentator:<\/p>\n

Cover Story
\nU.S. Dictatorship? Propaganda and Hope
\n(includes video)
\nRepresent Our Resistance
\nBy Dr. Lenore J. Daniels, PhD
\nBlackCommentator.com Editorial Board<\/p>\n

The past is never dead. It\u2019s not even past\u2026<\/strong>
\n – William Faulkner, Requiem for a Nun<\/strong><\/p>\n

What you will not see advertised or discussed on State (Corporate) Media is Canadian Scott Noble\u2019s documentary\u00a0Lifting the Veil<\/em>. You may not see it advertised or discussed at alternative news outlets where its subject is critical of the liberal class\u2019s cover up of its own complicity with the government\u2019s marginalization of voices critical of capitalism and U.S. Empire. I will return to this documentary in a moment.<\/p>\n

But first, there is what Glenn Beck characterizes as an example of \u201cinsanity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Corporations discovered that the media\u2019s potential for\u00a0educating<\/em>\u00a0the public was both valuable and profitable. Millions of Americans turn with admiration to see Oprah sitting side by side with celebrities. Thousands believe they can become the next Oprah. Millions know the latest fashion in designer clothes and home decoration or the latest popular model car or iPod. Millions believe they are informed citizens whether they view Fox News or PBS. The U.S. is still a free and fair nation at Fox or PBS; it still offers the best of all possible worlds.<\/p>\n

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, a key cabinet member of the do-it-better- Obama-regime, believes the State news media\u00a0can do better<\/em>\u00a0than it did under the Bush II regime. Despite the State Media\u2019s attempt to block (censor?) Al Jazeera-English in the U.S., apparently, Clinton, along with thousands of Americans, tunes in to Al Jazeera\u2019s website during the Egyptian uprising and discovers someone else is beating the U.S. at their game!<\/p>\n

U.S. scores in math and science skills lag behind that of other nations, including the so-called \u201cdeveloping\u201d nations; the U.S. also falls short in providing affordable or universal health care for its citizen; and despite \u201cdeficits\u201d at the federal and state level, the U.S. manages to out spend every other nation combined on its military force, according to the Stockholm International Research Institute. The majority of U.S. citizens are concerned about the quality of education their children are receiving, and they have demanded health care they can afford.\u00a0 They have demanded an end to torture and wars. But the Obama regime knows best, and the regime\u2019s concerns trump the concerns of the American people.<\/p>\n

Before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Clinton argued that the U.S. is \u201closing the \u2018information war\u2019 in the world\u201d (Huffington Post<\/em>, \u201cHillary Clinton Calls Al Jazeera \u2018Real News,\u2019 Criticizes U.S. Media,\u201d\u00a0March 3, 2011<\/a>). Global news outlets elsewhere \u201cwere making inroads into places like the Middle East more effectively than the United States.\u201d Al Jazeera, for example, she said, \u201cwas \u2018changing peoples\u2019 minds and attitudes. And like it or hate it, it is really effective.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, Clinton declared that the foreign news outlets\u00a0misrepresented<\/em>\u00a0U.S. foreign policy. After viewing those uprisings in Arab and in North African nations, today, she has some bright ideas!<\/p>\n

The U.S. regime had to ask itself: Is Al Jezeera doing a better job at\u00a0educating<\/em>\u00a0the public and doing so more effectively without, as Clinton noted, \u201ca million commercials\u201d and without \u201carguments between talking heads and the kind of stuff that we do on our news\u201d? After all, \u201cViewership of Al Jazeera is going up in the United States because it\u2019s real news\u201d.\u00a0 U.S. news is \u201cnot particularly informative to us, let alone foreigners.\u201d What is particularly useful in watching Charlie Sheen disintegrate? U.S. news is \u201cnot keeping up\u201d with the changing attitudes out there in the world Al Jezeera covers.<\/p>\n

The regime itself has already responded: at the U.S. State Department, Clinton has instructed her young computer wizards to\u00a0educate\u00a0<\/em>the American and particularly the foreign public with\u00a0friendlier<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0informative<\/em>\u00a0programming. This is the Obama not the Bush II regime! We are the Democrats, not the Republicans and the people of the world need to know \u201cour values\u201d! Yes, Clinton said, \u201cour,\u201d\u00a0American<\/em>, \u201cvalues\u201d!<\/p>\n

So why is Glenn Beck calling Clinton\u2019s idea\u2014\u201cinsanity\u201d?<\/p>\n

Leading alternative news outlets critical of Clinton\u2019s comments suspect her motivates are disingenuous. Some note that her comments come at a time when the Obama regime is cutting funding to public broadcasting.<\/p>\n

But what is \u201cpublic\u201d about public broadcasting? Its operation is based on a hierarchical structuring of people and news – as is the leading alternative news outlets.\u00a0 At both the \u201cpublic\u201d and alternative news outlets, the what, who, where, why, and how is still determined by a handful of whites and liberal facilitators who, despite the recently developments at NPR, posses the same aversion to those who \u201cmisrepresent\u201d reality as interpreted by the State news media. Both \u201cpublic,\u201d alternative and State news outlets agree on the usefulness of Juan Williams, Colin Powell (who could fail to remember how educational and informative Powell\u2019s presentation of Saddam\u2019s hidden weapons sites was?), Jesse Jackson Sr., and other moderate whiners in expensive suits. Their appearance is intended to promote the idea of a\u00a0democratic<\/em>\u00a0America, much like the current regime, sprinkled with an Eric Holder, a Susan Rice, and Obama at the helm of State power. But few are fooled!<\/p>\n

I think the secretary of State is proposing less ranting and raving\u00a0about<\/em>\u00a0Blacks, Latino\/as, Muslims, immigrants, and \u201cinsanity\u201d from the likes of a Rush Limbaugh, a Bill O\u2019Reilly, and a Glenn Beck and\u00a0more<\/em>\u00a0of this appearance of democracy, more of the Obama-brand-democracy. Out educate Al Jezeera! Put American ingenuity to work again with Obama-like experts waiting in the Green room!<\/p>\n

What is \u201cat stake here,\u201d to quote Professor Henry Giroux, \u201cis a notion of democracy that refuses to be reduced to the dictates of a market society\u201d (From “‘Morning in America’ to Nightmare on Main Street,\u201d\u00a0Truth-Out<\/a><\/em>). This one-size-fits-all State news media Hillary Clinton seems to be proposing unlike Fox News, PBS or Democracy Now! will dependent more on the useful, friendlier Obama clones to sell (inform?) the world about the values of U.S. Empire and its corporate capitalism mission to the world.<\/p>\n

As a product of this government\u2019s fear of equality, the Obama clones would be the negation of equality, freedom, democracy. A collective, hands-on project, the carving of these hollow vesicles would demand the resignation of common sense. It has happened before: The Fugitive Slave Acts, the disenfranchisement of freed, the destabilizing of Black leadership, the dismantling of Affirmative Action, and the rise of post-racial discourse (terrorism and warfare), the government led the way in effectively crushing a viable vision of democracy. In the New World of One State TV, these Obama clones, the ideal figure of absolute complicity and acceptance, would posses no memory of the historical past, no ability to understand that the past never happens once (as Faulkner wrote), and no heritage other than the one in which the Empire and State news media has assigned to him or her.<\/p>\n

And that is how change comes to America,\u00a0Lifting the Veil<\/em>\u00a0suggests. It comes dressed in the corporate image of change: There is the great orator, the suits and rolled up sleeves, and the paradox: a man covered in brown skin a candidate for president of the U.S. Hope, he said, and liberals nodded. He made promises to revolutionize the U.S. domestic and foreign policies without a rifle or protest, without Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglass, John Brown, Crazy Horse, Malcolm X, the Black Panthers, Martin Luther King\u2019s warning about war and the treatment of the invisible workers, without the \u201canger\u201d and the \u201cinflammatory\u201d rhetoric of his\u00a0militant<\/em> and\u00a0old time<\/em>\u00a0pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama promises change is coming to America!<\/em><\/p>\n

Already, we know the corporate world has spent a record amount of money packaging and selling\u00a0the<\/em> Obama to State and alternative news outlets that, in turn, sold this democratic image of\u00a0change<\/em>\u00a0to the American public. Even Hillary Clinton and husband Bill themselves were bedazzled by the shinny new product called Obama).<\/p>\n

But American workers are increasingly seeing themselves dislodged from this narrative of American ingenuity.<\/em><\/p>\n

Now, two years later, we cannot distinguish the U.S. from the dictatorships supported by the U.S. as easily as the Secretary of State.<\/p>\n

(NOTE: the following atrocities are listed and visually captured in the documentary, Lifting the Veil.<\/em>\u00a0The film may be viewed at the end of this commentary):<\/p>\n

The Census Bureau reports that \u201cU.S. poverty rose 43.6 million in 2009, an increase of 3.8 million in the past year,\u201d according to\u00a0Lifting the Veil<\/em>.\u00a0 It is the \u201clargest total since the first 1959 estimates.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to the Economic Policy Institute, \u201c1 in 4 American children now live in poverty.\u201d\u00a0 For both Blacks and Latino\/as, \u201c1 in 3\u201d children live in poverty.<\/p>\n

After the \u201cgreatest transference of wealth in U.S. history – $12.8 trillion – to bailouts,\u201d the Obama administration \u201cdramatically increases government secrecy, blocking more FOIA request in 2009 than Bush did in 2008\u201d (Huffington Post<\/em>, March 6, 2010).<\/p>\n

And there is no \u201cops, I made a mistake.\u201d No apology, no blinking of the eyes, only a stead-fast deliverance of smiles and elegance, hand-over-heart, facing the flag, declaring\u00a0God Bless America<\/em>\u00a0and all the while the corporate capitalists, according to the documentary, \u201cearned record profits in the past year, recording their \u2018best quarter ever\u2019\u201d (New York Times<\/em>, November 23, 2010).<\/p>\n

Obama \u201cextends the Patriot Act without making any reforms\u201d (CS Monitor<\/em>, March 1, 2010).<\/p>\n

Obama \u201ccracks down on government whistleblowers more than any president in history\u201d (New York Times<\/em>, June 11, 2010).<\/p>\n

Obama \u201cpushes for mandatory DNA testing of those arrested for crimes, regardless of whether they have been convicted\u201d (Politico,<\/em> September 3, 2010).<\/p>\n

\u201cIgnoring the 70 percent of Americans who desire Universal Health Care, Obama cuts a secret deal with Insurance and Pharmaceutical companies to kill the watered down \u2018public option\u2019\u2014while simultaneously campaigning on its behalf\u201d (New York Times<\/em>, March 16, 2010).<\/p>\n

Obama \u201cuses a signing statement to ignore labor and environmental standards for the IMF and World Bank\u201d (Huffington Post<\/em>, July 6, 2009).<\/p>\n

Obama \u201cgives permits to BP and other oil companies, exempting them from environmental protection laws\u201d (New York Times<\/em>, May 13, 2010).<\/p>\n

Obama \u201cannounces over $8 billion in loan guarantees to promote nuclear power\u201d (CBC<\/em>, February 16, 2010).<\/p>\n

Obama \u201cappoints former Monsanto Lobbyist Michael Taylor as America\u2019s food safety czar\u2026[Monsanto,] named \u2018the most evil corporation in the world\u2019 by journalist Jeffrey Smith\u2026provides the seeds for 90 percent of the world\u2019s genetically modified crops\u201d (Huffington Post<\/em>, July 23, 2009).<\/p>\n

Obama \u201cnominates anti-marijuana zealot Michelle Leonhart for head of the DEA\u201d (Raw Story<\/em>, November, 16, 2010).<\/p>\n

Obama \u201claunches FBI raids on anti-war activists in Chicago and Minneapolis\u201d (Democracy Now!<\/em>\u00a0 September, 27 2010).<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Obama administration proposes a 3 year freeze on domestic spending, exempting cuts to the Pentagon and Homeland Security\u2026<\/p>\n

[Obama] \u201coperates a \u2018black site\u2019 at Bagram airbases, where the Red Cross has reported torture of detainees\u201d (BBC<\/em>, May 11, 2010).<\/p>\n

Obama \u201ccontinues the practice of indefinite detentions for alleged \u2018terrorists,\u2019 denying the right of habeas corpus\u201d (Washington Post<\/em>, May 22, 2009).<\/p>\n

Obama \u201ccontinues renditions of alleged terrorists and \u2018militants\u2019 to countries where they could be tortured\u201d (New York Times<\/em>, August 24, 2009).<\/p>\n

Obama \u201csuccessfully prosecutes child soldier Omar Khadr using evidence obtained through torture\u201d (CBC<\/em>, November 1, 2010).<\/p>\n

Obama \u201crefuses to suspend military aid to Honduras after a fascist coup outs democratically-elected leader Manuel Zelaya\u201d (UPI<\/em>, October 21, 2009).<\/p>\n

Obama appoints Eric Holder, Head of the Justice department. \u201cHolder had previously served as the lawyer for Chiquita Brands International when it was charged with funding death squads in Colombia\u201d (Counterpunch<\/em>, November 19, 2008).<\/p>\n

Obama \u201cappoints Dennis C. Blair as Director of National Intelligence\u2026During the 1999 East Timor massacres, Blair presented Indonesian General Wisanto with an offer of increased military assistance\u2026After the massacres, he invited the war criminal to be his personal guest in Hawaii\u201d (WSWS<\/em>, January 20, 2009).<\/p>\n

Obama \u201cappoints William Lynn as deputy secretary of defense. Lynn previously acted as senior vice president at Raytheon, which has billions of dollars in Defense department contracts\u201d (Washington Independent<\/em>, January 25, 2009).<\/p>\n

Obama \u201crefuses to sign a treaty banning the use of landmines\u201d (MSNBC<\/em>, November 24, 2009).<\/p>\n

Obama \u201ceases restrictions on the use of child soldiers in Africa\u201d (The Cable<\/em>, October 26, 2010).<\/p>\n

Obama \u201cannounces a $60 billion sale of arms to the Saudi Arabian dictatorship, the largest arms deal in history\u201d (CBS<\/em>, September 13, 2010).<\/p>\n

Obama \u201cpromises $30 billion in military aid to Israel over the next decades\u201d (Truth-Out<\/em>, February 16, 2010).<\/p>\n

\u201cOnly a few months earlier, the UN\u2019s Goldstone report charged Israel with massive war crimes during its assault on Gaza, including the targeting of schools, mosques and medical personnel\u2026<\/p>\n

[Obama] awards $250 million in government contracts to notorious mercenary outfit Blackwater aka Xe\u201d (The Nation<\/em>, June 28, 2010).<\/p>\n

Obama \u201cauthorizes the assassination of U.S. citizens abroad, and an unprecedented declaration of executive power\u201d (New York Times<\/em>, April 6, 2010).<\/p>\n

Obama \u201cdramatically increases the use of drone bombers in Pakistan, resulting in thousands of civilian casualties\u2026<\/p>\n

[Obama] uses \u201ccluster bombs in Yemen, resulting in the deaths of 14 \u2018militants,\u2019 and 35 women and children\u201d (CS Monitor<\/em>, June 7, 2010).<\/p>\n

\u201cObama reneges on his promise to exit Iraq, announcing that 50,000 troops and over 100,000 \u2018private contractors\u2019 will remain\u2026Instead of removing the troops, Obama simply renames them \u2018transitional\u2019 forces\u201d (February 26, 2010).<\/p>\n

\u201cObama back tracks on his promise to leave Afghanistan by July 2011\u2026Mark Sedwill, the top civilian NATO representative in Afghanistan, claims the \u2018transition\u2019 to \u2018independence\u2019 could run \u2018to 2015 and beyond\u2019\u201d (June 24, 2010).<\/p>\n

And the gulag at Guantanamo is still open for the dissemination of American values\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

Adopting the enemies of the U.S. will set you free? NO, Barrack Obama! No more lies, Hillary Clinton.\u00a0 No more propaganda. No more exclusion of voices deemed too radical for State and Alternative news media outlets.\u00a0 No Orwellian Big Brother TV screen, spewing more of your values!<\/em><\/p>\n

The majority of American people reject these changes<\/em> offered by the current regime.<\/p>\n

The majority reject the creation of a U.S. dictatorship! That is why you will not see Lifting the Veil<\/em>\u00a0on the current or the new and improved State news media outlets!<\/p>\n

What is happening to the planet and its people is not the result of individuals, says economist Richard Wollf. It is about a system that cannot be reformed but must be removed!<\/p>\n

Lifting the Veil<\/em>\u00a0is not all doom and gloom: it is not simply the unraveling of the \u201cinsanity\u201d of electoral politics or the political empowering of the wealthy elite and their corporate wars.<\/p>\n

Lifting the Veil<\/em>\u00a0is about Hope! It is not \u201chope\u201d as defined by this current regime, for this Hope, Chris Hedges says, is not in the vocabulary of the powerful. It is that Hope that only the people themselves own and nurture from generation to generation, from one uprising to another, from one civil disobedient act to the upheaval of unjust laws and dictatorships. We still posses this Hope, the documentary shows. But if we are to \u201cfight for something that is real,\u201d my colleague at the\u00a0Black Commentator<\/em> Larry Pinkney says, we must \u201ctranslate Hope into action.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hope precedes the appearance of Brand Obama. It was present in the uprisings of workers, Blacks, Latino\/as, says John Pilger. This Hope is present in the \u201cactivism that doesn\u2019t give up. Activism doesn\u2019t fall silent.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSomething is coming again. The signs are there.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat Obama, the bankers, the generals, the IMF, the CIA, the CNN and the BBC fear is ordinary people coming together and acting together\u201d:<\/p>\n

Ordinary American people for too long have been misrepresented by stereotypes that are contemptuous. The progressive attitudes of the public have seldom been reported in the media because they\u2019re not ignorant. They\u2019re subversive.<\/p>\n

Lifting the Veil<\/em>\u00a0is the subversive message that\u2026<\/p>\n

Hope has a cost.\u00a0 Hope is not comfortable or easy. Hope requires personal risks. It is not about the right attitude or peace of mind\u2026Hope is about action. Hope affirms that which must be affirmed! (Chris Hedges).<\/p>\n

View the Documentary Here:\u00a0A Metanoia Film: Lifting The Veil (1hr 53min)<\/p>\n

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