Manipulating Reality; Hurting Democracy
http://consortiumnews.com/2012/02/21/manipulating-reality-undermining-democracy/
February 21, 2012
Over the past few decades in America, reality has been put in play as never
before, with powerful interests using sophisticated “perception
management,” the shaping of how the public perceives the outside world, a
threat that Lawrence Davidson says is again leading the nation to
destruction.
By Lawrence Davidson
In mid-February, an array of top U.S. intelligence chiefs appeared
<
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Military/2012/0216/Threats-to-US-Pentagon-officials-drop-three-surprises/Doubts-about-Iran-s-nucle>before
the Senate Intelligence Committee to give their annual report on “current
and future worldwide threats” to national security. Those testifying
included CIA Director David Petraeus, National Intelligence Director James
Clapper, Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lt. General Ronald Burgess,
and FBI Director Robert Mueller.
Their presentations on what is and is not a real threat to the nation, as
well as the reaction of the senators holding the hearings, turned out to be
an exercise in one dimensional thinking. What is real? Well, what comports
with your point of view. Here are two examples from their testimony:
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper talks with President Barack
Obama in the Oval Office. (Photo credit: Office of Director of National
Intelligence)
*1. The Enemy Within* – Rogue individuals operating “within the ranks” of
the intelligence community and armed forces now constitute a major threat
to U.S. security. According to Lt. General Burgess these people are
“self-radicalized
lone wolves<
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Military/2012/0216/Threats-to-US-Pentagon-officials-drop-three-surprises/Doubts-about-Iran-s-nucle>.”
He pointed to the “recent massive WikiLeaks disclosures.”
Everyone involved in these hearings agreed with this assertion even though
it is based on a
dubious, yet unquestioned, assumption – that the behavior of U.S.
government forces is a model of acceptable normal military and intelligence
behavior. Those who work for the government but find this behavior
unacceptable, and indeed a criminal betrayal of all that is humane, and
then do something about that conviction are “self-radicalized” dangers to
national security.
But what if the support of oppressive and racist regimes, the invasion of
other countries based on lies, the killing of thousands upon thousands of
civilians, and the official use of torture and “extraordinary rendition”
constitute radical and unreasonable behavior? Then those who expose such
extremism would not be the radicals at all. They would be champions of a
more reasonable norm and also heroes.
My suggestion is that this is exactly the case. The country’s pursuit of
its alleged national interests is being directed by a bunch of thugs in
suits who have taken it upon themselves to label as “radicals” those
citizen heroes who point out this fact. They are afraid that more and more
citizens might see the real barbaric nature of their policies and call them
to account. So, to prevent this, they criminalize (and demonize) the
truth-tellers.
*2. The Iranian Threat* – According to James
Clapper<
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Military/2012/0216/Threats-to-US-Pentagon-officials-drop-three-surprises/Doubts-about-Iran-s-nucle>,
the Director of National Intelligence, “despite the hype surrounding Iran’s
pursuit of nuclear technology, the country’s leaders are not likely to
develop weapons unless attacked.” In addition, the Iranians are unlikely to
initiate or intentionally provoke a conflict, he said.
How was this news greeted by the senators on the intelligence committee?
Most of them refused to believe it, which is par for the course for
Congress as a whole and most of the U.S. news media. In this case the norm
was laid out by Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, who told Clapper
that “I’m very convinced that they’re (the Iranians) are going down the
road to developing a nuclear weapon.”
Wait a minute. These are your boys, Sen. Graham. You and your ilk are the
ones who claim that the nation’s intelligence services are the best in the
world and know what they are talking about. All of a sudden you don’t
believe them! Why not? What other source of information on Iran do you have
that you consider better, more reliable than the CIA, the DIA, the NSA,
etc.?
Try the Zionist lobby <
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/us_ints/pg-nyt1.html>.
Graham and his fellow senators’ main source of information on anything
touching on Israel (and the Iran business is a prime example of Israeli
paranoia) is an American Israel Public Affairs Committee briefing book.
These politicians will never cross this Lobby even when it tells them
things that contradict U.S. intelligence. That is because the Lobby
financially contributes to their campaigns and threatens to work to unseat
them if they do not follow its lead. The U.S. intelligence community simply
cannot compete with that.
So once again we are confronted with definitions that are designed to
support idiosyncratic views. What is “radical”? Exposing the government’s
crimes is what is radical. And, what is “real” when it comes to Iran? What
the organization that funds your reelection campaign says is real.
*What Is Real for Everyone Else?*
Just about everyone thinks he or she knows what is real. And in some
important categories we truly do know. We all know that if you jump off of
a high building the reality of gravity takes over with dire consequences.
More generally, most of us know what is real within the immediate
environment in which we live. What do I mean by this?
Most of us live most of our lives within a relatively small local space.
Within that space we have direct, interactive, day-to-day experiences and
through these come to accurately know what to expect. Our experiences have
good predictive value. If someone comes along and says something
ridiculous, like the next town over is developing atomic weapons and is
determined to use them to blow up your neighborhood, we will know that this
is crazy.
But what about things going on beyond the horizon? Most of us don’t go to
those places, don’t have day-to-day experiences with them. Nothing in our
lives allows us to make a judgment on what is real or not real about
activities there.
So what do we do? Well, we ignore those places unless there is some reason
to believe they can impact our lives. Then most of us rely on those we are
led to believe are “experts” on things foreign – usually government
officials or media “talking heads.”
This can be a problem. How do we know that they are experts and can be
trusted? How do we know that they don’t have some undeclared agenda that
skews their judgment? As the two examples given above suggest, government
officials can work on assumptions which, when looked at dispassionately,
are just anti-human. And government officials, allied to special interests,
can dismiss what their own intelligence experts tell them is real. What are
we locals suppose to believe?
When one cannot determine what is real or is not real, there are perhaps
some rules that can be followed so as to encourage policy-makers to act in
ways that will minimize mistakes. For instance, in cases of uncertainty
citizens should:
1. Be very skeptical of what the government and media tell them is real.
Remember the past disasters (most recently the invasion of Iraq) that easy
acceptance of such portrayals of alleged reality have caused. Concerned
citizens owe it to themselves and their nation to seek multiple sources of
information.
2. Demand that policy-makers initially act on the basis of a best-case
scenario even as they prepare for the worst. Most of the time the “expert”
advice we get on foreign threats is either ideologically driven and
therefore exaggerated or just plain wrong (for instance, the case of
Vietnam), or is driven by the agenda of some lobby or special interest (for
instance, the case of Iraq, the threat from Iran, or the “sainted” status
of the Israelis and the “terrorist” status of the Palestinians).
The resulting worst case depictions of reality are almost always inaccurate
and generally lead to unnecessary death and destruction.
3. Demand that, in foreign relations, diplomacy always be pursued first and
foremost. War should be the very last resort because it is truly a radical
and extreme undertaking of which few policy-makers have any direct
experience. If they did, they would be much more hesitant to commit their
fellow citizens to it.
4. Demand punishment for those who knowingly lie and break the laws
governing international relations and human rights (such as the Geneva
Conventions and laws prohibiting torture). There are good reasons why these
laws exist. Not to enforce them is to condone a return to barbarism.
Oddly enough, in a democracy, citizens who do not participate in political
discussion, who do not attempt to influence policy, end up having
responsibility for whatever policies their government takes up. This is
true because in a democracy if a citizen chooses not to be political he or
she abdicates their potential influence to those who do act politically.
It is only those who fight for what they think is right and real yet do not
win who can say they are not responsible for the behavior of a government
they actively opposed. So if you want to be able to say this, you cannot
retreat into a wholly private existence. If you do so others, who you might
find to be thugs in suits, will more likely succeed. And in the end, they
will act in your name.
*Lawrence Davidson is a history professor at West Chester University in
Pennsylvania. He is the author of **Foreign Policy Inc.: Privatizing
America’s National
Interest<
http://www.kentuckypress.com/viewbook.cfm?Category_ID=I&Group=55&ID=1490>
;** **America’s Palestine: Popular and Offical Perceptions from Balfour to
Israeli Statehood<
http://www.upf.com/authorbooks.asp?lname=Davidson&fname=Lawrence>
**; and **Islamic Fundamentalism<
http://www.greenwood.com/catalog/GR2429.aspx>
.*
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Received on Fri Mar 02 2012 - 19:15:21 EST
