America's Matrix

[pynchonoid]

consortiumnews.com

America's Matrix

By Robert Parry
June 2, 2003

“Matrix” and its sequel. “Matrix Reloaded,” offer a
useful analogy for anyone trying to make sense of the
chasm that has opened between what’s real and what
Americans perceive is real. Like the science-fiction
world of the two movies, a false reality is being
pulled daily over people’s eyes, often through what
they see and hear on their TV screens. Facts have lost
value. Logic rarely applies.

Some living in this “American Matrix” are like the
everyday people in the movies, simply oblivious to
what’s going on beneath the surface, either too busy
or too bored to find out. Othersappear to know better
but behave like Cipher, the character in the original
movie who chooses the fake pleasures of the Matrix
over what Morpheus calls “the desert of the real.”

Many Americans so enjoyed the TV-driven nationalism of
the Iraq War, for instance, that they didn’t want it
spoiled by reality. During the conflict, they objected
to news outlets showing mangled bodies or wounded
children or U.S. POWs. Presenting the ugly face of war
was seen as unpatriotic or somehow disloyal to “the
troops.” Only positive images were welcome and dissent
was deemed almost treasonous.

Now, even as U.S. forces in Iraq slide closer to the
guerrilla-war quagmire that some skeptics predicted,
Americans continue to say they trust George W. Bush to
handle the situation.

[...] The American Matrix grew out of Republican anger
in the 1970s. That anger followed the leaking of the
Pentagon Papers which described the secret the history
of the Vietnam War and the revelations about President
Richard Nixon’s political abuses known as Watergate.
Those two disclosures helped force U.S. withdrawal
from Vietnam and drove Nixon from office. 

For leading Republicans, the trauma was extreme as the
party was pummeled in congressional elections in 1974
and lost the White House in 1976. An influential core
of wealthy conservatives decided that they needed to
assert tighter control over what information reached
and influenced the people.

Led by former Treasury Secretary Bill Simon and
enlisting the likes of right-wing philanthropist
Richard Mellon Scaife, these Republicans began pouring
tens of millions of dollars into buildinga
conservative media infrastructure to challenge the
mainstream press, which the conservatives labeled
“liberal.”

[...] This political/media strategy gained momentum in
the 1980s when President Ronald Reagan’s image-savvy
team worked closely with the emerging conservative
media, such as Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s Washington Times
which Reagan called his “favorite” newspaper.
Meanwhile, a host of conservative attack groups, such
as Accuracy in Media, went after journalists who
exposed embarrassing facts about Reagan’s secret
operations, such as the Iran-contra scandal and
drug-trafficking by the Nicaraguan contras, Reagan's
beloved "freedom fighters.".

Conservative activists worked hand-in-glove with
Reagan’s “public diplomacy” apparatus, which borrowed
psychological operations specialists from the U.S.
military to conduct what was termed “perception
management.” Their goal was to manage the perceptions
of the American people about key foreign-policy
issues, such as Central America and the threat posed
by the Soviet Union.

"The most critical special operations mission we have
… is to persuade the American people that the
communists are out to get us," explained deputy
assistant secretary of the Air Force, J. Michael
Kelly, at a National Defense University conference.

In the 1980s, the Republicans were helped by news
executives in mainstream publications who favored
Reagan’s hard-line foreign policy, including New York
Times executive editor Abe Rosenthal. Some of these
executives turned their news organizations away from
the tough reporting that was needed to expose the
foreign policy abuses that were occurring under
Reagan.

That averting of eyes was one of the key reasons major
newspapers, such as the New York Times and the
Washington Post, largely missed the Iran-contra
scandal and attacked the reporting of other
journalists who uncovered foreign-policy crimes such
as cocaine trafficking by Nicaraguan contra forces. A
false reality was being created that covered up the
ugly side of U.S. foreign policy. 

[...snip lots more that's worth reading, imo...] 

<http://www.consortiumnews.com/2003/060103a.html>

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