Politics, Language and Power

by Frank

Contemporary politics consists of the usual timeless formula of Machiavelli – rule by force and fraud – but with the current emphasis being on fraud

Defenceless villages are bombarded from the air, their inhabitants driven out into the countryside, their cattle machine gunned, their huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification.” Politics and the English Language, 1946

There is a high probability that Russia will intervene in the Baltics to test NATO’s Article 5…” Anders Fogh Rasmussen, ex-head of NATO, now military and security adviser to Ukrainian Oligarch ruler Poroshenko, February 2015

It would be true to say that the language of politics and power is patently neither objective, nor particularly interested in the pursuit of truth. Quite the contrary in fact. If we take the above examples, the first is simply an attempt to mask what is an international war crime into a reasonable policy of intervention. All rather reminiscent of the language which evolved during the Indo-china wars, e.g. ‘we destroyed the village in order to save it.’
The purpose of the second statement was simply designed to ramp up the war psychosis in order to justify the eastern expansion and build-up of NATO on Russia’s western frontiers. Please note that Mr Rasmussen isn’t saying that a Russian intervention is possible, or even probable, but highly probable. This seems somewhat strange as Russia couldn’t wait to get rid of the Baltic states when it declared its independence in 1991, and now we are expected to believe that it wants to invade.
It is said that knowledge is power, in fact the reverse is more accurate. Those who control the means of communication are now able to create a virtual reality. This is hardly new. The father of modern Public Relations, Edward Bernays, (nephew of Sigmund Freud) postulated that ‘invisible’ people create knowledge and propaganda and rule over the masses, with a monopoly on the power to shape thoughts, values, and citizen response.

The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds are moulded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of.” Edward Bernays – “Propaganda” (Routledge, 1928)

One of Bernay’s great admirers was Nazi propaganda chief Josef Goebbels who was to apply his theories with alacrity during the Nazi ascendency 1934-1945. In our own time this mass manipulation was identified by inter alia Edward S Herman and Noam Chomsky in their seminal work The Manufacture of Consent first published in 1988 that the mass communication media of the U.S.

are effective and powerful ideological institutions that carry out a system-supportive propaganda function, by reliance on market forces, internalized assumptions, and self-censorship, and without overt coercion”

It was during his period in Spain during the war against Franco that George Orwell first became aware of the political potentialities of modern communications systems. Orwell was a passionate believer in truth, and that objective facts existed and could be identified. However, what he found was that, what was and wasn’t true, were of secondary importance. What counted was that which served the greater cause. Political expediency determined truth and falsehood.
At that time Orwell was serving in the military wing of POUM (Workers’ Party of Marxist Unity) sister party of the British Independent Labour Party (ILP) of which Orwell was a member. This was in 1937 after the Comintern’s right turn, away from the ultra-leftism of the Third Period, towards the Popular Front phase, a move from international revolution (identified as Trotskyism) and the defence of democracy through alliances with bourgeois political groups. Unfortunately for Orwell he was in the wrong place at the wrong time – this was the time of the big Stalinist push against Trotskyism, and in Spain this meant the POUM. He wrote:

I must say something about the general charge that the POUM was a secret fascist organization in the pay of Franco and Hitler. This charge was repeated over and over in the Communist press…according to the Frenti Rojo (the Valencia Communist Newspaper) “Trotskyism, is not a political doctrine; it is a capitalist organization in league with the Fascists, a Fascist terrorist band, and part of Franco’s 5th column.” What was noticeable from the start was that there was no evidence to support this accusation; the thing was simply asserted with an air of authority.

Yep, sounds familiar. Orwell’s pessimism in this respect reached its terminal stage in his disturbing dystopian novel, 1984.
This manufacture of a virtual reality is now common currency in the mass media. The press in particular – including the putatively left-wing publications, the Guardian and the Independent – pretty much operate as an appendage to the ‘invisible’ people, identified by Bernays. A recent snippet in the Inependent read:

So we get one guy in Beirut publishing a report based upon another guy who has lived in Coventry since 2006 and who claims to have contacts at high levels in the Syrian government.
Yeah, right!
Yet the Independent, which is said to be a ‘left leaning’ newspaper owned by the Russian oligarch Alexander Lebedev who purchased it in 2010, will it seems publish extremely dubious stories without checking the sources but simply takes what they say at face value. No doubt this serves the greater cause.
The post-modern doctrine, now fashionable in reactionary elite circles in the west, asserts a denial of the possibility of objective reality. In practice this involves:

1. Groupthink: defined as a process where a group with similar backgrounds and largely insulated from outside opinion makes decisions without critically testing, analysing and evaluating ideas and their outcomes.
2. Doublethink: where two logically contradictory thoughts can be held at the same time
3. Double Standards: Quod licet Iovi, non licet bovi – What’s permissible for Jove is not permissible for the Ox. Or in plain English the Anglo-zionist empire can do things like extend its sphere of influence, but Russia and China must not. The Globalization of the Monroe Doctrine. Or we can accuse you of crimes against humanity, whilst we actually commit crimes against humanity. And so forth.

Goebbels propaganda technique was quite simple:

If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.

This information/propaganda war is now in full swing and for the time being it is the primary political phenomenon of the hybrid war which the west is conducting against both Russia and China. However, the second part of Goebbels quote which is rarely repeated is quite interesting, to wit:

The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.

So the fooling of the masses can only be short term; sooner or later the truth seeps into the popular consciousness and the elite are seen to be the mendacious scoundrels they are. Then only outright repression can be used against the populace. So it would appear that the great Anglo-zionist hegemonic project is a race against time; it must succeed soon or it will collapse entirely.
Like Ab Lincoln said: You can fool most people some of the time, and some people most of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.

SUPPORT OFFGUARDIAN

If you enjoy OffG's content, please help us make our monthly fund-raising goal and keep the site alive.

For other ways to donate, including direct-transfer bank details click HERE.