Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,
If you want to stop being played as a chump, turn off the CNN/MSM and disengage from the self-referential social media distraction.
Let's start by asking: if Trump had lost and his supporters had angrily taken to the streets, destroying private property and threatening police officers while proclaiming "not my president," would the mainstream media have characterized the rioters differently than it has the pro-Clinton rioters?
Any fair-minded observer knows the answer is yes: the CNN/MSM would have lambasted the "rioting deplorables" as "what's wrong with America."
Substitution is a useful tool to expose bias. How come the CNN/mainstream corporate media isn't declaring the pro-Clinton rioters "deplorables"?
This tells us something else is going on here. I want to explain what's really going on, but first we need to run a simple experiment:
Turn off CNN, PBS, CBS et al., your Twitter and Facebook feeds, etc. for seven days, and live solely in the media-free real world for a week. If you're truly interested in understanding what's really going on in America, then come back in a week and read the rest of the essay.
Have you pulled out the CNN/MSM/social media fearmongering/propaganda dripline for a few days? This is a necessary step, as we shall soon see.
Everyone who is consuming CNN/MSM/ self-referential social media every waking hour is being played as chumps. Start by asking yourself: cui bono–to whose benefit? Who is benefiting from the ceaseless fearmongering of the CNN/social-media-parroting mainstream corporate media?
(Longtime readers know I start any analysis by asking cui bono.)
Two Power Elites have benefited enormously from the ceaseless media fearmongering: the owners of the corporate media spewing the fearmongering, and the Neoliberal camp of the Ruling Elite.
The hysterical tone of the fearmongering serves the agenda of the Neoliberals, who are desperate to maintain their grip on power.
As I have endeavored to explain over the past few years, America's Deep State no longer enjoys a monolithic unity of world-view and narrative. The Deep State has fragmented into two conflicted camps: the Neonconservatives, who espouse the globalist, interventionist foreign policy manifestation of Neoliberalism, and a smaller, more forward-looking camp that understands Neoliberalism is actively undermining our national security and our core national interests.
This split in the Deep State extends into the entire Ruling Elite. Thus we have the currently dominant globalist Neoliberal camp personified by the Clintons, the Corporatocracy that has funded them, the clubby Washington Elites (Demopublicans) and the Neocon camp of the Deep State.
The opposing camp of Elite "outsiders" is viewed as the enemy which threatens the wealth and power of the self-serving Neoliberal Elites. Longtime readers have seen many accounts here over the years that explain the key dynamic of Elite fragmentation: as self-serving personal aggrandizement poisons the values of public service, the Elite splinters into a parasitic, predatory self-serving majority and an Elite minority that sees the inevitable dissolution of the empire should the self-serving few continue their predation of the many.
Here are a few of the many essays I've posted on this key dynamic. Please read a few of these for context if you missed them the first time around:
Following in Ancient Rome's Footsteps: Moral Decay, Rising Wealth Inequality (September 30, 2015)
The Real Trouble Begins When Rising Inequality Splinters the Elites (October 22, 2015)
How The Seeds Of Revolution Take Root: the Middle Class Loses Upward Mobility (February 26, 2016)
When the Aristocracy Leaves the Commoners in the Dust, The Empire Is Doomed (October 8, 2015)
When Did Our Elites Become Self-Serving Parasites? (October 4, 2016)
The Lesson of Empires: Once Privilege Limits Social Mobility, Collapse Is Inevitable (April 18, 2016)
How Empires Fall (April 17, 2013)
Collapse, Part 2: The Nine Dynamics of Decay (June 23, 2015)
Voting With Your Feet (August 14, 2015)
Elite fragmentation is the core dynamic in play in America. The Neoliberal class, personified by the Clintons and the rest of the incestuous Washington Elite (Demopublicans), has used the self-serving corporate media to whip up a frenzy of hysteria that is ultimately aimed at the Elite camp that opposes their self-aggrandizement at the expense of the nation.
This war within America's Power Elite is for all the marbles. This explains the absurd urgency of the CNN/MSM fearmongering propaganda.
Let's deconstruct one of the many hysterical claims of the CNN/MSM: Trump's victory is a coup d'etat. This absurd claim is akin to "the Martians are coming!" Right out of the gate, it is a clueless mis-use of the term coup d'etat. If you actually want to understand the term, as opposed to using it to whip up hysteria that profits the Corporate owners of CNN/MSM, then start by reading the 1968 classic Coup d'État: A Practical Handbook by Edward Luttwak, and then move on to The Quiet Coup by Simon Johnson (2010).
The financial coup d'etat occurred in the presidency of Democrat Bill Clinton, when the Glass-Steagall Act was repealed, freeing the predatory financial elites to plunder the nation.
Presidents G.W. Bush and Obama institutionalized the coup by bailing out the banks post-2008.
So who does all the fearmongering benefit? The CNN/MSM, which profited immensely, and the Neoliberal Elite, which distracted the populace from the fatal consequences of its dominance.
The mainstream media in America is a corporate-owned media, or in the case of PBS, corporate-funded via sponsorships. Advertising rates are set by the size of the audience and the number of hours they consume the broadcast/feed.
The MSM's fearmongering propaganda greatly expanded the number of eyeballs glued to their product and increased the duration of consumers' time spent online. This increase in audience/duration has been immensely profitable to the corporate media, which has relied on fearmongering to drive audience since 9/11.
Consider this email from correspondent M.K. on his family's media consumption:
"I was struck awake this morning at 4 am with the realization that the left tried to win by selling fear. I don't mean this in a hyperbolic way… I mean they purposefully, willfully planned to sell fear as a tool to get the vote out. At first I didn't see the connection, but my subconscious did…
I'm a Agorist/Voluntarist and don't vote, because I don't wish to consent to my own enslavement… you know the drill. On the day of voting my father (76) texted me to urge me to vote, because "my children's future was at stake". This seemed odd to me, because it had never happened before and he followed up with some more fearful statement.
The day after the election, my daughter, who tends to also be level headed, texted me the following: "Uh oh… what does this mean for our country?". I tried to calm them both, but they were exceedingly fearful.
I watched in amazement at the "cry ins", demonstrations other outward pouring of sadness, hate and fear. Thus, I awoke and realized that both my father and daughter watch CNN. I really do believe that they were programmed…. This was planned and executed exceedingly well.
As you realize, "fear is the enemy" or "fear is the opposite of love". Pick your quote, but it's a powerful tool and it has been used to club my loved ones."
We can summarize the fanning of mass hysteria thusly: hyper-connectedness to a self-referential corporate/elite-controlled media produces a fear-based mass hysteria.
This fear-based mass hysteria is the perfect mechanism to distract a populace from the reality of a self-serving Elite that profits from their serfdom. Please glance at these four charts, which tell a simple but profound truth:
Productivity has risen for 36 years, but the gains from that massive increase in wealth has been captured by the few at the top of the wealth/power pyramid. If you want to understand who benefited from the CNN/MSM fearmongering propaganda distraction, study these four charts.
The income of the bottom 95% has stagnated while productivity/wealth soared.
The gains flowed to the top .1% in wealth and the top 5% in income:
The self-serving Neoliberal Elite's CNN/mainstream media did a magnificent job of profiting from fearmongering while distracting the serfs from their immiseration. If you want to stop being played as a chump, turn off the CNN/MSM and disengage from the self-referential social media distraction.
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