LIVING IN THE USA (THE USUAL SEMANTIC ASSESSMENT)

There are no godlike journalists who span the world with their minds and eyes reporting universally and objectively.

What there are, are paid observers within the mainstream who have a lens with ‘West’ painted all over it.

Apart from those above, we have independent observers who attempt to counter the distortion caused by their corporate or state-paid counterparts.

To say that the West is soaked in a perpetual rain of propaganda is to mischaracterize the situation however. Though ‘Operation Mockingbird’, the CIA program to ensure mainstream media news mirrored U.S. state narratives no doubt continues to some extent, the problem is wider in extent than this.

There is an unwritten consensus across western mainstream news on certain geopolitical issues which if any journalist, editor or owner does not adhere to they will soon find themselves the subject of enormous controversy.

The geopolitical consensus in place across the West has a number of specific facets to it:

1. Western elites never act badly by design or in their own self-interest.

2. Any deaths or disasters caused by the West are due solely to well-meant mistakes.

3. Neither of the two factors above should be applied to target nations of the West.

4. Due to 3. Above both China and Russia can be portrayed in a wholly negative light.

5. Russia, China, Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and others are fair game for all.

A feature writer or invited observer will be given a brief or have one accepted only if the above facets are adhered to in one way or another. This needn’t and indeed should not be glaringly obvious to the average reader. The article ought to seem reasonably even-handed and written with good explanatory, simply a cogent analysis to enlighten the publication or network’s readership. Nevertheless, it will act at the most potent level merely to reinforce points 1 to 5 above.

To some this may seem perfectly reasonable. However, what this repetition of certain west-centric narratives does is fix in ever more permanent form a single set of narratives that maintain what appears to be a desired status quo. This status quo is a fixed division across our world just at the very moment it desperately requires to find unity of purpose.

There can surely be no doubt that 1 to 5 above can and does do this. What other effect could there be when article after article reiterates the same message? The subliminal effect on those who continue to use western mainstream news as their primary choice of information on the world cannot help but be enormous.

This conditioning effect comes not only from mainstream media news, it emanates from every major figure in every political party wielding a significant degree of power across the western world.  

In recent days, after their meeting, Biden and Merkel have agreed that it is very important to stand against “Russian Aggression”. That is to stand against the president and nation which refused to go along with western adventurism in Iraq, Syria, Libya and elsewhere. Is it not a curious phenomenon when the no previous acts of illegal attacks and invasions by western elites are relevant in the context of “aggression”. I would argue that the non-coverage of these activities in this context are due to the self-censorship involved in 1 and 2 above.

The acceptable behavior within the orbits of western mainstream media news and western mainstream political circles totally mitigates against any negativity regarding western aggression, indeed it would never be labeled as such. Only those outside the saintly western world could be labeled as behaving this way and are, constantly.

At its most banal it reflects a simplistic black versus white scenario. A very unpleasant harmonic of the semantic dualism George W. Bush invoked. We are the good guys, they are the bad. Therefore if you are not one of us you are one of them. This reflects the kind of kindergarten level of Hollywood movie scripts also indelibly placed in western minds. The good guys fight the good fight and ultimately, always win. Westerners are endlessly encouraged to be with the good guys and to accept the view (as expressed through 3 to 5 above) that the ‘others’ are the bad guys.

These techniques are hardly new, yet they conflict rather glaringly with the relatively modern concept that those in the West are now in a new world of unhindered access to accurate information. In what seems to be a further attempt to establish narratives 1 through 5 all else is increasingly deemed fake news or the product of ‘Russian Agents’, Putin’s Puppets’, ‘Assad Apologists’ and other traitors to the righteous western cause. 

Hopefully an ever-increasing number of those living in the western world are realizing that half the story on any issue is arguably also half lies, it is at the very least a deception, an attempt to mislead and deepen an already very deep misapprehension of reality. Figures such as Max Blumenthal, Ben Norton, Aaron Mate and many others are accessed on YouTube increasingly for listeners to access the complete picture and the full story. Unfortunately the majority appears to still implicitly trust those who are handsomely paid to endlessly reinforce points 1 to 5 above. Delivering the Usual Semantic Assessment.