Subverting Democratic Machinery
excerpted from the book
Friendly Fascism
The New Face of Power in
America
by Bertram Gross
South End Press, 1980, paper
p229
Murray B. Levin
"No truly sophisticated proponent of repression would be
stupid enough to shatter the facade of democratic institutions.
"
p229
Thomas R. Dye and Harmon Ziegler
"It is the irony of democracy that the responsibility for
the survival of liberal democratic values depends on elites, not
masses."
p230
In the constitutional democracies, capitalist establishments have
tended to use the democratic machinery as a device for sidetracking
opposition, incorporating serious opponents into the junior and
contingent ranks, and providing the information-the ``feedback"-
on the trouble spots that required quick attention. As pressures
were exerted from below, the leaders of these establishments consistently-in
the words of Yvonne Karp's commentary on the British ruling elites-"allowed
concessions to be wrung from them, ostensibly against their will
but clearly in their own long term interests." Eleanor Marx,
Karl Marx's youngest daughter, described their strategy (often
opposed by the more backward corporate types) in these pungent
words: `'to give a little in order to gain a lot." Throughout
the First World the Ultra-Rich and the Corporate Overseers have
been in a better position than anyone else to use the democratic
machinery. They have the money that is required for electoral
campaigns, legislative lobbying, and judicial suits. They have
enormous- technical expertise at their beck and call. They have
staying power.
Hence it is-as Dye, Ziegler, and a host
of political scientists have demonstrated-that the upper-class
elites of America have the greatest attachment to constitutional
democracy. They are the abiding activists in the use of electoral,
legislative, and judicial machinery at all levels of government.
It is their baby. Ordinary people-called the masses by Dye and
Ziegler-tend to share this perception. The democratic machinery
belongs to them, "the powers that be," not to ordinary
people. It is not their baby.
What will happen if more ordinary people
should try to take over this baby and actually begin to make it
their own? How would the elites respond if the masses began to
ask the elites to give much more and gain much less-particularly
when, under conditions of capitalist stagflation and shrinking
world power, the elites have less to give. Some radical commentators
claim that the powers that be would use their power to follow
the example of the classic fascists and destroy the democratic
machinery. I agree with Murray Levin that this would be stupid.
I see it also as highly unlikely. No First World Establishment
is going to shatter machinery that, with a certain amount of tinkering
and a little bit of luck, can be profitably converted into a sophisticated
instrument of repression.
Indeed, the tinkering has already started.
Some of it is being undertaken by people for whom the Constitution
is merely a scrap of paper, a set of judicial decisions, and a
repository of rhetoric and precedents to be used by their high-paid
lawyers and public relations people. Some of it is being perpetrated
by presidents and others who have taken formal oaths to "preserve,
protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."
Sometimes knowingly, often unwittingly, both types of people will
spare no pains in preserving those parts of the written or unwritten
constitution that protect the rights of "corporate persons"
while undermining, attacking, or perverting those parts of the
Constitution that promote the welfare and liberties of the great
majority of all other persons.
p231
Although there have always been ups and downs in the relationship
between the president, the Congress and the Supreme Court, the
general tendency has been toward a strengthening of the presidential
network. This is particularly true in foreign affairs.
Strangely, the first step toward greater
domination of the Congress and the courts is to achieve greater
mastery of the bureaucracy. This means tighter control of all
appointments, including the review by White House staff of subordinate-level
appointments in the various departments. It means tighter control
of the federal budget, with traditional budgetary control expanded
to include both policy review and efficiency analysis In his effort
to master the bureaucracy, President Nixon and his aides went
very far in subjecting various officials to quasi-legal wiretaps.
President Carter broke new ground by having his economic advisers
review the decisions of regulatory agencies that impose on corporations
the small additional costs of environmental or consumer protection.
Both presidents used their close associations with big-business
lobbyists to bring recalcitrant bureaucrats into line and to see
to it that they follow the "president's program" in
dealing with the Congress or the courts.
Throughout American history wags have
suggested that the U.S. Congress has been the best that money
could buy. This joke expresses popular wisdom on how far big money
can go in "owning" or "renting" members of
the House and the Senate. In the present era of megabuck money,
however, the old wisdom is out of date. With enough attention
to "congressional reform" and the cost-effectiveness
of campaign and lobbying expenditures, the top elites of the modern
Establishment could buy a "much better" Congress.
p233
Every major group at the Establishment's highest levels already
has avant garde representatives, proponents, and defenders among
the members, committees and subcommittees of Congress. Thus at
some date, earlier or later, we may expect new investigatory committees
of Congress working closely with the major intelligence and police
networks and handling their blacklists more professionally than
those developed during the days of Joseph McCarthy. We may expect
special investigations of monopoly, transnational corporations,
international trade, education, science and technology, civil
liberties, and freedom of the press. But instead of being controlled
by unreliable liberal reformers, they would be initiated and dominated
by a new breed of professional `'technopols" dedicated to
the strengthening of oligarchic corporations, providing greater
subsidization of the supranationals, strengthening the international
capitalist market, filling "gaps" in military science
and technology, extending the conformist aspects of the educational
system, routinizing police-state restraints on civil liberties,
and engineering the restraint of the press by judicial action.
A small idea of what is involved here is provided by Professor
Alexander Bickel's 1971 brief before the Supreme Court in the
case of the Justice Department's effort to prevent publication
of the famous "Pentagon Papers." The Yale University
law professor proposed the establishment of clear guidelines for
prior restraint of the press by the executive branch. Here is
a challenging task for imaginative lawyers -particularly if they
work for strategically placed members of Congress eager to find
a loophole in the old Constitutional proviso against the making
of laws that abridge the freedom of the press.
In the winter of 1936, "the most
liberal four members of the Supreme Court resigned and were replaced
by surprisingly unknown lawyers who called President Windrip by
his first name." This is part of how Sinclair Lewis-in his
book lt Can't Happen Here-projected his vision of how "it"
could suddenly happen here.
Though a new "it" would happen
more slowly, a decisive group of four or more justices can still
be placed on the Court by sequential appointment during the slow
trip down the road to serfdom. During this trip the black-robed
defenders of the Constitution would promote the toughening of
federal criminal law. They would offer judicial support for electronic
surveillance, "no-knock entry," preventive detention,
the suspension of habeas corpus, the validation of mass arrests,
the protection of the country against "criminals and foreign
agents," and the maintenance of "law and order."
The Court would at first be activist, aggressively reversing previous
Court decisions and legitimating vastly greater discretion by
the expanding national police complex. Subsequently, it would
probably revert to the older tradition of stare decisis-that is,
standing by precedents. The result would be the elimination of
opportunities for juridical self-defense by individuals and dissident
organizations while maintaining orderly judicial review of major
conflicts among components of the oligarchy and the technostructure.
If this slow process of subverting constitutional
freedoms should engender protest, the Men in Black may well respond
with judicial jiujitsu. The administrative reform and reorganization
of the judicial system, for example, is needed to overcome backlogs
of cases and provide speedier trials. It would require the consolidation
of the judicial system, the development of merit systems for judicial
employees, the raising of judicial salaries, and stricter standards
for outlawing "objectionable" lawyers, all of which
poses ample opportunity for undermining legal protection in the
name of reform or efficiency.
Judicial approval of new functions for
grand juries serves as another example. Historically, federal
grand juries were created as a bulwark against the misuse of executive
authority. The Fifth Amendment states that a person should not
be tried for a serious crime without first being indicted by a
grand jury. Thus, a prosecuting attorney's charges would not be
sufficient-at least not until upheld by a specially selected jury
operating in secret sessions. Historically, grand juries have
been widely used to investigate charges of corruption in local
government. More recently, they have been set up to investigate
political cases under federal criminal laws dealing with subversion
and the draft. There have been times when at least twelve federal
grand juries were operating simultaneously and using their subpoena
power vigorously. Collectively, these may be regarded 8S "trial
runs" which a Supreme Court on the road to friendly fascism
would perfect with decisions upholding the wide use of subpoena
power by the grand juries and the denial of transcripts to witnesses.
The strong point of a friendly fascist
grand jury system is the "Star Chamber" secrecy that
could be made operational throughout the fifty states. But this
should not obscure the contrapuntal value of a few highly publicized
trials. A grand jury indictment can do more than merely set the
stage for a showcase trial. It can sort out conflicting evidence
in such a way as to induce a self-defeating defense. This can
be much more effective than the elaborately contrived "confessions"
developed by the Russian secret police in the many purges of Old
Bolsheviks. Shrewd and technically expert legal strategies could
crucify opponents without allowing them-dead or alive-to be converted
into martyrs.
p239
Gary Wills
"If a nation wishes, it can have both free elections and
slavery."
p239
President Richard M. Nixon
"The average American is just like the child in the family."
p239
If friendly fascism arrives in America, the faceless oligarchy
would have little or nothing to gain from a single-party system.
Neither an elitist party along Bolshevik lines nor a larger mass
party like the Nazis would be necessary. With certain adjustments
the existing "two party plus" system could be adapted
to perform the necessary functions.
The first function would be to legitimate
the new system. With all increases in domestic repression, no
matter how slow or indirect, reassurance would be needed for both
middle classes and masses. Even in the past, national elections
have provided what Murray Edelman has described as "symbolic
reassurance." According to Edelman, elections serve to "quiet
resentments and doubts about particular political acts, reaffirm
belief in the fundamental rationality and democratic character
of the system, and thus fix conforming habits of future behavior."
Second, political-party competition would
serve as a buffer protecting faceless oligarchs from direct attack
This would not merely be a matter of politics-as when the slogan
of "ballots not bullets" is used to encourage the alienated
to take part in electoral processes. It would be a question of
objectives. The more that people are encouraged to "throw
the rascals out," the more their attention is diverted from
other rascals that are not up for election: the leaders of macrobusiness,
the ultra-rich, and the industrial-military-police-communications-health-welfare
complex. Protests channeled completely into electoral processes
tend to be narrowed down, filtered, sterilized, and simplified
so that they challenge either empire nor oligarchy.
p243
In their march to power in Germany, Italy, and Japan, the classic
fascists were not stupid enough to concentrate on subverting democratic
machinery alone. They aimed their main attack, rather, against
the nongovernment organizations most active in using and improving
that machinery; namely, the labor movement and the political parties
rooted in it. In Germany, where these organizations seemed immensely
powerful, many German leaders thought that even with Adolf Hitler
as chancellor, fascism could make little headway. They underestimated
the Nazis and their Big Business backers. "All at once,"
observed Karl Polanyi, the historian, "the tremendous industrial
and political organizations of labor and other devoted upholders
of constitutional freedom would melt away, and minute fascist
forces would brush aside what seemed until then the overwhelming
strength of democratic governments, parties and trade unions."
In most First World democracies a slow
meltdown has already started. As I pointed out in "The Take-Off
toward a New Corporate Society", conglomerate or transnational
corporations expand beyond the scope of any labor unions yet invented.
In the more narrow spheres where labor organization is well established,
the unions have usually been absorbed into the Establishment's
junior and contingent levels, often becoming instruments for disciplining
workers. As the work force has become more educated, sophisticated,
and professionalized, many labor leaders have become stuffy bureaucrats,
unable to communicate with their members, and terrified at the
thought of widespread worker participation in the conduct of union
affairs. Some of them have been open practitioners of racism,
sexism, and ageism. The media have done their bit by exaggerating
the power of organized labor and the extent of labor union racketeering
and corruption. The new class of conservative intellectuals, in
turn, has launched devastating attacks on labor unions as interferences
with the "free market" and as the real villains behind
high prices and low productivity. All these factors have contributed
to a major loosening of the ties between organized labor and the
intellectuals, ties that are quickly replaced by grants, contracts,
and favors from foundations and government agencies.
In the Third World countries of dependent
fascism, antilabor activity has become much more blatant. There
the response to trade unions is vigorous resort to the old-time
methods used in Western Europe and America during the nineteenth
century: armed union-busters, police and military intervention,
machine guns, large-scale arrests, torture, even assassination.
In countries like Argentina, Chile, Brazil, South Korea, Taiwan,
the Philippines, Zaire, and many others, these measures have proved
decisive in attracting transnational investment and keeping wages
down. They have also helped beat back the forces of socialism
and communism in these countries.
Although First World establishments have
generally supported (and often braintrusted) this kind of action
in the Third World, I do not foresee them resorting to the same
strategies at home. The logic of friendly fascism calls, rather,
for a slow and gradual melting away of organized labor and its
political influence.
At the outset of the 1980s, major steps
in this direction are already under way in the United States.
They are being worked out by an impressive array of in-house labor
relations staffs in the larger corporations and of out-house consulting
firms made up of superslick lawyers, personnel psychologists,
and specialists in the conduct of anti-union campaigns. The efforts
of these groups are backed up by sectoral, regional, and national
trade associations, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National
Association of Manufacturers, the Business Roundtable, and a long
series of "objective" studies commissioned either by
these groups or the new "think tanks" of the Radical
Right.
The heat for the meltdown is applied on
four major fronts. First, the union-busters operate on the principle
of containing labor organization to those places where unions
already exist. This requires strenuous efforts to preserve a "union-free
environment" in the South, in small towns, and among white-collar,
technical, and migratory workers. When efforts are made to extend
unionism into one of these areas, the union-busters come in to
help the managers conduct psychological warfare. Often, the core
of such a campaign is "the mobilization of supervisors as
an anti-union organizing committee." Each supervisor may
be asked to report back to a consultant, often daily, about the
reactions of employees. There may be as many as twenty to twenty-five
meetings with each employee during a union campaign. In one successful
campaign at Saint Elizabeth's hospital outside of Boston, according
to Debra Hauser, the methods used included the discriminatory
suspension or firing of five union activists; surveillance, isolation,
interrogation and harassment of other pro-union employees; and
misrepresentation of the collective bargaining process by top
management. "This resulted in the creation of an atmosphere
of hysteria in the hospital."
A second front is the dissolution of unions
already in operation. Construction companies have found that this
can be done by "double-breasting"-that is, by dividing
into two parts, one operating under an existing union contract
and the other part employing nonunion labor. The unions themselves
can be dissolved through "decertification," a legal
process whereby the workers can oust a union that already represents
them. Under the National Labor Relations Law, management cannot
directly initiate a decertification petition. But managers have
learned how to circumvent the law and have such petitions filed
"spontaneously" by employees. They have also learned
how to set the stage for deunionization by forcing unions out
on strikes that turn out to be destructively costly to both the
unions and their members.
The third front is labor legislation.
In many states the business lobbies have obtained legislation
which-under the label of "right-to-work" laws -make
union shops or closed shops illegal. Nationally, they are trying
to repeal the Davis-Bacon Act (which maintains prevailing union
wage rates on government-sponsored construction) and impose greater
restrictions on peaceful picketing.
Fourth, the most generalized heat is that
which is applied by the austerity squeeze of general economic
policies. This heat is hottest in the public employment area,
particularly among teachers and other municipal or state workers
where unionization has tended to increase during recent years.
As a result of all these measures, the
labor movement in America has failed to keep up with population
growth. Union membership in 1980 covered about 22 million employees.
Although this figure is larger than that of any past year, it
represents a 3 percent decline from 1970, when union members accounted
for 25 percent of non-farm employment.
This slow melting away of labor's organized
force has not been a free lunch. It has cost money-lots of it.
But the consequences have also been large:
a reduction in the relative power of organized labor vis-a-vis
organized business. Anybody who thinks this reduction is felt
only at the bargaining table would be making a serious error.
Its consequences have been extremely widespread.
For one thing, the morale, crusading spirit,
and reformist fervor has itself tended to dissipate within many,
if not most, branches of the labor movement. Dedication toward
the extension of democracy has often been replaced by cynical
inactivism. This has been felt by all the many agencies of government
that have traditionally looked to labor for support in the extension
and improvement of government services in health, education, welfare,
housing, environmental protection, and mass transportation. It
has been felt by all candidates for public office, for whom labor
support now means much less than in previous years. Above all,
the weakening of the labor movement has been one of the many factors
in the sharp conservative drift within the Democratic party. This
drift reinforces the widespread idea that there is little likelihood
of serious disagreement on major issues of policy between the
two major parties. The continuation of this drift would be one
of the most important factors in brushing aside what might still
seem to some as the overwhelming strength of America's democratic
machinery.
p251
Ferdinand Lundberg
"If the new military elite is anything like the old one,
it would, in any great crisis, tend to side with the Old Order
and defend the status quo, if necessary, by force. In the words
of the standard police bulletin known to all radio listeners,
"These men are armed -and they may be dangerous."
p251
Edward Luttwak
"A coup consists of the infiltration of a small but critical
segment of the state apparatus, which is then used to displace
the government from its control of the remainder."
p251
Capitalist democracy has often been described as a poker game
in which the wealthiest players usually win most of the pots and
the poor players pick up some occasional spare change.
p252
... a first principle of any replacement coup in the First World
is that the replacers operate in the name of "law and order"
and appear as the defenders of the Constitution against others
eager to use force against it. Something along these lines happened
in Japan back in 1936 when a section of the army staged a short-lived
revolt against the "old ruling cliques." The defeat
of this "fascism from below," as Japanese historian
Masao Maruyama points out, facilitated "fascism from above,"
respectable fascism on the part of the old ruling cliques. In
modern America, much more than in Japan of the 1930s, the cloak
of respectability is indispensable. Thus a "feint" coup
by Know Nothing rightists or a wild outburst of violence by left-wing
extremists could be effectively countered by the military establishment
itself, which, in defending the Constitution, could take the White
House itself under protective custody.
A preventive coup is more sophisticated;
it avoids the replacement coup's inherent difficulties by keeping
an undesirable regime-after it has been elected-from taking power.
Edward Luttwak, author of the first general handbook on how to
carry out a coup, has himself published an excruciatingly specific
application: "Scenario for a Military Coup d'Etat in the
United States." He portrays a seven-year period-1970 through
1976-in which as a result of mounting fragmentation and alienation,
America's middle classes become increasingly indifferent to the
preservation of the formal Constitution. Under these circumstances
two new organizations for restoring order are formed. With blue-ribbon
financial support, the Council for an Honorable Peace (CHOP) forms
branches in every state. The Urban Security Command (USECO) is
set up in the Pentagon. CHOP prepares two nationwide plans: Hard
Surface, to organize right-wing extremists, and Plan R for Reconstruction,
based on the principle that "within the present rules of
the political game, no solution to the country's predicament can
be found." Then, during the 1976 election campaign the Republican
candidate is exposed by a former employee as having used his previous
senatorial position for personal gain. With a very low turnout
at the polls, the Democratic candidate easily wins. Thus "an
essentially right-of-center country is now about to acquire a
basically left-of-center administration." Immediately after
election day, CHOP and USECO put into effect Plan Yellow, the
military side of Plan R. By January 4, 1977, the new regime is
in power.
A still more sophisticated form of preventive coup would be one
designed to prevent the formal election of a left-of-center administration.
In the event that the normal nominating processes fail to do this,
any number of scenarios are possible before election day: character
defamation, sickness, accidental injury, assassination. If none
of these are feasible, the election itself can be constitutionally
prevented. Urban riots in a few large central cities such as New
York, Newark, and Detroit could lead to patrolling of these areas
by the National Guard and Army. Under conditions of martial law
and curfews during the last week of October and the first week
of November large numbers of black voters would be sure to be
kept from the polls. With this prospect before them many black
leaders, liberals, and Democratic officials would ask for a temporary
postponement of elections in order to protect the constitutional
right to vote. Since there is no constitutional requirement that
voting in national elections be held on the same day throughout
the country, there might well be a temporary postponement in New
York, New Jersey, and Michigan. The political leaders of these
states, in fact, would soon see that postponement puts them in
a remarkably influential bargaining position. After voting results
are already in from all other states, the voting in their states
would probably determine the election's outcome. Party leaders
in Illinois and California would then seek postponement also.
To restore equilibrium, elections could then be postponed in many
other states, perhaps all of them. Tremendous confusion would
thus be created, with many appeals in both state and federal courts-and
various appeals to the Supreme Court anticipated. In short order
Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution would come into effect.
Under this provision the Congress itself declares "who shall
then act as President" until new provisions for election
are worked out by the Congress. If major differences prevent the
Congress from making all these decisions, the stage is then set
for the kind of regime described by Luttwak under a name such
as The Emergency Administration for Constitutional Health (TEACH).
In treating Americans like children in the family, the "Teachers"
would not spoil the child by sparing the rod.
The best form of prevention, however.
is a consolidation coup, using illegal and unconstitutional means
of strengthening oligarchic control of Society. This is the essence
of the nightmares in The Iron Heel and It Can't Happen Here. Both
Jack London's Oligarchy and Sinclair Lewis' President Windrip,
after reaching power through constitutional procedures, used unconstitutional
means in consolidating their power. This is rather close to the
successful scenarios followed by both Mussolini and Hitler.
If something like this should happen under-or
on the road to- friendly fascism, I think it would be much slower.
The subversion of constitutional democracy is more likely to occur
not through violent and sudden usurpation but rather through the
gradual and silent encroachments that would accustom the American
people to the destruction of their freedoms.
p255
Jean-Jacques Rousseau - Emile
"There is no subjugation so perfect as that which keeps the
appearance of freedom, for in that way one captures volition itself."
p255
Information has always been a strategic source of power. From
time immemorial the Teacher, the Priest, the Censor, and the Spy
have helped despots control subject populations. Under the old-fashioned
fascist dictatorships, the Party Propagandist replaced the Priest,
and the control of minds through managed information became as
important as terrorism, torture, and concentration camps.
With the maturing of a modern capitalism,
the managing of information has become a fine art and advancing
science. More powerful institutions use world-spanning technologies
to collect, store, process, and disseminate information. Some
analysts see a countervailing equilibrium among these institutions.
While computerized science and technology produce shattering changes,
it is felt that the schools and the media tend to preserve the
status quo. Actually, all these institutions have been involved
in changing the world. Each has played a major role in easing
the difficult transition from national to transnational capitalism
by winning greater acceptance of manipulation or exploitation-even
as it becomes more extensive and intensive - by those subjected
to them. Only through managed information can volition itself
be captured and, as Rousseau recognized, can minds be so perfectly
subjugated as to keep "the appearance of freedom."
Indeed, friendly fascism in the United
States is unthinkable without the thorough integration of knowledge,
information, and communication complexes into the Establishment.
At that point, however, the faceless oligarchy could enjoy unprecedented
power over the minds, beliefs, personalities, and behavior of
men, women, and children in America and elsewhere. The information
overlords, intellectuals, and technicians -sometimes unwillingly.
more often unwittingly-would be invaluable change agents in subverting
(without any law of Congress doing it openly) the constitutional
freedoms of speech and press.
So much "progress" has already
been made in the management of minds that it is hard to distinguish
between current accomplishments and future possibilities. The
difficulty is compounded by the fact that the best critics of
the information industry (like the best analysis of the American
power structure) have often exaggerated the damage already done.
This is a risk that I too must run, although I should prefer,
rather, to understate what has already occurred and-for the sake
of warning- overstate the greater terrors that may lie ahead.
p256
Herbert Schiller
"The content and forms of American communications-the myths
and the means of transmitting them-are devoted to manipulation.
When successfully employed, as they invariably are, the result
is individual passivity, a state of inertia that precludes action.
"
p256
For Hitler, according to Hermann Rauschning, marching was a technique
of mobilizing people in order to immobilize them. Apart from the
manifest purpose of any specific march (whether to attack domestic
enemies or occupy other countries) Hitler's marchers became passive,
powerless, non-thinking, non-individuals. The entire information
complex -which includes education, research, information services,
and information machines as well as communications-has the potential
of becoming the functional equivalent of Hitler's march. As I
reflect on Hermann Rauschning's analysis of Hitler's use of marching
as a means of diverting or killing thought, I feel that it would
be no great exaggeration to rewrite one of these sentences with
the word "TV" replacing "marching." That gives
us this: "TV is the indispensable magic stroke performed
in order to accustom the people to a mechanical, quasi-ritualistic
activity until it becomes second nature."
As a technique of immobilizing people,
marching requires organization and, apart from the outlay costs
involved, organized groups are a potential danger. They might
march to a different drum or in the wrong direction . . . TV is
more effective. It captures many more people than would ever fill
the streets by marching-and without interfering with automobile
traffic. It includes the very young and the very old, the sick
and the insomniac. Above all, while marching brings people together,
TV tends to separate them. Even if sitting together in front of
the TV, the viewers take part in no cooperative activity. Entirely
apart from the content of the messages transmitted, TV tends to
fragment still further an already fragmented population. Its hypnotic
effect accustoms "the people to a mechanical, quasi-ritualistic
activity until it becomes second nature." And TV training
may start as early as toilet training.
Unlike marching, TV viewing can fill huge
numbers of hours during both day and night. According to the Statistical
Abstract, the average TV set in America is turned on, and viewed,
for more than six hours a day, which amounts to over forty-two
hours a week. This is much more than the average work week of
less than thirty-six hours and still more than the hours anyone
spends in school classrooms. Among women, blacks, and poor people
generally, the average figure rises to over fifty five hours a
week. Televised sports events attract huge numbers of spectators.
Widely touted educational programs for children help "hook"
children at an early age, thereby legitimating their grooming
to become passive viewers all their lives. But it should not be
assumed that the more adult, educated, and privileged elements
in the population are immune to TV narcosis. The extension of
educational TV in general-like "public interest" or
"alternative" radio-caters mainly to elite viewers.
If this trend continues, even intellectuals and scientists, as
pointed out to me by Oliver Gray, a former Hunter College student,
may well be trapped into hours upon hours of viewing the cultural
heritages of the past, both artistic and scientific.
Many parts of the information complex
also serve a custodial function that separate people from the
rest of society. This is a form of immobilization that goes far
beyond the march.
The hypnotizing effect of TV, both mass
and elite, can also be augmented by allied developments in modern
information processing and dissemination For example, the fuller
use of cable and satellite technology could do much more than
bring TV to areas outside the reach of ordinary broadcasting facilities.
It could also provide for a much larger number of channels and
a larger variety of programming. This could facilitate the kind
of sophisticated, pluralistic programming which appeals to every
group in the population. The danger is that an additional layer
of "cultural ghettoization" might then be superimposed
on residential ghettoization. With extensive control "banks"
of TV tapes that can be reached by home dialing and with widespread
facilities for taping in the home, almost every individual would
get a personalized sequence of information injections at any time
of the day-or night.
TV fixes people in front of the tube in
their own houses, without a marginal cent of additional social
overhead to cover the cost of special buildings. The young people
who walk the streets with transistor radios in their hands, or
even with earphones on their heads, are imprisoned in their own
bodies. During the 1967-74 period of the Greek junta, the number
of TV receivers and viewers in Greece steadily rose-much more
rapidly than the number of people released from jails in recurring
amnesties. By the time the junta was replaced by a conservative
civilian government and all the political prisoners were let free,
TV sets were already being installed in the bars of Athens and
the coffee houses of village Greece. In America meanwhile TV sets
have been installed, as a reinforcement of the custodial functions,
not only in jails and hospitals but also in nursing homes for
the aged. One of the reasons why nursing homes are an important
growth industry for the 1980s is the fact that TV, radio, and
tapes provide the "indispensable magic stroke" needed
to accustom older people to acceptance of life in a segregated
warehouse.
According to Arthur R. Miller, TV teaching
programs, entirely apart from their content, "anesthetize
the sensitivity and awareness" of students, no matter what
their age. This paraphrase of Arthur Miller's comment
p259
Adolf Hitler
"Through clever and constant application of propaganda, people
can be made to see paradise as hell, and also the other way around
to consider the most wretched sort of life as paradise. "
p259
"You may fool all of the people some of the time; you can
even fool some of the people all of the time," said Abraham
Lincoln, "but you can't fool all of the people all of the
time." Yet Lincoln's famous statement antedates the modern-day
information complex and its potentialities for service to modern
capitalism. Hitler's boast about what he could do with "the
clever and constant application of propaganda" is also outdated
-so too, his more quoted statements that big lies are more easily
believed than small ones. Improvements in the art of Iying have
kept up with advances in communication hardware. The mass-consumption
economy of transnational capitalism requires the ingenious invention
of impressively (sometimes even artistically) presented myths
to disguise the realities of capitalist exploitation. In the misleading
advertisements of consumers goods the arts of professional Iying
are technically referred to as "puffery . . . the dramatic
extension of a claim area." With the rapid extension of puffery
to include all aspects of politics and institutional advertising,
it is not too hard to visualize the faceless oligarchs as managing
to fool most of the people (including some of themselves and more
of their professional aides) most of the time.
The size of lies varies immensely with
the directness or indirectness of propaganda. Thus advertising
in the mass media deals mainly with small lies projected into
the minds of millions of viewers, listeners, and readers. The
truly big lies are those that create the myths of what George
Gerbner calls the "symbolic environment." 6 These myths
penetrate the innermost recesses of consciousness and effect the
basic values, attitudes, and beliefs-and eventually volition and
action themselves-of viewers, listeners, and readers. Herbert
Schiller analyzes five of the myths, which in his judgment have
represented the media's greatest manipulative triumphs of the
past: (1) the myth of individualism and personal choice; (2) the
myth that key social institutions are neutral instead of serving
concentrated wealth and power; (3) the myth that human nature
does not change, despite the mythmakers' successes in helping
to change it; (4) the myth of the absence of serious social conflict;
and (5) the myth of media pluralism..
Of making myths there is no end. In an
era of friendly fascist "triplespeak," the imagery of
major myths must constantly be updated, and one obvious technique
in both mass and elite media is "take over the symbols of
all opposition groups." Peace, equality, black power, women's
rights, the Constitution, for example, may become prominent in
the sloganry justifying increased armament, oligarchic wealth,
institutionalized white and male supremacy, and the subversion
of constitutional rights. The thin veneer of Charles Reich's Consciousness
Three could become a useful facade to adorn the evolution of his
Consciousness Two into a more highly developed technocratic ideology.
Under friendly fascism, one could expect the shameless acceptance
of a principle already cynically tolerated in advertising: "Exploit
the most basic symbols of human needs, human kindness, and human
feeling." For those hardened to such appeals, there would
be a complementary principle: "Make plentiful use of scientific
and technical jargon."
Of course, not even the most skillful
of media messengers can juggle their imagery so as to avoid all
credibility gaps. In this sense, Lincoln was right: at least some
of the people some of the time will be aware that someone is trying-very
hard-to fool them. But it is wishful thinking to assume that these
failures in mind management will necessarily have a positive outcome.
Unfortunately even credibility gaps can be functional in the maintenance
of a nondemocratic system. They may deepen the sense of cynicism,
hopelessness, and alienation. A barrage of mythmaking can create
a world of both passive acquiescence and of little real belief
or trust. In such a world, serious opponents of friendly fascism
would have but a slight chance of winning a hearing or keeping
anyone's allegiance.
p260
Aldous Huxley
"Hitler's vast propaganda successes were accomplished with
little more than the radio and loudspeaker, and without TV and
tape and video recording . . . Today the art of mind control is
in the process of becoming a science."
p261
Fred Friendly head of CBS news
... pointed out that CBS was in business to make money and that
informing the public was secondary to keeping on good terms with
advertisers.
p262
In George Orwell's 1984 Winston Smith and his fellow bureaucrats
in the Ministry of Truth labored diligently to rewrite past history.
Under friendly fascism, in contrast, skillful technicians and
artists at scattered points in the information complex will create
current history through highly selective and slanted reporting
of current events. Like self-regulation of business, self-censorship
is the first line of defense. "Prior restraint" is more
effective when part of volition itself, rather than when imposed
by courts or other outside agencies.
Under friendly fascism the biggest secrets
would no longer be in the thriller-story areas of old-fashioned
espionage, military technology, and battle plans. Nor would there
be little if any censorship-even among America's more prudish
partners in the dependent fascist regimes of Brazil, Chile, Pakistan
or Indonesia-of visual or written portrayals of frontal nudity
and sexual intercourse. The primary blackout would be on any frontal
scrutiny of the faceless oligarchs themselves and their exploitative
intercourse with the rest of the world. It would not be enough
to divert attention toward celebrities, scandals, and exposes
at lower and middle levels of power, or new theories exaggerating
the influence of knowledge elites, technicians, labor unions,
and other minor pressure groups. Neither scholars, reporters,
congressional committees, nor government statisticians would be
allowed access to the internal accounts of conglomerates and transnationals.
Whenever such information would be compiled, it would be done
on the basis of misleading definitions that underestimate wealth,
profit, and all the intricate operations necessary for serious
capital accumulation. As already indicated, "straight talk"
must never be recorded in any form, and, if recorded, must be
promptly destroyed. Recurring clampdowns by "plumbers' groups"
would also enforce established procedures for official leaks to
favorite reporters or scholars. At present, information on corporate
corruption at the higher levels is played down in both the mass
and elite media. Under friendly fascism, while the same activities
would take place on a larger scale, they would be protected by
double cover-on the one hand, their legalization by a more acquiescent
and cooperative state, and, on the other hand, the suppression
of news on any such operations that have not yet been legalized.
The whole process would be facilitated
by the integration of the media into the broader structure of
big business. Thanks to the recurrent shakeups, quasi-independent
newspapers and publishing houses would become parts of transnational
conglomerates, a trend already well under way. To make a little
more money by exposing how the system works, bringing its secrets
to light, or criticizing basic policies (as in the case of this
book's publication) would no longer be tolerated. Dissident commentators
would be eased out, kicked upstairs, or channeled into harmless
activities. "Prior restraint" would be exercised through
the mutual adjustments among executives who know how to "go
along and get along."
Although "actualities" have
thus far been used mainly in political campaigns, it seems likely
that in the transition to a new corporate society they will become
a standard means of making current history.
Whenever necessary, moreover, residual
use would be made of direct, old-fashioned censorship: some matters
cannot be left to decentralized judgment. Thus, where official
violence leads to shooting people down in jails, hospitals or
factories, or on the street or campus, there would be a blackout
on bloodshed. If a My Lai should occur in Muncie, Indiana, the
news would simply not be transmitted by the media. A combination
of legal restraints, justified by "national security"
or "responsibility," would assure that the episode would
simply be a nonevent.
p263
Larry P. Gross
"While the Constitution is what the judges say it is, a public
issue is something that Walter Cronkite or John Chancellor recognizes
as such. The media by themselves do not make the decisions, but
on behalf of themselves and larger interests they certify what
is or is not on the nation's agenda."
p263
A problem usually becomes a "public issue," as pointed
out in an earlier chapter, when open disputes break out within
the Establishment. But even then, there is a selection process.
Many vital disputes-particularly those among financial groups-are
never aired at all. Sometimes the airing is only in the elite
media-business publications, academic journals, or the liberal
or radical press. Those who seek to create a "public issue"
must often first submit their petitions to the elite media, hoping
that they may then break through to the mass media. Issues that
are finally "certified" by a Walter Cronkite or John
Chancellor are, in the words of Larry P. Gross, thereby placed
on the "nation's agenda." But this privileged position
cannot last any longer than a popular song on the "hit parade."
Civil rights, busing, women's lib, pollution, energy shortages-such
issues are quickly created and then unceremoniously even cast
into the shadows of the elite media. Under such circumstances,
the time available in the hit parade of vital issues is not enough
for serious presentation, let alone sustained analysis, of alternative
views. This kind of issue creation helps nourish the drift toward
a new corporate society in which the range of public issues would
be narrowed much more rigorously and the nation's agenda rendered
much more remote from the real decision making behind the curtains
of a more integrated establishment.
In Don't Blame the People, a well-documented
study of bias in the mass media, Robert Cirino shows in detail
how "money buys and operates the media" and how this
fact "works to the advantage of those with conservative viewpoints,"
namely, the radical right, the solid conservatives, and the moderate
conservatives. The radical left and the solid liberals are outside
the limits, thus leaving the moderate liberals to "compete
alone against the combined mass media power of the conservative
camp."
But to have their petitions recognized
by the mass media, the moderate liberals usually have to accept
or operate within the unwritten rules of the game. Thus their
tendency, I would argue, is increasingly to press upon moderate
conservatives the kind of reforms which, although usually opposed
by solid conservatives, are required to strengthen Establishment
conservatism. Similarly, the tendency is among the solid liberals
and the radical left to win some slight hearing for their own
voices by accepting as a fact of life (what choice is there?)
the agenda as certified by the media. The middle ground is moved
still further to the right as conservative or moderate-liberal
money subsidizes the radical left and the more militant liberals.
Such shifts are supported by the growth
of highly sophisticated conservatism, as illustrated by the National
Review, Commentary, and The Public Interest. Within these elite
circles the spirit of conservative controversy flourishes, both
dominating the agendas of nonconservatives and giving the appearance
of broader freedom. How much further a friendly fascist regime
would go in narrowing still further the limits of elite opinion
among solid liberals and the radical left is impossible to predict.
The important point is that the basic trends in the information
complex could render dissenting or critical opinions increasingly
isolated and impotent.
p267
Edmund Carpenter
"The White House is now essentially a TV performance. "
p267
Fred W. Friendly head of CBS news said of the American presidency
"No mighty king, no ambitious emperor, no pope, or prophet
ever dreamt of such an awesome pulpit, so potent a magic wand.
"
p267
In capitalist countries the business of all the private mass media
is making money from advertising revenue. Their product is the
seeing, listening, or reading audience-or more specifically the
opportunity to influence the audience. Although the members of
the TV and radio audience seem to be getting something for nothing,
in reality they pay for the nominally free service through the
prices they pay for advertised products. The larger the estimated
audience, the more money the media receive from advertisers.
The biggest exception is the provision
of free time-usually prime time-to the chief executive. In return,
the media feel they maintain the goodwill of a government which
has granted them without any substantial charge the highly profitable
right to use the airwaves. This indirect cash nexus is customarily
smothered in a thick gravy of rhetoric about "public service."
But no equivalent services are provided for the chief executive's
political opposition, or for lesser politicians. And in the United
States, as distinct from some other capitalist countries, the
media extort enormous fees from all candidates for political office,
a practice that heightens the dependence of all elected officeholders
(including the president) upon financial contributions from more
or less the same corporations who give the media their advertising
revenue.
Friendly fascism in the United States
would not need a charismatic, apparently all-powerful leader such
as Mussolini or Hitler-so I have argued throughout this book.
The chief executive, rather, becomes the nominal head of a network
that not only serves as a linchpin to help hold the Establishment
together but also provides it with a sanctimonious aura of legitimacy
through the imagery of the presidential person, his family, his
associates, and their doings. The chief executive is already a
TV performer, and his official residence in indeed "an awesome
pulpit" from which he and his entire production staff can
wield a potent "magic wand."
p303
Ronald Reagan when governor of California
"If it takes a bloodbath ... let's get it over with."
p329
Baron De Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws
"The tyranny of a prince in an oligarchy is not so dangerous
to public welfare as the apathy of a citizen in a democracy."
Friendly
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