War is one of the most effective marketing tools. But making its horror an acceptable reality for citizens, we have to put great effort in creating and maintaining the right mythology - this is what I call: the Rhetoric of Defense.
Storified by Soviet Unit ·
Fri, Dec 21 2012 07:59:00
The creation of a clear and present danger, to use the words of Defense apologist Tom Clancy, is one of the most powerful tools in stabilizing the consensus around oppressive governments - a tactic that often kicks the can a long way forward. This is of course the main way high Defense spending is justified, and tells a lot about the seemingly unending War on Terror, which just holds the place of the much missed Cold War. Anyway, this strategy is so widespread and transparent that makes you wonder.
One notable application of this strategy is the US propaganda on Iran
AP's Iran Bomb Drawing HoaxCrack open USA Today ( 11/28/12) and you saw this headline: The story was short-short enough for a careful reader to see that it in no wa...
Another is the Israeli one on Gaza (which is, frankly, unsustainable)
The strategy - if we can call it that - is so easily revealed by the 'two weights-two measures' approach of those involved, where the US are a very special case:
But the cliché of Terror is so effective and simple to feed to the public, that few can resist the temptation. This strategy has to do not only with open, armed conflict. The idea of protection justifies human rights violation at any level - including the daily - and opportunistically builds upon very simple fears.
Propaganda is so deep that even the 'informed élites' comply wilfully. After the Obama one, another incredible Noble prize was the one awarded to the European Union
The Internet - a global, non hierarchical information network - is quite naturally one of the targets in the effort of controlling workers, and building fear around it is exceptionally easy, particularly when no-one (including the proponent of security) can be considered really literate about it.