The real 'matrix'. Barrett Brown, publisher and journalist talks to Chris Hedges about the US government’s war on Wikileaks, Assange and other outlets exposing the inner workings of power.
[This is a translation from the French version, "Quelle est la théorie du complot la plus crédible que vous connaissez?"] The mass media is the mouthpiece of the corporate world. It pretends to reflect the opinions of we masses but, in reality, it tries to create a perception that the exploitative economic system benefits us. Noam Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent is about this conspiracy. Chomsky shows how people are convinced that the corporate media reflects the opinions and thoughts of ordinary people, even if it isn't true. Ordinary people continue to read the corporate media, believing that it will represent them. They finish up adapting to what is presented to them as the opinion of their equals, even though this is rarely true.
The idea of 'fake news' is a feature of this propaganda machine, which now characterises all criticism of its prejudices as 'fake news'. This distortion of reality is more exaggerated and obvious in video games and social media, which exploit a younger, naive, social cohort, who lack classical education.
I think that one of the principal results of this media has been the stigmatisation of nationalism. When you think of it, what other concept can unite a country? Initially, small localities resisted the notion of 'nations' because they feared that nations would overwhelm their self-determination, their identities, their societiies and their local economies. In many cases, they were right, although the French system of communes within the roman (Napoleonic) system, resisted this better than the Anglosphere systems.
In general, however, national systems conquered small regional entities and people came to identify with the nation and to expect national governments to serve their people. It is important to note that the members of nations frequently won the right to vote. In effect, to vote - to be enfranchised - characterises the modern nation.
Today globalism seeks to stigmatise the nation and fails to offer the global 'citizen' the right to vote on questions that concern him or her. In effect, there are no 'global' citizens. There are only global populations. National governments, once required to serve their citizens, now take orders from global forces. What globalism promises is that the global market will be the final arbiter of everything. Some elites can profit from the global market, but most of us are its playthings.
It is true that warlike elites have often abused nationalism, during the last two world wars, for example. But nationalism is also a product of the French Revolution, which gave birth to durable values of civil rights and the maintenance of the family land, rather than having it in the hands of elites. As long as the nation remains the only political level where people may vote to influence their fates, I am in favour of its preservation.
Perhaps I should qualify my implication of Chomsky's theory as a conspiracy theory, since Chomsky himself described what the mass media does as a hegemonic system, which means a sort of pragmatic adaptation by its beneficiaries, rather than having begun with a careful plan. The massive and rapid campaign to call media views outside the mass media's views 'fake news', in particular those alternative opinions against the wars and sanctions of the US-NATO, seems to me to be a true conspiracy against anyone who tries to cast doubt on US-NATO politics.
I would like to add that Quora could become a way of helping other points of view, for it provides a huge platform. This does seem rather too much to hope, but I would like to hope.
This article sprang from my response to a French language Quora question here: What is the most credible conspiracy theory you know?" (Quelle est la théorie du complot la plus crédible que vous connaissez ?).
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