Nina-Bytes: Manufacturing Consent for a Genocide
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Justifying Violence with Silence and Lies
At this point I’ve run out of patience with not only Pig Empire governments supporting Israel’s genocidal actions in Gaza, but also the monstrously dishonest mainstream media narratives being constructed to obscure, justify, or normalize the crimes, atrocities and violence being committed against everyday Palestinians. Given that it’s been over ten months since the beginning of this slaughter, and corporate media is still ignoring multiple daily crimes against humanity while spinning stories about terrorism to justify the murder of innocent children, I think it’s impossible to argue that these folks aren’t deliberately manufacturing consent for Israel’s genocide in Gaza. If this happened once or twice, you might be able to chalk this tragic situation up to cold indifference, or journalistic malpractice. When it happens almost every day for nearly an entire year, I don’t think it’s even remotely reasonable to pretend they aren’t doing it on purpose.
In writing about the ongoing U.S.-backed, Israeli genocide of Palestinians being conducted in Gaza under the pretext of a “war” to “defend themselves,” I’ve repeatedly highlighted the complicity of the Pig Empire corporate media in the execution of these atrocities. In terms of manufacturing consent for genocidal violence, this shameful situation has many fathers; with the possible exception of the Guardian, I believe there are almost no major for-profit media organizations (particularly in America) who aren’t guilty as charged. When examining this monstrous media malfeasance, it’s important to understand that not only are they engaging in a conspiracy of silence in an effort to keep everyday people from finding out about the atrocities Israel is committing in Gaza, but they’re also purposely buttressing the propaganda narratives that the murderous Netanyahu government is using to justify an ongoing genocide of Palestinian people disguised as a “war.” When you uncritically report the statements and accusations of an objectively fascist government bombing the life out of schools, hospitals, and refugee camps, while also refusing to report on IDF personnel engaging in torture, the intentional starvation of Gazans, and the widespread murder of children, you’re doing a lot more than “refusing to take a side” – you’re actively enabling a genocide.
Of course, I certainly don’t expect for-profit media in America to take *themselves* to task for this monstrous bullshit, but an eloquent August 25th, 2024 post by international human rights lawyer Craig Mokhiber published on Common Dreams, demonstrates that I’m certainly not the only person who has noticed this active complicity:
Western Media Outlets Are Complicit in Israel’s Genocide – and Must Be Held Accountable
“Indeed, if your only source of information is mainstream Western media, you may have no idea that Israel is on trial for genocide in the World Court or that Israel’s leaders are the subject of arrest warrant requests for crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court. It is likely that you have never heard the numerous statements of genocidal intent by the Israeli President, Prime Minister, cabinet ministers, and military commanders.
You will likely still believe the stories of beheaded Israeli babies (long proven to be fabricated) and be unaware of the many Palestinian babies who actually have been beheaded. You will almost certainly not know of the systematic killing of Palestinian civilians, children, infants, women, older persons, persons with disabilities, and others. You will be unaware of the torture camps, the systematic rape of detainees, and the Israeli snipers targeting small children in Gaza. And you may not even know that Israel now holds the world records for the murder of journalists, of aid workers, of UN officials, and of healthcare workers.
Instead, transparently false Israeli disinformation and propaganda are regularly and uncritically published in Western media to justify war crimes, dehumanize Palestinians, and distract the public from the daily atrocities committed in Israel’s campaign of extermination. Stories covering the genocide are censored. The voices of Palestinians and human rights defenders are suppressed.”
Look folks, we aren’t talking about a handful of podunk small town papers here; these are major corporate media outlets that range across what passes for the entire (in reality quite narrow) political spectrum in mainstream society. When news organizations like CNN, the New York Times, the BBC, Canada’s CBC, Fox, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and more than half the newspapers in Western Europe are printing more fucking propaganda, and less factual information about events in Gaza than you can find being produced by teenagers on TikTok, we have a very serious problem that can’t be explained away by “mistakes.” For reasons that include ideological motivations, latent white supremacy, and financial relationships with advertisers and investors, corporate media in the Pig Empire are actively manufacturing consent for an ongoing genocide; and they’re being crass enough about it that anyone paying attention to what’s actually going on in Gaza knows precisely what they’re doing.
While in this situation it’s obviously important for independent observers to raise awareness of these crimes and atrocities, as the author of this piece notes, there’s also a question of criminal culpability by mainstream Pig Empire media, for enabling war crimes, crimes against humanity, and acts of genocide conducted by Israel in Gaza, and with full support of the U.S. government. There is no first amendment protection offered to American media organizations for engaging in these activities, and I agree with Mokhiber’s argument that the prosecution of publishers and media presenters in both Nazi Germany, and Rwanda provide a functional precedent under international law for charging decision makers at corporate media outlets in the so-called West for actively enabling and aiding these atrocities. In fact, I’d probably even go further than the author has here because while he argues that the complicity of the mainstream media doesn’t quite rise to the same level as Der Sturmer and Milles Collines, I’m not sure that isn’t a distinction without a difference; the results are after all the same in terms of murder, violence, and atrocities. The legal standard for prosecution established by those cases isn’t about the size of your body count, just that a body count exists.
Finally, while it’s not entirely on topic I’d still like to point out that examples like this are precisely why I find it infuriating when liberals in the Pig Empire insist we must rally around and protect for-profit media, and that fascist propaganda is the only reason everyday people are losing trust in journalism and our institutions. Obviously I don’t agree with the selfish and eliminationist motivations of the fascists, but things like demonizing exploited labor, propping up billionaires boiling our planet like soup for profit, and enabling a literal fucking genocide are also very good reasons not to trust Pig Empire corporate media. The fact that fascists in our society and their propagandists are able to weaponize this learned behavior to cast doubt on media organizations reporting their own odious fuckery, only makes the situation more tragic, and highlights why doing things like dishonestly manufacturing consent for a genocide for months on end leads to disastrous consequences for us all. You can’t separate cause from effect, and an America ready to tell lies about murdered children in Gaza, is also an America ready to elect a reality TV show nazi like Donald Trump.
– Nina Illingworth
Anarcho-syndicalist writer, critic and analyst.
You can find my work at ninaillingworth.com, and on Mastodon.
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