US censorship, the capitalist media, what is said and not said.

It is non stop. The propaganda that US capitalism has free speech and is an open society. This lie is one of the biggest pieces of propaganda and censorship of them all. We need to think about how we deal with the capitalist propaganda machine. We need to fight against being passive in front of it. One thing we need to do is not just sit at the TV or read a paper or attend a class but we need to consider actively what we are being told. That is what is being censored out and censored in as well as the slant of what they tell us. Or as they say the spin they put on it.

I have been thinking about this on a few issues these past few days. The Wall Street Journal Sat/Sun February 4th and 5th had an article on parenting. This was over one full page long. This is a very long article for the Journal and shows how important it sees the need for parents to be part of their propaganda machine, their censoring. Of course aspiring to be a serious newspaper the article has to make a few serious points. Such as for example the need for parents not to be totally subservient to their children's' demands. Such as the need for parents to explain and educate their children to see that their parents have a life of their own also and cannot be totally at their service.

But where the censorship comes in is in two areas specifically. First it makes no mention at all of the role of the corporations and their consumer culture in children's' and families' lives. A senior advertising agent said recently:"We target the children so they can pester the parents." Think about this for a moment. The gigantic resources of the advertising machine of the corporations and this is targeting the children so they can pester the parents, that is pester the parents to buy them what the corporations want to sell them and live the way the corporations want them to live. This is never mentioned in the article. But this is propaganda of the greatest proportions.

Then there is the other issue. The article on parenting is headed:"Why French Parents are Superior." Again this is censorship and spin. It wants to say that the issue of parenting and children's behavior is all to do with the role of the parent rather than an issue of society over all and in particular of capitalist society with the dominance of the corporations. The article makes some interesting points when it compares the way French parents see their role as do most US parents. But this is not connected to the fact that the corporations are much more dominant and their propaganda and reach much more dominant in the US than in France. This is for reasons such as the great revolutionary movements in France such as the 1968 events.

But as I say the Journal cannot keep up its pretense at being a serious newspaper and say nothing about the general social factors that influence parenting in France compared to the US. In one tiny paragraph out of this more than one full page article they write the following:"Of course, the French have all kinds of public services that help to make having kids more appealing and less stressful. Parents don't have to pay for pre-school, worry about health insurance or save for college. Many get monthly cash allotments - wired directly into their bank accounts - just for having kids." Yes more censorship. And a major major piece at that. Imagine the difference if the working class was stronger here in the US and could make capitalism provide these types of change in the cost of having a family.

I was thinking also about censorship in relation to the extreme right wing racist Ron Paul. Piers Morgan that hack journalist former phone hacker from the British tabloids runs his talk show here on CNN. He had Paul on recently. He let Paul claim that in the auto bail out Obama handed over the auto industry into the ownership of the United Auto Workers' Union. A blatant lie. And Morgan never even responded to it. Then Paul in his dirty sneaky pretending to be the honest man in the GOP race said he became anti abortion because he saw a foetus in a surgery. Such a poor man we are meant to think, such trauma. Here again this right wing racist and anti women's rights swine was not challenged. He as a doctor would not only have seen a foetus he would have seen many women dying in agony after being operated on by unskilled unhygienic back street abortion clinics or individuals. What conclusions did he draw from this? More censorship and propaganda. In this case anti women's' rights. And Morgan never challenged Paul on his anti African American racist newsletter either. More censorship.

And finally the next time you swatch the capitalist mass media propaganda machine please always keep in mind what they do not show you, who they do not interview, how they interview. When was the last time you saw a democratically elected militant shop floor representative of working people. They are a bit hard to find in this propaganda machine of the so-called freest country in the world. We have to make sure we learn how to watch this propaganda machine, read the papers of this propaganda machine, interact actively with it, not passively, that is at all times think what we are not being shown, what is not being said and how things are being said.

Sean.