Ideological Hegemony

8/8/2019 Ideological Hegemony

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Ideological HegemonyThought Control in American Society

Introduction

In June 2003 a Washington Post-ABC News poll found that about 1 in 4 Americans (incorrectly) believedIraq had used weapons of mass destruction during the recent war with the United States. [1] A separatepoll in the same month found that 34% of Americans believed the United States had already foundweapons of mass destruction in Iraq. [2] In September another poll found that 69% of Americansbelieved Saddam Hussein was personally involved in 911. [3] Even the Bush administration has beenforced to admit that these claims are not true. These misconceptions are the outcome of a system ofthought control called ideological hegemony. Hegemony operates through many mechanisms includingthe media, education system, newspeak and others with the primary function of maintaining support forthe dominant socio-economic system in the United States.

In all class societies, the ruling class can maintain control through violence and/or ideology. If themajority can be persuaded that the rule of the ruling class is legitimate then it can be maintained with lessviolence. Examples of ideologies that serve this function include the divine right of kings, socialDarwinism and Marxism-Leninism. All of them acted to legitimize the rule of specific elites in certainsocieties and helped those elites maintain power. Some hierarchical societies rely more on violence,

others rely more on ideology. The United States relies more on ideology, although a certain degree offorce is used.

In Russia prior to 1905 there were a number of large peasant revolts over the centuries that could havepotentially threatened the power of the monarchy. However, all such revolts did not see the monarchy asthe problem. They assumed that it was various bad apples which caused their problems, not the socialsystem. The rebels believed the oppressive actions the monarchy took were the result of bad advisers,corrupt officials or other glitches in the system but never the outcome of having a monarchy. This beliefthat the monarchy was not to blame, the system just needed a few reforms, helped prevent the systemfrom being overthrown as most rebellions against the monarchy didnt seek to overthrow it. Themonarchy did not fall until after most stopped believing that the problems were the result of bad applesrather than being inherent in a monarchical system.

Ideological hegemony in the United States operates in a similar manner. Certain fundamental principlesare never questioned capitalism, private property, the state, imperialism and other assumptions. Solong as those fundamental principles are not questioned debates can rage back & forth and all sorts ofdifferent positions can be formulated. The more vigorous the debate is the more it will tend to shore upthe status quo as it will make society seem more open and pluralistic than it really is. Thought isbounded, with liberalism on one end, conservativism on the other end and various other ideologies in-between (I count libertarian capitalism as being within this spectrum). The legitimacy of private property,the state, etc. is always assumed.

For example, it is generally assumed that most US interventions into other countries in recent history areintended to be benevolent. Some may argue that such interventions dont have the positive effects theirsupporters desire or that they arent worth the costs, but the assumption that the US acts with benevolentintentions, even if it makes mistakes sometimes, is assumed to be true. Similar assumptions are madeabout capitalism, the state, etc. Some may argue these things need to be reformed but the vast majority

assumes they are legitimate. So long as that assumption is held by a large majority of Americans thesystem will be secure, just as the monarchy was secure in Russia when the vast majority assumed itslegitimacy. Anyone dissatisfied with the status quo will end up being drawn to various reform schemes,voting for different politicians and the like instead of supporting the overthrow of the system.

These assumptions are both shared by the vast majority of Americans and transmitted to the populacethrough a variety of mechanisms. In an important sense hegemony, once established, is self-perpetuating. Those who believe in these ideas, to varying degrees, tend to advocate and promote them,passing them on to others and to the next generation. These values are also transmitted, often indirectly,in movies, novels, scholarship, entertainment and other forms of communication that reaches large


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numbers of people. This isnt necessarily intentional or explicit.

Critics play an important role in perpetuating ideological hegemony. If even the most ardent critics of thecurrent regime share these basic assumptions then it will serve to reinforce those assumptions. If eventhey share these assumptions then even fewer will question them, as doing so would seem insane.Those dissatisfied with the status quo will tend to become involved with movements and ideologies thataccept these fundamental principles and therefore will not represent much of a threat to the dominantsocio-economic system.

The kind of ideological hegemony that operates in America is different from the mechanisms used bytotalitarian states to maintain control. Totalitarian societies tend to rely more on violence to control thepopulation, although they usually also have an ideology to support the status quo. The United Statesdoes occasionally use violence to control dissent, such as the frame up of Sherman Austin, and hasaround 100 political prisoners. [4] However, force is not used against dissidents on nearly the scale it isin totalitarian states, where dissidents are systemically rounded up. Most dissidents in the United Statescan criticize the government with low odds of going to jail for it. So long as their ideas are keptmarginalized, so long as the vast majority continues to believe in the system, dissidents do not representmuch of a threat to the status quo. Allowing most dissidents to exist, but marginalizing their views,actually strengthens hegemony because it makes the system seem freer and more open. In a totalitariansystem the spectrum is narrower and all dissent is suppressed, while the ideological hegemony that

exists in the United States just marginalizes dissent, instead of suppressing it, and acts to insure thatmost people continue to believe in the system.

Neither ideological hegemony nor the existence of an elite ruling over the United States is some giantconspiracy. They are both the outcome of the way American society is set up and a long historicalevolution. Hegemony is the result of the way the media, education system and other institutions are setup and have evolved. The structure of the system is such that those who are outside the liberal-conservative spectrum tend to be weeded out when rising up the hierarchy for positions involved inperpetuating hierarchy (editors, teachers, etc.), not as the result of a conspiracy but as the result of theway the system operates, and those who are not weeded out are marginalized. Whenever any society isdivided into hierarchies (rich and poor, powerful and powerless) an elite is formed consisting of those onthe top of the hierarchy. Several centralized, hierarchical institutions including large corporations, apowerful military and a bureaucratic state run the United States. Those on the top of these institutions,what sociologist C. Wright Mills called the power elite, have far greater power, wealth and prestige thanthose below them.

Hegemony operates through many institutions and mechanisms. The news media reinforces it byemphasizing facts that are consistent with the liberal-conservative spectrum while downplaying facts thatmight cast down on it. The education system reinforces hegemony by training the population to obeyauthority and indoctrinating children with the fundamental principles underlying hegemony, principleswhich they usually continue to believe as adults. Both of these largely exclude dissident views.Hegemony is written into the very structure of our language, through a process called newspeak. Andthere are also other elements to hegemony, but these are the main ones addressed here. In addition,some of these institutions have functions other than directly reinforcing hegemony. The educationsystem is a kind of Keynesianism and the media helps create artificial scarcity, for example. These otherfunctions are not examined here, the focus is on how each of these institutions acts to create andreinforce ideological hegemony.

The Media

There are many models about how the news media works. One is the fair and objective model thatasserts that, for the most part, the media objectively and fairly report on the events of the day and give anaccurate picture of reality. Overall, coverage is balanced and does not reflect any ideological bias. Onevariant of this is the idea that the media are highly critical of the powers that be and act to exposegovernment or corporate abuse & wrongdoing. Another model is the liberal bias theory, which assertsthat the media is biased in favor of liberalism. A third theory is the propaganda model, which asserts thatthe media as a whole is neither liberal nor conservative but acts as propaganda for the interests of


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business, political and military elites. Within the media, the fair and objective model is the theorypromoted the most. The liberal bias theory is not promoted by the media as much, but one can still findit advocated within the media. The propaganda model almost never referred to within the media andmost of the exceptions are criticisms of it. The evidence favors the propaganda model by a large margin,and overwhelmingly disproves the fair and objective model.

In the United States the media are for-profit companies and usually owned by other large corporations.Those who manage and control these corporations, the business elite, have common interests with othermembers of the business elite and with the state. The media are also dependant on other corporationsfor advertising, from which they derive their main revenue. The products they produce are not theirshows; the products they produce are audiences, which they sell to advertisers. Advertisers tend toprefer wealthier audiences to poorer ones because wealthier ones are more likely to be able to affordtheir products and to be able to buy larger quantities of their products. You dont see manyadvertisements geared towards homeless people. Thus what the media produces tends to be gearedtowards attracting the wealthier, and tends to go along with their prejudices and beliefs. The media alsodepends disproportionately on the government as a news source. These factors act to mold what themedia reports. Coverage tends to stay within the liberal-conservative spectrum; things outside of it aremarginalized. Unlike a totalitarian system, they arent necessarily 100% excluded but are marginalized.

Corporate ownership of news media creates a huge conflict of interest. Shortly after ABC (including the

ABC radio network) was acquired by Disney Jim Hightowers leftist talk show, which was very critical ofDisney, was cancelled. [5] In 1998 ABC cancelled a 20/20 story that investigated allegations that Disneyallowed known child molesters to gain employment at Disney World without a background check. [6]Things arent always that direct, though. Only the wealthy can afford to set up a newspaper with a widecirculation or a major news network. Others are excluded, and so the news tends to reflect the views ofthe wealthy owners while the less wealthy tend to be excluded even if there is no explicit censorshippolicy.

The dependency on advertising for revenue also influences coverage. A survey of 55 members of theSociety of American Business Editors and Writers at the societys 1992 conference found that 80%believed advertiser pressure was a growing problem and that 45 percent knew of instances where newscoverage was compromised by advertiser pressure. [7] In 2001 NBC agreed to run ads for Amazon.comduring certain programs, including news programs like Today, on NBC, CNBC and MSNBC in exchangefor a percentage of the sales generated. Riverside, Californias Press-Enterprise had a box in theirMarch 8th, 2001 newspaper that read, "More than 125,000 daily Press-Enterprise readers have eaten ata Mexican restaurant in the past 30 days. Advertise your restaurant in Riverside and San Bernardino forunder $250.00 and get a free feature story." [8] The influence of advertisers isnt always this direct andexplicit, though. A publication which ran stories critical of corporate power and which questioned thedominant socio-economic system could not expect to get much advertising from those samecorporations, even if such stories were only a small percentage of content. It would be unable tocompete in the marketplace, thus the pro-corporate publications tend to dominate the media.

The media is also dependent on its supply of raw materials (information), which tend to comedisproportionately from the government and, to a lesser extent, big business. For example, theallegations about President Bush going AWOL when he was in the National Guard were known for yearsand circulated in left-wing circles in the run up to the 2000 election but were mostly ignored by the media.It wasnt until early 2004 that the media paid much attention to this, because a powerful democrat (John

Kerry) decided to bring it up and attack Bush with it, causing it to become a big issue. The mediaimplicitly takes the point of view of the American government, referring to government military forces asour troops and our fighters, as if the networks owned them. They identify with the actions of thegovernment. The invasion of Iraq provides another example of this. Sixty-three percent of sources onABC World News Tonight, CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News, CNNs Wolf Blitzer Reports, FoxsSpecial Report with Brit Hume, and PBSs NewsHour With Jim Lehrer in the first three weeks of theinvasion were government officials or ex-officials, giving it a strong pro-war slant. Anti-war sources madeup 10% of all sources and only 3% of US guests. Polls at the time showed over 25% of Americans wereanti-war. [9]


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There are many other examples of these factors acting to slant the news. There is a major controversyover the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq but this is not the first time in recent memorythat a Presidents excuse for war has been proven false. Clinton bombed Yugoslavia over the allegationthat it was committing genocide in Kosovo, but a subsequent NATO investigation found fewer than 3,000corpses, both civilian and military, on all sides. NATOs own figures state that 2000 people died on bothsides in the year of fighting prior to the bombing. Just as there is little evidence to support the claim thatIraq had weapons of mass destruction, there is also little evidence to support the claim that Yugoslaviawas engaging in genocide in Kosovo. [10] This failure to find evidence of genocide did not cause acontroversy for Clinton, nor did the discrediting of Bush the firsts lies over the Gulf War create acontroversy. This is because of the guerilla war against American troops in Iraq, which did not happen inYugoslavia or the Gulf War. This has both kept Iraq in the news and caused a large portion of the elite(including the business class that owns and funds the media) to come to the conclusion that the invasionwas a mistake and/or Bush bungled it. Opposition politicians and dissatisfied government officials havebrought attention to the failures to find WMDs and other controversies surrounding the war by criticizingBush for it. In Yugoslavia and other cases politicians & government officials didnt criticize the Presidentover the fraudulent nature of his pretexts for war, and so after the war the media followed the lead of thegovernment and devoted little coverage to it. Government officials & ex-officials still dominate newscoverage, both positive and negative. Seventy-six percent of all sources in stories about Iraq on ABCWorld News Tonight, CBS Evening News and NBC Nightly News in October 2003 were current or formergovernment or military officials. [11]

In the summer of 2003 the media started raising the issue of Bushs 16 words in his state of the unionaddress alleging that Iraq sought to buy uranium from a country in Africa. The documents used tosupport this assertion were shown to be a crude forgery by the International Atomic Energy Association inMarch, but the media didnt pay much attention to it until the summer. The reason is that prominentdemocrats ignored it until the summer when they used it to attack Bush, at which point the media thenstarted paying attention to the story. The democrats act as a left-wing limit to debates within the mediaand the republicans a right-wing limit. If they both agree on something then there is usually little debateon the issue.

Western media rarely reports the names of the various groups engaged in the guerilla war against theUS occupation. This aids the governments propaganda that they are all Saddam remnants andforeign terrorists. Here is a partial list of groups involved in the insurgency:

*Active Religious Seminary*Al-Anbar Armed Brigades*Al-Faruq Brigades*Armed Vanguards of Mohammad's Second Army*Black Banner Organization*General Command of the Armed Forces, Resistance and Liberation in Iraq*General Secretariat for the Liberation of Democratic Iraq*Harvest of the Iraqi Resistance*Hasad al-Muqawamah al-'Iraqiyah*Iraqi Communist Party-Al Cadre*Iraqi National Islamic Resistance*Iraqi Resistance Brigades*Jihad Cells

*Liberating Iraq's Army*Mujahideen Battalions of the Salafi Group of Iraq*Muslim Fighters of the Victorious Sect (aka, Mujaheddin of the Victorious Sect)*Muslim Youth*Nasserites*National Iraqi Commandos Front*Patriotic Front*Political Media Organ of the Baath Party (Jihaz al-Iilam al-Siasi lil hizb al-Baath)*Popular Resistance for the Liberation of Iraq*Saddam's Fedayeen


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*Salafist Jihad Group*Snake Party*Sons of Islam*Unification Front for the Liberation of Iraq*Wakefulness and Holy War*White Flags [12]

As one can see just by looking at the names on this list, there are a variety of different groups involved inthe insurgency; they are not all Saddam remnants and foreign terrorists as the government claims.Most groups can be divided into three different factions: the loyalists (who are pro-Baathist/pro-Saddam),Islamists (who want to build a Muslim theocracy in Iraq), and nationalists (who are secular & anti-Saddambut want the US out). Examples of the loyalists include Saddams Fedayeen & Political Media Organ ofthe Baath Party, of the Islamists Armed Vanguards of Mohammads Second Army & Al-Faruq Brigades,and of the nationalists General Secretariat for the Liberation of Democratic Iraq & Al-Anbar ArmedBrigades.

Discovering this isnt hard even if you have few resources, just search the web for Iraqi insurgency andyoull discover plenty of information. The major news organizations, who have enough resources thatthey could actually go to Iraq and directly report on these groups if they wanted to, do not report on thefacts of these groups because they rely almost entirely on government sources for their information about

the insurgency, and government sources rarely mention the names or ideologies of these groups. Thefailure to report on these resistance groups further illustrates the medias tendency to take governmentstatements at face value.

These cases arent limited to the Iraq war. A classic example is the Cambodia/East Timor comparison.Both Cambodia and East Timor experienced genocides at about the same time yet received verydifferent media coverage. In Cambodia the Khmer Rouge won a civil war against the US-backedgovernment, after suffering from large-scale US bombing of the country that killed several hundredthousand Cambodians. The Khmer Rouge was a brutal dictatorship that murdered huge numbers ofCambodians. In 1979 the Khmer Rouge were forced out of power by an invasion from state socialistVietnam, which brought their genocide to an end. The US supported the Khmer Rouges subsequentguerilla war against the Vietnamese in order to hurt Vietnam, but it failed to bring the Khmer Rouge backto power.

In December 1975 Indonesia invaded and took over East Timor, with US support. Indonesias followinggenocide in East Timor slaughtered between a fourth and a third of the population. The worst of thegenocide occurred in the first 5 years after the invasion. The US supported the invasion & genocide andsupplied East Timor with most of the arms used to carry it out. As atrocities increased the US flow ofweapons increased, to insure that the killings could continue and Indonesia wouldnt run out of weapons.All that was necessary for the US to stop this was to cut off the supply of weapons. The government inIndonesia at the time was actually put in power by a CIA coup in 1965 that resulted in the murder ofbetween 500,000 and a million Indonesians.

These two genocides occurred at the same time and had many similarities but had very different mediacoverage. Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge was an official enemy and coverage of the genocide therewas extensive, with little skepticism towards atrocity claims. Coverage of the genocide in East Timor wasfar less and largely just regurgitated State Department and Indonesia lies. Media coverage declined as

the atrocities in East Timor worsened. When they reached their highest point coverage declined to zero.Between 1975 and 1979 the New York Times gave 70 column inches to Timor but 1,175 column inchesto Cambodia. The New York Times is on the liberal end of the spectrum and tends to be more critical ofUS foreign policy than many of its competitors. To this day, most Americans have never heard of thegenocide in East Timor. When official enemies commit atrocities the media plays it up, but when the UScommits atrocities the media plays it down.

There are many other examples of this pattern of marginalizing US atrocities while emphasizing enemyatrocities. In the 1990s the US supported genocide in Turkish Kurdistan. While suppressing theinsurgency of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which was fighting for an independent Kurdish state,


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the Turkish state murdered tens of thousands of innocent Kurds, destroyed over 3,000 villages andoutlawed the Kurdish language. The US supported all this and provided 80% of the weapons to do it.This genocide received relatively little coverage and most of the coverage it did receive failed to makethe link to US funding of genocide. One of the standard pieces of war propaganda against Iraq was thatSaddam gassed his own people. The people he gassed were also Kurds. Between 19901999 theterm genocide was used by the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Washington Post, Newsweek,and Time to describe the actions of Iraq against the Kurds 132 times, while it was used by the samepublications to describe the actions of Turkey against the Kurds only 14 times. When an enemy, like Iraq,murders Kurds it gets lots of play but when an ally, like Turkey, murders Kurds it gets less play.

At the end of this genocide in Turkey the US led a NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, using the pretext thatYugoslavia was committing genocide in Kosovo. Turkey is a NATO member; the claim that NATOattacked Yugoslavia because it was committing genocide when one of NATOs own members wascommitting genocide is not credible. The medias focus on the alleged genocide in Kosovo (which waslater shown to be greatly exaggerated, after the media stopped paying attention) can be contrasted withthe downplaying of US-supported genocide in Turkey. In 1999 & 1998 the Los Angeles Times, New YorkTimes, Washington Post, Newsweek, and Time used the term genocide to describe Yugoslav actions inKosovo 220 times, while the same number for Turkeys genocide against the Kurds was 14. [13] Thelarge focus on refuges fleeing Kosovo can also be contrasted with the ignoring of refuges fleeingAfghanistan during the US-Taliban war started a few years later.

This applies not only to genocide but also to the murder of dissidents. On October 19th, 1984 Polishpolice murdered the priest and dissident Jerzy Popieluszka. American media gave this brutal murderextensive coverage, much of it well deserved. In the 18 months after the murder, the New York Timespublished 1183 column inches and 78 articles (10 on the front page) on it, Time and Newsweek gave it16 articles and 313 column inches, and CBS news aired 46 news programs, 23 evening news programson it. On March 18th, 1980 the head of the Catholic Church in El Salvador, Oscar Romero, wasmurdered by the US-backed dictatorship in El Salvador for his outspoken criticism of that dictatorship. Itreceived much less coverage from American media. In the following 18 months the New York Timesprinted 16 articles and 219 column inches on it, Time and Newsweek 3 articles and 86.5 column inches,and CBS news aired 13 news programs, 4 evening news programs on it. In fact, the murder of 100religious dissidents by US-backed dictatorships in Latin America between 19641985, including 4American churchwomen, received less total coverage than the murder of Jerzy Popieluszka. In the 18months following each murder/disappearance the New York Times printed 57 articles (8 on the frontpage) and 604.5 column inches, Time and Newsweek 10 articles and 247.5 column inches and CBSaired 37 news programs, 16 evening news programs on these 100 murders. The murder of a singlepriest by an official enemy, in this case a Soviet satellite state, received more coverage than the murderof 100 religious dissidents by US-backed dictatorships in Latin America. [14]

There are many other examples of the media whitewashing or ignoring US-backed dictatorships. In theten years prior to the overthrow of the US-backed dictator of Nicaragua, Anastasio Somozo, UStelevision, all networks, devoted one hour of coverage to Nicaragua, all of which was on the 1972earthquake. Between 1960 and 1978 the New York Times had a grand total of 3 editorials on Nicaragua.[15] When the Sandinistas overthrew Somoza in 1979 coverage increased and the media begandemonizing the Sandinistas. Sandinista human rights abuses, atrocities and dictatorial behavior were farless than the preceding Somoza dictatorship, and the surrounding US-backed dictatorships (which reliedon extreme state terror to maintain control), but were given far more attention by the media.

Many facts that would make the government look bad, not only US-backed dictatorships, tend to beignored or downplayed. One of the less publicized conclusions of the official Dutch inquiry into the 1995Srebrenica massacre was that the US backed Islamist terrorists in Bosnia in the early 90s and flew inweapons and Mujahideen (Muslim fundamentalist terrorists) from Afghanistan to Bosnia. This was onefacet of the US-NATO campaign to dismember Yugoslavia into several Western client states. The groupsthe US supported in this operation were some of the same people it would later fight in its so-called waron terrorism several years later. There were reports on this finding in European media, [16] but I havebeen unable to find a single report on it in American media.


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Bosnia was not the first place the US supported Islamist terrorists; the US also did it earlier against theUSSR in Afghanistan. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the American invasion of South Vietnamhave many similarities. In Afghanistan the USSR claimed that it had not invaded, that it was invited in bythe legitimate government to defend it from terrorists sponsored by Pakistan and the United States. Ofcourse, the government that invited the USSR in happened to be a Soviet satellite state. Once in theUSSR repeatedly overthrew the Afghan government whenever it wouldnt go along with Moscowsorders. In Soviet mythology there was no Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, there was instead a Sovietdefense of Afghanistan.

In South Vietnam the US claimed that it didnt invade but was invited in by the legitimate government todefend it from terrorists sponsored by outside forces. Of course, the government that invited the US inhappened to be an American satellite state. Once in the US repeatedly overthrew the South Vietnamesegovernment whenever it wouldnt go along with Washingtons orders. In American mythology there wasno American invasion of South Vietnam, there was instead an American defense of South Vietnam.

The stories spun by each government were very similar, as were the invasions themselves. InAfghanistan American media ridiculed Soviet propaganda & lies and called the invasion what it was, aninvasion. Soviet media adhered to the government line. In the invasion of South Vietnam Americanmedia never called it an invasion, instead they adhered to the US government line that it was not aninvasion. The common myth that the media were anti-war is just self-serving propaganda (see chapters

5 & 6 of Manufacturing Consent by Edward Heman & Noam Chomsky). In reality the media overallstayed within the government paradigm, viewing it as a defense against foreign sponsored guerillas.Criticism of the war within the media was limited to the idea that it was a mistake, that this defense ofSouth Vietnam was not worth the costs and based on an erroneous analysis. This differs from theposition of the peace movement which argued that it was an invasion that was fundamentally immoraland wrong. The later position was largely excluded from the debate within the media.

While American media correctly referred to Soviet satellite states as satellite states on many occasions,American satellite states were never identified. When the USSR invades other countries and makesthem do its bidding those are (correctly) called Soviet satellite states but when the US invades othercountries and does the same thing not only are they not called satellite states but the invasions oftenarent called invasions.

The groups fighting against Soviet aggression in Afghanistan, supported by the US, were predominantlyMuslim fundamentalist terrorists (Mujahideen), many of who would later go on to fight against the US.Bin Laden was among their ranks, as were many other people who the FBI claims are members of Al-Qaeda. During their war with the USSR the Mujahideen used many terrorist tactics, including targeting ofcivilians, assassination of soviet officials, and throwing acid into the faces of unveiled women. While theywere doing this against the USSR American media identified them as freedom fighters. They were thegood guys in Rambo 3. After they started doing the same thing to the US they started calling themterrorists instead of freedom fighters. Enemies are identified as terrorists and allies as freedomfighters even if their tactics remain the same.

One should not get the impression that American media functions as a totalitarian system, however. Thesystem functions primarily as self-censorship. Because totalitarian press censorship is not in place thereis occasional leakage of things through the media that do not otherwise conform to the liberal-conservative paradigm. For example, on November 26th, 2003 the Washington Post website held an

online discussion with Noam Chomsky on his latest book, Hegemony or Survival. [17] Noam Chomsky isan anarchist and probably the best-known dissident in the United States. In a totalitarian system hisviews would be completely excluded and suppressed. Instead, American media marginalize it to thepoint where only a tiny number will come across it but do not 100% exclude it. This can actually makethe system more effective, as it makes the system look more open than it really is and disguises itsfunction as a form of thought control.

The inverse of the marginalizing of dissidents is the medias tendency to rely disproportionately on thepowerful and to reflect their views. Between January 1st, 2001 and December 31st, 2001 more than onethird of the quoted Americans (and more than one fourth of the sources) on ABC World News Tonight,


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NBC Nightly News and CBS Evening News were elite Washington politicians. Seventy-five percent ofthose politicians whose partisan affiliations could be identified were Republican, twenty-four percentwere Democrat, and only one percent was third party/independent. James Jeffords, the centrist VermontRepublican who defected to the Democrats and was temporarily an independent during the transition,made up 83 percent of the independent sources quoted. The 911 attacks increased the reliance onRepublican sources. Prior to it Republicans were 68 percent, Democrats 31 percent and independents 1percent. After the attacks, Republicans were 87 percent, Democrats 13 percent and independents .1percent. The slant towards Republicans is due to the fact that they control the executive branch of thegovernment and the media tend to rely on it more, making more quotes, etc. from the President, membersof the cabinet, etc. When that is factored out, the ratio of sources is 51% Republican, 48% Democrat and2% third party/independent. George Bush alone was 9% of all quoted sources and 33% of all partisansources. Of the experts used as sources, corporate representatives and economists were the mostcommon (at 7% each), while non-governmental organizations and organized labor were quoted verylittle (3% and .2%). Representatives from big business were quoted 35 times more often thanrepresentatives of labor. While business & economic issues made up 15% of total coverage, only 1% oftotal coverage was on labor issues and in labor stories business association representatives (26%),economists (19%) & politicians (15%) were quoted far more often than labor representatives (2%).These news shows also tend to rely disproportionately on men and whites. [18]

This distortion of the news in favor of the powerful happens not only in foreign policy but also on domestic

issues, such as the anti-globalization protests against the WTO, IMF and World Bank. The media, notanti-globalization activists, invented the label anti-globalization. The press generally prefers to focuson sensationalistic reports of protestor violence and assorted side issues rather than look at the critiqueof these institutions offered by activists. When there is no protestor violence or property destruction themedia largely ignores the story (even if theres lots of police violence) but when there is violence orproperty destruction by protestors the media covers it but mostly ignores the issues they are protesting.The average consumer of news would have very little idea of what the IMF, WTO and World Bank is, letalone why many oppose them. On April 16 a story on the front page of the Washington Post, reporting onthe demonstrations against the IMF & World Bank, discussed activists body odor, claimed that the fadfactor cannot be denied and incorrectly claimed that the protests were "a demonstration withoutdemands." It was actually a demonstration with demands that the Washington Post (and most of the restof the media) chose to ignore, preferring to focus on activists body odor, drinking habits and fashion.The media often refers to opponents of free trade as anti-trade, which is a misrepresentation becausemost are not against all trade, just the form of trade currently being practiced.

The New York Times ran five opinion pieces against the April 16th anti-IMF/World Bank demonstrationsand none in favor. Opinion pieces in the Washington Post against the demonstrations totaled 3,780words while supporters of the demonstrations had 1,825 words. In addition, when anti-globalizationviews get in the media they are usually from the moderate wing of the movement. The more radicalsegments are almost universally ignored. Anarchists played a major role in these demonstrations yetanarchist views were almost never portrayed accurately in the media and anarchist opinion pieces neverran in the major papers. Instead anarchists were portrayed as crazed bomb-throwing advocates ofchaos.

The focus on violence is also very one-sided. For the media, protestor violence is a big deal but policeviolence is not. Police can bring body armor, tear gas and other weapons and the media thinks nothingof it, but if protestors brought the same equipment the media would demonize them over it. Police are

rarely referred to as violent, even when they are violent towards protestors or others. They are assumedto be legitimate. Police violence is played down (and usually isnt even called violence), while allegedprotestor violence is emphasized and denounced. According to an ACLU report on demonstrationsagainst the WTO in Seattle that began on November 30th:

For several days, it was illegal publicly to express anti-WTO opinions in a large section of downtownSeattle. Scores of citizens reported being prevented by police from engaging in peaceful, lawfulexpression within the zone. Police ordered citizens to remove buttons or stickers from their clothing,confiscated signs and leaflets, and blocked citizen entry to the core of downtown Despite police andmedia descriptions to the contrary, the protests during the WTO conference did not constitute a riot. They


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were noisy and disruptive, yet demonstrators were overwhelming peaceful. Not so the police. [police]approved the use of tear gas, pepper spray, rubber bullets and clubs against people who weredemonstrating peaceably, against demonstrators who had not received or who were trying to obey policeorders, against bystanders, and to quell disturbances the police themselves had provoked. TheSeattle Police Department used massive amounts of tear gas against crowds even when such use wasnot necessary to protect public safety or the safety of officers. [Police] used pepper spray repeatedlyagainst nonviolent protesters who posed no threat to public safety or to the safety of officers. Rubberbullets were used against people who posed no threat. rank-and-file officers engaged in acts ofbrutality The police made hundreds of improper arrests, detaining for days people who would neverstand trial. Individuals arrested during the anti-WTO demonstrations were mistreated and witnessedothers being mistreated by jail officers. [19]

This sharply contrasts with the picture painted by the media of officers reacting against rioting protestors.The media inverted the chronology putting the destruction of corporate property by a minority ofactivists before the use of pepper spray & tear gas by police and portraying police violence as a reactionagainst it. Numerous eyewitnesses have reported that the police started attacking demonstrators prior tothe destruction of corporate property and Detective Randy Huserik, of the Seattle police, admitted thatpepper spray was used on non-violent activists prior to the attacks on corporate property. The mediainstead blindly regurgitated a pro-police story. [20] The medias description of the destruction ofcorporate property as violence also shows how they implicitly assume the legitimacy of property rights.

Similar patterns existed in coverage of other anti-globalization demonstrations. In the demonstrationsagainst the G8 in Genoa, Italy the media largely ignored the positions of the demonstrators, againfocusing excessively on violence, and whitewashed police brutality, which resulted in the death of oneprotestor. During the demonstrations the media blindly regurgitated police defenses of their actions, butwhen these were exposed to be frauds the media ignored it. Pietro Troiani, a senior police officer,admitted to planting bombs with demonstrators in order to justify a raid on activists but American mediadidnt run a single story on it. [21]

PBS and NPR are structured a little differently but tend to stick to a similar line as commercial media.Although not directly owned by corporations, they are dependant on corporate funding and also receivesignificant funding from government sources, including the Corporation for Public Sources. As such theytend to slant things in manner similar to the rest of the media, although they are on the liberal end of thespectrum and arent quite as bad as some other outlets.

For example, twenty-six percent of sources on all weekday broadcasts of All Things Considered andMorning Edition on NPR from September through December 1991 were government sources. Fifty-three percent of Washington-based stories were led with a quote major administration official or amember of congress. Representatives of organized citizen groups and public interests experts made uponly seven percent of sources. Twenty-six out of twenty-seven regular commentators were white andonly twenty-one percent of sources were women. [22]

The sources on PBSs NewsHour during the Kosovo conflict were slanted in favor of the government.Between March 25 and April 8 1999 critics of the NATO bombing made up 10% of sources. Only sixpercent of sources were Yugoslavian government officials, Serbians or Serbian-Americans, the groupsmost likely to criticize the NATO bombings. Non-Serbian American sources against the bombing madeup 4% of sources. Thirty-nine percent of sources and 42% of live interviewees were current or former

government officials. Albanian refugees and spokespeople from the Kosovo Liberation Army (the CIA-backed NATO proxy army) made up another 17% of sources. [23]

Local media and student media overall tend to follow a similar line as corporate media but because theyare structured differently do not always do this 100%. In some cases large corporations directly ownlocal news sources and in those cases they operate the same as the rest of the media. In other casesthey are owned by small businesses and are not owned by the elite. The elite usually does not ownstudent-run news sources, either. However, both of these tend to follow the focus of the major (corporate-owned) news media. If something is on the front page of the New York Times and other major corporatemedia the local/student editors will tend to put that on their front page as well, and focus attention on it. In


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addition, they tend to rely on government sources, are dependant on advertising as a source of revenueand are susceptible to pressure from the local business community, local government and/or schooladministration. These tend to act to constrain coverage within student and local media. Leakage is alittle easier in these media, however, as they are not directly owned by big business. While a letter to theeditor advocating Communism would have a very difficult time being printed in the major papers, localand student media are sometimes more open to printing various dissident views.

The effect of all this is to inhibit an understanding of events in the world in a manner that benefits thepower elite. It is not totally effective but has a successful record. The Center for Studies inCommunication of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst conducted surveys that found:

those who watched the most television on the Gulf War were the least informed about basic facts of lifein the region. Among the most frequent watchers, 32 percent thought Kuwait was a democracy; only 23per cent were aware that there were other occupations in the Middle East besides Iraq's, and only 10 percent had heard of the intifada, the most sustained revolt in modern Middle East history. When queried asto which three nations vetoed the recent United Nations resolution calling for an international peaceconference (the United States, Israel, and Dominica), 14 per cent correctly identified the U.S., but another12 per cent thought it has to be Iraq. The Center's polls showed that only 13 per cent of these TV viewerswere aware of what official U.S. policy was toward Iraq before the August 2 invasion." [24]

An October 2003 study by the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) looked at three commonmisperceptions among the public: that Saddam Hussein was directly link to the 911 attacks, thatweapons of mass destruction have already been found in Iraq and that world opinion favored the US-ledinvasion of Iraq. Massive evidence disproves all three misperceptions and even the Bush administrationadmits they are false. It found that belief in these misperceptions correlates with support for the war.These misperceptions are a by-product of the propaganda offensive launched by the Bush administrationin late summer 2002 which attempted to use 911 to justify the war and successfully convincedAmericans that Saddam was a grave danger to America who supported terrorism, had a deadly weaponsarsenal to use on the US, etc. It also piggybacked on negative perceptions of Iraq created by earlier warpropaganda under Clinton & Bush the first (while the US was supporting Saddam there wasnt anti-Iraqpropaganda from the government, but after the US came into conflict with Iraq Saddam was demonizedas the next Hitler). That propaganda campaign was blindly regurgitated by the media, which, with a fewexceptions, showed little skepticism towards it until after the completion of the invasion. By September2003 70% of Americans had come to believe that Saddam was directly linked to 911.

The PIPA study also found that for most news outlets watching more news did not decrease belief inthese misperceptions and for some news outlets belief in these misperceptions actually increased asmore news was watched, showing again the medias role as purveyor of misinformation that benefits thepowerful. Belief in these misperceptions varied depending on ones news source. Fox News had theworst record, with 80% of viewers believing one or more misperceptions. NPR & PBS had the bestrecord, but even they did poorly with 23% of viewers believing one or more misperceptions. [25]

NPR & PBS, the sources that produced the lowest amount of those misconceptions, also happen to beamong those sources most frequently singled out by conservative critics alleging the media has a liberalbias. Much of the evidence in favor of the liberal bias model is flawed and most of what isnt fits betterwith the propaganda model (of media subservience to the powerful) than with the liberal bias model.The basic theory behind the liberal bias model is that most journalists are liberal and they tend to reflect

this in their reporting. Surveys have found that most journalists are moderates, not liberals, [26] but evenif we disregard this the model is faulty because it doesnt take into account where power lies. Theaverage journalist doesnt have a great deal of control over the media; power is concentrated in thehands of the corporations who own the media.

In addition, liberals support capitalism, the state, private property, and the right of the US to intervene inother countries, as do conservatives. Liberals support the main features of the current system; they justwant to make a few modifications. As liberals, conservatives and centrists all support capitalism (and thestate, etc.) the number of journalists who believe in those things vastly outnumbers those who dont. Bytheir logic, the media should have an extreme pro-capitalist (and pro-statist, etc.) bias that vastly dwarfs


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the alleged liberal bias.

A liberal bias, or the appearance of it, would actually help support the system as it would more firmly limitthoughts within an acceptable range. If the media is seen as being so liberal, adversarial and extremein their opposition to power then anyone who questions its basic assumptions (private property, etc.) willbe seen as going completely off the planet. Accusations of the media having a liberal bias help todiscipline the media and ensure that it continues to reinforce hegemony. Whenever it departs from theliberal-conservative line critics of the liberal media pounce and pressure it back in line.

One example of this is the book Bias by Bernard Goldberg, a number one New York Times bestseller,which advocates the liberal media theory. The book is very poorly researched and doesnt even havefootnotes/endnotes, a bibliography or an index. Most of his assertions have little evidence to supportthem, just vague impressions. Instead of numbers or specific instances of biased coverage, Goldbergprefers broad generalizations. [27] Some assertions actually support the propaganda model more thanthe liberal bias model, such as the claims that news organizations are mainly focused on profit andoriented towards whites. Many quotes are not footnoted/endnoted and do not give enough information tolook them up.

Most of his assertions are focused towards the center and liberal wings of the media. It is true that certainsegments of the media are liberal (the New York Times, NPR, and others) but it does not follow that the

entire media are liberal. The appendix of Bias includes editorials he published in the Wall Street Journalaccusing the media of having a liberal bias. Does the Wall Street Journal have a liberal bias? Do talkradio and Fox News? He presents no evidence to support such a claim. Showing that even the moreconservative sections of the media are liberal is important to prove his case if even they are liberal thenobviously the rest of the media is liberal. The inverse holds true for the model presented in this essay,that the media is subservient to the powerful. If that is the case then even those publications that tend tobe more critical of the powerful, like the New York Times, should tend to slant the news in favor of thepowerful. Evidence to show that this is the case was presented earlier, such as the East Timor/Cambodiacomparison. Goldberg, however, fails to present evidence to show that the conservative wing of themedia (Wall Street Journal/Fox News/Talk Radio) is biased against conservatives.

Some may object that corporate media gives people what they want and the current state of journalism,biased or otherwise, is the result of people wanting it. This is based on the myth that anything having todo with a market is a reflection of what people want and somehow democratic. No doubt slaves, boughtand sold on the market, would have disputed such an idea. Markets tend to skew towards those withmore wealth because more profit can be made by catering to their desires and needs. Its one dollar,one vote and those with more dollars have more influence. In the case of the media the customers arenot the general public but advertisers. Those advertisers tend to prefer customers with more wealthbecause they can sell more products that way. There arent many advertisements directed towardshomeless people. Thus the media tends to reflect the views & prejudices of the advertisers, the wealthierstrata they are oriented towards and the business elite that controls the media.

In addition, there are several examples of media bias not reflecting the views of the general population.In the invasion of Iraq, only 10% of sources used were anti-war while over 25% of the population wasanti-war (see above). In the debate on healthcare in the early 90s the media mainly presented thedebate as one between Clintons proposals and his conservative opponents. The majority of thepopulation favored the single-payer option but, with a few exceptions, the media largely ignored that

idea. The debate was restricted and excluded the position supported by the majority of Americans. [28]These show that the media is not simply reflecting public opinion. Although the media is often effective atmolding public opinion, it is not always so as demonstrated by the healthcare debate. Americans didntdecide that they dont want to know the names and platforms of the various groups fighting the guerillawar against American troops in Iraq. Nor did people decide that they didnt want to know about the US-sponsored genocide in East Timor. They couldnt have most didnt know about it because the mediagave very little coverage to it.

This media system didnt just appear out of thin air, it has been evolving for a long time. In the late 19thcentury as industrial capitalism was taking hold and industry was being concentrated into smaller and


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smaller hands the media also became more concentrated. Large corporations began buying outnewspapers and/or withdrawing advertising from publications that were too critical of corporate power.This wasnt the result of a giant conspiracy of business owners but of many people acting in similar waysbecause they were in similar situations.

The First World War was a major step towards creating the media system we have today. The Wilsonadministration, established a government propaganda commission, called the Creel Commission, whichsucceeded, within six months, in turning a pacifist population into a hysterical, war-mongering populationwhich wanted to destroy everything German, tear the Germans limb from limb, go to war and save theworld. [29] The Creel Commission pioneered Public Relations techniques used to manipulate publicopinion and the use of corporate media to whip up war hysteria. It found that flooding news channelswith facts (official information) allowed them to control news coverage. During the war the governmentstepped up censorship and actively suppressed anti-war publications and groups, many of which weresocialist or anarchist. The previously growing Socialist Party, USA was broken, never to recover, and theanarchist-leaning Industrial Workers of the World was turned into a shell of its former self. Repressionagainst dissidents continued after the end of the war as similar propaganda techniques were used tocreate the Red Scare. By attacking dissident organizations and publications this repression acceleratedthe concentration of the media into corporate hands.

As new media came about government intervention also played a significant role in keeping it primarily

under corporate control and loyal to the government. In the late 1920s the predecessor to the FederalCommunications Commission granted licenses to operate radio stations primarily to commercial sources,largely excluding non-commercial stations. Prior to that there was relatively little regulation of radio andnon-commercial groups, especially educational institutions, tended to dominate radio. Over the nextseveral years there was a popular movement attempting to reverse this decision but it was defeated. [30]Similar principles favoring corporations over non-profit organizations were later followed for televisionstation licenses. Corporations dominate broadcasting because the government chooses to havecorporations dominate broadcasting. Government policies and laws, such as the 1996Telecommunications act, along with various subsidies, including the use of publicly owned airways freeof charge, have continued to influence to structure of the media up to the present day.

Most of this is the result of the way the media and society is set up. Heads of the media dont get togetherin a big smoke-filled room and scheme how to fool Americans. Bias is the outcome of the institutionalstructure of the media, not some giant conspiracy. Some groups do consciously attempt to manipulatethe media and sometimes these take the form of conspiracies (a group of people working together insecret to achieve some goal). For example, the CIA has been known to infiltrate media organizationsand keep journalists on its payroll. It also owns dozens of newspapers and magazines the worldover. [31] The CIA altered the movie versions of George Orwells 1984 and Animal Farm to tonedown Orwells pox on both houses message, making them more anti-Communist and less anti-capitalist. [32] In 1999 CNN allowed Army PSYOPS officers, government propaganda experts, to work inthe news division at CNNs Atlanta headquarters. [33] CNN eventually admitted this, [34] but most of themedia ignored it. These are exceptions to the norm, however. Most media bias is the outcome ofinstitutional structure. That same structure also makes it easier for powerful groups to manipulate themedia through conspiracies or other means, magnifying their effect.

The Education System

Another important part of hegemony is the education system. This serves two functions. Its primaryfunction is to train and indoctrinate the populace so that it is obedient and docile, enabling political andeconomic elites to rule with less resistance. A secondary function is to train skilled workers necessary forthe economy and to school future members of the ruling class.

The primary purpose of the public education system, what Bob Black calls youth concentration camps,is not to encourage independent thought or anything like that but to make us stupid and submissive. Thewhole structure of public schools is designed to train students to obey authority. School is ahierarchically structured organization; masses of students are subordinated to a few teachers,administrators, etc. They are trained to follow orders from a young age, to sit in nice neat rows, to get in


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line, and so on. Children are raw materials who are to be ranked, graded and processed intorespectable citizens who do not question the dominant socio-economic system or create too muchtrouble for the elite. Children who are taught from a young age to obey authority, especially in abureaucratic setting like public schools, will be more used to obeying authority as adults. The systemdoes not work perfectly, and not all are one hundred percent obedient by the time they become adults butit works well enough to maintain the present system. A school system in which many students obey thewill of a few teachers and administrators is well suited to a socio-economic order in which many workersobey the will of a few bosses and capitalists.

The structure of schools encourages emotional and intellectual dependency. Students are dependant onthe teacher to decide out what is to be learned, when it is to be learned and (mostly) how it is to belearned. They do not investigate things themselves, with control over their own intellectual developmentbut are dependant on the teacher to determine the course of study. Students are thus trained to allowothers to do their thinking for them, which is well suited to a society in which a small minority dominatesthe majority.

Schools also reproduce the class structure. Certain educations are deemed better than others and thoseeducations are distributed along wealth lines, with the wealthier getting the better educations. The kindof education you receive opens and closes doors for you. Those with better educations get better jobs,better opportunities and other privileges. Refined (ruling class) language and manners tend to be

passed on to children of the ruling class, via school and other mechanisms, while less refined languageand manners are passed on to children of the lower classes. Those with the less refined language andmanners are discriminated against in many areas. Tests are tilted in favor of those from the top levels ofAmerican society in many ways, including the tendency to draw from examples more familiar to richchildren than poor children. This is the case even if the authors of the tests dont intend it. Suchindividuals tend to come from the higher levels of society and so tend to draw on examples from theirown experience, not poor peoples experiences. Schools attended by the wealthy tend to have betterfunding than poor schools. Research by Ray Rist and others have shown that teachers tend to givewealthier children better treatment than poorer children, often without realizing it or intending to do so.[35]

What is taught in public schools also reflects its role as indoctrination center. This is especially true withregard to those areas that affect social philosophy, such as history, economics and civics. Decisions onwhat should be in textbooks, what guidelines to teach, etc. are not in the hands of teachers nor aredecisions made on the basis of scholarship. Public schools are State entities; actual power lies with theState. In some places local school boards have a considerable amount of power, in others stategovernments have more power, but in all cases power lies with the State. It, after all, owns, runs andfunds the schools. In addition several state entities not directly connected to schools, including the courtsand several federal agencies (including the department of education), have influence over the schools.A number of non-state institutions also have influence over schools. Several private institutions,generally funded by the wealthy, have a high degree of influence over schools including the Rockefeller,Carnegie and Ford foundations. They played an important role in creating the modern public schoolsystem and continue to influence it today. Large corporations also influence schools, both through thefact that they are usually the producers of school materials and also because they have a considerabledegree of influence over all government decisions. Frequently these corporations act throughorganizations like the Business Roundtable.

Power is fragmented across several different hierarchical institutions, all of which are controlled by elitesthat share common interests with each other. This acts as a set of filters, insuring that schooling overallteaches ideas within the liberal-conservative spectrum and ignores or disparages ideas outside it.Various groups can attempt to mobilize to influence school decisions on textbooks, what to teach, etc. butthe structure of the system is such that overall the results end up reflecting elite ideology (remainingwithin liberal-conservative ideology). Those with more resources can more easily pressure andinfluence school decision making centers, giving a huge advantage to those with the most resources (thewealthy and powerful). Thus influence on schools is largely restricted to elite factions or those who cangain the backing of an elite faction. Those outside elite interests, those outside the liberal-conservativespectrum, do not have the resources of elite factions (but are opposed by all elite factions, each with far


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more resources) and so have a small impact on schooling. Thus what is taught in schools largely reflectselite interests and is restricted to ideas within a narrow spectrum, ideas outside of that spectrum aremarginalized.

This can be seen clearly from how history is usually taught in public schools. History is greatly warpedand slanted to reinforce the dominant socio-economic order, historical scholarship that contradicts this(and there is a considerable amount of it) is ignored. Both racism (as distinct from slavery) and anti-racism tend to be invisible. [36] The origins, causes and evolution of racism are rarely analyzed. Whitecomplicity in slavery tends to be minimized, paying more attention to the slaves than the owners. Whendiscussing Albert Einstein, Helen Keller or Martin Luther King Jr. their socialist beliefs are usually sweptunder the rug, as are the White Supremacist beliefs of Woodrow Wilson, Winston Churchill, AbrahamLincoln and other historical figures. The many atrocities committed by American foreign policy (such asCIA coups in Zaire, Guatemala, Iran, Chile and elsewhere) are usually ignored or portrayed asmistakes. Influences on US foreign policy are usually ignored in favor of portraying the US as aninternational good guy always acting on behalf of human rights, democracy and rationalhumanitarianism as a supremely moral force. The US is portrayed as always having benevolentintentions, if the results go wrong it was a mistake perhaps caused by misunderstandings. Especiallywhen looking at recent history, government repression like COINTELPRO is downplayed or ignored infavor of portraying the United States as the land of the free. The positives of the government tend to beplayed up while the negatives are played down. The role of class in US history is downplayed. The

alleged middle class character of the United States is usually emphasized, portraying the US as ameritocracy. Nearly the entire country is portrayed as middle class (an obvious absurdity), giving no realanalysis of class structure. Labor history is usually relegated to events fifty or more years ago, as if classhad disappeared. Overall, the picture it tends to paint is a rosy picture of a great nation progressivelyovercoming obstacles. The views of professional historians are cast aside to distort history in such aways as to foster loyalty to the government and dominant socio-economic system. For a more in-depthlook at the trash that passes for history in public schools, see Lies My Teacher Told Me by JamesLoewen.

The central function of public schools as indoctrination centers can also be seen in the teaching andtextbook guidelines passed by many states. Texass education law states that, Textbook content shallpromote citizenship and understanding of the essentials and benefits of the free enterprise system,emphasize patriotism and respect for recognized authority, and promote respect for individual rights.Textbooks shall not encourage life styles deviating from generally accepted standards of society, norshall they include selections which serves to undermine authority, or which would cause embarrassingsituations or interference in the learning atmosphere of the classroom. Thus, Texass textbook lawsexplicitly state that textbooks should not teach children to think for themselves and form their ownopinions but that they should believe in the dominant socio-economic system. Most states have similarguidelines, although not all are as explicit and there are significant variations. [37]

Texas and California tend to dominate the textbook market both because they have large populations(and therefore order more textbooks) and also because of the way they select textbooks. Some statesleave textbook selections entirely up to the local school boards. The state governments in California,Texas, and elsewhere centrally regulate what textbooks are allowed, drawing up lists of books that areacceptable to use in classrooms. This gives them greater bargaining power that therefore gives themgreater influence over textbook manufacturers. As a result their textbook guidelines have adisproportionate influence over the textbooks used in other states.

Californias textbook guidelines are more liberal than Texass but it still remains well within the liberal-conservative spectrum and is oriented more towards indoctrinating children instead of enabling childrento understand different theories and form their own conclusions. Californias textbook law states that,governing boards shall include only instructional materials which, in their determination, accuratelyportray the cultural and racial diversity of our society, including the contributions of both men andwomen the role and contributions of [various ethnic groups] the role and contributions of theentrepreneur and labor in the total development of California and the United States. The last part isslanted against the idea that labor did all the contributing (entrepreneurs are just parasites) and againstthe inverse idea. It also says that, instructional materials for use in the schools shall include only


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instructional materials which accurately portray Humanitys place in ecological systems and thenecessity for the protection of our environment, [38] which is slanted in favor of liberal environmentalism.

The Content Standards for California Public Schools says that students are to:

Explain how economic rights are secured and their importance to the individual and to society (e.g., theright to acquire, use, transfer, and dispose of property; right to choose one's work; right to join or not joinlabor unions; copyright and patent). Discuss the individual's legal obligations to obey the law, serve asa juror, and pay taxes. Understand the obligations of civic-mindedness, including voting, beinginformed on civic issues, volunteering and performing public service, and serving in the military oralternative service.

Students are also to Describe for at least two countries the consequences of conditions that gave rise totyrannies during certain periods (e.g., Italy, Japan, Haiti, Nigeria, Cambodia). The United States is neverlabeled a tyranny. They also include patriotic indoctrination: [students are to] Understand the uniquecharacter of the American Revolution, its spread to other parts of the world, and its continuingsignificance to other nations. The standards also support the American state in foreign policy: [studentsare to] Analyze the causes of the Cold War, with the free world on one side and Soviet client states on theother, including competition for influence in such places as Egypt, the Congo, Vietnam, and Chile. Toidentify one side as the free world, an American propaganda term, obviously indicates that the schools

are to teach that the American side was the good side. It also requires one to ignore many facts, or tocompletely redefine freedom, since there were numerous brutal dictatorships in the US camp during theCold War (Pinochets Chile, NeoNazi Brazil, Fascist Spain, etc.). It also identifies Soviet client states yetsays nothing about American client states. The view that the Soviets were the good guys, or that bothsides were equally bad, is excluded. Instead there is the standard view of the US as international goodguy. [39] Thus, although California is on the more liberal end of the spectrum, it is still firmly within theliberal-conservative spectrum and acts to indoctrinate students to believe in property rights, governmentand the other fundamental principles upon which the hegemony is built.

This is true of many other states as well. Colorados Academic Standards state:

In grades K-4 what students know and are able to do includes describing the purposes of government describing what life would be like without law and order Explaining why the power of a governmentshould be limited explaining the importance of respect for individuals, property, rule of law and civicresponsibility [and] identifying important individual economic, personal, and political rights (forexample, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, right to own property).

For grades 58:

what they know and are able to do includes explaining major ideas about why government isnecessary (for example, promote the common good, protect individual rights, safety, order) explaininghow the United States Constitution is a vehicle for preserving liberty, yet allows for change explaininghow law protects individual rights and promotes the common good [and] identifying and applyingcriteria useful in selecting political leaders at local, state, and national levels.

In grades 912 what they know and are able to do includes identifying the scope and limits of rights(for example, all rights have limits).

There are many ideas about what the purposes of government is. Marxists think the purpose ofgovernment is to maintain class domination, it is a means by which the ruling class suppresses the otherclass(es). Anarchists think it is a means by which a minority dominates the majority. These ideas,however, are outside the liberal-conservative spectrum and so are generally not taught. Instead thebelief that government is necessary to promote the common good, protect individual rights, protect safetyand ensure order are taught. Instead of exposing students to many different theories and encouragingthem to think for themselves, beliefs that reinforce support and obedience to the state are taught whileexcluding beliefs that do not reinforce that obedience (such as anarchist or Marxist theories of the state).The rationale given in the beginning of the section on economics openly admits that one of its purposes


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is to indoctrinate students into believing in capitalism: Students need an understanding of basiceconomic concepts in order to become productive members of the workforce; and promoters of thefree enterprise system. [40]

Occasionally, a teacher may stray from these standards and teach ideas outside the liberal-conservativespectrum, but the overall trend is to keep ideas within state-capitalist ideological hegemony. A number ofinstitutional constraints make deviation outside the liberal-conservative spectrum difficult for any publicschool teacher. The school board and/or state government, not the teachers, selects textbooks. As suchthey almost always stay within the liberal-conservative spectrum, conflicting with the attempt of adissident teacher to break out of that spectrum. Standardized testing also helps enforce obedience to theliberal-conservative line. There is a large school bureaucracy that can be used to pressure anddiscipline a teacher if s/he starts teaching anything outside of ideological hegemony. Most teachersthemselves accept the ideas of hegemony and so dont even consider attempting to teach anythingoutside it. Allowing a small number of dissident teachers to exist, and to occasionally deviate from theliberal-conservative line in the classroom, doesnt really threaten the system. Its only a threat if suchthings grow too fast or become too big.

Private schools usually operate within the liberal-conservative spectrum as well. Such schools areusually for-profit operations, owned by capitalist companies, and are thus controlled by people with avested interest in preserving the dominant economic system (capitalism). Their main customers also

tend to come from groups with more income (lower income groups usually cannot afford it), who are morelikely to support the dominant socio-economic system. Government regulations can also act to pressureprivate schools to reproduce bourgeois ideological hegemony.

Colleges and universities function a little differently. Their main function with regard to students is to trainhighly skilled workers, future managers/coordinators and members of the ruling class. They still act asindoctrination centers, but this is not their primary function as in k-12. Control over teachers and what istaught is not quite as tight as in K-12. Professors can choose what textbooks they will use and have amuch greater degree of control over what they teach, unlike k-12 where local school boards and/or stategovernments exert a greater amount of control over textbooks and what is taught. Tenure makes it easierfor professors to take positions outside the liberal-conservative spectrum with fewer negativeconsequences. As a result there is a somewhat greater diversity of views taught and dissident views arenot suppressed quite as thoroughly as in K-12, although liberal-conservative ideas are stilloverwhelmingly dominant. This slightly greater amount of dissent allowed within universities is still smallenough that it doesnt really threaten the system. Whenever dissent grows too large purges arelaunched to suppress it, such as the infamous blacklists during McCarthyism.

Universities serve another function separate from its relationship to students. They generate ideologiesand theories that help to prop up the status quo. Many of those ideologies are eventually filtered throughthe rest of society and used to justify the socio-economic system. Those intellectuals who depart from theliberal-conservative line generally have a much more difficult time getting their ideas to the generalpublic, as the media, education system, etc. tend to filter such ideas out but those within the liberal-conservative spectrum more often have their ideas spread to other parts of the population. During theFirst World War the government found that if they could convince the educated classes that their warpropaganda was true they would further disseminate the propaganda and help bring the rest of thecountry around to the governments position. To this day the intelligentsia acts in a similar manner. Ifthey can be kept indoctrinated then it will magnify the effects of ideological hegemony.

As with the media, some conservatives have alleged that colleges & universities are dominated byliberals and discriminate against conservatives, maintaining a hostile environment againstconservatives. David Horowitz and his Students for Academic Freedom (an appropriately Orwellianname) are probably the best-known conservatives pushing this view. They have called for the hiring ofmore conservative teachers and for schools, and the state, to enforce rules allegedly designed to preventthis discrimination against conservatives. There are problems with their data purporting to show thatliberals outnumber conservatives, but even if we ignore that their own data undermines their position.Their own data indicates that liberals, conservatives and those in-between constitute the overwhelmingmajority of professors. Liberals believe in capitalism and the state, as do conservatives and those in-


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between. Hence capitalists (and statists) are the overwhelming majority; by Horowitzs logic collegeshave an overwhelming pro-capitalist bias, one far larger than its alleged liberal bias. Yet none of themhave a problem with this.

The real aim of Horowitz & co.s drive is to suppress views to their left and to make colleges more closelyfollow the neoconservative line. They have no problem with the hostile environment that colleges havetowards supporters of Stalin or Mao. Free speech zones and the like are used at least as much againstthe radical left as against conservatives, yet they have said nothing about this. Nor have theycomplained about the capitalist indoctrination in k-12 schools, which is vastly greater than in colleges.Conservative professors vastly outnumber anarchist professors; yet the same people who have called forhiring more conservatives on the grounds of intellectual diversity have no problem with this slantagainst anarchists. Economics classes overwhelmingly teach that market capitalism is the best systemand ignore or denigrate economic paradigms outside of neoclassical economics. Political scienceclasses overwhelmingly teach support for the state, including the idea that the United States is ademocracy, and ignore or denigrate views opposed to it. Horowitz & co. has no problem with all this.They dont have any objection to having a hostile environment towards unpopular ideologies, just solong as it isnt conservatives who are being targeted.

They frequently group anyone to their left, including Marxists & anarchists, with liberals even thoughtheres a huge difference between liberals and these (mostly marginal) radical left groups. The Young

Conservatives of Texas, University of Texas Chapter (yct at ut) is one of the many groups campaigningagainst this alleged liberal bias on campus. They compiled a watch list of professors who allegedlyuse the classroom for political purposes. [41] It includes Harry Cleaver, an Autonomist Marxist far to theleft of even Lenin. [42] In 2003 the chairman of yct at ut was Austin Kinghorn, who complained about aprofessor he had which claimed the United States is a worse terrorist threat than the 9/11 terrorists." Hecites it as an example of this liberal bias and complains that, "there was no opposing viewpresented." [43] Regardless of whether such a view is true or not, it is a small dissident viewpoint yourarely hear in the media or even from most teachers. Austin Kinghorn doesnt complain that the oppositeview, that the United States isnt a terrorist state, almost never has the opposing view presented when itappears in media, schools or elsewhere. Its only with things to their left that these neocons get upset. Ifthey really valued intellectual diversity they would be pushing for marginalized far left groups to bepromoted, not suppressed, as that would increase intellectual diversity. The fact that they dont showsthat this isnt really their aim. The driving force behind it is an attempt by neoconservatives to suppressand restrict groups to their left. By grouping marginal dissident groups with liberals and demanding theinfluence of both be curtailed they are effectively attempting to suppress dissidents and narrow thespectrum.

It didnt always work this way. Previous class societies had different systems of thought control but themodern public education system in the United States didnt really come about until the late 19th century.Although flawed, the school system that grew in the first seventy years after independence was capableof teaching literacy and basic skills. Abundant data exists to show that by 1840 the incidence of complexliteracy in the United States [among the non-slave population] was between 93 and 100 percentwherever such a thing mattered. [44] Children are not the inherently incompetent people modernAmericans assume they are. The U.S. Navys first Admiral, David Farragut, got his first command whenhe was twelve years old. Such things were not uncommon; people were considered adults at an earlierage two hundred years ago. Adolescence is a relatively recent construction, a production of the rise ofthe modern public school system.

That system arose not because the old system was ineffective at teaching basic knowledge and skills butbecause new forms of control were needed. After the civil war the last remnants of pre-capitalist systemswere wiped out and industrial capitalism grew The rise of industrial capitalism brought with it intenseclass struggle between the capitalist class and the rapidly enlarged, and impoverished, working class.Numerous waves of strikes repeatedly spread across the nation, militant labor unions like the Knights ofLabor and the I.W.W. arose and powerful socialist & anarchist movements spread. In 1888 the SenateCommittee on Education stated, "We believe that education is one of the principal causes of discontent oflate years manifesting itself among the laboring classes." [45] Several mechanisms emerged to controlthe working class, one of which was the creation of todays forced, rigid, potential-destroying education


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system as a means of training workers to be uneducated and docile. Schools were made compulsory(everyone is to be indoctrinated) and consolidated into much larger units for mass schooling. Majorchanges were made to course content (including the replacement of history with social studies),scientific management & social Darwinist ideas were applied to schools, as were ideas based onPavlovian conditioning & the Taylor system, and a large school bureaucracy grew to control the students& teachers. Sections of both the right and the authoritarian left, including liberals and Fabians, played amajor role in the creation & evolution of this system.

The liberal thinker John Dewy, who played a significant role in the creation of this system, in 1897 said,Every teacher should realize he is a social servant set apart for the maintenance of the proper socialorder and the securing of the right social growth. [46] President Woodrow Wilson expressed a similargoal in a speech to businessmen: We want one class to have a liberal education. We want anotherclass, a very much larger class of necessity, to forego the privilege of a liberal education and fitthemselves to perform specific difficult manual tasks. [47] William Torrey Harris, US Commissioner ofEducation from 1889 to 1906, wrote in his book The Philosophy of Education, Ninety-nine [students] outof a hundred are automata, careful to walk in prescribed paths, careful to follow the prescribed custom.This is not an accident but the result of substantial education, which, scientifically defined, is thesubsumption of the individual. [48] In the same book he wrote, The great purpose of school can berealized better in dark, airless, ugly places.... It is to master the physical self, to transcend the beauty ofnature. School should develop the power to withdraw from the external world. [49]

Large corporations, various business associations and corporate-funded foundations such as theNational Association of Manufacturers, the National Civic Foundation, the Ad Council, the BusinessRoundtable, the Carnegie foundation and the Rockefeller foundation played a significant role in bringingabout the modern public school system. James Bryant Conant, President of Harvard from 1933 to 1953,wrote that the change to the modern public school system had been demanded by, "certain industrialistsand the innovative who were altering the nature of the industrial process." [50] One of these foundations,the Rockefeller Education Board, spelled out its goals:

In our dreams...people yield themselves with perfect docility to our molding hands. The presenteducational conventions [intellectual and character education] fade from our minds, and unhampered bytradition we work our own good will upon a grateful and responsive folk. We shall not try to make thesepeople or any of their children into philosophers or men of learning or men of science. We have not toraise up from among them authors, educators, poets or men of letters. We shall not search for embryogreat artists, painters, musicians, nor lawyers, doctors, preachers, politicians, statesmen, of whom wehave ample supply. The task we set before ourselves is very simple...we will organize children...andteach them to do in a perfect way the things their fathers and mothers are doing in an imperfect way. [51]

In 1913, after a year of testimony, a congressional investigation into the role of corporate foundations ineducation found that:

The domination of men in whose hands the final control of a large part of American industry rests is notlimited to their employees, but is being rapidly extended to control the education and social services ofthe nation. The giant foundation exercises enormous power through direct use of its funds, free of anystatutory entanglements so they can be directed precisely to the levers of a situation; this power,however, is substantially increased by building collateral alliances which insulate it from criticism andscrutiny. [52]

In 1954 another congressional investigation into the same issue began, but pressure from big businessand a hostile media campaign forced it to end prematurely. Before it was shut down, it came to thesetentative conclusions:

The power of the individual large foundation is enormous. Its various forms of patronage carry with themelements of thought control. It exerts immense influence on educator, educational processes, andeducational institutions. It is capable of invisible coercion. It can materially predetermine thedevelopment of social and political concepts, academic opinion, thought leadership, public opinion. Thepower to influence national policy is amplified tremendously when foundations act in concert. This


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Interlock has some of the characteristics of an intellectual cartel. It has ramifications in almost everyphase of education. It has come to exercise very extensive practical control over social science andeducation. The power of the large foundations and The Interlock has so influenced press, radio,television, and even government that it has become extremely difficult for objective criticism of anythingthe Interlock approves to get into news channels without having first been ridiculed, slanted anddiscredited. These foundations and their intermediaries engage extensively in political activity, not inthe form of direct support of candidates or parties, but in the conscious promotion of carefully calculatedpolitical concepts. [53]

These investigations were conducted when two different parties were in power and separated by manydecades. Both had similar findings, were ignored, led to no action or change in the system and havenow been effectively erased from history. In contemporary debates about education these investigationsand their conclusions are completely ignored outside dissident circles.

Once again, none of this is some giant conspiracy. It is the outcome of the way the education is set up.The very structure of the education system causes it to act this way. Most of the people who originally setit up were quite open about what they were doing and believed that setting up schools like this was theright thing to d

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Ideological Hegemony