Recent Article Explores "Ancient Aliens" and Pro-Paranormal Propaganda Techniques

9/10/2013

Yesterday I presented some comments from online writers who came to embrace the ancient astronaut theory thanks to continued exposure to Ancient Aliens on cable television. Today, I’d like to look at the opposite situation, where some commentators have discussed how Ancient Aliens has left them feeling duped and brainwashed.

On Bubble News, a website where participants post short “articles” in exchange for a share of the ad revenue they generate, a writer yesterday described feeling utterly dejected after watching a single hour of Ancient Aliens, S05E11 “The Viking Gods,” on Sunday night:

After an hour of the show I felt completely brainwashed. Just like someone poured steaming, hot water onto my brain. Why? Well, you cannot make assumptions like the one that Thor’s hammer was a kinetic weapon. It just makes no sense. And that was just one of their assumptions which made me go all like: “What?!?!”. I felt stupid after watching it and let me tell you that I will not watch it again.

The brilliant thing, of course, is that niche programming means that H2 doesn’t care if some of the audience immediately rejects programs like Ancient Aliens. Have you ever seen the old psychic scam where a fake psychic sends out “predictions” about the outcome of sports matches? The psychic sends half his followers a “prediction” that team X will win and half that team Y will. The following week the psychic repeats the process, but sending predictions only to those who received a “correct” forecast the week before. By repeating this a few times, the psychic loses 75% or more of the initial audience, but those who remain are utterly convinced this psychic is accurate and will shell out big time cash for more predictions. H2 is like that. Most viewers will reject their shows as stupid and fake, but those that remain become ever more convinced that they are privy to an astonishing secret revelation. The process also selects for viewers who are credulous enough to buy whatever advertisers are selling during the commercial breaks.

That’s just one of the points James Neimeister makes in an insightful dissection of Ancient Aliens published yesterday at Thought Catalog. The entire piece is excellent, and I recommend that everyone read it in full. Neimeister appears to be somewhere around a decade younger than me, but he had many of the same experiences watching cable TV in his youth. He remembers fondly watching Discovery’s alien-themed programs, where for me the first shows in the genre that I remember were less alien than general issue ancient mystery. I watched reruns of In Search of…, which History and A&E showed to build an audience for Ancient Mysteries, with both shows hosted, 15 years apart, by Leonard Nimoy. I also loved Terra X, a dubbed German import from ZDF, that covered all manner of “mysteries.” It is the first place I learned of the Knights Templar. (The show still airs, but only in German, on ZDF, where it has a broader scientific focus than the “mystery” episodes sent to America in the 1990s.)

After watching an Ancient Aliens marathon, Neimeister found himself disturbed and appalled and sought to understand why. Neimeister applies film theory to Ancient Aliens to get at the heart of how the show, to borrow a phrase, manufactures consent by using the techniques of propaganda:

The most striking characteristic of Ancient Aliens, and other television programs today, is how it relies entirely on editing techniques to paste random sequences together into a narrative. Visually it is utterly unremarkable. The whole show is basically a montage of wacky looking alien “scholars” giving fanciful interpretations of archaeological evidence set to images of pyramids, Mayan ruins, and clouds moving really fast over a soundtrack composed on synthesizers and Andean pan-flutes. This creates the illusion that something really deep is being said… […] The formalistic, dissociative narrative arc of each episode emerges out of this tendency, as the show can only move forward when the editors have completely run out of material and are absolutely forced to move onto something else by way of montage. A temporary trance is then induced in the viewer by juxtaposing some images of pyramids in Egypt to ones in Mexico, inserting a slew of arbitrary questions, and a commercial break. By the time the show returns, an entirely new topic has become the center of focus and nobody even remembers what was being discussed mere moments before.

Neimeister further notes something I have frequently mentioned in my reviews of the show: that its segments rarely come together as a whole, and often they make no sense when taken together, even within a single hour on a single topic: “If a definitive conclusion were to be reached at the end of an episode, something truly unfathomable might happen; viewers might (somehow) find themselves satisfied with the answers the show presents, and they might stop watching.”

Neimeister further agrees with me that Ancient Aliens presents a disturbing philosophical reflection on the role of science and progress. He notes that ancient astronaut theorists have a teleological view of progress whereby ancient people must perforce have been stupid since progress is linear, leading from darkness to an inevitable singularity where human and alien merge. I pause here to note that Neimeister does not take this to the next, most logical conclusion: that the imaginary aliens are in every practical sense gods.

This is because he sees the aliens in a different way, seizing upon the identification of the aliens with the “Greys” in several episodes of the show.

The premise for Ancient Aliens and every other show about aliens is an extremely dark one, for if the aliens are our future, then that future is a grave and terrible one. Aliens are tall, grey, lanky beings with no heart or soul. The aliens are so scientifically advanced that the very laws of physics bend before them, but despite their possession of such godlike powers they are numb, dispassionate, and ghastly to behold. With nothing left to behold in wonder, they are bereft of all emotion. Their technology seduces the militaries of the world’s powerful nations, but it cannot be controlled. They show up unannounced, without so much as even a knock at the door, and suck people silently into the sky. The alien fantasy represents the endpoint of our society’s twisted, uncompromising view of Western rationality.

I’m not entirely sure I can accept this, least of all the idea that our society currently accepts rationality in any uncompromising way. Certainly this is the case for the Greys as given in modern UFO conspiracy literature, but the ancient astronauts, were are told over and again, are not all Greys but rather myriad species, most humanlike, who made humanity in their image. (The Greys are often said to be the “enemy” of the Anunnaki.) They are possessed of human emotions, including anger and jealousy, as when they “bombed” Sodom and Gomorrah or caused the great Flood. These aliens lived among humans and mated with them, and they could be reasoned with. Zecharia Sitchin’s aliens were inhuman monsters who were, by our standards evil; Erich von Däniken’s aliens were not evil as much as they were self-interested and horny. Giorgio Tsoukalos’s aliens deliver inspiration directly into our brains. And the aliens envisioned by David Childress are transcendent beings who will ferry our souls to the Orion Nebula to live in bliss and joy forever. Let’s not forget that the UFO preachers of the 1950s and 1960s claimed that God drove a flying saucer and that we should worship ETs.

I agree, though, that the ancient astronaut theory is an attempt to marry science, which was traditionally the arbiter of truth in Western culture, to the irrational appeal of religion, myth, and faith. I agree, too, with Neimeister’s idea that Ancient Aliens reflects fears about the direction elites are steering our society—but I don’t think that ancient astronaut theorists are hoping for an emotionless future of robotic alien scientists; if anything, these monstrous Greys have been foisted upon ancient astronautics in an attempt to marry von Däniken’s human-like pyramid-builders to the inhuman UFO abduction myth under the general heading of “aliens.” Jacques Vallée helped in this process, but it was, frankly, Ancient Aliens’ need for more material that drove UFOs and alien-abductions into the ancient astronaut theory wholesale.

The tension between the aliens-as-Other and aliens-as-Us sits uneasily in ancient astronautics, and I’m not sure there is a coherent position in the movement. It seems to vary by author and by that author’s feelings about science, faith, and the future. But isn’t that the same as with God and the gods, whom we are both to love and to fear? It’s the Burkean sublime again, where awe and terror, the beautiful and the horrible, are all paths toward transcendence.

26 Comments

spookyparadigm

9/10/2013 04:12:18 am

Before I go read the essay,

1.) Is _Ancient Aliens_ hypnotic propaganda? Or is it just cheaply and badly made TV that gets away with it by latching onto an already existing idea with proven popularity?

2.) I concur that the Grays/Ancient Aliens matchup provided by _Ancient Aliens_ is a very poor one. The Christian-inspired ideology of Grays/Reptilians as demonic forces, rather than humanity-boosting aliens, has a lot more power, though it is limited by its purveyors often getting into nasty and racist corners of conspiracy theory.

Matt Mc

9/10/2013 04:29:40 am

Great article.

I know we have discussed several times the intricacies of the editing techniques of AA. I am glad other are doing the same. Part of the trick is to make it look cheap and come across as bad, as mentioned in the by Jason and the linked article it is done deliberately to exclude and eliminate those who are not prone to the suggestions provided by the show. It all follows the tried and true proven messages of propaganda and brain washing.

I know it sounds silly to think that Prometheus entertainment would use these techniques for there show. But really it is not, Glenn Beck, Alex Jones, and many others also use these techniques. Sure there might not be a larger conspiracy to forward the AA agenda into creating legislation. In fact the last thing the producers and AA theorist want is to have this happen. They need to stay on the fringe, they need the dismissals of the academics and the average person to continue. So we ask what do they get well first and foremost steady viewership meaning the show will stay on and keep the money coming in, from the guest perspective it is more book sales and speaking engagements.

So the reality here is it is a great example of propaganda from the most basic perspective. You need to be silly enough to stay on the fringe, being on the fringe gives a reason to shout conspiracy, conspiracy gives a twisted validity to the claims, the claims then can be promoted, the promotion leads to money.

The Other J.

9/10/2013 06:52:18 am

So if you're aware enough to be be bothered by the shoddy production value, you're too aware to be taken in by the message and are necessarily culled from the viewership herd. That's actually pretty clever.

The other oddity here is that it's not necessarily propaganda for the sake of some end game (political or religious conversion). It's propaganda designed to get the viewer to keep buying into more propaganda -- propaganda propitiating propagating to continue propagating propaganda. Something about that cycle seems like a virus.

9/10/2013 06:53:55 am

...wish there was an edit function here -- screwed up my tongue-twister:

Propaganda Propitiating Propaganda to Continue Propagating Propaganda.

There. Nailed it.

9/10/2013 08:32:40 am

Correct Other J - Welcome to the world of television. On AA it is blatantly obvious but this technique is present in almost all of television and a lot of radio. We are now at 100 years of studying and perfecting this art. Just imagine where we will be in another 100 years.

Another thing that cannot be forgotten is the process of fueling the speculation by claiming those who find it as junk programing are really working against the theories and working for suppression of them. So now those who buy into it feel a great connection to the topics since they themselves feel persecuted against. This bonds the connection more, makes it more personal and brings out stronger passions and prevents them from listening to rational explanations and logic. It really is well thought out much more than people give it credit.

Al West link

9/10/2013 04:44:12 am

What I find so depressing about all this is not so much that the ancient aliens premise is ridiculous or that the theories are transparently incorrect if you know anything at all about world history and archaeology. It's that the show, which has had such an influence on the development of the theory and its uptake by the public, is equally transparently a commercial venture. The sheer number of seasons, the poor quality of the production, the babbling of low-rent talking heads, the absurd graphics, the overuse of stock footage - it all points to money-making over sense-making.

And there are people out there, as we know, who invest so much emotion in this tripe. This is their religion. I understand that this is equally true of some or all other religions, but at least there's a social angle to most of those - at least you meet up with other people, maybe even friends and family, and engage in a life-affirming ritual or something similar. With ancient aliens, the viewers invest so much but get nothing out of it except passing emotional satisfaction. They don't get up and do something with it; they watch the show, become satisfied, and that's that.

And that emotional satisfaction is predicated on something so mind-numbingly stupid that it serves only to remind me that not only is the universe vast, inscrutable, and purposeless, but many of the purposes to which humans devote themselves are, frankly, crap.

9/10/2013 07:06:00 am

If you really feel that way about the universe and humans, you should try reading/seeing some Samuel Beckett (if you haven't already).

Shane Sullivan

9/10/2013 10:31:57 am

"With ancient aliens, the viewers invest so much but get nothing out of it except passing emotional satisfaction. They don't get up and do something with it; they watch the show, become satisfied, and that's that."

I could imagine something like that in a Frank Zappa satire; a vending machine that dispenses emotional satisfaction in the form of a bite-sized pill, giving the customer more time to watch Maury Povich. Well, I guess Povich isn't exactly current, but it's what Zappa probably would have said.

(For that matter, what ARE stupid people watching these days? Besides Ancient Aliens, I mean.)

Uncle Ron

9/10/2013 04:05:08 pm

Honey BooBoo; Shows about trying on bridal gowns; Toddlers in Tiaras; All the shows about hoarding, tatoos, haunted stuff; Keeping up with the Kardashians; Real Housewives ad nauseum; and anything that starts with "My Big Fat...", for starters. I don't know if I'm more depressed by the fact that someone thought this crap up and actually convinced a produced that it would make money, or that they were right. UR

9/11/2013 12:42:23 am

Shane that sounds more like something from a Phillip K DIck story than a Frank Zappa satire, although the two artist thematically intersect.

In fact Dick did write about something similar in his book Do Andriod's Dream of Electric Sheep (which is better known for being the adapted into BLADE RUNNER). In the book people used a empath box, which they used to dial into help get rid of negative emotions and also join a collective consciousness of a TV preacher and experience his suffering and gain enlightenment from it. Now thinking about it this whole AA thing has a very Phillip K Dick inspired theme going for it, even more so in my mind since Jason pointed out Graham Hancock's use of drugs to reach higher states of awareness.

9/11/2013 08:00:01 am

Matt, now I remember why that made me think of Zappa; it was a "World Cup Football Opera" that Frank once proposed writing, with America depicted as a bunch of tourists waiting in line to talk to God on a pay phone, and asking him such insipid questions as, "How's the weather up there?" and "When are you coming to America?"

9/12/2013 01:12:38 pm

"Inca Roads" (on One Size Fits All) by Zappa is about the Nazca lines and ancient astronauts.

9/10/2013 07:21:50 am

"Neimeister applies film theory to Ancient Aliens to get at the heart of how the show, to borrow a phrase, manufactures consent by using the techniques of propaganda"

A phrase borrowed from the comments in the other post about religious feelings and propaganda?

"The way you framed it, this seems like a new manifestation of manufacturing consent."

heh ;)

Another thing at play here in the editing, I think, is what's called an enthymeme. Basically, it's when the presenter wants two concepts to be connected into a larger claim, but that claim is either too absurd when stated to be accepted, or lacks evidence. Instead, the presenter places the two unconnected concepts in proximity to each other with the intention that the audience will make the link, rather than the presenter. By placing them in proximity and allowing the audience to make the link -- subconsciously or not -- the claim gets made and even accepted without the need to back it up. It's a trick used in political speech and advertising all the time; a deordorant company doesn't have t say that using their product will get you a date, it just has to show someone getting a date while using the product.

I haven't watched nearly enough Ancient Aliens to speak authoritatively on this, but I've seen enough of it and similar programming to see it at work. Usually it's framed through those slews of arbitrary questions, which plants the seed; anything that gets presented immediately following that question, if it doesn't actively challenge the question, serves to support it.

Jason Colavito link

9/10/2013 07:29:44 am

Yes, that's where I borrowed the phrase, in turn taken from Noam Chomsky.

The only thing I'd add to your comment is that nothing is too absurd for Ancient Aliens to state as text rather than subtext. Nevertheless, they still use the technique to avoid having to bother making a case, when simply smashing ideas up against each other (or better, on either side of a commercial) will do the job faster and more cheaply.

9/10/2013 07:49:38 am

*nods in Chomsky's general direction*

Varika

9/10/2013 05:58:09 pm

Jason, could you do me a favor and explain to me what you mean by "manufacturing consent"? It's not a term that I've come up against, and a Google search only tells me that I have to buy this book and watch this movie, neither of which I can afford.

9/10/2013 10:47:09 pm

Varika, I'm sure Jason can give a better explanation, but I'll give it a shot (largely based on my own foggy memory and a quick Wikipedia perusal).

The idea relates to how media creates public acceptance of an argument or idea, and the pressures at play that push the editorial side of things to frame something in such a way that favors the argument in question while downplaying or excluding counter-arguments.

The idea originated with Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman's 1988 book "Manufacturing Consent," which was later made into a documentary (and you can find it on YouTube -- it's a couple hours long). They were focused on how governmental and business positions gain public acceptance with little critical debate through the media, and they identify a handful of the pressures at play:

- Profit motive (Present content based what draws attention and sells, not necessarily on if it's newsworthy; major media companies are large businesses, and their business is business);

- Advertising dollars (When a media company survives through the advertising model they'll tend to avoid stories that seem to attack an advertiser and will be more friendly to stories that are also advertiser-friendly);

- Source restriction (If you irritate your sources you may lose access to those sources, so you frame things in a way that's source-friendly, don't bite the hand that feeds you, and become 'stenographers to power'; I'm sure this happens on both sides of the political aisle in the U.S., but I seem to recall it being a regular thing during the Bush administration);

- Avoiding positions and stories that will draw too much negative outside response (The balance sheet comes into play here: Will the negative response generate enough attention that the increase in eyes will outweigh the negative attention? If not, don't wade into those waters. This is one of the reasons Glenn Beck lost his place at Fox; enough protest developed that advertisers started to pull out, and his show became commercially unviable.);

- Tacit acceptance of the over-arching ideological position of the day (During the Cold War it was anything that was against communism, today it'd be terrorism. So for instance you'd be more likely to see stories that just describe a drone attack taking place, but doesn't necessarily get into outside verification of the evidence or reasons for the attack, which company profits through contracts to build drones, etc.).

So that's the argument in a nutshell from almost 30 years ago, when the media environment was very different. A quick personal example: In another life, I worked in cable TV writing/producing commercials. We made most of our revenue off ad sales. When Bill Clinton got caught with his cigar in Monica Lewinsky's cookie jar and House republicans decided this was an impeachable offense (really it was his denial), it drove millions of more eyes to CNN and Headline News. The demographic of people who tended to watch those channels in our area was also the demographic who would be in the market for cars, furniture, maybe a new home, Persian rugs, that sort of thing. They were busting down our door to flood the time slots when CNN and Headline News were focusing on the Clinton story (mainly 4-7 weekdays), and we in turn priced those spots at a premium -- which they paid. It was a weird, virtuously salacious cycle; CNN was getting attention they needed, we were making fat stacks, and the companies that advertised at a premium during the Clinton Sex Scandal time slot sold more of their product because their ads reached more people. But the entire cycle supported the position that Clinton's sex life was a national security issue, and that position was refracted through the public that seemed to demand "MOAR CLINTON SEKS" via their attention. Stories about the necessity of the investigation and how it was a distraction from real issues were non-starters.

But the internet has made media outlets and audiences much more granular, targeted, and specialized, and I'm not sure everything in Chomsky and Herman's original model would hold today, at least not in the same way (and that's if you accept their model in the first place). But some of it seems to hold in a different sort of way when looking at something like Ancient Aliens, and Prometheus Entertainment and History are the prime movers here:

First there's the obvious profit motive; the show is easy enoug to produce cheaply and draws enough attention that it's a reliable cash-cow for both the production company and the channel. Content-wise, there isn't too much that would irritate advertisers, although I doubt you'd see ads for colleges during the show. Jason has previously mentioned the kinds of ads that appear during the breaks; I haven't watched in some time, but I'm guessing it's things like ads for reverse mortgages, prescription meds, and maybe Wilfred Brimley pops up now and again. The idea is that Prometheus Entertainment and History have detailed demograph

9/10/2013 10:48:47 pm

(cont.)

The idea is that Prometheus Entertainment and History have detailed demographic info on their main audience, and not only will the show's presentation be framed in a way that appeals to that audience, the ads will target them as well. As far as sources go, we've already seen how the regulars can't seem to do anything to get themselves off that show (not that they'd want to), and you don't get many (any?) on who would challenge their claims. (Actually I think America Unearthed is a good example of that, where the show is edited in such a way to elide or erase opinions contradictory to Sir Wolter Scott's.) As far as dealing with negative responses, this is where the granularity of the contemporary media environment comes in, and reinforces the "old psychic scam" structure Jason noted above: The main audience is self-selected and skeptics are weeded out via the cheap production values; therefore there isn't much threat of losing audience share/revenue due to the content presented. In fact, negative responses are usually reframed as evidence of the conspiracy to keep this knowledge hidden, reinforcing their right-ness. As far as the ideological position, that seems to be "as long as it's not widely accepted or verifiable"; as Jason has pointed out before, the claims aren't always consistent with each other, but they always return to attacking established science and academia that challenge their arguments.

This is way too long, and looking around I think I'm out in the weeds someplace. If someone can sum it up more succinctly, please do.

9/10/2013 11:37:39 pm

No, I think you did a good job summing up the idea of manufacturing consent. The most important idea is that Chomsky and Herman argued that the media do not receive direct orders from government and/or politicians but instead participate in propaganda due to market pressures and ideological conformity, often without being aware of it. (This was before Fox News.)

9/12/2013 11:35:03 am

Alright, so this ties directly into the whole debate over the social role and responsibilities of advertisers and TV producers, then. Would it be fair to say that the unhealthy body images most American women hold as a result of advertising would be an example of "manufactured consent?" Particularly with regards to the photoshopping of model photos to make them look thinner in ways that are unhealthy and even impossible for an actual human body? So that the idea being tacitly consented to is that women should be tiny and dainty and permanently between the ages of 16 and 21, because advertisers as a whole aren't showing products that contradict that, and even the health care profession is on the bandwagon of "Fat Is Bad"?

Also, I remember the Bill Clinton thing, and I remember that even at the time, I felt that lying to a grand jury was an impeachable offence--but that it never should have gotten to a grand jury in the first place and shouldn't this be between Bill and Hilary anyway. I don't think I watched TV above once a week the whole time that was in the news, I found it so annoying...

9/12/2013 04:24:03 pm

Varika, yeah, your example is close. The advertisers attempt to manufacture consent about body image, but it only works if the public accedes to that presentation. (Which, when it comes to body image, often works.) Depending on the situation, though, consent can't always be manufactured -- Crystal Pepsi, Zima.

Really, the concept is more about broader political and social questions than just consumer questions, but similar techniques are consistent across the board. I like to look at movie ads for how manipulating public reaction works; often, the worse the movie is -- or the worse the producers think it is -- the more heavily it'll be advertised in the week or two prior to its opening and the week of. Then it'll drop. The idea is that if enough people see the ads in those pre-opening days, they'll be able to shuffle enough people through the turnstiles before word gets out that it's a crap film.

David Foster Wallace has a good essay about this sort of thing called "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again," where he discusses how opinions about something -- a product, an event, or in this case a cruise -- are determined for people by the producer of the product or experience and then slyly fed to the consumer to make it seem like the opinion the producer wants the consumer to have was always already the consumer's self-determined opinion. (That was a mouthful.)

9/12/2013 06:39:48 pm

I would say the consistently negative body image of modern women--including the upswings in eating disorders that have a clear correlation to advertising trends--constitutes a pretty broad social question. Fortunately, there's starting to be some pushback about it, so the façade is crumbling there.

But I guess perhaps more political examples might be "All Muslims and only Muslims are terrorists" or "Patriot Act is a Good Idea?"

...or about on par with the Clinton example, "OH MY GOD, ROYAL BABY!" *eyeroll at that* Especially anywhere outside the British Isles.

9/12/2013 10:10:36 pm

(meant to put my comment below here -- the thing about Muslim terrorists, the IRA and manufacturing consent was for you)

9/12/2013 10:09:07 pm

The equating of Muslims with terrorists -- particularly darker Muslims -- is probably a good example of manufacturing consent. It's the kind of thing that gets reiterated and reinforced in political rhetoric (racial profiling), news media (confirmation bias), and pop culture (generic Middle Eastern terrorists) so regularly and blithely that it seems like wallpaper. And then you end up with things like Sikhs and Mexican Americans being attacked for looking like a Muslim.

One of the things that always stuck in my craw with the pledge to root out and destroy terrorists, their sympathizers and those who harbor them is how that pledge would never be held up when it comes to the IRA and the Catholic church in America. Not all Catholic churches, but some have helped support the IRA in the past, whether through money or shelter. The IRA -- or at least some of its off-shoots after it splintered (The Real IRA, The Provos) went pretty guerrilla, and got mixed up with the likes of the FARC in Columbia, the PLO, and Hezbollah. Such groups were largely disowned in Ireland as only being interested in radical struggle, and no longer concerned with civil rights in Northern Ireland or any effort to unify the island.

If you really wanted to, you could trace money that was being funneled from churches in New York, Boston, Chicago, and Detroit to IRA militants who took it to South America and the Middle East either to get training from or provide training to groups that are considered terrorists by the U.S., which in turn have threatened U.S. interests. But that's not a U.S. focus, and if those sorts of links are being tracked down, it's not making the news. In other words, the consent over what constitutes a terrorist is fairly limited in scope and doesn't include Irish terrorists; that consent would be much harder to manufacture in this country. (Interestingly enough, the Irish don't have that much trouble with the idea, and treat such groups in a similar way as we treat organized crime in the U.S.)

9/13/2013 05:59:26 am

The whole "war on terror" thing has bothered me since it was first introduced, because of how nebulous it is in the first place. Forget the IRA and the Catholic support groups--not that you're wrong about them--take a look at Timothy McVeigh and Ted Kaczynski. They were both flat-out terrorists, and while they were both eventually taken down, they also are perfect examples of why there will ALWAYS be terrorists--quite simply, because there will ALWAYS be people, however many or few in number, who think that massive public violence is the right way to make their point. Therefore, "war on terror" is just a political excuse to penalize whomever the state dislikes, for whatever reason, with the flimsy excuse that "they're terrorists." Right now, it's pointed at those who look Middle Eastern, but to be honest, it wouldn't be that hard to shift it to "Asians" or "Hispanics," because "Oh, those wetbacks, you know they're here to blow up our buildings and steal our money" or "KOREAAAAAANS!" (Both of which I have heard, BTW, IN the media, if not as popularly as "OMG MUSLIMS!)

It's not that terrorists aren't a problem. Real, actual terrorists are DEFINITELY a problem. But this concept that they can be grouped into an easily-identifiable heap is more harm than help, so I start to really understand why this 'manufacturing consent' business is a problem.

Only Me

9/13/2013 05:16:07 pm

Excellent points, Varika. If I may offer an opinion, I think the reason Muslims are so easily targeted, is the lack of Muslim voices stepping forward to make the case that while the high-profile terrorists are Muslim, not all Muslims are terrorists.

Some Japanese-Americans spoke out against the internment camps and policies implemented against them during WW2. Some Latinos, having come to America legally and earning nationalization, are speaking out against blanket amnesty for those Latinos that entered illegally.

Of course, the manufactured consent will make the effort easy to dismiss or spin.