Endurance

Corporate media + government propaganda = mediated propaganda.

Witnessing the radical blue rants, escalating in anticipation of this weekend's revival in Manhattan, one is reminded of charismatic church gatherings that in 1999 preceded the millenium celebrations. Lots of hysteria, little reason.

Using the three strikes analogy, so popular in the US, Naomi Klein -- the charismatic leader seemingly destined to soon rival Oprah -- struck out with her climate week plan to flood Manhattan with a People's Climate March. As with her two previous strikes -- the KXL hoax, and the divestment diversion -- the Charms of Naomi only benefit Wall Street, not democracy or the environment. Klein's new economy campaign, so seductive to A Culture of Imbeciles, likewise, will in time prove to be nothing but bubbles--or as Klein put it in her vapid new book, an "effervescent moment."

Titillation in orthodox left-wing media over Naomi Klein's mythical move toward out-and-out socialism -- when it doesn't read like celebrity gossip from People Magazine -- has the flavor of a Cold War CIA operation like the Iran-Contra Scandal, where covert writers created cover narratives and floated them to gullible media to flog as insightful op-eds. One can almost imagine Comrade Klein huddling with Oliver North, John Poindexter and Elliot Abrams to concoct bogus stories they can dole out to coincide with the never-ending anti-capitalist revolutionary historic Rockefeller-financed 350 events. These clever operatives could possibly use the code name Ministry of Truth, borrowing a phrase from George Orwell's novel, 1984.

Rockefeller-influenced NGOs, or RINGOs, are arguably the Wall Street junta of the new green economy. As adept managers of advertising and public relations, RINGOs like 350 make regular use of techniques like branding to herd their followers. As such, social engineering by RINGOs, like the No KXL campaign, uses Mad Men methods to manipulate a mass audience.

As Cory Morningstar notes in Yes Logo: The McKibben-Klein Doctrine, 350 -- Naomi Klein's radical RINGO chariot -- uses corporate branding developed for Obama (sunrise over stars and stripes) to create an attitude that generates a powerful subconscious feeling. This consumer psychology in our era of "accelerating social engineering," says Morningstar, 'embodies an emotional chimera of "hope" and "change" that we can choose to believe in.' Attitude branding, she says, is "a very sophisticated and calculated method of indoctrination, perhaps one of the highest (and most subtle) forms of psychological manipulation/brainwashing."

Ironically, notes Morningstar, the Obama brand utilized by 350 is a 'compelling example of the indoctrinating attitude branding that Naomi Klein describes as "fetish strategy" in her 2000 book No Logo.' In this way, owning the "change" ideology appropriated from Obama, Klein, notes Morningstar, 'reinforced the illusion that this same iconic "change" is still sitting right in front of us, ours for the taking, if  only we believe.'

When Obama was running for president in 2008, a prevalent fantasy among progressives was that Obama was a cunning community organizer, who cleverly outfoxed America's aristocracy, thus becoming the front-running Democratic candidate while they weren't looking. The reality, of course, was that Obama had sold his soul to Goldman Sachs in 2004, thus ensuring that America's aristocracy was solidly behind his historic candidacy.

During Obama's 2008 campaign, his community organizing employer, Ralph Nader, stated publicly that Obama was just another opportunist, who'd padded his populist resume by doing a stint in his organization. Nader also noted Obama's sell out, which had been documented in an article at Harper's in 2006, but progressives were already hallucinating on the Hope and Change Kool-Aid, making it impossible for this dose of reality to take effect.

When 350 started using a modified Obama logo, to brand its Rockefeller-financed campaigns as progressive, they were simply usurping an emotive symbol known for its mesmerizing effect. When 350's Naomi Klein marketed herself as radical chic, anti-capitalist Superwoman, she was counting on the proven gullibility of American greens.

True to form, progressive suspension of disbelief enabled Klein to create a separate reality, where she miraculously tricked the aristocracy into backing her socialist revolution under the slogan This Changes Everything. Even the oil industry's cashing in on her phony XL and divestment campaigns wasn't enough for liberals to withdraw from her spell. As their new cultural icon, her celebrity completely overwhelms any critical judgment they might have acquired after Hope and Change.

As infantile consumers of spectacle, American progressives will apparently believe anything, as long as it is packaged in a wrapper of false hope, decorated with catchy phrases, and promoted as a painless revolution, that asks no sacrifice, but promises them the world on a platter. In time, This Changes Everything, like Hope and Change, will be relegated to the dustbin of empty campaign promises. At which point, if history is any guide, progressives will partake of group therapy sessions, and prepare themselves to be duped again.

Civil society, as we know it today, is a creation of Wall Street, fabricated to echo corporate distortions and state propaganda, used in turn to justify theft and aggression. When corporate media quotes Wall Street-funded NGOs as the "humanitarian" voice, it is similar to situations in which government officials who were previously corporate mouthpieces spout pro-corporate positions.

The antecedent to present day civil society, authentic humanitarian agencies and networks, have been overshadowed and even annihilated by false fronts for capital, busy in demolishing social support structures on behalf of privatization. Under the imperial civil society, no amount of theft and fraud is deemed improper. Even mass murder is OK.

Welcome to an uncivil civil society.