If you're a director of erotic movies, you can approach the
making of films in one of two ways or a mixture that is made of a little of
both – a choice that puts you on the spectrum between two ends. At one end,
there is the suggestion of what you're not showing, and what it may stand for,
letting the scintillation force the audience to imagine what it could be. At
the other end, there is the explicit display of what you're showing, made so to
titillate the desires of the audience, leaving nothing to the imagination.
But you don't have to be in the business of making erotic
films to imagine how the seduction of audiences is done by those in charge of
communicating ideas – be they of intimate encounter types or the clash of
fanatic dogmas. And this takes us inside the world of propaganda where the
communication of ideas, and the methods by which this is done, play a role in
moving societies towards one political ideology or another ... whether the
drama unfolds on the local stage or does so on the international stage.
In this regard, there is widespread agreement that America has
lost the ability to communicate its message to the world. When you look at the
matter closely, you'll find that it is happening because Americans are using
the methods applied locally to try and communicate internationally. They are
doing so at a time when the local methods have changed so much, they have
become ineffective even locally. And you can see the heartbreak that this is creating
among the people who wish to talk to the world but cannot. You can see it in
the article written by Robert R. Reilly under the title: “Unmuffling the Voice
of America” and the subtitle: “Congress has a chance to fix an error and give
the U.S.
a fighting chance in the international war of ideas.” It was published on June
6, 2014 in the Wall Street Journal.
When you get past the heartbreak, and you try to determine
what has gone wrong with America 's
message, you discover that the doctor describing the cure is the disease he is
trying to remedy. In addition, he mentions other doctors whose prescriptions
are as worthless as his own. In short, America is the center for media
excellence that has become the center for media uselessness.
Describing what has gone wrong with America 's message to the world;
Robert Reilly who was at some point director of Voice of America says this:
“Most members of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) were individuals who
made their fortunes in the media. They sought to replicate their success
according to commercial criteria, which meant aiming at large youth audiences
and abandoning markets where audiences could not be attracted.” The trouble is
that the description does not exactly match what he later says those individuals
tried to do on the international scene which rendered VOA ineffective.
He gives two examples to that effect. First, he says that
“one member of the BBG went to China
to negotiate with Beijing
officials on VOA's TV broadcasts to teach the English language. He ceded
control to the Chinese government.” Second, he says that the BBG wanted to
eliminate VOA radio broadcast to Uzbekistan . Secretary of State
Colin Powell wrote the board not to do this. The board ultimately relented and
soon thereafter the U.S.
deployed troops in Uzbekistan
to support operations in Afghanistan .
Only then does Reilly assert what follows – as if struck by an afterthought:
“Who listens became less important than how many listened.” And he backs this
assertion with the revelation that “the BBG eliminated VOA broadcasting to Brazil , India ,
Russia and the Arab world,
and repeatedly tried to eliminate VOA's China service.” And yet, with the
exception of Russia ,
that is where the big audiences can be found. Try to figure that one out.
Here is the answer. What the author is missing is that one
and the same reason underlies the rejection of America 's message by the local
audiences and the international ones. Both turn to something else to be
informed and be entertained. It is that the audiences sense the presence of
something phony in America 's
message. They feel it is stuffed with useless propaganda they may not be able
to dissect and pick out what is real and what is not, but their instinct tells
them it is toxic material designed to mess up their heads and their emotions.
And we must ask: What can that be?
Well, self-serving propaganda is annoying and gets to be
boring after a while. But the audiences do not develop a visceral hatred for
the messenger when exposed to it. Those listening or watching turn off the
radio or the TV when they had enough of it. By contrast, what angers an
audience and makes it hate even the messenger is when it senses that the
messenger does not represent the people or the institution he or she pretends
to represent.
For example, that kind of responses used to happen when
people listened to Cuban Broadcasts as they rendered lip service to the Soviet
propaganda machine. The audiences used to express their hatred even for the
host of the show. You can also see such responses come from some audiences when
Canadian broadcasters extol British royalty. And it happens all the time when
American media deify anything that is Jewish or Israeli.
This, therefore, is what is happening to America 's media
at home and throughout the world where the Voice of America still goes. It is
how and why both the local and the international audiences have developed a
visceral hatred for the message of America as well as the messenger.
They reek of insidious Jewish propaganda … and there is nothing seductive about
that.