"In dictatorships we're more

fortunate that you in the West

We believe nothing we read in the newspapers

and nothing of what we watch on television,

because we know its propaganda and lies

Unlike you, we've learned to look behind the propaganda"

People are now deeply suspicious of political alternatives,

and because the Democratic Party has succeeded in

seducing and dividing the electoral left

And yet this growing critical public awareness

is all the more remarkable when you

consider the sheer scale of indoctrination

the mythology of a superior way of life,

and the current manufactured state of fear

Ironically, I began to understand how censorship worked in so-called free societies when I reported from totalitarian societies.

During the 1970s I filmed secretly in Czechoslovakia, then a Stalinist dictatorship. I interviewed members of the dissident group Charter 77, including the novelist Zdener Urbanek, and this is what he told me.

"In dictatorships we are more fortunate that you in the West in one respect. We believe nothing of what we read in the newspapers and nothing of what we watch on television, because we know its propaganda and lies.

"Unlike you in the West, We've learned to look behind the propaganda and to read between the lines. Unlike you, we know that the real truth is always subversive."

It is impossible to distinguish between the State-owned media of Communist countries and the Corporate-owned media of Capitalist countries.

Edward Bernays, the so-called father of public relations, wrote about an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. He was referring to journalism, the media.

That was almost 80 years ago, not long after corporate journalism was invented. It is a history few journalist talk about or know about, and it began with the arrival of corporate advertising.

As the new corporations began taking over the press, something called "professional journalism" was invented.

To attract big advertisers, the new corporate press had to appear respectable, pillars of the establishment—objective, impartial, balanced.

The first schools of journalism were set up, and a mythology of liberal neutrality was spun around the professional journalist.

The right to freedom of expression was associated with the new media and with the great corporations, and the whole thing was entirely bogus.

What the public didn't know was that in order to be professional, journalists had to ensure that news and opinion were dominated by official sources, and that has not changed.

Go through the New York Times on any day, and check the sources of the main political stories - domestic and foreign - you'll find they're dominated by government and other established interests. That is the essence of professional journalism.

Consider how the power of this invisible government has grown. In 1983 the principle global media was owned by fifty corporations, most of them American. In 2002 this had fallen to just nine corporations.

Today it is probably about five. Rupert Murdoch has predicted that there will be just three global media giants, and his company will be one of them.

The 'Liberal' Media

The liberal media is as guilty of prejudice under the guise of 'fairness' and balance. If anything, they are more dangerous than the obviously biased right-wing outlets.

Look at the role the liberal media played in the run-up to the Iraq invasion.

As for the Democrats, look at how Barak Obama has become the voice of the Council on Foreign Relations, one of the propaganda organs of the old liberal Washington establishment.

Obama writes that while he wants the troops home, "We must not rule out military force against long-standing adversaries such as Iran and Syria." Listen to this from the liberal Obama:

"At moment of great peril in the past century our leaders ensured that America, by deed and by example, led and lifted the world, that we stood and fought for the freedom sought by billions of people beyond their borders."

That is the nub of the propaganda, the brainwashing if you like, that seeps into the lives of every American, and many of us who are not Americans.

From right to left, secular to God-fearing, what so few people know is that in the last half century, United States adminstrations have overthrown 50 governments—many of them democracies.

In the process, thirty countries have been attacked and bombed, with the loss of countless lives.

Bush bashing is all very well - and is justified - but the moment we begin to accept the siren call of the Democrat's drivel about standing up and fighting for freedom sought by billions, the battle for history is lost, and we ourselves are silenced.

Real information, subversive information, remains the most potent power of all—and I believe that we must not fall into the trap of believing that the media speaks for the public.

That wasn't true in Stalinist Czechoslovakia and it isn't true of the United States.

In all the years I've been a journalist, I've never know public consciousness to have risen as fast as it's rising today.

Yes, its direction and shape is unclear, partly because people are now deeply suspicious of political alternatives, and because the Democratic Party has succeeded in seducing and dividing the electoral left.

And yet this growing critical public awareness is all the more remarkable when you consider the sheer scale of indoctrination, the mythology of a superior way of life, and the current manufactured state of fear.

We need to make haste. Liberal Democracy is moving toward a form of corporate dictatorship.

John Pilger @ ZNet