Danny, I think that the media actually plays an important role in foreign policy – not just in the sense that democratic consent is important for the roll-out of a military operation. The media is all beating the war drums in unison, they can get some polls to show 51% support for some military operation for a week or two. This, along with assurances from the Joint Chiefs that it is going to be an easy-peasy cakewalk, is usually enough to get whichever president to sign off on a military operation.
However, that isn’t the most valuable function of the media for the purposes of our Empire. The media, both Journalists and the PR firms depicted in this movie, provide a little theatrical production that gives the illusion of a democratic process. And it displaces responsibility for the … inevitable blowback/fuck-ups of the military action onto some imaginary voter. This illusion allows voters to think that conflicts are the fault of the partisans of the other party (‘Wow, Bush sure fucked up, but surely smart Obama will get us out of these conflicts!’), it allows the bureaucracy to blame the voters (just listen to HR McMaster describe what went wrong in Afghanistan, he just thinks that its the politicians pandering to anti-war forces that prevented the Pentagon from implementing a coherent strategy).
So, I think you are correct that these little PR campaigns for whichever war are immaterial to whether or not it happens, but I do think the illusion that foreign policy is subject to democratic input is quite valuable to the Empire. Our Empire could not run if the people carrying it out actually had the impression that they are in any way responsible for the results of their actions.
POV from some Comms Adjunct:
Danny, I think that the media actually plays an important role in foreign policy – not just in the sense that democratic consent is important for the roll-out of a military operation. The media is all beating the war drums in unison, they can get some polls to show 51% support for some military operation for a week or two. This, along with assurances from the Joint Chiefs that it is going to be an easy-peasy cakewalk, is usually enough to get whichever president to sign off on a military operation.
However, that isn’t the most valuable function of the media for the purposes of our Empire. The media, both Journalists and the PR firms depicted in this movie, provide a little theatrical production that gives the illusion of a democratic process. And it displaces responsibility for the … inevitable blowback/fuck-ups of the military action onto some imaginary voter. This illusion allows voters to think that conflicts are the fault of the partisans of the other party (‘Wow, Bush sure fucked up, but surely smart Obama will get us out of these conflicts!’), it allows the bureaucracy to blame the voters (just listen to HR McMaster describe what went wrong in Afghanistan, he just thinks that its the politicians pandering to anti-war forces that prevented the Pentagon from implementing a coherent strategy).
So, I think you are correct that these little PR campaigns for whichever war are immaterial to whether or not it happens, but I do think the illusion that foreign policy is subject to democratic input is quite valuable to the Empire. Our Empire could not run if the people carrying it out actually had the impression that they are in any way responsible for the results of their actions.
KAM-a-la
not
kam-AH-la