By Mathew Maavak
On Tuesday, I finally decided to write a piece on the oil-for-food scam and its correlation with political subversion and terrorism across the Seven Seas. Days and months passed and I waited in vain for a newshound to lock the main quarry in its jaws.
However, when George Galloway was getting hammered for his supposed involvement, I decided paste all the information I could get about the man and related topics into a folder titled "Operation Maltese Cross."
As soon as that happened, my MSN beta anti-spyware flashed a red alert. There was a Trojan Horse intrusion.
Now, if MSN’s beta defenses could detect it, then this wasn’t of pedigree stock. With specimens like these, the walls of Troy would have stood to this day.
So, I opted for a mission creep - an article on the war of propaganda within dissident circles. It’s a highly fascinating game, and for those who engage in "remote percipience" - without actually meeting the target - it is highly titillating as well.
For starters, what would one think of a person who deliberately let the Trojan Horse in? I almost did that, but viruses have a way of making your life miserable and I haven’t yet created a back-up of my photo gallery. One previous series of website-related glitches - unexplained till today - and the uncanny timing of a credit bill that was five months late, exhausted not only me but others as well. I am not ready for that yet.
And it’s not just the Trojan Horses, worms, viruses and other contagions of the cyber world that keep us locked in a state of permanent surveillance. Google’s toolbar can perform wonders as well. It retrieves and provides data for selective reasons.
Harold Williamson’s article garnered 23,000 clicks when it was first headlined on Google news. That was last month, and there were bound to be many more clicks. And its ratings still show zero. Bizarre! It was a good piece.
Harold is the nurturing type; a rare breed anywhere, especially in the publishing field, unlike some specimens mentioned, or alluded below.
Google is not the only culprit in this war of selective propaganda, where some great pieces are - rather suspiciously - downplayed. This is a game where your name and/or your work can be routed to a cul-de-sac whenever inquisitive readers type out the right search terms.
It's cousin - Alexa - was identified as a spyware by Dr Norton on two occasions. The nostrum was "delete," and yet it kept appearing.
This is the same Alexa whose statistical endorsement was proudly brandished by the somniferous Commondreams.org. Two years back, and without a nous of what good propaganda means, it pointedly showed where the Online Journal’s ratings stood, a few thousand slots down. The Online Journal is not mentioned in the latest stats I could find. Ironically, I retrieved them from Vivisimo, not Google.
So much for high ratings.
Bad Dreams
I thought common dreams meant a common desire to seek a better world.
If you think it was a daft attempt to run down another site, think again. There is much more to it.
Commondreams.org unfortunately includes some excellent writers among a chaff of opiates and nightmare provocateurs. One of the latter’s duty is to take pot shots against their bedfellows. It makes a bad dream.
One Prof Emeticus mangled Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11, after reading into some sub textual garbage. He found "racist" tones within the docu-drama and couldn't resist linking it to the racism faced by Arabs and brown guys in the US.
Everyone I knew loved it and the Indians I watched it with didn’t find it racist. As a "journalism and communications expert," the distinguished writer - whom few had heard outside the US - should know that humans can’t physically digest a 5-hour tirade on the topic. So, exactly what are the ingredients needed to salivate a vast, worldwide audience, within say 90 minutes? Why the time-tested Hollywood formula! It creates enough interest worldwide over the 9/11 legend.
As for racism, what about the blatantly-tiered salary structure for Asians and Whites in Arab nations? An Indian oil executive, with the same or better qualifications than his white colleague, gets much less. This is another reason why I have little tolerance for the "root cause" thesis and "racism" splashed on sites like commondreams.org.
In his monochromatic world, the professor finds "nothing new" in more balanced works that appeal to people who matter. He is the sort who finds great merit in a rather obscure Indian writer who arouses a sharp "who?" whenever I check whether the man had written anything of import. The trick, it seems, was to apply some lawless regions in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar to the whole of India. Even the big media gets it right on this issue. This Indian writer is uncannily quoted by star dissidents, whose conception of truth is highly selective.
I am Indian, have lived in India, and can speak or understand three Indian languages in varying degrees. I have developed some contempt and some admiration for things Indian. However, like in the US, there is always a niche career for those who subtly or unconsciously perpetuate US power.
If you think, where this is leading to, well…I am saving it for print.
In the meantime, I re-tracked and asked some academics - do you know this Prof Emeticus?
"Who?"
There are some names you scrupulously avoid, and getting your byline beside such writers will give you a permanent kitsch tag.
Divide and let the rulers rule
Jesus Christ - my favorite sociologist - once said: "A house divided against itself will fall." And, "you will know them by their fruits."
There are some bad fruits already ripened. They have always been there, season after season. There is an eternal game of subtle subversion played out between "dissident" camps. You can sense them from what I’d call lexical signatures, counterpoising another article with key words embedded within. There are other ways to spot them. Add in the fact that humans are governed by Pavlovian reflexes and the matrices of power, you can sense the nature of the game and its manifold possibilities.
One bloke came out with a sensational twist on Saddam’s capture, using signature words like "food chain." The semantics was unmistakable; it was directed at my article on Saddam.
But my article ended with these words:
"There is another possibility that whoever thought this through had done his homework very well, and the timing was impeccable. If true, students of propaganda will be using this incident as a case study for decades to come. Yet, it’s too early to say anything for sure… We don’t know all the facts yet."
The writer forgets the nature of propaganda and black ops, where a cog doesn’t realize his machine belongs to the very super machine he is trying to dismantle. It was also another tactile attempt to discredit one of the two sites which first published that article. Now, I know everyone doesn’t agree with everyone all the time. That’s called "opinion." When it gets rather low-key and perennial, it comes under "propaganda," in the most literal sense.
Saddam has yet to speak out loud and clear. That is exactly one key point I raised - let it come from the horse’s mouth itself. How can you open the Trojan Horse at this juncture? The successors of Greece are still holding him hostage. The word "confinement" can only be applied to the Hague.
Yet, every issue draws out potshots and counterpunches and you get so sick of it that you’d rather read Bill Gate’s latest enterprise on BBC or MSNBC. If he wants money, he needs a large clientele, and anti-spyware offerings that will knock down those Trojan Horses. If he does a good job, there is still hope.
Now, I have played this game before. For some time, I had peppered my articles with references to one political analyst - sometimes praising him, sometimes resorting to veiled quotes. Finally, I hammered him during a private spat. That was only Round One. He couldn’t answer a single question straight and digressed into "delusions", "fantasies" and "dreams." Not "common dreams", of course. This one is worth mentioning, for he really has the genius, on things that are not political. Noam Chomsky, he of MIT, and lesser ones not worth the mention, should ask themselves how they can sit as Prof Emeriti in the rogue superpower and find out whether there are Arab, North Korean, or Third World counterparts, of similar stature and dissident record, on their respective home soils.
Are there common dreams or a nebulae of propaganda? The former is an illusion and the latter a stark reality. Life is propaganda’s best training ground.
Master it!
Just as Chuikov formed the "Stalingrad Academy of Street Fighting" amidst the exploding rubble and changing winds of fortunes, there are some things you can only learn on the go, during action time.
And like his "Noble Snipers", each one has to develop his own technique in this world. It can be your weapon and your trump card.
Mathew Maavak
Kuala Lumpur, May 20, 2005
Copyright@ Mathew Maavak, 2005
Note: At 1pm Malaysian time, Harold’s article still showed zero. Its been four weeks. Counterchecked with colleagues abroad.
Addenda (May 26, 2005):
It's now fashionable to put up a rehashed reply on websites. When I approached Crisis Papers over an article of mine, a gung-ho message was pasted on the board. The reply I received was in fact an enthusiastic "yes, yes, but do cite the authors and source. I should have saved it. Fortunately, I saved this mail:
Here at The Crisis Papers, we're gearing up for major site changes, in order to reach even more readers during this all-important election campaign. We are dedicated to the electoral removal of Bush&Co., which isn't going to be easy. We are in need of donations to help make our innovations happen, and to pay down our accumulated debt and afford our monthly fees.As someone who has contacted The Crisis Papers recently, we're assuming that you find what we're doing valuable or at least informative. If you could help us out, we'd be most appreciative. Send checks -- large ones will not be refused -- to: The Crisis Papers, 322 Cortland Ave. #136, San Francisco, CA. 94110. Thank you so much. -- Ernest Partridge/Bernard Weiner, Editors
Date and time: Wed, 7 Apr 2004 14:29:40 EDT
Subject: The Crisis Papers could use your help
Point One: I operate with less than $US100 per year. Right now, I am unemployed, and I can yet do this, and more.
Point Two: My Loyalty is My Honour. I can take crap from friends, but I always return any crap from others 10-fold. I prefer core integrity under any circumstances.
Point Three: It's become a Kafkasque world. If some of you still have to endure Bush, enjoy it! Some of you deserve him. Many of you don't.
Point Four: Communications Skills. When you are soliciting donations, don't address it to a phantom recipient. Tailor it personally to the addresee. I am sure Bush does this. Kerry made that blunder.
Point Five: If you need some good propaganda techniques to remove Bush's successor, send a large cheque to me. I am trained in this field. For starters, add three zeroes to the amount quoted above. Anything less will be refused outright, though confidentiality will be kept.
Point Six: In some countries, it is either illegal or unethical to solicit political/electoral donations from foreigners. Bill Clinton got into a soup over a Taiwanese donor. Foreign consultancies are used though.
Point Seven: When your innovations fail, try me.
Most of Mathew Maavak's commentaries can be read at the here or visit the Panoptic World homepage.