American Propaganda Research Paper

POWER STRUCTURES AND THEIR INHERENT PROPAGANDA IN AMERICA
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Power Structures And Their
Inherent Propaganda In America:
Michael F Heyn
Madison Area Technical College

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Abstract:
The world is usually not the way it seems, and this is especially true when looking for truth.
There’s a reason for the common saying, “The truth often hurts the most”. Society as a whole
often isn’t allowed to acknowledge the truth because of the propaganda of the ruling class. In all
hierarchical societies, free information is heavily restricted or sometimes even completely
restricted to prevent free thought among the masses. This is just as true in America as in any
other society. This paper will

cover examples of modern day American propaganda, and the
inherent implications of elite propaganda.

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Power Structures And Their Inherent Propaganda In America:
Propaganda in modern day America is rampant. Wherever there is illegitimate power, there will
be propaganda designed to control the masses. For the purposes of this paper, illegitimate power
will be defined as a position of power that was acquired through means of deception. Such
deception can include: politicians promising free handouts to the uneducated while secretly
enriching the private interests that brought them into power, the CIA carrying out classified
(unknown to the public) missions to overthrow democratically elected governments with
dictatorships for American business interests, officials getting elected to office because of
political contributions from the elite (in the case of America, the elite are the well connected
cronies who use the government for privatized profits but socialized losses) class, and big
corporate media directing the thoughts of the masses using diversion and aversion to divide and
conquer the masses. American main sources of propaganda come from the media, which is
owned by a relatively small group of people. The media is the cross-roads and source of
information for the public. This is a direct conflict of interest between the American interests and
the interests of the elite because the elite own the press that is supposedly meant to inform the
populace. What are the implications of this? What if the elite don’t want certain information to
get out? What if the elite use the CIA to do their dirty work with classified missions that can’t
even become available to the public? These are all questions that will be looked at in the

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following paragraphs. This paper will cover examples of modern day American propaganda, the
implications of such elite propaganda on the human race, and how the internet could potentially
become the solution to such problems.
WHO OWNS THE MEDIA IN AMERICA
Before delving into examples of American propaganda, it is important to note that the media in
the United States is consolidated. Five large media conglomerates dominate the media industry,
“By 2000, six corporations had ownership of most media, and today five dominate the industry:
Time Warner, Disney, Murdoch's News Corporation, Bertelsmann of Germany and
Viacom”(PBS). Many of these companies are in turn controlled by a company higher than them.
These six companies are in turn controlled by 15 media moguls(Vinton 2016). From this
information it is evident that 15 wealthy, well-connected, for-profit capitalists broadcast 90% of
all disseminated media in America.
MODERN EXAMPLES OF GOVERNMENT-CORPORATE PROPAGANDA
GUATEMALA COUP D’ETAT OF 1964
The guatemalan coup d'etat of 1964 is an excellent example of government-corporate synergy
and use of both silent and thought-controlling propaganda. In 1954, the Central Intelligence
Agency of the United States of America performed Operation PBSUCCESS: a secret classified
mission to overthrow a democratically elected president in Guatemala because he refused to
comply with America's business interests and instead insisted on serving his country, “The 1954
Guatemalan coup d'état was a covert operation carried out by the United States Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA) that deposed the democratically elected Guatemalan President Jacobo

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Árbenz and ended the Guatemalan Revolution”(Gleijeses,1991).

At the time of carrying out
operation PBSUCCESS, the coup was unknown to the public. The American people did not
know their own government was overthrowing a democracy. The reason that this coup was
performed was for a foreign business interest, the United Fruit Company (now known as
Chiquita Bananas), President Jacobo Árbenz was making an attempt to do land reform in a time
when United Fruit Company owned 70% of Guatemala's land and controlled the media
companies of the country. The largest component of Árbenz' reform attempts was his agrarian
reform bill, “The focus of the program was on transferring uncultivated land from large
landowners to their poverty stricken laborers, who would then be able to begin a viable farm of
their own”(Immerman 1982). This kind of policy was very concerning to the capitalists who
owned shares of United Fruit Company, and would also result in a decrease to US federal
government revenues. The CIA decided to perform a coup, ““For four weeks, starting on May
Day 1954, the CIA had been waging psychological warfare in Guatemala through a pirate radio
station called the Voice of Liberation, run by a CIA contract officer, an amateur actor and

skilled
dramatist named David Atlee Phillips. In a tremendous stroke of luck, the Guatemalan state
radio station went off the air in mid-May for a scheduled replacement of its antenna. Phillips
snuggled up to its frequency, where listeners looking for the state broadcasts found Radio CIA.
Unrest turned to hysteria among the populace as the rebel station sent out shortwave reports of
imaginary uprisings and defections and plots to poison wells and conscript children.”(Weiner
2007) The CIA was successful in its coup, and it in turn put in a dictator that quickly reversed
the reforms. This is an excellent example of propaganda: the name of the radio station was called