This is What Actual "PR For the Rich" Looks Like
Zelensky's visit to Washington was a masterclass in war machine propaganda.
Earlier this month, journalist Matt Taibbi dropped the first batch in a series of revelations he called “The Twitter Files.” Because Taibbi had received his source materials from Twitter CEO Elon Musk, he was immediately maligned in eerily uniform fashion by hordes of hive-minded liberals as doing “PR for the world’s richest man.”
Never mind that the leaked materials which Taibbi - along with a team of other journalists who have since published editions of their own - compiled and presented uncovered the coordination of state and corporate power to suppress the dissemination of speech and information. The important point for these ironically still-blue-checked pundits to hammer on was that because Musk is among the wealthiest men alive, the Twitter Files team were betraying their ethos of “speaking truth to power” by doing his bidding.
The premise of this charge assumes that one billionaire is himself more powerful than the numerous entities exposed in the Twitter Files reporting. Agencies like the FBI and the DHS were both revealed to be Twitter’s “partners” in enforcing their “Terms of Service.” Even more troubling, the Department of Defense sought and received special exemptions from Twitter’s policies against state propaganda, and was therefore allowed to create fake accounts which spread pro-Western militaristic perspectives.
Apparently, laying bare the inner workings of how Pentagon talking points are packaged and proliferated doesn’t count as “speaking truth to power” to mainstream American political commentators - which brings us to the events of this week, when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky came to Washington.
The purpose of his visit was to publicly beg the American people for more money and weapons, which he insists are necessary to fend off the Russian invasion of his country. After a joint press conference with Biden, Zelensky delivered an evening address to Congress, televised live in primetime for all to see. The speech - a mere 1900 words spread across 25 minutes due to repeated breaks for prolonged standing ovations - culminated in the unveiling of a Ukrainian flag signed by Zelensky’s fighting forces.
Zelensky’s trip to Washington was met with virtually universal acclaim. “Historic,” “heroic,” and “inspiring” raved the mainstream press, with comparisons to Winston Churchill abound. The Washington Post called his remarks an “appeal to history.” The Atlantic deemed it “a call. . .to the eternal fight for freedom and democracy.”
For all this praise, however, none of these outlets could convincingly articulate America’s national interest in this conflict that would justify indefinite shipments of tens of billions of dollars in aid and weapons packages, much less why the world should endure soaring food and energy prices and risk a nuclear exchange for the protection of Ukraine’s territorial integrity. At a time when post-pandemic disruptions in labor and supply are creating plenty of turmoil on their own, the Russia-Ukraine war is making damage to the world economy exponentially worse. The only beneficiaries of the United States’ continued investment seem to be the defense contractors themselves, whose stock prices have soared since Russia’s invasion in February.
Absent an urgent existential imperative, support for the continued fueling of the war has been entirely ginned up using propaganda techniques. From the censoring of dissenting opinions on the internet, to romantic photoshoots featuring Ukraine’s first couple, to now, the waving of the Ukrainian flag in the halls of Congress, Americans’ newfound love for Zelensky and his country has been manufactured by a relentless public relations campaign of state and corporate influence.
Many of these tactics - from the silencing and suppression of unsanctioned viewpoints to the persuasive power of Pentagon propaganda - were, and continue to be, the focus of the Twitter Files reports which were so ironically criticized as “PR for the rich.”
Unlike previous American war fervors which were conceived in the theoretical justification of protecting the homeland, the war machine has now successfully manufactured consent for its own enrichment using the psychic prowess of its marketing department, and nothing else.
Zelensky is a hero whose fight is our fight. Why? Because they said so, over and over again. His trip to the states was a masterpiece of war theater. We can only hope it’s not humanity’s final act.
They would’ve struggled to find two more disgusting and disliked characters than Kamala & Pelosi to wave that flag. The theatre of the absurd. Their contorted, grinning faces bring to mind the evil faces of gargoyles atop church buildings, pulling on the puppet Zelensky’s strings.
Thanks. Nicely and succinctly articulated crux of the situation. If we don't organize labor to oppose the corporate state's imperialist ruling class agenda, the worker's quality of life will not improve as we deserve it should do.