Mass-Media: my lawyer the good cop

 There was a time where the Christian Church was very powerful. It started as soon as Constantine pull it out from clandestineness. A monotheistic religion as it is, immediately after obtaining legal status and becoming one more kid in the block, the agressive nature of monotheism started to manifest. With the backing of Roman imperial authorities, in just a few decades Christianity had drawn all other pagan creeds in the empire to the brink of extinction. There is little doubt that St. Ambrose, the bishop of Milan during the reigns of Valentinian II and Theodosius, was a decisive figure in the Church's accession to power. St. Ambrose was not only fearless, but also fierce when it came to challenging imperial authority. St. Ambrose, a holy man as he was believed to be, had all the love of the people and so enjoyed immense popularity. However, in his way stood the towering figure of Theodosius, who had just ascended to the imperial throne after defeating all his adversaries on the battlefield, and had thus become the one supreme leader and ruler of the whole empire; as a matter of fact, the last sole-emperor of Rome. Theodosius had the backing of the all-mighty Roman imperial legions and so held immense power; but, in opposition, St. Ambrose, a holy man as he was believed to be, was unconditionally loved by the people, as he was felt and perceived as their protector and defender against the imperial authorities, for whom they felt more cdistrust and fear than anything else. Unintuitively enough, When push came to shove, the people's love would carry the day for the holy man. Free of the trappings of power - or so it appeared -, he held all the moral authority to denounce the extravagant lifestyles of the ruling elite class. If Saint Ambrose ever wanted anything, he only needed to identify who had the power to fulfill his wishes. He then set out to chastise his victim every Sunday from his pulpit, and the people's outrage would do the rest of the trick. Knowing full well the kind of disastrous effect the holy man's constant hammering would have on his own popularity, Theodosius, as strong and powerful as he was, could not afford the Church's enmity. St. Ambrose was so able to slowly but surely, studiously manipulate the emperor, and, behind the scenes, covertly get him to do anything the holy man wanted, as well as preventing everything he opposed; until eventually he would achieve his final end of barring all pagan cults. The standoff between the people's love and fear finally broke off after the Thessaloniki massacre.

Of course, we all know, human beings, men and women, it is part of our nature to be ready to do anything to get our way, if we think we will be able to get away with it. Theodosius was, after all, a human being (the most powerful of his times, as a matter of fact). It was therefore a matter of time before he would abuse his power. In 390 BC, enraged by the news coming from the murders and urban riots in Thessaloniki, Theodosius order in retaliation the slaughter of the crowds gathered in the city's hippodrome. St. Ambrose found out about the emperor's appalling conduct through an informant and, after pondering for a while what is that he could extract from it, he decided to write Theodosius a letter making clear that the emperor needed to demonstrate repentance for his actions, and he would be forbidden from receiving the Eucharist until he had done so. Of course Theodocius could have always removed Saint Ambrose and have him replaced with a more docile and amicable clergyman, but at that time his popularity could not afford to take such a fatal hit. Hence, he allowed his piety to get the better of him and submit to St. Ambrose's demands. So it was that in the year 392 AD Theodosius issued the Edict of Constantinople barring all pagan cults.

Time then went by, as one century passed after another, until, eventually, the times they were a-changin'. Indeed, man invented a machine, which, if cleverly employed, could work as a magic wand; allowing anybody with the right amounts of money, contacts or skills, to cast a spell over the people's minds to enchant them into the most unconditional, faithful followers and the most fierce, loyal soldiers. Coincidentally, the first person to find out was no other than Luther, a religious man once again, with a religious agenda once more. However, they soon discovered that the scheme was so powerful, that it could be used for just about anything; like, for example, if the king's tax collectors came knocking and you did not feel like paying your duties: One stroke of the wand and the people will run to chop the king's head off.

They say that Western democratic nations observe 'separation of state and religion' and therefore the state does not endorse or favor any religion. It is not true. Our Revolutionary Fathers came up with - and founded - a new religion, which quickly spread throughout the Western world: we know it by the name of 'Democracy' or, in its longer form: 'the Government by the People'. The First Commandment declares that we all ought to love and adore Democracy over any other political system: "Thou shalt have no other Gods before Me." As you should know well, the complete list of 10 commandments of the Democratic creed reads as follows:

1. Our Representative Democracy is the best political system; it may not be a perfect democracy, but it is at least better than nothing.

2. With the advent of our Representative Democracy we became more free than ever before.

3. America became the world's number one superpower, because of its democratic political system.

4. The American Dream: If you have a bit of talent and work hard, you stand a fair chance to succeed in life and attain a high social status. 

5. If a single person is ever able to accumulate all the power, he will automatically become a ruthless despot. 

6. We live under a democracy, where we are all together united in pursuit of the society's prosperity and the general good; yet, if policies do not favor the majority, but only protect the privilege, it is only because of our dishonest and hypocritical politicians.

7. The Press and mass-Media is the voice of the people and is dedicated to control power in our defense.

8. The legal system is about serving justice.

9. Money does not make happiness, but it helps.

10. We are all born equal, but we all have a level of intelligence and, accordingly, some individuals have a superior intellect over others. These gifted individuals, because of their outstanding efforts in the further development of their intellectual abilities, hold a privileged status in our democratic societies. 

If Jews have the Torah, Christians the Bible and Muslims the Koran, we of course could not be anything less, but have the Constitution, to which we all have to pledge allegiance as well. The holy scriptures: the new word running the Modern Man and Modern Woman's mind. As it is  adequate for a powerful religion, it is a monotheistic creed, whose only God is known by the name of Freedom or - in its highest form - (The People's) Liberty. In a fashion similar to Jesus and God, Freedom and Liberty are different names and expressions of the same concept and entity. Like any good God, nobody has ever seen Liberty, but we all feel it in-and-out there, all around us. and therefore know for a fact that it is true and real and does exist. That is why we love and adore Democracy more than our own lives and are willing to die and kill for it. The paradox parallels that of the religion itself: albeit Liberty  is almighty and Democracy reigns supreme, there is so much evil in this world. The solution to the conundrum is obviously the evil in politician. Although there is only one God, still similar to Christianity, Freedom has many apostles, who we know as the citizens' rights (for instance: right to speak, right to due process, right of assembly, right to petition, etc.) and we all adore as near divine figures and concepts. Finally, since we worship the one and only true God and love and adore Democracy above all, - regardless of how benign our model of society really is and what is the actual level of social justice we really enjoy - God is on our side, and we are therefore divinely ordained and it is our religious duty to expand the dominions of Liberty, and spread, evangelize and conquer with the one true Gospel and Democratic faith all peoples and nations all over the world. Since we fight for Liberty, and Freedom leads our troops in battle and fights with us, we are the strongest: Victory will so be ours and the chosen people of Liberty will prevail. Of course, in order to organize, regulate and control all these matters of faith, Liberty and Democracy also has its own Church:: the Media.

the Press is not only fearless and fierce, but - as a critically essential component of our Democratic creed - also immune, when it comes to challenging the political power. Our political representatives get hold of office after the people cast its vote in democratic elections, and they are acclaimed victorious against all other rival candidates. However, in opposition, the Press enjoys immense popularity and following, as we perceive it as the voice of the people and therefore feel it is out there to protect and defend us against the political power, for whom we feel more distrust and disgust than anything else. Unintuitively enough, When push comes to shove, the people's fondness will always carry the day for the Press. Free of the trappings of power - or so we believe and trust -, mass Media holds all the moral authority to unapologetically denounce the extravagant spending, corruption and hypocrisy of the political class. Whenever the big men behind mass Media want the nation's policies to go in a certain way, they only need to identify who has the power to fulfill their wishes. Then, depending on the political authority's response, either one swallow actually does make a summer and the death of millions is kept as a mere statistic, or the full, detailed story of one man's death is made into the most horrifying tragedy. Any politician knows full well the kind of disastrous effect the Media's constant hammering will have on his own popularity and career: no matter how powerful, nobody can afford the Media's enmity. The big men behind mass Media is so able to covertly manipulate the selfish and hypocritic political class and, behind the scenes, get it to enact all the legislation necessary to ensure, that the world moves even further to a system, where the welthy enjoys all the advantages to make the most money; so that they can entrenched their privileges even further and, in short, the strongest is absolutely "Free" to abuse, rain or shine, either by natural or by due process, the weak as much as they wish. The holy men now do no longer need to rely on Theodosius' piety to submit to their demands, if he stubbornly refuses to listen, they will only need to have him replaced with a more reasonable puppet. We all know and we should always keep in mind, God - The People - appointed the King, but it was the Pope - the Head of the Church - who actually crown the new Emperor Charlemagne. Definitely, it does not matter that politicians get elected by the people; if the politician's fortunes depend on the big men's approval, rather than the people's, it is only natural that he or she will do anything to please them. After all, we all know, people is stupid and we have no clue how to vote nor what is that we really want or is good for us (that is why there is, for instance, separation of powers and limitation on the number of terms in office, right?); it is therefore actually good and thanks God that we have the holy men of mass Media to tell us what is really best for us and how is that we should vote. We, however, can then bitch about our politicians as much as we want; but we would do ourselves a better service if we were to understand, that children emperors can only be as good as their regents, and regents will only get worse the more they operate behind the scenes. Indeed, to the extent that puppetmasters only pull the strings of power from the dark, cannot be seen and therefore can never be held accountable, but will always be able to get away with whatever they do: nobody can expect them to do anything other than only serve themselves and it will so not be long before all hell breaks loose. After all, we all know, human beings, men and women, if we enjoy unchecked power, it is just a matter of time before we will be certain to abuse it.

Since the advent of civilizations, Evolution has proven, that creeds are the most effective and efficient power scheme. As a matter of fact, if not altogether essential, religions go hand to hand with civilizations. As pack animals, human beings feel a strong instinctive inclination to follow the Alpha Male. The Alpha Male is the member of the pack, who has previously been recognized as the strongest of all members. Consequently, it is only sensible to avoid waking up his fury, but he is better to be paid homage, loved and obeyed, so as to earn and obtain his love, protection and patronage. The Alpha Male is so able to harness all this human capital to lead the pack towards the objective he determines. The critical leap in the origin of civilizations then takes place when the creed ignites this deepest and most fundamental element of the social animal brain: the reverent submission to the alpha male and the religious pursuit of his love, protection and favor. The old Alpha Male becomes a God and God is installed as the Alpha-Male figure in the people's psyche. As powerful as the Alpha Male may be, his sway is limited to the pack. But, By latching on to the Alpha Male myth, the Gods' representative on Earth is able to scale up the Alpha Male's sway from the pack to the whole society. In fact, in most ancient religions, a mythical alpha male ancestor had transformed after death into a supernatural Alpha Male deity. As God takes by decree the Alpha Male's role, and the people, one after another embrace Him as the community's Alpha Male, everybody will immediately and unconditionally follow Him. God is almighty and it is therefore only sensible not to spark His wrath, but He is better to be worshipped, loved and obeyed, so as to earn and recieve His love, protection and blessing. The whole community's human capital is so at the mercy of the Gods' representative on Earth for him to harness: By the Creed, he has been empowered to bind everybody together and have them row in the one, same, fixed, firm and solid direction determined by him. The pyramids and all the temples human beings have raised throughout the ages all over the planet attest for the miraculous efficacy and efficiency of this most-powerful binding scheme.

Needless to say, left aside is the question of the extent to which the Gods' representative on Earth and new Alpha Male will really make for a good leader, if his only real claim to obtain such position of power is to be the heir of the Old, now deified Alpha Male; but has never confronted and proven his superiority over the other young-male pretenders. Moreover, given that the new Alpha-Male king has recieved from the Gods his mandate to exercise power, he is likely to lose track of his Alpha-Male duty to earn his peoples love and respect. Even worse, he may not even be interested in taking care of all the now-increasingly-complex business of state; but may leave it for somebody else to do it behind the scenes. In summary, this all looks like it is going to lead us to some serious trouble down the road. Still, the question, as significant and relevant as it certainly is, makes in itself for a whole other giant can of worms.   

Nevertheless, civilization shows that, as much as we have been indoctrinated to admit our unruly and disoderly nature, we are actually of a submissive, docile and sheeplike nature as any other livestock. It is actually easy to see why our masters keep hammering the mantra that we are incoherent, disorderly and chaotic: the need to legitimize and justify their domination, oppression and abuse. Now, mind you, we are certainly not ready to obey anyone, but just the Alpha Males. Obviously, this raises the question of who do we accept as Alpha Males?: those who have been previously recognized as strongest, wisest or simply superior. In other words, the Alpha Male does not need to prove his superiority individually to each of us; rather the opposite, consistent with our gregarious, sheeplike nature, we just embrace the specific establishment governing in any given context. Indeed, if everybody has recognized the Alpha Male's superiority, it does not seem sensible - who are you? - to question and challenge everybody's judgement. There is no wonder why it is so easy to brainwash us. We will so accept as Alpha Male anyone who, in that context, has already been recognized as stronger or wiser:our father, our mother, our teachers, a priest, an accredited scientist, a prestigious journalist, a judge, etc.           

In the old days of Christiandom, the local priest was the community's father figure, who taught you and guided you in your path to God's embrace. You had to go to church every Sunday, in order to learn how to love, worship and obey God; because He is almighty and loves us, cares for us and protects us. In a similar fashin, today, journalists teach us and guide us in our path to Freedom. We should love our Democracy and the People's Liberty, and therefore meet our duties to read, listen and watch the news in order to stay informed, and participate with our educated vote at every election; because now the People reigns supreme and Democracy does not only protect us from any tyrant who may want to crush us, but also makes us free everyday. Moreover, we no longer need to bother to walk every Sunday to the church; but, for our convenience, now the priests come right to our homes to deliver their teachings 24/7 from every room in our house.

The general theory of the Democratic creed is that the People have the power, but, since we can not be expected to be completely knowledgable of all the intricacies of government and how to run a society, we delegate our sovereignty to a body of representatives through free elections. Our elected political representatives thus receive the popular mandate to exercise power. However, due to the corrupt, hypocrite nature of our politicians, here is where everything starts to fall apart. While there is little doubt that most, if not all, of our politicians are corrupt and or hypocrite, and there is endless, overwhelming evidence to support this observation; we should not see the curse of our politicians plague as  the source of the gremlins in our democratic system, but as the mere consequence. Indeed, if we can likewise agree that mass Media has the power to influence the people's vote, the fate of any politician's career is in the hands of mass Media. If that is the case, politicians face two choices: either to please mass Media or disappear. Regretably, it is of no avail for a politician to try to earn the people's appreciation and vote, by providing for the society's wellbeing, since we have come to accept that we do not know what is good for us. Rather, it is mass Media's bishops' expert and wise opinion who delivers the veredict and therefore has the power. Politicians are then still free to argue whether we need to give the lower classes a hand - even if that requires to stifle the middle classes -, or we should allow the middle classes to breathe - even if that means to abandon the lower classes to their misery -. Some politicians will be sure to be very politically correct and polite, while others may prefer to be more outspoken and sincere. Of course, for the sake of appeasing our egos and maintaining alive the fantasy that the children are still in charge, the holy men will make sure to keep distracting us arguing whether we need to support the middle classes in order for the economy to get off the ground, or we have an undeniable, staring-in-the-face responsibility to help out the needy and the destitute; whether politicians should be respectful and sensitive, or they need to be first and formost sincere. Now, arguments always need to be limited to two and only two polarizing positions (white vs. black, left vs. right, blue vs red, etc.), because two and only two sides are always required to produce a fight. Indeed, as arguments are so transformed into fights, they are sure to call in our emotions and set them on fire; therefore devouring any chance that anybody may ever be able to reflect and reason upon the nuances of the subject at hand. Do not even think on ever entertaining any kind of analysis on how it would be possible to improve the education of our children, or how we could correct the grotesque unbalances and injustices of the legal system; you just have to win the argument, whatever it takes. Nevertheless, no matter what, the question of how to curtail the privileges and preeminence of the upper classes will always remain taboo and off-limits. If any politician ever tries anything to provide for more equal opportunities or dares to threat the privileges or power of the most wealthy families; it would only be foolish to hope that the big men of the realm will remain still and resist the temptation to throw some gremlins into the economy, agitate the streets, and have the Democratic Church's bishops point out the new demagogue, populist wanna-be-tyrant we are dealing with once more. After all, let us be honest, we all know we can not make it without the wealthiest people, there are no simple solutions for such complex problems, we have all been there, done that before and it always ended up in disaster. Indeed, in four years, struggling with the limitation of power imposed by separation of powers, there is simply no time to pull off any solid, noticeable improvement to such complex problems. Hence, since we will not be able to see it for ourselves, we will have to go by the holy men's wise opinion. To make a long story short: if you want to win the next elections to carry out your project; you better do not mess up with the big families of the realm and make so sure to keep the Democratic Church pleased.     

This is certainly not to say that there are not endless (most definitely the great majority of the) priest, who genuinely believe in almighty Liberty, Democracy, and are truly commited to their mission to do the Good and help the downtrodden. However, priest - rank-and-file soldiers of a hierarchical institution as they are - can only row in the one direction set by their head of command. Indeed, in the same fashion that Evolution has proven civilized (i.e. hierarchically structured) societies to be the most efficient and the strongest, a strict hierarchical institution (like,, for example, the Church) is the most effective and efficient instrument to catalize all the energy drawn by the creed, in order to articulate all the generated power in the one, strong direction determined by the head of the Institution. Naturally, while those priests genuinely commited to serve the downtrodden remain at the bottom, the most ambitious, strongest and fiercest individuals climb higher up the ladder the more ambitious, stronger and fiercer they are. Naturally, as the Christian Church showed, the more ruthless and fierce the system's elite members are, the stronger and more powerful (at least in the short run) the system will be, and, in turn, the more powerful those elite members will become. The Church was founded with the humble and genuine purpose to serve the religion; but almost immediately after its inception, it is actually the religion which starts serving and being used by the Church to cement and further increase its power. The old Christian Church did not start selling indulgences in order to facilitate the believers' souls safe passage to Heaven; but to finance the Crusades, and therefore spread the faith and expand the power and dominions of Christiandom. Neither is mass Media about watching for the good functioning of the society - it is not like, for example, mass Media has ever made any kind of consistent efforts demanding sanctions against those fiscal heavens that incite and leech from tax evasion -; rather, mass Media is about ensuring the people's faith, loyalty and submission to the Democratic creed for the benefit of those who control the Democratic Church. Then, we all know, human beings, men and women, it is part of our nature to be ready to do anything to get our way, if we think we will be able to get away with it. Now, if we only act behind the scenes, nobody can see us pulling the strings of power and therefore, there is no accountability, but we are certain to get away with whatever we do; certainly, nobody can expect anything to go right for anybody but just the puppetmasters.