One of the more systematically-used arguments by the US oligarchy –widespread all over the world to defend the capitalist social system for the benefit of their interests of global domination– is the right to choose information they argue that US citizens enjoy.

Such an illusion, stimulated by the oligarchy itself, tries to ignore the strict control over the media exercised in the United States by a conglomerate of financial consortia.

Although this is carefully excluded as information from the large corporate media, it has been known that only half a dozen oligarchic conglomerates exert control over the informative, ideological and political media content in the United States.

These conglomerates are: General Electric, News Corp., Disney, Viacom, Time-Warner and CBS. Compare this phenomenon with the situation in 1983, when the media industry was represented by 50 independent media companies.

These six financial monsters own, or otherwise control, 90% of the mainstream media in the US and subsequently exert a decisive influence in all countries influenced by Washington’s information policies. The names – or the segments that each one controls – may vary due to sales, mergers or similar capital operations; but the result will always be the same.

“All are corporations which have their own shady histories, dealings and suspicious actors. Disney, for example, is widely regarded as dark enterprise aimed at warping the minds of children with disturbing subliminal imagery. One of these companies is also the 12th largest US military defense contractor, so it’s no surprise that so much of our entertainment centers around the glorification of war and violence,” says journalist Vic Bishop, staff writer of the Waking Times, in an article published on August 28th.

In his comment, Bishop refers to the different tactics used by US media to coerce citizen consensus towards the objectives of the oligarchy.

The promotion of shallow, materialistic, ego-centric values and the obvious oversimplification of the product for consumption by the population are in keeping with the interests of these six corporations. They glorify consumption, obedience, ignorance, the hyper-sexualization of youth, the glorification of war, government surveillance over the private lives of citizens, and so on.

The advertisers which support these media companies have tremendous sway over what makes it to the airwaves. They help control public perception.

According to Bishop, “by surveying what is available for consumption in the mass media, it is easy to see what type of society these six corporations are helping to construct. They have the power to warp reality by calling staged programs ‘reality’ shows. Ideas which don’t support mainstream narratives and the consumer agenda are omitted,” because they don’t depict the society they wish to portray.

The harmfulness and danger of this ideological product lies in the fact that it is consumed daily by hundreds of millions of readers, TV viewers, radio listeners and even Internet users who are not fully aware of the problem.

Strong lobbies, foundations and groups with political or corporate power have sufficient organizational, financial and political capacity to exert pressure against media or journalists which step out of the dominant line. For most of the media it is less troublesome and more profitable to yield to this pressure than to confront these lobbies.

Add to this the fact that 80% of the international information published in the world comes from four major agencies in first world countries (AP, UPI, Reuters and AFP) which set the news agenda according to their corporate interests.

The supposed ideological plurality is even more false. They present discussions and debates which are not real because they are always held within parameters that do not affect the essential. The reader or the audience believes they are attending a discussion that shows plurality and breadth of opinions when, in fact, they are being cheated with a discussion which is maintained within a very limited space and ideological spectrum.

In his foreword to the book by Pascual Serrano Desinformación; Cómo los medios ocultan el mundo [Disinformation; How Media Hide the World], Ignacio Ramonet writes that in the United States, censorship works by choking, suffocation or jamming. "They provide so much information that the public does not realize that some of it (precisely that we would need the most) is not there." September 9, 2015.

- Manuel E. Yepe http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/ A CubaNews translation. Edited by Walter Lippmann.