If you’re from or familiar with Chicago, you’re probably familiar with the recent battle between drivers and the city over parking meter rates. In case you’re not blessed with the chance to feed the city a quarter every 8 minutes for the privilege to park your car downtown, I’ll give you the quick rundown. Many months ago, city aldermen voted for mayor Daley’s proposal to sell off parking meters to a private company. LAZ Parking now owns our meters and increased rates to a painful rate that most drivers simply cannot afford. In some cases, parking for a mere three hours at a meter will set a driver back $9.00 while a nearby lot might cost $12 for 8 hours. Since the rates changed, meter maids have been out in force, ticketing more frequently and patrolling neighborhoods more frequently in police in some cases.

This has Chicago drivers up in arms, particularly because many city aldermen didn’t bother asking their constituents about the bill, preferring to back the mayor over the people who voted them in office. Since then, local news aired scores of stories on the issue, many focused on the resistance to paying outrageous fees.

^{_{Original link in case you can’t see the video: http://www.nbcchicago.com/traffic_autos/transit/meter-madness-032509.html}}

While I agree with the sentiment expressed, the above story unintentionally showcases exactly how propaganda works. At about 1:30 in the video, the reporter speaks with an alderman and states his claim that 2,000 people parked in the area shown until the meters showed up. You can hear the skepticism in her voice, but the story continues on about the high prices and drivers frustrations. The shots of barren streets coupled with the narrative and later shots of a “parking revolt” make the viewer feel that this is happening all over the city. Except, this isn’t exactly true.

I live just half a mile from the area where NBC shot that footage. I’ve lived in the area for almost five years and have had friends in the area for more than that. I’ve driven through that neighborhood on an almost daily basis for just as long. I remember when the city installed those meters. My first thought, long before the rate increase was “what’s the point of this? No one ever parks here, because there’s nothing here.” A better illustration might be found here:

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This is from Google’s street view, roughly the same 5 block radius where that footage was shot. As you can see, those meters are new enough that they don’t even appear anywhere on street view.

Small injustices like outrageous city parking rates might seem innocuous, but this is the same media that brings us the rest of the information we use to shape our world view.

^{_{Image courtesy http://img.timeinc.net/time/photoessays/2008/smoking/smoking_01.jpg}}

In the 1920′s, a woman smoking in public was taboo. The American Tobacco Company recognized that such a taboo cuts into a massive amount of profit, so they (along with Edward Bernays, father of propaganda) sent a group of women into a New York City parade. On cue, those women lit up “torches of freedom.” The New York Times picked up on the idea, running the headline “Group of Girls Puff at Cigarettes as a Gesture of ‘Freedom’” and smoking and women’s liberation became linked.

Salon’s Glenn Greenwald recently wrote a fantastic piece on just how far “right” American public national perception moved over the past few years. Greenwald says “Our media stars accuse everyone with any actual beliefs — and especially any beliefs that deviate from Beltway establishment orthodoxy — of being motivated by ugly “partisan” impulses because that’s the only way they are capable of seeing the world.”

Consider this video¹:

This clip is meant to be propaganda, specifically designed to make the viewer believe that gay marriage will not only confuse children, but that gay marriage will change the public perception that marriage is between a man and a woman. Behind the overt ideas presented, the video also presents the concept that marriage is a type of institution that has existed for all eternity. “God created Adam and Eve? That’s so old fashioned.” The standard argument against gay marriage echoes this sentiment, implying that marriage between a man and woman somehow transcends human and Earthly ideas. Even the laziest internet search quickly disproves that humans have always believed the idea that marriage is about God blessing the love between a man and a woman.

Conservative talk show hosts and pundits regularly exclaim and decry the supposed liberal media conspiracy in America. If your media lens only includes Rush Limbaugh and The National Review, not only would you be ready to believe in the conspiracy, but you also might be inclined to believe that gay marriage will somehow destroy America, that there are terrorist plots foiled through the use of torture every day, and Barack Obama will turn America into a socialist/fascist welfare state. On the flip side, if you spend the majority of your time listening to Air America and reading the Daily Kos, you might be inclined to believe that all Catholics are against abortion or that every republican owns an AR-15 for wolf hunting.

^{_{Image courtesy www.losanjealous.com}}

_{Why stop at automatic weapons? This is way better for killing animals, in my opinion.}

All of the above mentioned items are propaganda in some form or another, because media at its core is propaganda. Whether selling cigarettes or state sponsored torture, the the current voices in the media are also usually the most hyperbolic. Those voices currently are increasingly leading the public to believe that there’s only two sides to a story – right and left.

Consider the current shouting match over Obama’s speaking engagement at Notre Dame. The core of the argument stems from Catholics who believe that Obama’s pro-choice views and stance on stem cell research goes against Church doctrine and therefore he must not be allowed to speak. Proponents of this view often try to make the argument that they believe all life is sacred. If this were actually the case, they would have protested just as hard at Notre Dame in 2001 when George W Bush spoke. While W was decidedly pro-life, he also supported the death penalty². No real outcry came from Catholics at the time.

In the same vein, I wonder if those same people who vehemently support Obama’s speech³ protested various commencement speeches by George W Bush. If that’s the case, then there’s some hypocrisy contained in their argument. It’s one thing to protest a president at a speech because you oppose his views. This is a good thing, whether you decide to claim a side on the arbitrary political scale or not. But there’s an important distinction between protesting a president’s speech because of that president’s views and protesting a president’s RIGHT to speak somewhere or a university’s RIGHT to have them speak. In the Notre Dame case, Obama’s mere presence takes precedent over his politics.

The American political discussion is increasingly becoming more about left vs right arguments, where we will oppose anyone outright who doesn’t march in lockstep with our talking points. Propaganda helped to engineer that. If we don’t wake up to it now, our thought process will become increasingly limited and we could soon find ourselves in an even more frightening world.

^{1 And the shitstorm on the internet surrounding it}

^{2 This was before 9/11, so I cannot include the “war on terror,” which has killed hundreds of thousands of people.}

^{3To make it clear, I support the president’s right to speak at Notre Dame. I also would have protested if George W. Bush spoke at my commencement in 2003. I would not have protested over his right to speak, but his politics.}

Aaron Cynic is a zine writer, internet radio host, blogger, musician, and project organizer from Chicago. He mainly publishes a zine called Diatribe, but has published a few other one shot zines. Aaron has also contributed to numerous other websites and publications. His radio show appears Sunday nights at 8pm on Punk and Beans Radio.

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