Prof. James Tracy: The Politics of Imagined Opinion!

Where do you locate yourself on the political spectrum? Are you a liberal or a conservative? On the left, the right, or perhaps you are a bit of both. It is no secret that American mass culture often blunts the capacity for civic engagement and political awareness, yet those who pursue an identity in acceptable political dialogue, are less aware of how the parameters of American politics have been carefully crafted to elicit vicarious, and seemingly meaningful participation for the politically inclined. This is at least partially, because political elites have for close to a century, carefully crafted and presided over a political universe of smoke and mirrors for their subjects. One where citizens think and act, as if they have political choices and agency, thereby perpetuating the myth of democratic participation and enfranchisement. Thinking along these lines, is apparent in the almost century old writings of the well known American political commentator Walter Lippmann. Lippmann's many observations on media and public opinion, are significant not just because he was a distinctly influential and gifted commentator, but also because of his many close working relationships and affinities with the most powerful financial and political elites of his day. In fact, historian Carroll Quigley recognizes Lippmann as the authentic spokesman in American journalism for the Anglo American Establishments on both sides of the Atlantic in international affairs. As World War One concluded, Lippmann played a central role in recruiting intellectual talent for the Inquiry, a group of several dozen analysts, set up by the Wilson administration, and powerful Wall Street bankers and oil barons, to ostensibly establish plans for a peace settlement, what eventually crystallized as Wilson's Fourteen Points, and a transnational system of governance, called the League of Nations, most Americans rejected. In reality, the Inquiry was a philosophical and functional precursor to the Central Intelligence Agency, gathering, analyzing, and producing recommendations on how the bankers and oil men should proceed with maintenance of their overseas assets, in a vastly rearranged geopolitical environment.