That point becomes especially clear if one reads through Monbiot's correspondence with Chomsky. Chomsky struggles to hide his exasperation at Monbiot's inability to grasp the elementary arguments he is making, even though he is forced to make them repeatedly. Monbiot, on the other hand, thinks he has cornered Chomsky in some kind of intellectual hypocrisy. What he has revealed instead is how deeply embedded he is in the corporate mindset, one that reserves for itself the right to determine the limits of the thinkable.
Interestingly this month, however, Monbiot found his own assumptions exposed from an unlikely quarter: the BBC. The corporation -- one of the most powerful enforcers of official narratives -- made an unusually daring program, Rwanda's Untold Story, questioning the consensus on the Rwandan genocide, all be it 20 years after the events. The program-makers' conclusions echoed those of Herman and Peterson: that census figures and death toll estimates do not support the accepted narrative of a genocide in which the Tutsis were the main victims of the slaughter. The data, in fact, indicate the exact opposite: more Hutus were killed than Tutsis, possibly many times more.
This has ramifications beyond the historical. Paul Kagame, the leader of the Tutsi militia the RPF, and therefore now potentially in the frame as the chief perpetrator of a genocide against the Hutus, is today the much-respected leader of Rwanda, a man feted by western leaders.
On my blog I suggested last week, given that even the hyper-cautious BBC appears ready to concede that the Rwanda genocide needs a reassessment, it might be time for Monbiot to apologize for his ugly accusations against Herman, Peterson, Chomsky and others.
So far Monbiot has made no proper response, despite receiving similar demands for a retraction from a number of people on social media. It would be nice to think that his silence suggests he is engaged in soul-searching and formulating the necessary response. But unfortunately the omens are not good.
Monbiot has not yet spoken himself but he has not remained entirely silent either. In an indication that this may be more about his ego and self-appointed status as guardian of a left righteousness, he retweeted a flippant dismissal of his critics, including me, provided by a group called Mediocre Lens.
Sadly, that is very much of a piece with Monbiot's behavior on this issue. Mediocre Lens is the poor cousin of what Monbiot has rightly exposed elsewhere as the phenomenon of "fake persuaders," usually corporate lobbyists hiding behind front organizations that pose as "concerned ordinary citizens." The point of the fake persuaders is to create the impression of popular support for corporate policies that harm our interests, such as destroying forests and polluting rivers. In short, the fake persuaders are there to uphold official narratives that serve business interests.
Mediocre Lens does something similar, if rather more feebly. In its case it claims to be a group of ordinary journalists with a "left perspective" who promote the idea that the mainstream media is there to serve our interests. More precisely, its sole rationale is to discredit Media Lens, an increasingly popular website whose editors -- wait for it -- advance the thesis of Herman and Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent.
Monbiot's promotion of a tweet from Mediocre Lens should make about as much sense -- if he were the independent thinker he claims to be -- as Naomi Klein retweeting approvingly an attack on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change by a climate change denial group.
But it makes rather more sense if we understand that Monbiot is no longer what he claims to be or seems. Years of being embedded in the corporate media have eroded his ability to remain truly independent or to appreciate those like Herman, Peterson and Chomsky who demand the right to retain that privilege for themselves.
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