Manufacturing Consent_ The Political Economy of the Mass Media - Edward S. Herman [105]
In focusing on an alleged “main opposition” in Nicaragua, which voluntarily chose not to run, while ignoring a real main opposition in El Salvador, excluded by force and plan, the mass media simply adopted without question the government’s propaganda framework. Sources that would speak to the condition of the “main opposition” in El Salvador and the significance of its exclusion—both Salvadorans and foreign observers—were simply ignored.104 In the case of the Nicaraguan election, in contrast, Cruz and U.S. government officials were given the floor to present their themes, which were transmitted on a daily basis with no accompanying notice of their possible falsity and manipulative intent, in perfect accord with the expectations of a propaganda model.
The Reagan administration not only dangled Cruz before the media, it tried hard to induce or bribe other candidates in the Nicaraguan election to withdraw in order to fulfil the prophecy of a meaningless election. The brazenness of this intervention by a great power was remarkable, but the U.S. media gave it minimal attention. They never denounced it as anti-democratic, they failed to link it to Cruz’s campaign (with its suggestion of a larger effort to discredit by boycott), and they never suggested that voter “turnout” was more meaningful given the active U.S. campaign to discredit the election. On October 31, 1984, Stephen Kinzer noted that senior U.S. officials confirmed accounts of “regular contacts” with the Nicaraguan parties. Kinzer’s article is headlined “Nicaraguan Parties Cite Sandinista and U.S. Pressure,” the headline and article itself equating the government’s aid to, and agreements with, its own political parties with U.S. intervention to get the Nicaraguan parties to boycott the election! CBS, Newsweek, and Time ignored the U.S. bribe program entirely. Time gave great emphasis to the number of candidates and the withdrawal of several, but it never once mentioned that this was helped along by U.S. connivance, bribes, and pressure. It even quotes without comment the State Department fabrication that “it did not try to influence the outcome of the election” (Nov. 19, 1984). All substantive evidence is placed in the black hole. In the same article. Time asserts that “the U.S. had pushed hard for elections in which all parties felt free to participate,” a fabrication of considerable audacity.
As regards the scope of electoral options in Nicaragua, the Irish delegation noted that “The [political parties] law guarantees participation to political parties of all ideologies,” an interesting point validated by a range of political opinion in the contesting parties far wider than that found in EI Salvador and Guatemala (or the United States).
LASA states that “No major political tendency in Nicaragua was denied access to the electoral process in 1984” (p. 18). This, of course, could not be said of El Salvador and Guatemala. These important features of the Nicaraguan law and practice were not mentioned in the U.S. media or compared with those of the client states.
The Irish delegation stressed two facts about Cruz as the “main opposition.” First,
The delegation found no evidence that these parties [the three small Cruz-related parties that boycotted the election] had wide support within the country. Speaking with many political figures, including representatives of the legitimate opposition parties, it became clear that the intention of Arturo Cruz to stand for election was dubious from the start . . . While considerable coverage was given to these parties in the international press, members of the delegation found