Hidden Agendas By John Pilger. London: Vintage 1998, 687 pp.

Abstract

Modem democratic society is a mixture of centralized state power, a powerful
corporate/finance sector, a virtually monopolized media network, and various
civil institutions, the underlying ideological themes of which are the freedom
of an individual to participate in the decision-making process and to
express alternative viewpoints in the political, economic, and social spheres.
Freedom has always been a cherished ideal, and freedom of thought a hard
fought-for reality which today symbolizes one of the outward hallmarks of
modem, particularly Western, societies. Pilger's book highlights the fact that
when this ideal - in essence the ability of a citizen to think, understand, and
play a meaningful role in managing the public affairs of his own society - coexists
alongside the reality of a set of powerful groupings working toward a
different agenda within the same society, then true participatory citizenship
becomes meaningless and democracy a sham. In other words, privileged elites
working for their own wealth and self-interests become the leading orchestrators
of plans or "agendas" to maintain skewed power distributions, keeping the
reality of matters so "hidden" from the public that a smoke screen of half-truths
and propaganda is created, preventing those outside from understanding reality,
and therefore, acting in their own interests. These hidden agendas can take
the fonn of direct concealment or by the manufacture of consent (as defined by
Noam Chomsky) whereby facts are manipulated and presented in such a guise
as to obtain the firm support of the individuals making up society.
To the general reader, the title and subject matter of the book will undoubtedly
have an almost conspiratorial ring about it, enough at least for most ...