Alternet has a great article called 10 brilliant thoughts by Noam Chomsky. I have shortened the quotes and eliminated some, but the link to the whole article and full quotes is below and is certainly worth reading:
“Concentration of ownership of the media is high and increasing. Furthermore, those who occupy managerial positions in the media, or gain status within them as commentators, belong to the same privileged elites, and might be expected to share the perceptions, aspirations, and attitudes of their associates, reflecting their own class interests as well. Journalists entering the system are unlikely to make their way unless they conform to these ideological pressures, generally by internalizing the values; it is not easy to say one thing and believe another, and those who fail to conform will tend to be weeded out by familiar mechanisms.”
“If the media were honest, they would say, Look, here are the interests we represent and this is the framework within which we look at things. …For example, I don’t try to hide my commitments, and the Washington Post and New York Times shouldn’t do it either. However, they must do it, because this mask of balance and objectivity is a crucial part of the propaganda function. In fact, they actually go beyond that. They try to present themselves as adversarial to power, as subversive, digging away at powerful institutions and undermining them. The academic profession plays along with this game.”From Lecture titled ” Media, Knowledge, and Objectivity ,” June 16, 1993“The leading student of business propaganda, Australian social scientist Alex Carey, argues persuasively that “the 20th century has been characterized by three developments of great political importance: the growth of democracy, the growth of corporate power, and the growth of corporate propaganda as a means of protecting corporate power against democracy.”“The public relations industry, which essentially runs the elections, is applying certain principles to undermine democracy which are the same as the principles that applies to undermine markets. …The goal is to undermine markets by creating uninformed consumers who will make irrational choices… The same is true when the same industry, the PR industry, turns to undermining democracy. It wants to construct elections in which uninformed voters will make irrational choices. It’s pretty reasonable and it’s so evident you can hardly miss it.”From lecture titled “The State-Corporate Complex: A Threat to Freedom and Survival ,” at the The University of Toronto, April 7, 2011“The Obama campaign greatly impressed the public relations industry, which named Obama ‘Advertising Age’s marketer of the year for 2008,’ easily beating out Apple computers.From Hopes and Prospects“Control of thought is more important for governments that are free and popular than for despotic and military states. The logic is straightforward: a despotic state can control its domestic enemies by force, but as the state loses this weapon, other devices are required to prevent the ignorant masses from interfering with public affairs, which are none of their business…the public are to be observers, not participants, consumers of ideology as well as products.”From article ” Force and Opinion ” in Z Magazine“One of the questions asked in that study was, How many Vietnamese casualties would you estimate that there were during the Vietnam war? The average response on the part of Americans today is about 100,000. The official figure is about two million. The actual figure is probably three to four million. The people who conducted the study raised an appropriate question: What would we think about German political culture if, when you asked people today how many Jews died in the Holocaust, they estimated about 300,000? What would that tell us about German political culture?”From Media Control
I am trying to digest this down into one talking point.Maybe that is not possible.What I gather and then
question—————-so Romney would have been better for the American people?. I personally think for myself.I think a lot of people do.I do not watch T.V. more than once a week because I do not believe 50% or less of what is said.The same can be said of the internet.A lot of folks sincerely read voting records-they are open to the public. I know that Obama is no saint-there are none anywhere.
Kathleen,
I don’t hear Chomsky saying that Romney would be better than Obama. I hear him standing outside that polarized view of our options. Just because you and I chose Obama over Romney does not mean our analysis should end there, nor should our activism. I hear Chomsky saying Democrats shouldn’t refuse to criticise anything Obama does just because we think the Republicans seem worse. He is very critical of Republicans, but Obama’s killer drones, his refusal to get serious with the banks, his turning health care over to insurance corporations are all things Chomsky criticizes. That doesn’t mean he would vote against Obama if the option were something worse. He’s speaking at a deeper level than most Democrats or Republicans want to hear, which is why you never see him on a political talk show. He eats them both alive.
Jim