The Media: Manufacturing Consent (Noam Chomsky)
/By Rubashov
Noam Chomsky has written more than 100 books. He is a linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, and social critic. He is Laureate Professor of Linguistics at the University of Arizona and Institute Professor Emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He has written extensively on war, politics, and the role played by the mass media.
Professor Chomsky rose to national prominence as an outspoken opponent of the Vietnam War. He was part of what was then called “the New Left” and was arrested multiple times for his activism and placed on President Richard Nixon's Enemies List (an early form of “canceling” and not unlike what is now being proposed by Congresswoman A.O.C. and others).
Professor Chomsky worked to expose the Indonesian occupation of East Timor, in contrast with such establishment Democrats as Josh Gottheimer (who once worked for the public relations firm that lobbied for the genocidal totalitarians who murdered upwards of 200,000 Roman Catholics).Chomsky opposed the 2003 invasion of Iraq (which, like the Gulf of Tonkin incident that began the Vietnam War, was based on a lie… Weapons of Mass Destruction).
In 1988, Professor Chomsky wrote Manufacturing Consent in collaboration with economist Edward S. Herman. In it, Chomsky articulated the propaganda model of media criticism, which explains the media’s ownership, motivations, biases, and methods. Here is a short video from a documentary based on the book Manufacturing Consent…
In contrast with those on the Establishment (aka “corporate”) “Left” – which includes elements of the Democrat Party – Noam Chomsky is a fierce defender of Freedom of Speech.**.Chomsky’s warnings in Manufacturing Consent should be required reading in every school district in America– right alongside the Church Report (aka The United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities) which was a 1975 study, chaired by Senator Frank Church, that investigated abuses by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), National Security Agency (NSA), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
Both major political parties have a checkered history of aiding and abetting abuses by these and other agencies. For three years, the media largely bought into and promoted the Russiagate conspiracy theory – just as it had the Weapons of Mass Destruction conspiracy theory and the Gulf of Tonkin conspiracy theory that led directly to our longest (undeclared) wars. In the election just concluded, key figures in both the Democrat and Republican parties worked with these agencies in a manner that has proved the warnings of Frank Church to be prescient.
As we move forward through the minefields of executive orders, abrogation of the Bill of Rights, and emergency edicts attendant with the COVID pandemic – we should use Professor Chomsky as a guide in examining the role of the media in promoting fear and compliance instead of asking tough questions of corporate Establishment types like Governor Phil Murphy. And we must always bear in mind the concerns voiced by Senator Frank Church, in 1975, about the technology available then and its deadly potential for democracy.
“If this government ever became a tyranny, if a dictator ever took charge in this country, the technological capacity that the intelligence community has given the government could enable it to impose total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back because the most careful effort to combine together in resistance to the government, no matter how privately it was done, is within the reach of the government to know. Such is the capability of this technology. I don't want to see this country ever go across the bridge. I know the capacity that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see to it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision so that we never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return.”
