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1.
Hi. Sound of laughter. Well, let me
begin with two recent events, both of them widelypublicised. The first has to
do with the famous SalmanRushdiecase.
A couple of days ago, you may have noticed, thePrimeMinister ofIran suggested a
verysimple way to resolve the crisis concerningRushdie, he suggested that what
should happen is that all the copies of his book, TheSatanicVerses, should
simply be burned. And I guess the implication is that if that happened then
they could cancel the deathsentence. That's one case. Lots of coverage. Second
case had to do with an interesting thing that happened here. There was a, what
some people are calling, a megamerger of twoMediagiants, TimeIncorporated and
WarnerCommunicationsIncorporated, each of them huge conglomerates, and putting,
coming together they form, apparently, the biggest. The world'sbiggestMediaEmpire.
Now, that also had a lot of publicity, even outside the businesspages, and
there was concern over the effects of the merger, by increasing Mediaconcentration
so effectively, the effects on theFreedomOfExpression. Well these two events
are, they seem rather remote from one another, and in a sense they are. But we
can draw them together by recalling an event which was not considered important
enough to be reported, but which I happen to know about because I was
personally involved. The title for this talk is, you may have noticed,
ManufacturingConsentThePoliticalEconomyOfTheMassMedia. That's actually the
title of a recent book that I was co-author of with. My coauthor is EdwardHerman,
and the two of us have been working together for many years. We, the first,
our first book was published in1974, a book on americanForeignPolicy and theMedia,
in fact, and it was published by a publisher, a textbookpublisher, flourishing
textbookpublisher, which happened to be a subsidiary ofWarnerCommunicationsIncorporated.
Well, unless you're a veryrare person, you never saw
that book. And the reason was that when the advertising for the book appeared,
after twentythousandcopies were published, one of the executives ofWarnerCommunications
saw the advertising, and didn't like the ["]feel["] of it, and asked
to see the book, and liked it even less. In fact, was appalled. And then
followed an interaction which I won't bother describing, but the endresult of
it was that the parentcompany, WarnerCommunications, simply decided to put the
publisher out of business, and end the whole story that way. Now, they
didn't burn the books, they ["]pulped["] them, which is morecivilised.
Also, books don't burn verywell actually, I'm told, they're kind of like
bricks, but ["]pulping["] works. And it
wasn't just our book that was eliminated, it was all the books published by
that publisher. Well, there are a couple of differences between this and
the case of thePrimeMinister ofIran. One difference is that this was actually
done, not just suggested. Sound of applaud. The second difference is it wasn't
just one book, it was allbooks, which happened to be tainted by being published
by the publisher who had done this bad thing. A third difference is the
reaction. The reaction in the case ofWarnerCommunications putting the publisher
out of business to prevent them from publishing our book, the reaction to that
was zero. Not because it wasn't known, it just was not considered of any significance.
Whereas theRushdieaffair, of course, has had a huge furor, as it should, and
thePrimeMinister's proposal was greeted with ridicule and contempt as a
demonstration of what you can expect from these barbarous people. So there are
some differences. Well, let's go back to the question about the megamerger.
Would the, will this newMediaempire restrictFreedomOfExpression by excessiveMediaconcentration?
Possibly, but the marginal difference is slight given what already exists, as
is, perhaps, illustrated by this case. This is, incidentally, not the only
case, far from the only case, which illustrates how hypocritical and cynical
the reaction to theRushdieaffair
is. The reaction is legitimate, but we can ask the question whether
it's principled or not. And if we look, I think we find that it's not. Well
actually, this whole story that I've just told is kind of misleading. It's
accurate in identifying the locus of decisionmakingpower, not only in
publishing and in theMedia, but in political life and in social life generally.
In that respect it's accurate, but it's verymisleading with regard to how that
power is typically exercised. This is a veryunusual case. I wouldn't want to
suggest that this is what happens typically. It's usually much more subtle than
this, but no less effective. Now, I'm going to come back to some of the more
subtle ways, and the reasons for them, and in fact, if there's time, or maybe
back in discussion, I'll talk about the aftermath of this particular incident,
which is also kind of illuminating in this respect, though more complex. Well,
with that much as background let me turn to the main topic, manufacturing
consent, a, a topic, and, thoughtcontrol and indoctrination, and so on. Now,
there's a, and, I'm going to discuss how this relates to theMedia. Now, there
is a standard view about theMedia and the way they function. The standard view
is expressed, for example, by SupremeCourtJusticePowell,
when he describes what he calls the crucial role of theMedia in effecting the
societal purpose of theFirstAmendment, that is, enabling the public to assert
meaningful control over the political process. So the idea is, this is a kind
of an instrumental defense of theFirstAmendment. The value to be achieved is
the democratic process, and for the democratic process to function, it's
necessary for the public to have free access, open access to relevant
information and opinion, a wide range of opinion, and it's the job of theMedia
to ensure that, and theFirstAmendment has the instrumental function of
guaranteeing that this is served, and theMedia then do it.
That's the standard view. And notice that it has a kind of a descriptive
component and also a normative component. It says, this is what theMedia ought
to be like, and this is what they are like. Now, that they ought to be this way
seems sort of obvious, in fact, kind of almost tautological, if Democracy means, has something to do with the public
having a capacity to shape their own affairs, it obviously presupposes
information, and that means the informationsystem in a free society would have
to serve this function. Since it seems so obvious, it's worth bearing in
mind that there is a contrary view. And in fact, the contrary view is verywidely
held. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the contrary view is the dominant
view among people over the last couple of centuries who have thought about
liberalDemocracy and freedom, and how it ought to function. In any event, it's
certainly a major position. This contrary view can be traced back to the
origins of modernDemocracy in the seventeenthcentury english revolution, when,
for the first time, the, there was a challenge to the right of authority, whether
it was the gentry, or theKing, or whatever, and there was actually the
beginnings of a real, radical, democratic movement, with a commitment on the
part of the people involved, who were verywidespread inEngland, to public
involvement and control over affairs. They didn't want to be ruled by theDing,
and they didn't want to be ruled byParliament, they wanted to run their own
affairs. And they were defeated, the radical democrats were defeated, but not
before doing some important things which had a lasting effect. Well, what I'm
interested in now is the reaction to this. The reaction to the first efforts at
popularDemocracy, radicalDemocracy, you might call it, were a good deal of fear
and concern. One historian of the time, ClementWalker,
warned that these guys who were running, putting out [printing] pamphlets
on their little printingpresses, and distributing them, and agitating in theArmy,
and, you know, telling
people how the system really worked, were having an extremelydangerous
effect. They were revealing the mysteries ofGovernment. And he said that's
dangerous, because it will, I'm quoting him, "it will make people so
curious and so arrogant that they will never find humility enough to submit to
aCivilRule." [It astonishes me that this problem existed as early as the
generation ofLocke.] And that's a problem. JohnLocke,
a couple of years later, explained what the problem was. He said, "daylabourers and tradesmen, the spinsters and the dairymaids,
must be told what to believe. The greater part cannot know, and therefore they
must believe." And of course, someone must tell them what to
believe. Now, there's a modern version of that, and of course, he didn't just
mean those categories, he meant the general public, there's a modern version of
that. This goes all the way up to the modern times, it's discussed in
theAmericanRevolution, and all the way through to the modern period. But let's
just come up to the contemporary period. Now, in the last, in the modern period
you get a much more sophisticated development of these ideas. So, for example, ReinholdNiebuhr,
who is a muchrespected moralist and commentator on worldaffairs, he wrote that "rationality belongs to the ["]cool["]
observers, but because of the stupidity of the average man, he follows not
reason but faith. And this naïve faith requires that necessary illusions be
developed. Emotionally potent oversimplifications have to be provided by the
mythmakers to keep the ordinary person on course, because of the stupidity of
the average man." That's the same view, basically. WalterLippman, who was the dean of american
journalists, is the man who invented the phrase Manufacture of Consent. He described the manufacture of consent as "a selfconscious
art and a regular organ of popularGovernment." This, he said, is "quiteimportant,
this is a revolution in the practice ofDemocracy," and he thought it was a
worthwhile revolution. The reason is, again, "the stupidity of the average
man." The common interests, he said, "verylargely elude public
opinion entirely, and they can be managed only by a specialised class whose
personal interests reach beyond the locality." That's Niebuhr's ["]cool["]
observers. You can guess who's part of them. The person who pronounces these
views is always part of that group. [JamesEllroy] It's the others who aren't.
This is in WalterLippman'sbook, PublicOpinion, which appeared shortly afterWorldWarOne.
And the timing is important. WorldWarOne was a period in which the liberal
intellectuals, [UOfChicago]JohnDewey'scircle
primarily, were quiteimpressed with themselves for
their success, as they described in their own words, for their success in
having imposed their will upon a reluctant or indifferent majority. [Accurate.
EncyclopediaBrittanica, theGreatBooksOfTheWesternWorld, AspenInstitute.]
Now, there was a problem inWorldWarOne. The problem was that the population
was, as usual, pacifistic, and didn't see any particular reason in going out
[toEurope] and killing germans and getting killed. If the europeans want to do
that, that's their business. And in fact, WoodrowWilson
won the1916election on a mandate, which was, PeaceWithoutVictory.
That's how he got elected. And, not surprisingly, he
interpreted that as meaning victory without peace. [Must be an example of
doublethink. I don't know what the fuck it means.] And the problem was
to get this reluctant and indifferent majority, and get them to be, to create
emotionally potent oversimplifications and necessary illusions, so that they
would then be properly jingoistic, and support this great cause. And the liberal
intellectuals were convinced that they were the ones who had primarily
succeeded in doing this, and they thought it was a verygood task for obvious
reasons. And, in fact, they probably had some role. Whether they had as much
role as they think, you could question, but some role. They used all sorts of
necessary illusions, for example, fabrications aboutHun-atrocities, belgian
babies with their arms torn off, and all sorts of things that were concocted by
theBritishForeignService and fed to the educated classes in theUnitedStates,
who picked them up and were quiteenthusiastic about them and distributed them. They used such devices
as, what they called HistoricalEngineering. That was
a phrase proposed by FrederickPaxon, an american historian who was the
founder of a group called theNationalBoardForHistoricalService. That was
a group of historians who got together to serve theState by explaining the
issues of the war that we might better win it. That's HistoricalEngineering. TheWilsonadministration established the country's, I think, first official propagandaagency,
it's called theCreelCommission,
which was dedicated to convincing this reluctant or indifferent majority that
they'd better be properlyenthusiastic about the war that they were opposed to. That
had some institutional consequences. In fact, there were a number of
institutional consequences to this whole period. One was the institution of the
national political police, theFBI, which has been dedicated to thoughtcontrol
and repression of freedom ever since. That's its primary activity. And another
development, institutional development was the enormous growth of the
publicrelationsindustry. A lot of people learned lessons from the capacity to
control the public mind, as they put it. Slogan of the publicrelationsindustry.
One of the people who came out of theCreelCommission was a man named EdwardBernays, who became the patronsaint of the
publicrelationsindustry. That's a big,
substantial industry which is actually an american creation, though it's since
spread throughout other parts of the world. It's dedicated to
controlling the public mind, again quoting its publications, to educate the american
people about the economic facts of life to ensure a favourable climate for
business, and, of course, a proper understanding of the common interests. Bernays
developed the concept of Engineering ofConsent,
which, he said, is the essence ofDemocracy.
That's, and of course, he didn't bother saying that there are only some groups
who are in a position to carry out theEngineering ofConsent, those who have the
power and the resources. He himself showed how this was done. Often. By, for
example, demonising theGovernment ofGuatemala,
the capitalist democraticGovernment that we were planning to overthrow with a successful
CIA coup [d'État]. He was then working for theUnitedFruitCompany, which was
opposed to theGovernment because it was planning to take over unused lands of
theUnitedFruitCompany, and hand them over to landless peasants, paying the
rates that theUnitedFruitCompany had given as their value for taxpurposes,
which, of course, they regarded as veryunfair, because they had, naturally,
been lying and cheating about the value. So that was his achievement. And in
fact, the publicrelationsindustry in general has been dedicated to this project
ever since. TheCreelCommission, incidentally, is a predecessor of a
contemporary phenomenon that theReaganadministration
constructed, it's their OfficeOfLatinAmericanPublicDiplomacy. That's by
far thelargest propagandaagency in americanHistory,
and maybe one of the largest of any westernGovernment.
And it was also dedicated to controlling the public mind. It was dedicated,
primarily, to controlling the debate and discussion over centralAmerica, to demonising the sandinistas, as one of its officials
put it, and mobilising support for theUSTerrorStates in
the region. And it did it by framing the debate, by intimidating
critics, by producing fabrications which were then happily repeated by theMedia.
So, for example, one famous. One, just to illustrate some of its achievements,
when RonaldRegan, in1986, read a spectacular and effective speech, which
convincedCongress to vote onehundredmillionUSD of aid for theContras, right
after theWorldCourt had denounced theUnited, had condemned theUnitedStates for
the unlawful use of force, and called upon it to end this aggression. This
speech was extremelyeffective. It described all the, you know, whole litany of
nicaraguan crimes, and it ended up by saying that these communists actually
concede that they are planning to conquer the hemisphere and undermine us all.
They themselves say that they are carrying out a revolution without borders.
That was the **, that's the way he ended up, you know, big excitement. Congress
voted the aid, theReaganadministration declared that this meant war, this was a
real war, and everybody was excited and happy. Now, that phrase, revolution
without borders, actually had already been used. It had been used by a
StateDepartmentpamphlet that was calledRevolutionWithoutBorders, describing
Sandinistacrimes. And there's actually a version of that phrase that exists.
The phrase appears, or something like it appears, in a speech by
Sandinistacommandante, TomasBorge. He had given a speech
in which he said that the nicaraguan, the sandinistas hoped to construct a kind
of a modelsociety, a society which will be, which will work so well, and will
serve the needs of the poor so well, that others will be inclined to try to do
the same thing for themselves. And he went on to say that there, that everycountry
has to, everycountry has to carry out its own revolution, there's no way for
one country to make a revolution somewhere else, but the model that the sandinistas
were constructing, he hoped, was to be so successful that others would want to
do it, and he said, in this sense, our revolution transcends borders. Well,
that phrase was immediately picked up by
theOfficeOfPublicDiplomacy and turned into a threat to conquer the hemisphere.
That fraud was at once exposed by theCouncilOnHemisphericAffairs, which
sends out a weekly newsanalysis inWashington[DC] that journalists read. It was
even exposed, it was even mentioned in theWashingtonPost, somewhere in the backpages.
They noted that the phrase, revolution without borders, was not exactly what he
had said. In fact, it was nothing to do, it was the opposite of what he had
said, but that didn't make any difference. The phrase was useful, the
construction was useful, and since then, theMedia, and when theStateDepartmentdocument
came out, there was no criticism of it, when Reagan made the speech nobody
pointed out that this was a fabrication, even theWashingtonPost, which had
exposed it, referred to the Sandinista revolution without borders. TheMedia
have repeatedly, have repeated this over and over again, Look, they say
themselves they're going to have a revolution without borders, and so on. Well,
that's the kind of thing that's done by an effective propagandaagency. Of
course, if theMedia are willing to go along, because it wasn't veryhard to
figure out that this was an incredible fraud. Well, that's the kind of thing
that was done. All of these operations were completely illegal. There was a congressional
report done on them, General, GAOreport, which simply pointed out that of
course they're illegal. They were run out of theNationalSecurityCouncil, and,
not allowed to propagandise americans. But it was verysuccessful. When this was
exposed during theIranContrahearings, one top administrationofficial described
the activities of theOfficeOfPublicDiplomacy as one of their really great
achievements. It was a, he said, a spectacular success. He described it as the
kind of operation that you carry out in enemyterritory. And that's quite an
appropriate phrase. I think the phrase expresses exactly the way in which the
public is viewed by people with power. It's an enemy. [Sound of whistle.] It's
a domestic enemy, and you got to keep it under control, and you have to make sure
that the mysteries are not revealed, so that the people don't become so curious
and arrogant that they refuse to submit to a CivilRule, to put it in seventeenthcenturyterms.
And to control that domestic enemy, propaganda and fabrications, and so on, are
important, and that's what the publicrelationsindustry is for, for corporatepurposes,
and what theMedia are for if they properly serve theState. Well that's, notice
again, we have a view that says theMedia should not function the way the
standardRhetoric claims. There's also an academic ["]twist["] to this.
Let's come closer to home. If you go back to theInternationalEncyclopediaOfSocialSciences published
in1933.
Days when people were a little moreopen and -honest in what they said. There's
an article on propaganda, and it's well worth reading. There's an entry under
propaganda. The entry is written by a leading, one, maybe the leading american
political scientist, HaroldLasswell, who was veryinfluential, particularly
in this area, Communications, and so on. And, in this entry, in
theInternationalEncyclopedia on propaganda, he says, "We
should not succumb to democratic dogmatisms about men being the best judges of
their own interests. They're not," he said. "Even with the rise of
massEducation doesn't mean that people can judge their own interests."
They can't. "The best judges of their interests are elites", the
specialised class, the ["]cool["] observers, the people who behave rationaly,
and "therefore they must be granted the means to impose their will."
Notice, for the common good. Because, again, because, well, he says, because of
the ignorance and superstition of the masses, he said it's necessary to have a
whole new technique of control, largely through propaganda. Propaganda, he
says, we shouldn't have a negative connotation about, it's neutral. Propaganda, he says, is as "neutral as a pump handle."
You can use it forGood, you can use it forBad. Since we're good people,
obviously, that's sort of true by definition. We'll use it for Good
purposes, and there should be no negative connotations about that. In fact, it's Moral to use it, because that's the only way that you
can save the ignorant and stupid masses of the population from their own
errors. You don't let a threeyearold run
across the street, and you don't let ordinary people make their own
decisions. You have to control them. And why do you need propaganda?
Well, he explains that. He says, in militaryrun or
feudal societies, what we would these days call totalitarian societies, you
don't really need propaganda that much. And the reason is you've got a, you've
got a ["]club["] in your hand. You can control the way people behave,
and therefore it doesn't matter much what they think, because, if they get out
of line, you can control them for their own good, of course. But once you lose
the ["]club["], you know, once theState loses its capacity to coerce
by force, then you have some problems. The voice of the people is heard, you've
got all these formalMechanisms around that permit people to express themselves,
and even participate, and vote, and that sort of thing, and you can't control
them by force, because you've lost that capacity. But the voice of the people
is heard, and therefore you've got to make sure it says the right thing.
And in order to make sure it says the right thing, you've got to have effective
and sophisticated propaganda, again, for their own good. So in a, as a
society becomes more free, that is, there's less capacity to coerce, it simply
needs more sophisticated indoctrination and propaganda. For the public good. The similarity between this and LeninistIdeology is verystriking.
According to LeninistIdeology, the ["]cool["] observers, the radical
intelligentsia, will be the vanguard who will lead the stupid and ignorant masses
on to, you know, CommunistUtopia, because they're toostupid to work it out by
themselves. And in fact, there's been a veryeasy transition over these years
between one and the other position. You know, it's verystriking that
continually people move from one position to the other veryeasily. And I think
the reason for the ease is partly because they're sort of the same position. So
you can be either a MarxistLeninist commissar, or you can be somebody celebrating
the magnificence ofStateCapitalism, and you can serve those guys. It's more or
less the same position. You pick one or the other depending on your estimate of
where power is [JennyShankerman and her father], and that can change. The,
and in fact the mainstream of the intelligentsia, I think over the last, say,
through this century, have tended to be in one or the other camp. Either, there's
this strong appeal ofMarxismLeninism to the intelligentsia, for obvious reasons,
I don't have to bother saying. And there's the same appeal of these doctrines
to the intelligentsia, because it puts them in the position of justifying, of
having a justified role as Ideological managers, in the service of real power,
corporateStatepower. For the public good, of course. So you naturally are
tempted to one or the other position. Well, going on to the postSecondWorldWarperiod, the same ideas continue to
be expressed. For example in1948, when it was again necessary to drive the
reluctant and indifferent majority to a new warfever. Remember 1948, the war
was over, everybody was pacifistic, they wanted to go home and buy
refrigerators, and so on, and they didn't want any more wars, they wanted to
demobilise, we're done with that stuff. But they had to be ["]whipped up["]
into a warfever, because there was a new war coming along,
theColdWar, which was a real war, as the internal documents explain, and
it was necessary to bludgeon them into a belief in the demands of theColdWar,
as DeanAcheson put
it. The, a presidential- wellknown historian, presidential historian, ThomasBaily,
explained in 1948, that "because the masses are
notoriously shortsighted, and generally cannot see danger until it is at their
throats, our statesmen are forced to deceive them into an awareness of their
own longrun interests. Deception of the people may, in fact, become
increasingly necessary unless we are willing to give our leaders in Washington[DC]
a freer hand." In other words, if we continue this nonsense of
trying to control them through elections, and that sort of thing, it's going to
be necessary to have deception of the people, because the masses are toostupid
and ignorant to understand the danger that's at their throat. And that's the
role of theMedia, to carry out the appropriate deception. Coming up to the
present, or nearpresent, in1981, when we were launching a new crusade for
freedom in centralAmerica, SamuelHuntington, who
is a professor ofGovernment atHarvard, and a longtime Governmentadvisor,
explained in a discussion in theHarvardjournal, InternationalSecurity, that "you may have to sell intervention or other military
action in such a way as to create the misimpression that it is theSovietUnion
you're fighting. That's what theUnitedStates has done ever since-theTrumanDoctrine."
And that's what, of course, we're now doing. We're fightingNicaragua, but
you've got to create the misimpression that it's theSovietUnion that you're fighting.
That's the job of theOfficeOfLatinAmericanPublicDiplomacy,
and of the ["]cool["] observers, and of respectable intellectuals,
and of theMedia, and so on. Actually that remark of his is quiteaccurate. It
gives a certain insight into theColdWar, and also the modern period. Well,
these concerns about controlling the public mind, rather typically they arise
in the wake of periods of war and turmoil. There's a reason for that. Wars,
depressions, and such things, they have a way of arousing people from apathy,
and making them think, and sometimes even organise, and that raises all of
these dangers. So for example, WoodrowWilson'sRedScare,
a veryharsh and effective repression, immediately followedWorldWarOne. And
that's when you get the, this revolution in the art ofDemocracy, about the need
for Manufacture ofConsent, and you get theFBI to really do the job properly, by
force if necessary, as they did. What we call
McCarthyism, which is actually a poor label because it was actually initiated
by the liberal democrats in thelate1940s, and picked up and exploited byMcCarthy,
but what we call McCarthyism was a similar effort to overcome the energising
effect of the war and the depression in mobilising the population, and causing
them to challenge the, to reveal the mysteries ofGovernment, and do all these
bad things. And after theVietnamWar, the same thing happened. TheVietnamWar was
one factor, a major factor in fact, in causing the ferment of the 1960s. And
that caused a lot of concern, deep concern which still exists, incidentally,
because they haven't been able to overcome it. TheVietnam, the60s created what liberal elites called ACrisisOfDemocracy.
That's the title of a quiteimportant book on all of these topics, the first,
and in fact, only booklengthpublication of the TriLateralCommission,
published in1975, called TheCrisisOfDemocracy.
It's about the problem of governability ofDemocracies. And there was a problem
of the governability ofDemocracies because people were getting ["]out of
hand["]. The domestic enemy was getting out of control, and something had
to be done about it. TheTrilateralCommission puts together liberal
corporateState-elites from the three major centers ofStateCapitalism,
westernEurope, theUnitedStates, and Japan. That's why the trilateral. And it is
the liberal elites. This is the group aroundJimmyCarter. That's where he came
from, in fact, and virtually all of his cabinet and top advisers. It's that
segment of opinion. The american rapporteur, the
guy who gave the report on the, for theUnitedStates, was, again, SamuelHuntington.
And he pointed out that Truman had been able to govern
the country with the cooperation of a relativelysmall number of
WallStreet[Manhattan]-lawyers and -bankers. Then there was no crisis ofDemocracy.
That's the way things are supposed to be. Incidentally, this kind of vulgarMarxistRhetoric
is not untypical of internal documents in theGovernment, or in the businesspress,
and so on, and this was intended to be an internal document. They didn't really
expect people to read it, but it's worth reading. I'm sure the library has it. If
they don't, they should. The, but now
this crisis ofDemocracy had erupted. What had happened was, during the1960s,
all sorts of segments of the population that are normally apathetic and passive
and obedient and don't ["]get in the way["], began to become organised
and vocal and raise questions and press their demands in the political arena,
and that caused an overload. That caused a crisis ofDemocracy. You couldn't
just govern the country with a few WallStreet[Manhattan]-lawyers and -bankers
any longer, you had all these other pressures coming from the general population,
and that's a problem. And we've got to overcome the problem. And the way to
overcome the problem, they said, all three, the whole group, is to introduce more moderation inDemocracy to mitigate the
excess ofDemocracy. That means, in short, to return the general
population to their apathy and passivity, and the obedience which becomes them.
That's the stupid and ignorant masses have to be kept out of trouble, and when
you get these crises ofDemocracy, you've got to restore the norm, what we had
before. Well, that's a view that goes right back to the origins of the
republic. If you read the sayings of theFoundingFathers, you will discover that
that was essentially their view as well. They also regarded the public as a
dangerous threat. The way the country ought to be organised, as JohnJay put it, the president
of theConstitutionalConvention and thefirstSupremeCourt, ChiefJusticeOfTheSupremeCourt,
his, one of his favorite maxims, according to his biographer, was that those
who run, "those who own the country ought to
govern it." And if they can't govern it by force, they've got to
govern it in another way, and that ultimately requires deception, propaganda,
indoctrination, the manufacture of consent. Well, let me summarise. There's a
standard view, rhetorical view, a standard view inRhetoric is basically that of
JusticePowell, The public ought to exert meaningful control over the political
process, and it's the role of theMedia to allow them to do it. That's theRhetoric.
There's a contrary view, which is that the public is a dangerous enemy, and it
has to be controlled for its own good. And that contrary view is verywidely
held. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if it's the dominant view among
sophisticated commentators on political theory, going back to the seventeenthcentury.
Democratic commentators. So we've got these two views counterposed. Well, with
regard to theMedia, turning to theMedia, the standard view is, again, the one I
just described byJusticePowell.They have to, theMedia have to serve, if you're
going to serve the societal purpose of theFirstAmendment, they have to be free
and open, and so on, and then the descriptive part of that is that that's
exactly what they do. That view is expressed, for example, by JudgeGurfein in a
important case where he permitted theNewYorkTimes to publish thePentagonPapers,
1971or2. Gurfein'sdecision says, that "we have a cantankerous
press, an obstinate press, an ubiquitous press, and it must be suffered by
those in authority in order to preserve the even greater values ofFreedomOfExpression,
and the right of the people to know." So, granted, the press is a
nuisance, but it's important to allow it to maintain its adversarial and
cantankerous ways, because it's even, you know, serves an even higher purpose. Well,
at that point, we begin to have a debate. The debate is between the people who
say that theMedia are cantankerous and adversarial, and so on, and they've gone
too far, and we've got to do something to control them and constrain them. In
fact, the TriLateralCommissionliberals also suggested that. They said theMedia
have gone much too far in their adversarial ways, and we have to. If they can't
regulate themselves, probably theGovernment will have to step in and regulate
them. That's on the liberal side. On the reactionary side, of course it's much
harder, you know, harsher ideas come along. So you have, the one side says
that, We've got to curb the press, they're too cantankerous, and then you've
got the spokesmen forFreeSpeech, JudgeGurfein and so on, they say, No, no, we
agree, they're pretty bad, but you've got to allow them to do this because of
the higher purposes. Well that's the debate. And if you look over, there is a
good deal of discussion of theMedia, and that's the way it's framed. Assumption,
theMedia are adversarial, cantankerous, independent, and maybe even so much
that they're threateningDemocracy. And then comes the question, Should we let
them get away with it, or should we curb them? And the advocates ofFreeSpeech
say, sorry, You've got to let them get away with it, and the others say, No,
there's other values that are more important, like the governability of the
country, and so on, so we've got to stop them. Well, outside the spectrum of
debate, there's another view. The other view says that
the factual assumption is wrong, the factual assumption that's taken for
granted, not even argued, is just wrong. According to this alternative view, theMedia
do fulfill a societal purpose, but it's quite a different one. The societal
purpose is exactly what is advocated by the elite view that I've described. The
society inculcate and defend the economic and social and political agenda of
particular sectors, privileged groups that dominate the domestic society, those
that own the society and therefore ought to govern it, and they do this in all
kind of ways. They do it by selection of topics, by distribution of concerns,
by the way they frame issues, by the way they filter information, by the way
they tell lies, like about revolutions without borders, by emphasis and tone,
all sorts of ways, themostcrucial of which is just the bounding of debate. What
they do is say, Here's the spectrum of permissible debate, and within that you
can have, you know, great controversy, but you can't go outside it. The rightwing
continually claims that the press has a liberal bias, and there's some truth to
that, but they don't understand what it means. The
liberal bias is extremelyimportant in a system in a sophisticated system of
propaganda. In fact, there ought to be a liberal bias. The liberal bias says, Thus far and no further. I'm as
far as you can go, and look how liberal I am. And of course, it turns
out that I accept without question all the presuppositions of the propagandasystem.
Notice that that's a beautiful type of system. You don't ever express the
propaganda, that's vulgar and too easy to penetrate, you just presuppose it. Unless you accept the presuppositions, you're not part of the
discussion. And the presuppositions are instilled, not by, you know,
beating you over the head with them, but just by making them the foundation of
discussion. You don't accept them, you're not in the discussion. So, in the
case of the, say, theVietnamWar, which was a major topic of debate, if you look
over theMedia, there was a big debate over theVietnamWar. There were the ["]hawks["]
who said that, if we continue to fight harder, if we're moreviolent, and so on
and so forth, then we can achieve the noble end of defending southVietnam and
the free people of southVietnam fromCommunism. And then there were the ["]doves["]
who said, It's probably not going to work, it's probably not going to be too,
it's going to be toobloody, and it's going to cost us too much, and therefore
we're not going to be able to achieve the noble end of defending the people of
southVietnam fromCommunism. Now, again, there's another view, and that is that we were attacking southVietnam. That other view has
the merit of being true, obviously true, but it was inexpressible. That's outside the spectrum of debate. You can enter the debate only if you accept the assumption.
And if you check theMedia over the entire period as far as I can see. I've. Hermann
and I in this book review theMedia from about 1950 to the present onIndochina,
and I don't think you can find an exception to this, even statistical error. That's
the spectrum. You've got to accept it. And the same is true, and there's a
liberal bias in the sense that towards the end of the war, like by
about1969or1970, afterWallStreet[Manhattan] had turned against the war, then
you got a preponderance of ["]doves["], saying, You probably aren't
going to succeed in defending freedom andDemocracy in-southVietnam, the country
that we're attacking. Well, that's, this conception of theMedia, which, notice,
challenges the factual assumptions of the entire debate, that says that theMedia
function in the way that Hermann and I [NoamChomsky]
call the propagandamodel in this same book. They function in accord with
the propagandamodel. Now, propaganda sounds like a bad word, but remember that
in mor honest days, like in theInternationalEncyclopediaOfSocialScience,
propaganda was considered a perfectly good word, and in fact something that we
ought to have. More of it. Because it's needed for the reasons that Lasswell explained. Well,
notice that the propagandamodel has lots of predictions. It predicts the way theMedia
are going to behave. You can test those predictions. But it also has a
prediction that's kind of reflexive about the propagandamodel itself. It
predicts that the propagandamodel can't be taken seriously. And there's a
reason for that if you think it through. The propagandamodel
states that the debate has got to be within assumptions that are serviceable to
powerful interests, and the propagandamodel challenges those assumptions, so
therefore it's got to be out of the debate. Okay. That prediction is,
incidentally, verywell confirmed. It is outside the debate. So that's one bit
of positive evidence for the propagandamodel. Notice, incidentally, that this
model has a kind of disconcerting feature to it, if you think about it.
Obviously the claims of the propagandamodel are either
valid or invalid. If they're invalid, we can dismiss them. If they're valid, we
have to dismiss them, right? So one way or another, you can be sure that this
model isn't going to be discussed. Sound of laughter. And that's, in
fact, true. Well, now the basic questions from this point on are factual. Is
the factual assumption that bounds the debate correct, or is it wrong? That's a
factual assumption, you can study it. And the real topic, you know the topic
that ought to be investigated is that. Now, there isn't time to do that now, so
I'll just make a couple of comments about it, and give a few illustrations. Threecomments
first. First, notice that the propagandamodel has a number of features. One
feature that it has, is that it's advocated by elites. That is, it conforms
with the normative opinion, the proposal that the public is dangerous, you got
to ensure that they don't get out of control, they have to be controlled by
deception and propaganda since you don't have the means to do it by force, and
the propagandamodel simply says, Well yeah, they work the way elites say they
ought to work. So, one point about the propagandamodel is that, in fact, it has
eliteadvocacy. A second point about the propagandamodel
is that it's, it's got a kind of prior plausibility. In fact, it's almostnatural
under completely uncontroversial assumptions. If you look at the structure of
the society, you'd almost predict the propagandamodel without even looking at
the facts. Why is that true? Well, simply ask yourself what the majorMedia are.
Now, the way theMedia work, there are some Media which kind of set the agenda,
you know, themostimportant ones, like theNewYorkTimes and theWashingtonPost,
big nationalMedia, they set the agenda. If theGovernment
wants a story to get into television that evening, what it does is ["]leak["]
it to get into the frontpage of theWashingtonPost and theNewYorkTimes, on the
assumption that Television will pick it up and say, Okay, that's important, so
we'll give it the front news. The same is true of nationalTelevision. It
sets, it sets the agenda that makes people think. TheNewYorkTimes frontpage is
sent over the wireservices the afternoon of the day before, there is a thing,
if you read the, you know, you look at that stuff
that's ["]ground out["] of theAPWire, you'll notice around fouro'clock
comes something that says, theNewYorkTimes frontpage tomorrow is going to look
like so-and-so. Well, if you're an editor of a journal in some small town,
you read it and you say, Oh, that's what the important news is, and you frame
your own reporting that way. Now, you know, it's not, sort of, a hundredpercent,
but there is a kind of an agendasettingMedia, theNewYorkTimes, theWashingtonPost,
the threetelevisionchannels, a few others that participate to some extent in
this. Well, ask yourself what those institutions are. Answer, Those
institutions are, first of all, major corporations, some of thebiggestcorporations
in the country. Furthermore, they're integrated with, and, in many cases owned
by, evenlarger corporations, you know, like GeneralElectric, and so on. So what
you have is major corporations and conglomerates. Now, like other corporations,
they sell a product to a market. The market in this
case is advertisers, that's what keeps them alive. The product is audiences.
They sell audiences to advertisers. In fact, for the major Media, they try to
sell privileged audiences to advertisers. That raises advertisingrates, and
those are the people they're trying to reach anyway. So, what you have is
businesses, corporations, which are selling relativelyprivileged audiences to
other businesses. Well, just ask yourself the natural question, What do you expect to come out of this interaction, Major
corporations selling privileged audiences to other corporations. Well,
what you expect to come out of it, on no further assumptions, is an
interpretation of the world that reflects the interests and the needs of the
sellers, the buyers, and the product. That wouldn't be verysurprising. In fact,
it would be kind of surprising if it weren't true. So on relatively, and that,
of course, means the propagandamodel. So what you expect on relatively uncontroversial,
sort of, Freemarketassumptions, with nothing else said, is that you'll get. TheMedia
will function in accord with the propagandamodel. Now, if you look more
closely, there are many other factors which interact to lead to the same
expectation. The Ideological managers, the editors, and
the columnists, and the, you know, the anchormen, and all that stuff, they're veryprivileged
people. They are wealthy, privileged people, whose associations and interests
and concerns are closely related to those of the groups that dominate
theEconomy, and that dominate theState, and in fact, it's just a constant flow
and interaction among all those groups. They're basically the same
group. They're ultimately the people who own the country, or the ones who serve
their interests. And, again, it wouldn't be terriblysurprising to discover that
these people share the perceptions and concerns and feelings and interests and,
you know, attitudes of their associates and the people they're connected with,
and the people whose positions they aspire to take when they move on to the
next job, and so on and so forth. Again, that wouldn't be verysurprising. And
on and on, I won't proceed. There are many other factors which tend in the same
direction. Well, that's my second point. The second point is that the propagandamodel
has a kind of prior plausibility. A third point, which is not too well known,
is that the propagandamodel is assumed to be true by
most of the public. That is, in polls, contrary to what you hear, when
people are asked in polls, you know, What do you think about theMedia, and so
on, the general reaction is, They're tooconformist, they're toosubservient to
power, you know, they're tooobedient. That's the either plurality or sometimes
even the majority view. And they're not critical enough ofGovernment, for
example, that's the standard view. Well, we have threeobservations now. The propagandamodel
has eliteadvocacy, that is, elites believe that's the way it ought to be, theMedia
ought to be. It has prior plausibility, it's veryplausible on uncontroversial
Freemarketassumptions. And it's accepted as valid by a large part, probably the
majority of the population. Well, those three facts don't prove that it's valid
of course, but they do suggest that it might be part of the discussion. It's
not. It's ["]off["] the agenda, exactly as the propagandamodel itself
predicts. That's interesting. That's an interesting collection of facts. Well,
what about the factual matter of how theMedia behave? On this, there are, by
now, literally thousands of pages of documentation, detailed documentation,
casestudies and so on, which have put the model to a test in the harshest ways
that anybody can dream up. I'll talk about some of the ways of doing it
later, you know, in discussion if you want, but I think it's been subjected to quite
a fair test, in fact a veryharsh test. There's no challenge to it as far as I
know. If there is, I've missed it. The few cases where there's any discussion
of it, the level of argument is so embarrassingly bad that it just tends to
reinforce the plausibility of the model. In fact, I think it's fair to say that
this is one of thebestconfirmed theses in theSocialSciences. But in accord with
its predictions, it's ["]off["] the agenda. You can't even discuss
it. Well, what I ought to do now is what has to be done in a course, actually,
not a talk, and that is to turn to cases, you know, ask how you can test it,
what the results are, and so on. And there's plenty of material in print, and
more coming out, which you can check and see whether you're convinced that in
fact it's plausible or accurate. My feeling is it is. I'll just give a couple
of illustrative cases. And let me stress that I do this with some reluctance,
because the illustrative cases are misleading, they
suggest that maybe it's a sporadic phenomenon. In fact, when somebody gives you a
couple of cases, you rightly ask whether they're an adequate sample[s],
you know, maybe they were just selected to work. So you ought to be suspicious
about isolated cases. That's why the model has, in fact, been tested
from many approaches. But that misleading necessity aside, because I can't do
more than that, let me give you a couple of cases to illustrate the kind of
thing that I think you will find if you pursue the question of fact. Let's take
something that you'd certainly expect theMedia to be concerned with, namely, FreedomOfThePress.
They've got a professional interest in that. And in fact, there's a good deal
of discussion ofFreedomOfThePress in theMedia. In the, keeping just to the last
decade, the problems of the press in repressive societies has been verywidely
discussed. Many examples. The case that has been by far themostdiscussed, in
fact I suspect it has been discussed more than all questions of Media, ofFreedomOfThePress
throughout the entire world during this period, is the one newspaper
in-latinAmerica that ninetyninepercent of the literate population would be able
to name if they were asked to name a newspaper in latinAmerica, namely, laPrensa inNicaragua. There has been an overwhelming
amount of reporting on the tribulations of laPrensa inNicaragua. One Mediaanalyst,
FranciscoGoldman,
who studiedFreedomOfThePress in these countries, pointed out that in fouryears, he found about twohundredandsixtyreferences to
this in theNewYorkTimes. That's an incredible amount of coverage. I'm
sure, I don't think anybody's done the study, but try it, if anybody wants, I'm
sure you'll find that this is more coverage than has been given to all other
problems of theFreedomOfThePress, combined, all over the world, probably by a
considerable factor. Anyhow, that's the one, you know, that's the famous case. And
this coverage has been veryirate and angry because of the tribulations of laPrensa.
For example, when, well, let's go back to the moment when RonaldReagan
succeeded in convincingCongress to vote a hundredmillionUSD in aid so that we'd
have a war, a real war, in violation of the demand of theWorldCourt that theUnitedStates
consider its, stop, terminate it's unlawful aggression. Right after that, after theGovernment announced that we finally got a war, a
real war, theGovernment ofNicaragua suspended laPrensa. And that caused
tremendous outrage in theUnitedStates. There's a group, there's a distinguished
group of journalismfellows atHarvard, theNiemanFoundation,
and they immediately gave their award for the year toVioletaChamorro,
the editor of laPrensa, to express their solidarity with her in this moment of
crisis, to show how deeply committed they are to FreedomOfThePress. theWashingtonPost had an editorial right after that
called NewspaperOfValour, in which they said VioletaChamorro should receive tenawards, not
oneaward. TheNewYorkReviewOfBooks had an article by a
left liberal correspondent, MurrayKempton, appealing to people to contribute
funds to keep, you know, laPrensa alive during this period.
Those funds could then be added on to theCIAsubvention that had kept the
journal going since theCarteradministration in1979, right after theSandinistaRevolution
succeeded. And in fact, in general, there was great frenzy and hysteria about
this terrible attack onFreedomOfThePress. Well, let's look a little more
closely. First of all, what is laPrensa? LaPrensa is a
journal which calls for the overthrow of theGovernment ofNicaragua by a foreign
power, which funds it, and which is trying to overthrow theGovernment ofNicaragua.
It's an interesting fact. You might check theHistoryOfTheWest
to see whether there's ever been any such thing. For example, you might
ask whether a major newspaper in theUnitedStates, you know, thewealthiest
newspaper intheUnitedStates was funded by theNazis in1943 calling for the
overthrow of theGovernment of theUnitedStates, and you might ask yourself what
would have happened if that was possible. Well, you can get the answer veryquickly.
Even tiny little newspapers which weren't funded by anybody, and that
raised questions about conscientiousobjection, and so on, they were censored
and controlled and suppressed, and so on. During the FirstWorldWar, it was evenmore
vicious, we even actually put a presidential candidate in jail for tenyears
after theFirstWorldWar because he had, because he had declared opposition to
the draft. The, so, and in fact, there's nothing comparable to this in theHistoryOfTheWest
or in worldHistory altogether. Now, laPrensa is
described in theUnitedStates as the journal that opposedSomoza. In fact, there
was a journal called laPrensa which did oppose theSomozaregime courageously,
its editor was, in fact, murdered, and it had the same name as this journal, laPrensa,
and it's described as the same journal. But is that true? Well, now it's
a little tricky at this point. It certainly has the same name. In1980, the
owners of laPrensa decided to convert the journal into a, into a journal
dedicated to the overthrow of theGovernment. At that point, they fired the
editor, the brother of the editor who had been murdered underSomoza, and there
was a split in the staff. Eightypercent of the staff left with the editor and
formed a new journal, elNuevoDiario, which is the successor of the old laPrensa,
at least if a newspaper is defined by its editor and its staff, not, of course
if it's defined by the money that's behind it supplied by theCIA, then you have
a different answer to what's the old laPrensa. That, incidentally, is also
something that's never discussed. But suppose that's true, let's suppose it's
just a CIAjournal, and in fact, that there's no parallel to it in theHistoryOfTheWest,
all of that being true, calling for the overthrow of theGovernment, funded by
the outside power, superpower that is trying to overthrow theGovernment. Well nevertheless,
a true civil libertarian would defend laPrensa from
harassment. I think that somebody who really believes in civil liberties should
say, Yes, England should have permitted the press to be dominated byNaziGermany
in1942, and, if they didn't do it, that shows they don't believe in freedom.
That's the position of a real civil libertarian. And that's the position of the
american intellectual community with regard to laPrensa. And now at this point
we ask the obvious question, Is this passionate commitment to theFreedomOfThePress
based on libertarian enthusiasms and passions, or is it based on service to theState?
Well, there's a way of answering that question. In fact, we all know the way of
answering that question. It's a question that we regularly ask or don't even
bother asking because the answer's so obvious, when we look at propaganda of
our enemies. So you take a look at productions of, say, theWorldPeaceCouncil,
which is a communistfront peaceorganization, or theEastGermanPeaceCommittee,
you know, theGovernmentPeaceCommittee.
You read that material, and you'll find that there's all sorts of descriptions
there, generally valid descriptions, of crimes and atrocities and repression in
theUnitedStates or committed by theUnitedStates and its agents, and so on, and
great outrage over these horrors. Often that material is accurate, and often,
in fact, it's material that's not reported here. Well, do we praise them for
their, you know, libertarian passions? No, we first ask a question. We ask, How
do they deal with repression and atrocities carried out by theSovietUnion and
its clients, where they are, the ones they're responsible for? Well, as soon as
we get the answer to that question, we dismiss the whole story with contempt
and ridicule properly even if their charges are accurate. That's a fair test,
and we ought to have the honesty to apply the same test to ourselves. So let's
do it. We now ask the same question about the defenders of liberty of the press
in the case of laPrensa, theNewYorkTimes, theWashingtonPost, theNewYorkReviewOfBooks,
the educated community, and so on, theNiemanFellows, and so on. How do we test that? Well,
we look at, same test, we look at cases of repression of theFreedomOfThePress
in our domains, and we ask how they reacted, and there are many such cases, veryclose
by in fact. So take ElSalvador. ElSalvador had
independent newspapers at one time. It doesn't have them any longer. These were
not newspapers funded by a foreign power trying to overthrow theGovernment inElSalvador.
They were not newspapers supporting the guerillas. In fact, they were mildly liberal newspapers calling for mild
reforms, like, landreform and things like that, raising questions about the
concentration of land, and so on. Those newspapers don't exist anymore.
They were not censored. They were not harassed. Rather, another technique was used by theGovernment that we installed, trained,
directed, and armed. The technique was, in the case of one newspaper, the
securityforces picked up an editor and a photojournalist in a SanSalvadorrestaurant,
took them outside, and cut them to pieces with machetes, and left them in a
ditch. The owner then fled. That took care of one newspaper without
censorship. The second newspaper, it took a couple of
bombingattempts, threeassassinationattempts, finally the military that we train,
support, and arm surrounded the premises of the newspaper, entered it, smashed
the place up. At that point, the editor then fled. That took care
of the second newspaper. So that's the end of theFreePress inElSalvador. Well,
now we ask the question. Where, how would, did the american press respond to
this? Well, that was actually investigated byFAIR, FairnessAndAccuracyInReporting,
Mediamonitoringorganisation, they checked eight, I guess it was eight years of theNewYorkTimes to see what there had
been, what had been said about this. Well, it turns out there was not one word
in the news columns of theNewYorkTimes about this. I checked the editorials.
There was not one phrase in the editorials about this. In fact, the only
reference to these two things in theNewYorkTimes was that the editor of one of
the journals who'd fled was allowed an ["]OpEd["], in which he
described what had happened. And that's important, because it means all the civil libertarians knew about it, the ones
that read theNewYorkTimes, like theNiemanFellows, and the editors of theNewYorkReview,
and the editors of theNewYorkTimes, they all knew about it, it just wasn't
important enough to report or to comment on. Well, that tells you where
the commitment to theFreedomOfThePress is. Turn to the neighboring country ofGuatemala. There, too, there was no censorship. They took care of theFreedomOfThePress by simply murdering
about fiftyjournalists in theearlyeighties, including people, you know,
journalists murdered right when they were on radio- and television-announcing.
Somehow that took care of theFreedomOfThePress without any censorship.
Virtually no discussion, a few words here and there. Well now this, but this
was theGovernment that we supported, that we supported, remember. Supported
enthusiastically. ThatGovernment is supposed to now be a Democracy. They had an
election that we all proudly hail, and so on. And after
theDemocracy was established, one of the editors who had fled returned, this
was last year, just a year ago, to try to open a small newspaper. Again, wasn't funded by a foreign power, you know, wasn't
calling for the overthrow of theGovernment, nothing like that, just a small, verysmall,
limited capital, sort of left liberal newspaper.
laEpoca,
it was called. He, as soon as he came back to the
country, the deathsquads, which are just adjuncts of the securityforces,
threatened him with death if he didn't leave the country. But he continued, he
started up the newspaper. It ran a couple of issues. Then,
fifteenarmedmen, surely from the securityservices, broke into the offices, firebombed
them, destroyed the premises, kidnapped the nightwatchman. The editor called a
pressconference the next day in which he announced that this shows that there
can't be anyFreedomOfThePress in the socalledDemocracy ofGuatemala. Some
members of the european press came, I don't think any american reporter came.
There was, he then received another deaththreat warning him to leave the
country or be killed. He did flee the country. He was taken to the airport by a
western ambassador so that he wouldn't be killed along the way, and he went back
into exile inMexico. Well, how much coverage did that one get? In theNewYorkTimes
and theWashingtonPost, which are the two that I checked, the amount of coverage
was zero. Not a word about it. And it's not that they didn't know it. They did know it and we can prove that they knew it, because,
if you look in the small print, you'll find ["]oblique["] references
to it. So for example, in the culturesection of theNewYorkTimes a couple of
weeks later, there's a report, somebody went down to some, you know, meeting inMexico,
and met this guy, and he sort of refers to the facts. So they knew about it, it
just wasn't important enough to report. Let's take the other major
client of theUnitedStates, in fact, the[most]major client of theUnitedStates,
theStateOfIsrael. That's the major subsidised country of theUnitedStates, so
you want to find out what american elites think about theFreedomOfThePress,
let's take a look at the way they react to theFreedomOfThePress inIsrael. Now
here, History was kind enough to set up [conduct] some controlled
experiments for us. Sound of laughter. Literally. The week, let's go back to
the week when laPrensa was suspended, remember, right after theUnitedStates had
declared war againstNicaragua, as the administration said, in violation of
theWorldCourtruling and they suspended this newspaper funded by theUnitedStates
and calling for the overthrow of theGovernment. Well, that, just, right then
Israel closed twonewspapers inJerusalem, twonewspapers inJerusalem were closed permanently.
That's not the first time that had happened. The case went to theSupreme Court,
theIsraeliSupremeCourt, and theSupremeCourt ruled that
it was legitimate to close the two newspapers, because the securityservices had
claimed, without providing any evidence, because they don't have to, that these
newspapers were funded by hostile elements, which presumably means thePLO. And
the court declared, highcourt declared that "noGovernment would ever
permit a business to function, however legitimate it may be, that's funded and
supported by a hostile power. FreedomOfPress," they said, "exists inIsrael,
but it's limited, and is not permitted to undermine the security of theState."
That's the high court. Well, how much coverage was there of those two things
while everybody was hysterical about laPrensa? Answer, Zero. Or, to be precise,
there was a reference. In a letter to theBostonGlobe, in which I was commenting
on the total hypocrisy ofHarvardUniversity and theNiemanFellows, I mentioned
it. Sound of applaud. But that, as far as I know, is the total, is the total
references in theUnitedStates. Now, the week after theCentralAmericanPeaceAccords
went into operation, october1987, laPrensa was opened again, and it returned to
its task of calling for the overthrow of theGovernment, and so on, and
identifying itself with theContras, and so on. The week that laPrensa was
reopened, History again ran a nice experiment for us. That week, theStateOfIsrael
closed a newspaper inNazareth, that's insideIsrael, and closed a newsoffice inNablus. The newspaper inNazareth was closed because theState had
again alleged, without providing any evidence, that it was associated with a
hostile group. And the courts went, again, went to the courts, and the courts
declared that this was legitimate, even though the editor had stated, which, of
course, was true, that everything that appeared in the newspaper had gone
through censorship, because they have heavy censorship. Didn't matter. The newsoffice
inNablus
was closed on the same pretext, you know, some connection
with a hostile group. As far as I know, it never went to the courts.
So how much coverage was there of those two things? Well, the usual answer, Zero.
I could go on, but these facts show veryclearly, they
answer veryclearly thefirstquestion. The concern overFreedomOfThePress inNicaragua
is a total fraud. It does not have anything to do with concern for theFreedomOfThePress,
it simply has to do with concern for serving theState. In fact, the
number of people in theUnitedStates who believe inFreedomOfThePress, and who, I
don't mean ordinary, of the people who write about such topics or speak about
them, the number who believe inFreedomOfThePress, I think they could easily fit
in somebody's livingroom, or maybe in a telephonebooth in fact. Sound of
laughter. And they would include virtually nobody who's gotten hysterical on
this topic, or even mentioned it. Well, that's the kind of thing you'll
discover if you look closely. I'll just give you one final example. When I talk about this topic, I like to use this
morning'sNewYorkTimes, and you can always find a perfectlygood example there on
the front page, but today, unfortunately, I didn't have, I got up at
fiveo'clock in the morning inEauClaire[**] in a snowstorm and had to drive
here, and I didn't have time to find theTimes, so I'll have to use yesterday's.
I apologise. Last one I've looked at. The leadstory in theNewYorkTimes
yesterday, you know, major story on the left[or]righthandside of the frontpage
is a story entitled USEnvoyUrgesHonduransToLetTheContrasStay. And then comes,
as theBushadministration is trying to convinceHonduras to let theContras stay
there, and it goes on, and you get down to the middle of the second page, you
know, the continuationpage, and you find the following sentence, on its face, "the
administrationproposal to keep theContras in place would seem to be
inconsistent with the spirit of the regional peaceagreement which calls for
their relocation, but administrationofficials say there's no inconsistency."
Sound of laughter. There's a forthright critique of theGovernment. Let's look
at the facts that lie behind that. It's not that the
proposal seems to be inconsistent with the spirit of the regional peaceagreement.
It's that it's flatlyinconsistent with the wording of the regional peaceagreement.
And it doesn't matter which regional peaceagreement you're referring to.
If you're referring to theCentralAmericanPeaceAccordsOfAugust1987, they identify
one indispensable element, they call it, for bringing peace to the region, and
that's the termination of any aid, logistical, technical, propagandistic, any
aid whatsoever to the irregular forces, meaning theContras, attacking from
another country. There was a morerecent agreement, just
a couple of weeks ago, in which the centralamericanPresidents committed
themselves, all five of them, to remove theContras within, to work out [make]
plans for removing theContras within ninetydays. So, this is not, does not seem
to be inconsistent with the spirit of the agreements, it's flatlyinconsistent
with their precise wording. And it goes on, the point goes on. There's
going to be a vote inCongress about humanitarian aid to theContras, who we're
convincingNicaragua to leave in, toHonduras to leave inNicaragua, and the press
is going to refer to this as humanitarian aid, as they've been doing all along.
Well, the term, humanitarian aid, has a meaning. In fact, the meaning was made veryprecise
by theWorldCourt, the highest authority on such issues, in the very same
judgment in which it condemned theUnitedStates for its aggression inNicaragua.
They defined humanitarian aid as aid which meets, it says, to qualify as
humanitarian aid, aid must meet the hallowed purposes of theRedCross, that is,
must serve civilians in need and suffering. And furthermore, to qualify as
humanitarian aid, aid must be given to civilians on both sides of the conflict
without discrimination, otherwise it just doesn't qualify as humanitarian aid.
So, by the ruling of theWorldCourt, in fact that's the standard definition, what
theMedia call humanitarian aid isn't humanitarian aid at all, it's just
military aid. It's aid to keep the military force in, present in a, so that
they can continue to pose a threat to Nicaragua. I should add, incidentally,
that it's verylikely that theUnitedStates is sending military aid toContras
insideNicaragua, illegally, from theIlo-pan-go-airbase inSanSalvador, exactly as they've been
doing all along. That was, that's what's called theHasenfusGroup, because
it was exposed when the american mercenary, EugeneHasenfus, was shot
down. Now that had been going on for years, and theMedia knew about it for
years and they weren't reporting it. The scandal came
[began] when they were forced to report what they'd always known. And
then some of the morehonest of them admitted, Yeah, we knew it all along, we
weren't reporting it. In fact, they were being informed all along, by nicaraguan
intelligence, that these flights were coming, they were told how many there
were, where they were, you know, they got radarsightings, it just wasn't the
kind of story you report if you're a good commissar. So none of it was reported
until the plane was shot down with the american mercenary, and then, you know,
you can't stop reporting. Well, the same nicaraguan sources that were ignored
before, and were accurate, as everyone concedes, are once again reporting that
nicaraguan radar is starting to pick up Contraflights fromIlopangoairforcebase
intoNicaragua. And there's no particular reason to doubt that those reports are
accurate now, but I don't think there's a single reference to these reports in theMedia,
at least, I haven't been able to find one. And it's not
because they don't know it. They came across theAPWire, which means that
everybody [in the journalistcommunity] knows it. And it's not that it's an
obscure fact, after all, that's all theIranContraHearings were about.
It's just that a disciplined press doesn't report things like that. Now this is
a free country, so you can find out about it. All the readers of BarricadaInternacional,
theSandinistanewspaper that's put out in, you know, that's distributed fromSanFrancisco,
so that's about fifteenhundredpeople, and so on, they could find out. So
fortunately, you know, nice not to be in a totalitarian country, but the
readers of the news, or people who happen to have access to the APwires and
read them all day, you know, they could find out, but people who are looking at
the tube, or reading their newspaper are not going to find out, though it's
pretty important. Well, continuing with humanitarian aid, there's going to be a
vote on it in a couple of weeks, and probably they'll vote it. The socalled
humanitarian aid that's been given is in violation of theCentralAmericanAgreements.
It's actually even in violation of the very Congressional legislation that
legislated the aid. In other words, there's, it's internal selfcontradiction,
which nobody will point out in theMedia. How's that work? It works as follows. The congressional legislation last year to give humanitarian
aid stipulated that that aid must be in accord with theCentralAmericanAgreements,
and with the ceasefireagreement that had been just settled between theContras
and theGovernment ofNicaragua. That's the legislation. Well, that ceasefireagreement
is quiteexplicit about the point. It says, "Aid may be given toContras in
designated ceasefirezones, insideNicaragua for the purpose of relocating them
and reintegrating them into nicaraguan society." Now that's what the, so
that means the congressional, the, according to the congressional legislation,
that's the only aid we can give. Furthermore, it says that the aid has to be
given by a neutral carrier. Well, Congress immediately voted to violate
its own legislation that it had just passed, by designatingUSAid as the
carrier. By no stretch of the imagination is that
neutral, in fact, I don't have to bother talking about that, that's a
StateDepartmentaffiliate which has often functioned as a front for theCIA.
Furthermore, the aid was to go toContras inHonduras, not ceasefirezones insideNicaragua,
and to maintain them, not to assist in their relocation and reintegration into
nicaraguan society. So Congress at once voted to violate its own legislation.
Furthermore, the same ceasefireagreements designated a responsible authority to
determine how the agreements should be met. The authority was theSecretaryGeneral
of theOrganizationOfAmericanStates,
SecretaryGeneralSuarez
of-theOrganizationOfTheAmericanStates.
As soon as this happened, he wrote a letter toGeorgeShultz,
condemning theUnitedStates for carrying out this violation of the ceasefireagreement.
In fact, we even violated the congressional legislation. None of this has ever
been reported as far as I know. Try to find it somewhere. So, even the fact
that the responsible authority at once said the aid was illegal, even the fact
that the Congressional aid that- is violating even its own stipulations, let
alone the cease-fire agreement of the regional peace accord, none of this is
reported, and I'll make a prediction, when the issue comes up in a couple of
weeks about renewing it, you're not going to find any of this reported again. Well,
that's the kind of thing you find when you look, and you find it all over the
place. In fact, I think you find it near universally. I mean, it would be hard
to find an exception to it. It's to be expected. That's the way you'd expect theMedia
to function on prettyplausible assumptions. Let me return finally to the
prediction of the propagandamodel that I mentioned. However well confirmed it
may be, it's not going to be part of the discussion, it's going to be outside
the spectrum of discussion, it's veryvalidity guarantees that for the reasons
that I mentioned. And that conclusion, again, is quitewell confirmed, and one
can assume with reasonable confidence that that will continue to be the case.
Sound of applaud.
2.
I've been asked to make an announcement,
too. There's a rally in march tomorrow. Thursday marchsixteen. The slogan is,
Stop theUSwar inElSalvador. Threeo'clock rally inLibraryMall. Threeforty march
in federal building, which is [a] part of national protest, sponsored by all sort
of groups. I'm sure there's a leaflet out there. Demand to end theUSsupport for
theElSalvador deathsquadDemocracy, support negotiationsolution to the war
through the FDNLpeaceproposal. So that's tomorrow, threeo'clock. Is there
somebody standing at the line? Why don't we, let's just make it mechanical.
Start over there, then go over there, and then go up there, okay? And then
we'll go around, okay? I can't see.
3.
ProfessorChomsky?
4.
Yeah.
5.
I have listened with great interest to
many of your theories considering political systems and the ideologies behind
them. However, a number of statements which you have made in the past are of
great concern to me. First and foremost among them is your claim that theSovietUnion
is, in fact, a ["]dungeon["]. And to my way of thinking, such ["]blanket["]condemnation
of an entire society can only be regarded, to say the least, as inappropriate.
Moreover, I believe that these kinds of statements can become quitedestructive
in serving to propagate inadequate and outdated notions of the communist enemy,
and I, I just wonder if your, if these ideas. I've been waiting threeyears to
respond to that statement of yours. Sound of laughter. And I wondered if in the
light of the changes that have, that have come about with glasnost and perestroika, openness
and restructuring, it's arguable, it's arguable how significant they are, but
if you, I don't know if you still maintain that strict view on the subject.
6.
Yeah. Well, first of all, I didn't say
that the society is, I said that theState is, theGovernment, and the, you know
maybe people living in their homes are not. But, I said it because I think it's
true. I mean, I think that theSovietUnion is a ["]dungeon["],
and I also don't think it has anything to do withCommunism or anything to do
withSocialism. As to the changes, I think, you know they're, one hopes
that they'll work. What's happened is that the ["]jailers["] have
decided to relax it a little bit. Notice that those changes are coming from the
top, which is good, you know, better than having no changes. But, in fact, Gorbachev has
concentrated more power into his hands than the leadership had in the past, and
he's using that power in something like the manner ofPeterTheGreat, to try to
liberalise the society from above, which means to cut back the restrictions, to
open it up a bit, and I think that's all to the good. I mean, I have a feeling
that those changes will, they have already set forth lots of, you know, they
have, when you introduce changes like that, lots of things begin to happen.
Popular forces do begin to develop, and you get all kind of conflicts, and
interesting things happen, and it remains to be seen where it will lead. So I'm
glad to see that the, what I, as I see it, if you want to continue with the
metaphor, that the ["]jailers["] have decided to open the ["]cells["]
a little bit, and to allow a little more freedom in the society, I think that's
verygood, and I hope that other forces get them to continue to do it. But as to,
I mean we could discuss whether this is an accurate perception of the society
or not. I guess you think it isn't. I think it is. I'll explain why if you like.
But to get to your, to the point you raised, suppose
that I think that it is. I think I should say it. I don't see any reason not to
say it if I think it's true.
7.
I guess my only real question is, There's
political repression in theUnitedStates, too.
8.
Sure.
9.
Is theUnitedStates a ["]dungeon["]?
10. No.
11. Oh.
12. Because
theUnitedStates is a much freer, in fact the, what I've said about theUnitedStates,
and I'll say it again, it's in many ways the freest society in the world. Sure
there's repression here, but it's also a, by
comparative standards, a veryfree society. In fact, I think that's one of the
reasons it has such sophisticated thoughtcontrol, as I tried to explain.
Sound of laughter. The capacity of the, (the capacity of theState to coerce) in
theUnitedStates is relativelylimited. You're quiteright that there's plenty of
oppression. I mentioned the FBI, which is the national
political police, which is dedicated to oppression. That's its job. It's been
doing it ever since it was founded. Well, you know, that's inconsistent
with the free society. But, again, by comparative standards, remember I'm
talking about comparative standards, theUnitedStates is quite a free society.
The capacity of theState to coerce, I think, is limited, probably, more so than
any other society I know at least. So I don't think that it would be correct to
call it a ["]dungeon["].
13. Well,
thank you.
14. Yes,
ProfessorChomsky,
15. Yeah.
16. If
you walked twoblocks back from where you're standing right now, you'd come
across a marvelous example of what I've described on various, various occasions
as an excellent example of abovegroundbunker neofascist
17. Of
a what?
18. Of
abovegroundbunker neofascistArchitecture, called VilasHall. VilasHall
is the school ofCommunications, the Com.Artsbuilding, the school ofJournalism.
I imagine there are a number ofJournalismstudents in the audience tonight. I
imagine there are a good number of people who, well, they filter in, they
become middleechelon apparatchiki for theMediaWmpire that you discussed. They
come out imbued with theIdeology of valuefree objective reporting. It's the
major ideological offensive against the kind of model that you want to pose as
an alternative. I wonder if you could talk to the audience here about the Ideology
of objectivity and valuefree reporting within this system.
19. Well,
there is such an Ideology, and it's interesting to see how it's interpreted. Objectivity means, You take what people in power say, and you
report it accurately without distorting their quotes. Sound of laughter. Sound
of applaud. And then, sort of down at the bottom of the column, you know, down
at the bottom of the column, you may say things like what I quoted, if you're
really an intrepid [adj. fearless; adventurous (often used for rhetorical or
humourous effect)] reporter, you say, Well, this may seem to be inconsistent
with the spirit of the peaceagreement. Sound of laughter. That's, you
know, that's objective reporting. If theStateDepartment announces that
Nicaragua has called for a revolution without borders, then even if you know it
happens to be a lie, an objective reporter just reports
it, because they said it after all, it's true that they said it. And it
wouldn't be objective, it would be introducing opinions to say it's a lie, I
suppose. Sound of laughter. So there is an Ideology of objectivity, and I
wouldn't just scoff at it, incidentally. The fact of the matter is that, by and
large, american reporters, if you had two, you know, a bunch of reporters
describing something they saw, I would tend, by and large, to trust the american
reporter at least as much, maybe more, than those who come out of other
traditions, because this tra[dition], business of objectivity is not completely
to be scoffed at. The effort to try to keep your reporting to the facts and not
to introduce opinion is a worthy effort, and sometimes it shows up in
accurate description. And there are some reporters, I should say, who do it
extremely well, and have a verygood record of it. And in fact, this even
includes reporters who work for the journals that, in my view, are right at the
core of the propagandasystem. So take, say, JohnKifner of
theNewYorkTimes. I think you can tell when theNewYorkTimeseditors want some
story to be reported accurately for their own purposes. That's when they
sendJohnKifner to report it, because he's going to report it accurately. Now,
when they don't want it reported accurately anymore, they take him off [change
his duty] and put him back at the metrodesk. That's one task as to what
the editors have in mind. And there are times when they want stories reported
accurately, and there are some journalists who really do it. On the other hand,
when they sendThomasFriedman out, their current chiefdiplomaticcorrespondent,
you know what they want is propaganda. You want somebody who's going to say, as
he just said after he was advanced to this august post, that theUnitedStates is
now, you know, sort of, under theBushadministration, planning to support
theCentralAmericanPeaceAccords which were introduced and proposed and advanced
by-CostaRica, -Guatemala, -Honduras, and -ElSalvador. Omission there, but
that's part of the game. That's what happens when you sendThomasFriedman to
report a story. And I presume that the editors understand these things. [It's
fucking obvious that they do.] That's incidentally, I presume, why ThomasFriedman
is chiefdiplomaticcorrespondent and JohnKifner isn't. But you'd have to ask the
editors about that. The, so, to get back to your point, the objectivity, it's a good thing, it's a good value, to be objective in
reporting, and the people who do it honestly do verygoodJournalism. But, as
you're implying, thatIdeology can be used to be a distortingMechanism, and quitecommonly
is.
20. Is
George[HerbertWalker]Bush's ["]hands off["] policy just a cover, and
all the action of the executive branch will be handled covertly? Or is it an
opportunity for the legislative branch and the american people to take back the
reins of power?
21. Oh,
I don't. First of all, what makes you think George[HerbertWalker]Bush has a
["]hands off["] policy?
22. That's
how it's reported. That's what I. Sound of laughter.
23. Yeah,
okay. But.
24. That
perception of.
25. Right,
but that's.
26. A
["]hands off["] policy.
27. That's
not verygood evidence.
28. I
think the perception isn't.
29. The
fact, the fact of the matter is, RonaldReagan had a ["]hands off["]
policy. Sound of laughter. In fact, RonaldReagan presum, probably didn't even
know what the policies were. Sound of laughter. This is an interesting fact
about thelasteightyears, which, again, should not be laughed at. The fact of
the matter is, for the last, I mean theMedia had to
put on [perform] a big pretense about this, but everybody knew,
you know, everybody with their eyes open knew and most of the population knew
that, for thelasteightyears, the country hasn't had a ChiefExecutive. Now,
that's an important fact. In fact, I think that's a step forward in manufacture
of consent, and in fact, it's maybe a sign of the future of politicalDemocracy.
I think theUnitedStates made a ["]leap["] into the future in
thelasteightyears. If you, they have sort of retracted a little, but I think
they'll go on, and I think other industrialDemocracies will follow us. If you could get to the point where voting is simply the
matter, a matter of selecting purelysymbolic figures, then you would have gone
a long way towards marginalising the public. And that pretty well
happened in thelasteightyears. You know, you had
somebody who probably didn't know what the policies were. His job was to read the lines, rich, written for him by
the rich folk. What he's been doing for the last thirtyorfortyyears, and he
seems to enjoy it, he gets well paid for it. Sound of laughter. Everybody seems
happy, but to vote for Ronald Reagan is like voting for the Queen ofEngland.
Sound of applaud. And that's an advance. I don't really mean this as a joke. I
think that's an advance, you know, it's advance, it's progress in marginalising
the public. Part of marginalising the public is, Taking
the formalMechanisms of participation which exist, and ensuring that they don't
lead to a crisis ofDemocracy by being substantive. And what better
method can you think of that simply reducing them to the selection of symbolic
figures. I think that happened, and I think the press hasn't covered it, though
they doubtless know it. But as forGeorge[HerbertWalker]Bush, I think you've got
to return to a, you know, to a sort of morenormal situation. I don't have any
reason to believe that there's any ["]hands off["] policy if there
will be the same kind of resort to covert activities that there's been in the
past. When does theGovernment resort to covert activities? Well, typically,
when the domestic enemy doesn't allow it to carry out the activities in public.
That's when a Government resorts to clandestine activities. Clandestine
activities are difficult, complex, expensive, they carry the danger of being
exposed. It's mucheasier and moreefficient to carry out violent activities
overtly. And a Government typically, ourGovernment in particular, when it
resorts to clandestine activities, it's usually because it's afraid of the
public. Those activities are not much of a secret from anybody else. They're certainly not a secret from the victims. They're not
a secret from other, from the various mercenaryStates that we have involved in
it, like the whole stuff in theIranContraHearings. That wasn't a secret
toNicaragua, it wasn't a secret toIsrael, it wasn't a secret toTaiwan, or SaudiArabia,
or Brunei,
you know, nobody, it wasn't a secret to anybody out there. It wasn't a secret
to the whole array of shady businessmen who were in it to make a buck, like RichardSecord and AlbertHakim, and so on.
Fact of the matter is, it wasn't even a secret to-Congress and -theMedia. As I
said, they knew about theContraflights, they just weren't reporting it. They also
knew about the arms sales toIran throughIsrael, and they weren't reporting it.
They couldn't suppress any of that any longer after a plane was shot down with
an american mercenary, and after the iranianGovernment revealed the fact that
the nationalsecurityadvisor was wandering aroundTeheran giving out bibles and
chocolatecakes. At that point, you couldn't suppress it any longer, so it
became public, and then comes a coverup operation. But the point is, it wasn't
really secret to anybody much, and I think you can easily document that. I was,
for example, writing about it from public sources throughout this whole period.
But the point is, you can keep it secret from the public. It was at a low
enough level so you could keep it secret from the public, and that means the
domestic enemy didn't get too outraged over it. Remember that you've got to
control enemy territory, and that's what covert operations are for. If theGovernment
happens to be committed to activities, to violent or terroristic or subversive
or other activities, that the domestic public, the domestic enemy will not
tolerate, it'll move to covert actions. That's what they're for, and there's no
reason to believe that theBushadministration will be any different from others
in this respect. Especially, you know, in fact, less reason. After all, what's
Bush'sbackground? Sound of laughter.
30. Dr.Chomsky,
you, a statement in the recent Insurgentinterview regarding theFeministMovement,
that it has been themostimportant in the actual effects it's had on social life
and cultural patterns. You're quoted accurately, it's been a lasting important
movement and impact on everything. Why is it that not only the left has trouble
with, you know, in some ways, working with theFeministMovement, but perhaps
tolerates, to what I feel is an unacceptable degree, antifeminist individuals
and perspectives within its mix? That's one question, and the second question,
31. Could
you be more specific about what you had in mind? I mean.
32. Well,
I, I don't know, that's a tough thing, because I'd rather not go on.
33. Okay.
34. But,
another one I'd like to throw out for you is that you are a worldclasslinguist,
and I'm wondering how this kind of blends in or interfaces with your political
work.
35. Yeah,
well, I mean, actually the issues ofFeminism. The context of that remark was my
expression, if I recall correctly, was my, was an answer to a question of what
happened to the movements of the[19]60s. And there is a propagandastory about
this. The story is that movements of the[19]60s had all this idealism, and so
on and so forth, it all faded, and after that everybody's just interested in
themselves, and it all just disappeared. And I think that's nonsense. I think
that's propaganda, and it's, in fact, an attempt to make people feel that they
ought to give up. But the fact of the matter, if you look objectively, at least
as I look, it seems to me that the movements of the[19]60s just expanded and
grew in the1970s, and expanded and grew even more in the[19]80s, and they now
reach into much wider areas of the society than ever before. Groups like this,
for example, would not have been around, and certainly wouldn't have listened to
a talk like this twentyyearsago. But now they do all over the country, and not
just in universities, also in, you know, small towns, and churches, and so on
and so forth. I think the movements just expanded. That's why theReaganadministration
was forced into clandestine activities, in fact. Enemyterritory was out of
control. Sound of applaud. But as for the, the reason I mentioned the feminist
movement specifically is because that's a product of the[19]70s. And in my
view, as you quoted, accurate, I think it, in terms of its overall impact, it's
probably the one that had the greatest impact on cultural patterns, and
relations, and structures of authority, and so on and so forth, of any of them,
and that's the[19]70s and the[19]80s. Now to get back to your point about the
left. A large part of the origins of the contemporaryFeministMovement were in
the left, and they were in reaction to theSexism inside the left. That was a
big issue in the late[19]60s, you know, big issue, and a veryemotional and
complicated issue. And that was one of the roots of the modernFeministMovement.
Of course, you know, FeministMovement go way back. And it could be that the
left still toleratesSexism and sexist individuals, I'm sure it does. If, to the
extent that it does, that's just something to be overcome. Not just on the
left, everywhere else as well. I don't see that it has anything special to do
with the left. [He didn't answer thesecondquestion.]
36. My
name is Nancy, and I work with the international socialist organization, and I
just want to start by saying I, like I'm sure manymanymanyother people who are
here tonight are deeply indebted to your work. It's been absolutely essential
in helping us cut through the kind of garbage that we're faced with everyday
when we try to figure out what's going on in the world. Sound of applaud. But I
think.
37. Here
comes the but.
38. But
I think there's also, if I could continue, I think there is also a problem in
the analysis that I've seen in your works, and that you presented tonight, in
the sense that, I think we can tend to lose the forest for the trees, that you
present so many, you know, astonishing details about what is wrong with the
system, and about what is wrong with theMedia, that we can tend to lose sight
of what I think the really key question is, which is, why is this control
necessary in the first place. And I would submit, at least, that I think it's
because there's, I've got a minute and a half, I swear to God it's no longer, it's
because there's antagonistic interests involved. They didn't talk about
milkmaids and dairy, whatever it was, dairymaids, and spinsters, and laborers
in theseventeenthcentury for no reason, it was because they were theworkingclass.
And what we see today in this country, I think, is quitefrankly, let's speak
bluntly, a rulingclass which tries to control a workingclass population. And
that's what it's about, is holding on to that power. If that's the case, then
it seems like to me the question that we face is how to organise to change that
system, to challengeCapitalism. And I think in that effort you do a disservice
to your listeners, and to the people who respect your work, when you
equateLenin withStalinism as blithely as you did tonight. Sound of applaud. I
say that, and I think it's also important to point out that that is an
unquestioned assumption, and also an easy applausegetter, we saw, that you
share with the mainstreamMedia. And I think if it were actually that simple,
the horrific kinds of measures that even bourgeois historians describe as a
counterrevolution underStalin would not have been necessary if they were all
the same to begin with. Now, in short, to sum up, the situation that you
have outlined tonight I think is extremely serious, and I think it's important
that we all take it seriously. What we're talking about is literally the fate
of millions of lives around the world, as particularly in the internationalPolitics
that you describe. That being the case, then I think we need a full, and
a serious, and a fair discussion of various different alternatives, not just
talking about the horrors ofCapitalism, but actually how to change it to end
the stuff once and for all. Sound of applaud.
39. Well
I think you made, yeah, I think. Well, there's several questions there. One is
about the discussion of theUnitedStates, and I think what I said is
approximately what you said, except I didn't use some of thatRhetoric. Sound of
applaud. The, I, you know, which I don't particularly think is particularly
helpful, to tell you the truth, either analytically or to understand or
whatever. But it's the same picture. JohnJay had it
straight[forwardly], The people who own the country ought to govern it, and
the people who own the country have, basically, now are a network of
corporations and conglomerates, banks, and so on. They ought to govern it, and
the way they do it is by the methods we've described. Now, as far as theSovietUnion
is concerned, I didn't happen to talk about it tonight, but I've written about
this topic. I haven't just made the charge, I've written about it, and
explained why I think it's true. And it doesn't
bother me if I happen to agree with the mainstreamMedia on this.
Trotsky, to pick somebody who[m] you remember, once, he was charged in the1930s
with agreeing with the fascists in his condemnation of theSovietUnion. And he
pointed out, that his critique was, to be true, he didn't, wasn't going to
abandon it if somebody else happened to say it for different reasons. So the
question is about theSovietUnion, and particularly aboutLenin. So, what was
Leninism? Well, in my, here we have to look at the facts. Now, you know, you
look at the facts, I think here's what you find. Lenin
was a rightwingdeviation of theSocialistMovement, and he was so regarded. He
was regarded as that by theMarxists, by the mainstreamMarxists. We've forgotten who the mainstreamMarxists were, because
they lost, and you only remember the guys who won. But, if you go back
to the, to that period, the mainstreamMarxists were people like, for example, AntonPannekoek, who was
head ofEducation for theMarxistMovement. And a serious, he's the one, one of
the people who Lenin later denounced as an infantile leftist. But he was one of
the leading intellectuals of the actual MarxistMovement. RosaLuxembourg was
another mainstreamMarxist, and there were others. And they were verycritical, in
fact Trotsky was one, up until 1917, they were all verycritical
ofLeninism, because of this, what they regarded, as this opportunisticVanguardism.
The idea that the radical intelligentsia were going to exploit popular
movements to seiseStatepower, and then to use thatStatepower to ["]whip["]
the population into the society that they chose. Now that was quiteinconsistent
withMarxism as understood by the mainstream, sort of, I'd say, leftMarxists.
From this point of view, Bolshevism was a rightwingdeviation. Trotsky made the
same points up until1917. Now, when Lenin came back toRussia, in april1917, he
took a different line, quitea different line from the one he'd had in the past.
You take a look at Lenin'swork, it shifted character in april[19]17. In april1917
it became kind of libertarian. That's when he came out with the April Theses,
and that's when he wrote State and Democracy, it came out, it came out a year
later, but that's when it was written, and these were, StateAndRevolution, these
were basically libertarian works. They were verymuch more in the mainstream of,
sort of left, libertarianSocialism, from sort of, you know, this range that
goes fromAnarchism over to leftMarxism of thePannekoekLuxembourgvariety. And he
talked about Soviets, and the need for, you know, worker'sorganization and so
on, and in fact came really closer to what the essence of Socialism was always
understood to be, after all, the core ofSocialism was
understood to be worker'scontroloverproduction. That was the core. That's where
you begin with. Then you go on to other things. But the beginning
is controlbytheworkersoverproduction. That's where it begins. Then Lenin took
power in october1917 in what's called a revolution, but in my view ought to be
called a coup. And the, then things followed that coup, or revolution if you
want to call it that. One of the things that followed it was the immediate
moves to destroy the soviets and the factorycouncils. Those were some of the
first moves of Lenin and Trotsky after they took, Trotsky joined at that point,
after they tookStatepower. In fact, if you look at what
Lenin wrote after that period, or did, you'll find it's a reversion to the
earlier position. This sort of leftdeviation, is that, a deviation. You
could ask why. In my view, it was just
opportunistic. He knew that in order to gain power he was going to have
to go along with the popular currents that were developing, which were, in
fact, spontaneous and libertarian and socialist, as most popular movements are,
have been, in fact, since theseventeenthcentury. And being an astute
politician, which he was, he sort of ["]went along["] with that, and
talked the line that the people wanted to hear. It's just like when an american
politician goes somewhere, and his pollsters tell him, Say so and so, he says
it. It doesn't mean he believes it. And I think Lenin was doing the same thing
without polls. In any event, whatever your interpretation is, when he took
power, he reverted to the formerVanguardism, and moved at once to eliminate the
organs of workers control. Now that meant he was moving to destroySocialism if Socialism
has as its core worker'scontroloverproduction. The soviets and the factorycouncils
were instruments of worker'scontrol. And same, you could say they're defective
instruments. The light in the auditorium is distinguished. And they had to be
worked out better, and so on, yeah, no doubt, but they were the instruments
that had been developed in the course of popular struggle, for, to implement,
basically, worker'scontrol. And those were the first things to go. By early1918, this is now, this is still really before the
civilwar set in, Lenin's viewwas prettyclearlyexpressed. It was the view that, both
he and Trotsky took the position, that what you need is what Trotsky called a
labourArmy, which is submissive to the control of a single leader. He says
modern, you know, progress and development and Socialism requires that the mass
of the population subordinate themselves to a single leader in a disciplined
workforce. Well, that has absolutely nothing to do withSocialism. In fact, it's
the exact opposite of it, and was criticised for that by the, in a
sense, in a spirit of some solidarity because, you know, the revolutionary
forces were still operative. [The light fuctions again.] He was criticised for
that by people like RosaLuxembourg and byPannekoek and Gorter and the other
mainstream, sort of, leftMarxists. And that. And I think they were right. It
seems to me that. And then it just goes on from there. I mean, Lenin
reconstructed theTsaristsystems of oppression, often more efficiently, Tscheka, KGB, and
other techniques of control and oppression. [I agree.] I think, from that point
on, there was nothing remotely likeSocialism in theSovietUnion. I think it was
in fac, in my view it was a precursor of later forms ofTotalitarianism. [I
agree] Now, you know, you could, that's what I think happened, and I think
that's what you'll discover if you look at the facts. Now, why is it calledSocialism?
Well, I think there, see, I think that's complicated, and we should look at it.
There's two, theSovietUnion calls itSocialism. And, you know, after they took
control of the, they did take control pretty soon of most of the internationalSocialistMovement,
because of, primarily, the prestige of having created something, sort of, Socialism.
Incidentally, just a side remark, Lenin remained, despite it all, a sort of an
orthodoxMarxist in many respects. And as an orthodoxMarxist, he didn't believe
that it was possible to have Socialism in theSovietUnion. This was supposed to
be up to his death, or, you know, shortly before his death, when he was still
writing, you know, speaking lucidly, he took, kept the view that theSovietRevolution
was a ["]holding action["]. They're just going to ["]hold things
in place["] until the real revolution took place inGermany, because the revolution,
according toMarxistdoctrine, was going to take place in themostadvanced sector
of modernindustrialCapitalism, you know, for all the reasons that you read
about in Marx. That's where the revolution had to take place. Obviously that wasn't
theSovietUnion, so there couldn't be Socialism there, it was just some kind of ["]holding
action["]. And that, presumably, gave some sort of justification for
eliminating the socialist institutions. I don't
think it's a real justification, but probably that was the internal
justification. And again, in taking that view he was in accord with the
mainstreamMarxisttradition. Well, after that comes the view that all of this is
Socialism. And why should theCommunistParties take that
view? I think the reason is because they wanted to, sort of, exploit theMoralforce
ofSocialism, which was quitereal. You know, it's kind of hard to remember that
today, but at that time, it was veryreal. This was regarded as a, you
know, as a progressive, Moralforce, and, by associating their own destruction
ofSocialism with the aura ofSocialism, they hoped to gain credit, in the workingclasses
and other progressive sectors. Now, theWest also identified that withSocialism.
And they did it for the opposite reason. They wanted to associateSocialism with
the brutality of the russianState that underminedSocialism. So what you had is
that the two major worldpropagandaagencies, for their own quitedifferent reasons,
were claiming that this isSocialism, that this destruction ofSocialism isSocialism.
And it's veryhard to break out of the control of the world's two major
propagandaagencies when they agree. They agreed for different reasons, but they
basically agreed, and that then became doctrine and dogma. Well, I think people
should ask whether that's true. Take a look back and
see whether the moves that Lenin took, and that Trotsky supported him in
taking, and that they both advocated, had anything to do withSocialism as it
was understood by the, say, in theMarxisttradition, or in the left libertarian
tradition. And I think the answer that you'll discover when you look at that is
that they didn't. In fact, this was a destruction of socialist institutions.
Well, you know, this may be true or it may be false. But, if it's true, and I think the evidence prettystrongly
supports it, then I don't see any reason why we shouldn't express that fact.
And I certainly don't think that we should be deterred in expressing this fact
if other people whose, you know, fascists, whatever, happen to condemn theSovietUnion,
just for the same reasons that Trotsky mentioned in the1930s. Sound of applaud.
40. Getting
back to losing the forest for the trees, could we have part two of the
book["]pulping["]story, please? Sound of laughter.
41. Pardon?
42. Part
two of the, your book["]pulping["]story. You promised during the
question and answer it might come up. You had said you had some further.
43. Oh,
the aftermath of that["]pulping["]incident, yeah. Is that what you
meant?
44. Yes.
45. Yeah.
Well, that's kind of a little more subtle and complex, which is why I didn't
talk about it, but here's what actually happened. We, the book was, later, we
decided to rewrite and update it. And we did, and it came out fromSouthEndPress,
which was then in existence, a small, radical press run by- a cooperative, run
by a couple of young people, and it was published asthePoliticalEconomyOfHumanRights,
a twovolumebook that came out in1979. Well, SouthEndPress wasn't going to [“]pulp[“]
it, so it exists. In fact, you can even buy it. Now, what happened at that
point? You can't [“]pulp[“] the book any longer, so how do you react to it?
Well, there are twoways of reacting to it. The main way is to ignore it. There
are a lot of things in the book. You can read it and see what was there. But,
for example, there was a discussion of, it was a discussion ofUSForeignPolicy
and theMedia. Basically, that's what it was. And extensive casestudies of both
topics, and so on and so forth. Mostly, it was ignored, as you'd predict. But
it wasn't entirely ignored. There was oneexception. And a veryinteresting
exception. Let me give you the background. It explains some of the moresubtle
ways in which the system works. In this, one of the things we did in this, in
order to put the propagandamodel to a test. We didn't call it the propagandamodel
then, it's the same thing. In order to put it to a test, we tried to compare,
sort of, pared historical incidents, kind of like I was doing in connection
with theFreedomOfThePressissue. I mean, History doesn't create exact,
controlledexperiments, but there are enough cases that are similar enough so
you can test how theMedia are going to deal with them. Well, we looked for such
cases. We, in particular, we looked for atrocities. And we divided the
atrocities we looked at into three categories, what we [NoamChomsky
and EdwardSHerman] called constructive bloodbaths: meaning, ones that
are good for USpower and the corporateclass, so they're constructive, [What NoamChomsky and EdwardSHerman called] benign bloodbaths:
one where USpower probably doesn't really care verymuch one way or another. It's
sort of irrelevant. And [What NoamChomsky and
EdwardSHerman called] nefarious bloodbaths: those are the ones carried
out by official enemies. So we had various types of benign,
constructive, and nefarious bloodbaths. And we gave quite a number of
examples of these. Well, our prediction was that heMedia would welcome the
constructive bloodbaths, that they would ignore the benign bloodbaths, and that
they would become outraged over the nefarious bloodbaths. And in fact, in the
case of the nefarious bloodbaths, they would invent all sorts of fantasies, and
so on and so forth, to make them look even worse than they were. That was the
prediction. And we gave a bunch of cases, and we showed that, I think we tried
to show and I think did show, that the predictions were correct. Now there's
actually another prediction that comes out of that model, which we didn't make,
but it's implicit if you think about it. And that has to do with the way that
this exposure will be responded to. What you'd predict, if you think it
through, is that our discussion of the constructive bloodbaths would be
ignored, because to reveal the fact that theMedia welcomed huge bloodbaths, as
they did, would not be veryconducive to the interests of power or to theMedia.
It would also expose the fraud about the apparent anger over nefarious bloodbaths.
So you'd expect the constructive bloodbaths to be ignored. As far as the benign
bloodbaths are concerned, you might expect an occasional statement, since it's,
the fact that theMedia ignored the benign bloodbaths doesn't show too, you
know, such terrible things, it doesn't, at least they didn't applaud them. And
as long as you can exclude the role of theUnitedStates in being involved in
them, not terrible, maybe a few odd comments. With regard to the nefarious
bloodbaths, what you'd expect is fury and venom over the fact that theMedia, that
the fabrications over bloodbaths of the enemy were exposed as a fraud. And
that's important. And that can be used. It can be used, in fact, to defame the
critics. See, if you show that people are lying about the crimes of official
enemies, then you can easily distort that into a defense of those crimes., right?
Okay, now what happened? Well, let me take two cases which were veryclose. Two
cases that we were, that we discussed were the slaughter inTimor from1975to1979,
and the slaughter inCambodia from
the, in the same years, 1975to[19]79. We compared those two cases. The one inTimor,
we called a benign bloodbath, theUnitedStates didn't care much one way or the
other. So, hundreds of thousands of timorese get killed, you know, it's not veryinteresting.
The case inCambodia was, of course, a nefarious bloodbath. That was the bad
guys doing it. And we gave a verydetailed account of what evidence was
available about these two, they're in the same area of the world, the same
years, the same timeframe, the evidence available was comparable, the
slaughters were, apparently, comparable in scale, the one inTimor was
considerablygreater relative to the population, but probably roughly comparable
in scale. The difference was, that inCambodia it was carried out by the enemy, PolPot, whereas
inTimor it was carried out by a friend, Indonesia. And furthermore, it was
carried out byIndonesia with american arms, which were provided by theCarteradministration,
which were expanded. The armsflow was expanded by theCarteradministration as
the atrocities increased. Well, how did theMedia deal with this? First. Fact
number, we went through this in detail. TheMedia dealt with theTimorbloodbath
by suppressing it. There was considerable coverage ofTimor, believe it or not,
in 1974 and [19]75. This was all in the context of the breakup of the
portugueseEmpire. In, as the, as Indonesia attackedTimor, and the massacre
started, withUSsupport, coverage began to drop. When the massacre hit its peak
in1978, when it was really approaching genocide with increasing USsupport,
coverage dropped to zero. Literally zero. That's the way they dealt with
theTimorMassacre. What about theCambodiaMassacre? Well, within weeks after theKhmerRouge took power,
they were already being accused of genocide by theNewYorkTimes. About a year
later, they were being accused of carrying out autogenocide, and of having
murdered twomillionpeople, in fact even of having boasted of having murdered
twomillionpeople. That became the conventional line. There then came a huge
outcry, ranging fromTheReader'sDigest and TVGuide, over to theNewYorkReviewOfBooks,
and including just about everything in between. Vast outcry of outrage over the
communistmonsters who were carrying out this horrifying bloodbath, and so on
and so forth. Interestingly, in all of, here was a tremendous amount of
fabrication. Just plain fabrication of evidence. For example, I'll just give
you one example. Take this twomillion, boast of twomillion killed. You know
where that, that's what everybody's heard, you ask people,
How many people had PolPot killed by, say, 1977?, they say, Twomillion.
Here's where it comes from. In, there was a book published by a french priest. FrançoisPonchaud is
his name, who's fromCambodia. He wasn't there then, but he knew aboutCambodia.
He published a book in french. The book was, of course, not available in english,
it was in french. It was reviewed by a french journalist, a journalist named JeanLaCouture. It was reviewed
inFrance. That review was immediately picked up and
translated in theUnitedStates. It appeared in theNewYorkReviewOfBooks.
That's thefastesttranslation of a review of a french book that's ever appeared.
In the review, LaCouture said this. He said, According toPonchaud, theKhmerRouge
boast of having murdered twomillionpeople, autogenocide, horrifying, and so on.
He gave a whole bunch of quotes from the book about the horrifying things
theKhmerRouge said, and so on and so forth. That was immediately picked up by
the rest of theMedia, it was all over the place, newspaperarticles. Oh my god, what are they doing, and so on and so forth. Well,
I was curious at the time, because that didn't, you know, I didn't, I hadn't
seen the evidence about that. I just wanted to know what was going on. So I, the
book was unavailable, so I wrote to friends inFrance and asked them to send it
to me. And I got the book, and I was probably the
only person in theUnitedStates who had read it, although it was being quoted all
over the place on the basis of this review, and I quickly discovered
that the whole review was a total fraud. Whatever was going on inCambodia,
that's not what the book said. The book didn't say anything about a boast of
twomillionpeople. The quotes that were given in the review either didn't appear
in the book, or they were, or you, maybe you could sort of figure out what they
were from, you know, some wording a little bit like them, though they were
grosslydistorted, some of them didn't even, weren't even quotes from theKhmerRouge
they were quotes fromThai, and so on. But, and in fact, every factual statement in the
review was just totallyfalse. Here's the way the twomillionfigure came.
Ponchaud, in the book, says that about eighthundredthousandpeople were killed
in the american war, [19]70to[19]75, meaning, primarily by american bombing and
the war that theUnitedStates ran from[19]70to[19]75, that's eighthundredthousandpeople.
He then said, that according to the americanembassy inBankok, onepointtwomillion
had died, not been killed, since the war was over. Well, LaCouture during the review just added those two numbers
together, called them theKhmerRougekillings, and then added the boast for good
effect. Well that's, that's where that figure comes from. Anyhow, after
I read the book, I wrote a letter toLaCouture, and I, who[m] I know, and I told
him, Look, I don't know what the facts are aboutCambodia, but the relation between your review and the
book is zilch, and I think you ought to correct it because your
review is being quoted all over the place. Well, he actually published
corrections in theNewYorkReview[OfBooks]. You know, he said, Yeah, I made a
couple of mistakes, he said, well, maybe the number killed wasn't twomillion,
maybe it was just in the thousands, he said. Sound of laughter. A slight
difference. You know, a factor of a thousand difference. But he said, it really
doesn't matter, you know, it's terrible anyway, and so on. Well, after his
corrections appeared, they were dismissed, and people kept repeating the
twomillionfigure that he had invented, almost half of which was attributed to
the american warnotice. Well, that's one example, but it's just typical. If you
read our chapter on this, you'll see a level of fabrication which, you know, is
["]mind boggling["], I mean, it's just ["]mind boggling["].
Now, this has nothing to do with the fact. Of course, there was a massacre. In fact, as we pointed
out, the massacre was probably comparable to the massacre inCambodia, which was
a huge. InTimor, which was a huge massacre. We also pointed out that of all the
evidence available there was one part that was being suppressed systematically
by the american press, interestingly. That part was the information given by
theStateDepartmentintelligence. Now, theStateDepartmentCambodiawatchers, you
know, theStateDepartmentintelligence, they were the
only people with any evidence about what was going on inCambodia. And
they apparently had prettygood intelligence. They claimed to be able to pick up
radiotransmissions and all sorts of stuff, and they were giving a totally
different story. They said that what was going on, that there was, you know,
big slaughter, but they said it was in the tens or hundreds of thousands, and
it was not massgenocide, but it was, rather, mostly harsh conditions and, you
know, brutality and so on. That was the position of the only people who knew
anything. And that was systematically excluded. It was just the wrong picture.
You know, it wasn't bloody enough for the purposes. Well, we went through all
of this stuff, the suppression of theTimorMassacre, the vast amount of lying
about theCambodiaMassacres, and we gave that as a, an example of treatment of
paired massacres, the way they were both treated. Now here's the one place the
book was not ignored. What we said about constructive bloodbaths, totally
ignored. What we said aboutTimor, almost totally ignored, to the extent that it
was mentioned, theUSrole was excluded. What we said about Cambodia, however,
that elicited a huge new outrage over the fact that we were defendingPolPot.
Well, we were defendingPolPot by saying that he was carrying out a slaughter
comparable to the major slaughter that theUnitedStates was backing inIndonesia,
and pointing out that, in fact, that was the picture given by american
intelligence, the only people who knew anything about it, and then talking
about the way this was distorted in the interests of the propagandasystem. But
that didn't matter. Here, this, see, what we were doing was challenging the right
to lie in the service of theState. And that's a veryimportant right to
maintain. So, therefore the standard view is, and you can read this all over
the place now, is that we, or usually it's me for some reason, I don't know
where they decide it's me, but we [NoamChomsky and
EdwardSHerman] were defendingPolPot, and you know, sort of apologists forPolPot.
You take a look back, and you'll see that we started, we described it as a
major massacre, we said a lot is uncertain, you know,
just described the facts as they were, and compared them with theMediafabrications.
And you're not allowed to do that. You're not allowed to exposeMediafabrications.
And the reason why that was discussed, the one part of the book, there's
virtually nothing aboutTimor ever is discussed, the reason why that one part is
discussed, is because that can be used by further lies to defame and undermine
critics. So, therefore that's done. Well that's the moresubtle way in which the
propaganda system works. I should say, incidentally, that some of this stuff is
really kind of amusing. Those of you who read this stuff will have seen it. WilliamShawcross wrote a
book a little after that, in which he claimed, theQualityOfMercy, it's
called, veryfavorably reviewed all over the press, everybody ["]fell in
love["] with it. In the book, he claims that there
was silence over thePolPotatrocities, and then he asks the question, How could
this happen, you know, it's called HolocaustAndModernConscience. Well, first of all, was there silence over the
PolPotatrocities? No, there was a vast uproar over thePolPotatrocities. That
started a couple of weeks after, at the time when they were being accused of
genocide, they had probably killed a couple of thousand people at the most.
Within a year, as I said, it was being, everywhere fromTVGuide to theReader'sDigest
over to theNewYorkReview[OfBooks], and then it went on like that. Huge amount
of, huge chorus of protest, furthermore, tons of fabrication. But it's flattering to, it's useful, it's serviceable to say
there was silence. Why is it serviceable? Because, if you can claim that there
was silence, then you can raise the profound question of why theWest was silent
over this massacre, and that means that, from now on, we must be evenmore
diligent in exposing the crimes of official enemies to overcome the fact that
we were silent this time. So immediately, Shawcross is quoted all over
the place, and everynewspaper was saying, Oh my god, we were silent, how could
we have been silent, and so on. Sound of laughter. Then Shawcross goes on to
explain the silence. Take a look at his book, he explains the silence. First,
this was in theWashingtonPost, then in his book, he says, the reason for the silence, the primary reason for the
silence is the skepticism of the left, primarily me. See, in other
words, by my skepticism, I silenced all theUS, all the westernMedia and Governments.
That's a lot of power. Sound of applaud. Furthermore, this. And remember what
that skepticism was, it was a skepticism about documented lies. Furthermore, he
then, he, then he cites an alleged statement in a footnote. He doesn't date it or identify the source. There's two
good reasons for that. One is that the citation is fabricated. The other is
that the source, to the extent that there's a source, it's in a book, it's in
exactly this book, which appeared, which went to press after the fall ofPolPot,
and came out almost a year after the fall ofPolPot. So what he's
claiming is, that in a book that appeared, that went to press afterPolPot was
overthrown, and that appeared almost a year after. In that book, we succeeded,
retrospectively, in silencing the entire-westernMedia and-Governments for fouryears.
Well that's, you know, not only were we powerful enough to scare the entireWest
into silence, but we even could do it by magic, you know. Sound of laughter. Now
that was quoted. That was quoted all over the place with great awe. The point
is, there is no absurdity so extreme that it won't be
quoted with respect if it's useful. And here it's useful for several
purposes. One, to protect the right to lie in the service of theState, two, to
undermine and defame critics who[m] you can't answer, and three, to claim that
we didn't look hard enough, we were silent over this atrocity. Well, there was an atrocity that theWest was silent over.
It's the one we [theUS] documented, Timor. And they were silent over it,
because theWest was doing it, and therefore you're silent over it.
That's the real, you know, question of holocaust in the modern conscience, but
nobody will discuss that one. Well, these are all examples of more
subtle ways of controlling thought, more-subtle and -complex. That's the
aftermath I had in mind. It's a veryinteresting story. We review it
inManufacturingConsent. Who's next? I lost track.
46. If
I can interrupt just momentarily here. What would you say, one or two more
questions?
47. Why
don't we make one more round?
48. Okay,
threemorequestions. However, I would like to mention. As you can imagine, a lot
of people have handed us, each of us, announcements. I'm just going to make an sort
of ["]blanket["]statement. The point is, there's an enormous amount
of communityactivism taking place inMadison. Various groups have, a lot of
activitives going on during this week and beyond ongoing work. For instance,
just as an example, thesisterStateproject has a book out calledFriendsIndeed. NoamChomsky
wrote that, "SisterCityProjects are one of the main ways in which
UScitizens have opposed USpolices of violence and destruction, and acted
constructively **. About this book, FriendsIndded, which, incidentally, is available
in the lobby. I do urge everybody here tonight to check out the people who set
up these places in the lobby and to check out the kind of communityaction
taking place inMadison. It is, in fact, contrary to a lot of moaning about
apathy of studentpopulation and community in large, veryactive
solidaritycommunity here inMadison. So threemorequestions. And we're.
49. I
think we'll have to there. Where are we?
50. Right
here.
51. There,
there, and there, and we'll. Go ahead.
52. Hi.
I'm LizChilsen, and I'm the executivedirector of theWisconsinCoordinatingCouncil onNicaragua.
I think that most people here probably know that Wisconsin and Nicaragua have
been sisterStates for twentyfiveyears. And the WisconsinCoordinatingCouncil onNicaragua
has led in transforming what was originally a symbolic relationship to a vital
tool for peace. And we just published a book which will just mention, called FriendsInDeed.TheStoryOfUSNicaraguaSisterCities,
which is about the over onehundreds USNicaraguasistercities that have formed
since the revolution. One of, my question has to do with that movement and some
of your insights on it, because I think that recently the popular opposition to
the war inNicaragua has fallen out of the majornewsMedia. It's been identified,
I think, as a nonissue, and that kind of effect of theMedia has a veryfragmenting
effect on movements for socialchange.
53. Yeah.
54. And
I think that sistercities is one way we can begin to institutionalise.
55. Yeah,
I think you're quiteright. The coverage ofNicaragua altogether has dropped verysignificantly.
And I assume that that's, as usual, on command. theNewYorkTimes, in fact, removed
its bureauchief, StephenKinzer.
And, if you look at coverage, it's in fact dropped veryfast. Well, I think
that's connected withUSPolicy. There is a shift in policy after theReaganperiod.
And here you have to look back a little bit. Back, as far as back as 1980, there
has been a debate overNicaragua, like overVietnam, the debate is, How you
strangle and destroyNicaragua. Now, the ["]hawks["] say you do it by
terror and violence. The ["]doves["] say you do it by what are now
called kinder, gentler methods. Sound of laughter. You do it by economic strangulation, you know, by maintaining a low
level terrorist force, by mobilising on the border so they can't demobilise and
turn resources to reconstruction from the destruction, and so on. That's the
other way. And by1986, about eightypercent of those who are identified as
leaders in the polls, that means elites, basically, you know, managers,
executives, political figures, those guys. About eighty percent of them were
opposed to the Contras. They thought that the terroroption pursued by theReaganadministration
was just stupid. Stupid for a number of reasons. One is, it was stirring up
[causing] protest at home. You know, overt violence does have a way of stirring
up protest among these unwashed masses who don't like, you know, murdering
children, and you know, raping women, and cutting peoples heads off, and
so on. There's all these unreconstructed people, and they get annoyed by that
kind of stuff. So, you stir up disruption at home when you have. When you
direct your terrorist army to attack defenseless targets. Soft targets as they
were called, as the USterrorists were doing at that time. Openly, in fact. It
wasn't a secret. So that stirs up [causes] too much protest, so dumb. Also
it makes theUnitedStates look bad internationally. I mean, theUnitedStates is
in overt violation of theWorldCourtdecision, and you know, it doesn't look good
in our international relations, and so on. And finally, it's kind of useless. I
mean, there are muchbetter ways to strangle and destroy a tiny country, which,
for all kinds of obvious historical reasons, is totally dependent on its
relations with theUnitedStates for survival. Just do it in smarter, quieter
ways. That was the major, you know, that was the dominant position among elites
by, already by1986. Now theReaganadministration is not ["]off["] the
spectrum of american opinion, but it's at an extreme. It's at an extreme
position on the spectrum. It's extreme. I mean, the
people aroundReagan were people who were deeply committed to violence for its
own sake. I mean, it's as if you kind of like torture in itself, rather
than using it as an end for some, you know, as a tool for some other purpose.
Well, that's kind of counterproductive, and rational people don't do that. You
use torture when you need it, but it's not an end in itself. There's no gain in
itself to torture, inflicting pain, and terror, and so on. And their
conclusions are a rational conclusion, was it's just not useful, it's bad, it's
stirring up [causing] protest, and so on an so forth. So the more
rational thing to do is the policy that theBushadministration is now turning
to, I think. That policy is, here's what it looks like to me, maintain the economic strangulation, which, incidentally is
also unlawful. I mean, we talk about the, or we should talk about,
theWorldCourt having condemned theContraattack. It also condemned the economic
warfare as illegal. Illegal violation of treaties. Again, this is never reported,
but that was theWorldCourtdecision. The violation of treaties, the embargo was
unlawful. It's also a criminal act. And theWorldCourt demanded that it be
terminated. But the point is, you can assume that nobody's going to talk about
that. So you continue the strangulation, keep theContras, keep, it's
interesting that theUnitedStates, with all the huge amount of resources that
were poured into maintaining a mercenary force insideNicaragua, they were unable
to do it. That's a prettyremarkable fact. There's no guerilla movement inHistory
that had a fraction of the support that theContras had. It's just unimaginable.
I mean, they were getting threesupplyflights a day just to ["]keep them
going["]. They were armed at a level, you know, they were better armed
than theSandinistaArmy. They were better armed than units of the American army,
in fact, that's actually true. They had advanced communicationequipment in the
field, which allowed them to get information from USsurveillanceflights. It's
always under surveillance, the country, by, you know, highTech.aircraft, which
could give them information on the actual disposition of theSandinistaforces so
that they could attack defenseless targets with impunity, and carry out terror
there in accordance with the orders of theStateDepartment. That's not secret
incidentally. Now, you know, that kind of level of support, there's just no
guerillaArmy inHistory that could dream of anything like that. With all of that
stuff, they couldn't keep them in the field. The minute the level of support
began to drop, they all broke for the border. The contrast toElSalvador is
fantastic if you bother to look at it. You know, ElSalvador, you had an
indigenous guerilla force, no support from outside, as far as anybody knows.
They were, their arms were mostly gotten from theSalvadoranArmy, or purchased
internationally, so they're using American arms, like, you know, they're using
M16s. Incidentally, just a side remark, for the first time now, the guerillas
inElSalvador are, apparently, being aided by nicaraguans, so EliotAbrams can finally
be happy. What's happening is that as theContras broke for the border, and went
across, because, you know, the game was over they figured, they began to sell
their arms to corrupt HonduranArmyofficials who were selling them off to
the salvadoran guerillas. So for the first time, the salvadoran guerillas are beginning
to show up withSovietarms , AK47s, and so on and so forth, and the reason is,
that those are the arms that the CIA supplied to theContras. Sound of laughter.
So instead of having just M-16s, like they used to have, you know, american
arms they got from the Salvadoran army, they now got Soviet arms sent to them
by, sent by the CIA to the Contras, now sold off to the hondurans who are
selling them off to the salvadoran guerillas. So there is, finally, aid
fromNicaragua toElSalvador like they've been claiming all along. Incidentally this,
here's another, side remarks, I'm sorry, but, this information comes from a verygood
source. So good, in fact, that the press totally censored it. This information
comes from the head ofContraintelligence, who defected inHonduras, went toMexico,
was widely interviewed in theMexicanpress. His name is HoracioArce. Like most
of theContras, he has a nom de guerre, you know, a pseudonym. His pseudonym was
mercenary, Mercenario,
you know, they don't kid around when they're. Sound of laughter. For the american
press, they know who they are. He was the chief ofContraintelligence. He was
the guy who became chief of intelligence in 1985, replacing a man named RicardoLau, who was
beginning to be an embarrassment, because it was beginning to be prettyobvious
that he was involved in terroristactivities throughout centralAmerica,
including probably the murder ofArchbishopRomero. He was identified by a chief
of Salvadoran intelligence, who defected, as having been involved in that. This
guy was getting to be an embarrassment. So he disappeared. He was probably
killed. And they needed a new chief of intelligence, and this guy came in. Well,
he's been chief of intelligence since1985. He defected lastnovember. That's the
most important defector yet. Far more important than, you know, the defectors
who get huge publicity when they come fromNicaragua with all kind of fabricated
stories. This guy was ignored. He had totally the wrong stories, you know, he
was telling about how they were advised, you know, they were directed. He told,
for example, about how he was trained illegally in Elginairforcebase, somewhere
inFlorida or someplace like that, where he was flown in, illegally of course,
trained in theUnitedStates by greenberets, and the82ndairborne, and so on
and so forth. He talked about, he identified people in the American embassy by
name inHonduras, who were posing as aidofficials, but were actually working
with theCIA, and were, you know, giving tactical advice and support to theContras.
He mentioned their names. He described the way the honduranArmy, the honduran
military is directly involved in Contra military activities inNicaragua, both
by intelligence, and participation, and so on. He went through all. He
described how they were, how their task was to attack defenseless targets for
the purpose of ensuring that Nicaragua cannot carry out socialreform. He
describes this. And all sorts of stuff which is just useless, and he also describes
what I just said, how theContras, now that they've broken for the borders, are selling
their arms to the salvadoran guerillas. Well, you know, all of this stuff is
news, and in fact, important news, in fact so, and from a verygood source, so
important that, as far as I know, there isn't a word about it in the american
press. You might look and check and see.
Well, that was kind of a digression. So the salvadoran, coming back, the salvadoran
guerillas had no support from outside as far as anybody knows. They're
indigenous to the country. They're facing a military force which, on paper at
least, is themostpowerful in the region, much more powerful on paper than the
army ofNicaragua, and they're somehow ineradicable. In contrast, theContras,
who involve all sorts of mercenaries including-nicaraguans, hondurans who are
bribed, honduran peasants who are bribed with big bribes by their standards,
like fivehundredUSD, that's a couple of years income, to join, all sorts of
things, huge amount of support, tremendouslyhigh level of military equipment,
and so on. They just can't keep them in the country. I mean, I think you could
keep a guerilla force in theUnitedStates with that kind of support, and I'm not
kidding. I think you could probably maintain a guerilla force in the mountains
of[TheStateOf]Kentucky with the kind of force that was, with the support that
was given to theContras. They couldn't keep them there. There's a lesson in all
of this. There's an obvious lesson in this comparison. So obvious that nobody
in the press is ever going to draw it, because it's the wrong lesson. You can
figure it out, so I won't draw it. Well, all right, so what is the, back to the
Bush administration plans. I assume that they can maintain a lowlevel
terroristforce insideNicaragua. It's inconceivable that they can't do that. So
probably they'll keep, you know, that's why I think, that's one of the reasons,
I think, that those reports about the illegalContraflights fromElSalvador are
probably accurate, apart from the fact that the sources were accurate in the
past. Presumably the Bush administration will keep some low level of support
for mercenaries and terrorists insideNicaragua. They assume that the level will
be so low, that the cooperative press will be silent about it, as they've been
so far. That's important, because that means Nicaragua can't demobilise. And
it's important to keep them mobilised. For one thing, because when you mobilise,
the society is repressive, just like theUnitedStates during WorldWarTwo, which
was virtually totalitarian. And if they're repressive, you can use that for propaganda.
So you can get, you know, theNiemanFellows to cry about repression, and so on,
in the manner that I described. So you want to do that, you want to make them
repressive, you want to keep them mobilised, you want to make sure that they
can't divert their extremelylimited resources to reconstruction from this
fantastic damage. Second thing theUnitedStates will try to do, if Congress and
the press ["]goes along["], they will do, is maintain a Contraforce
on the honduran border. That's what all this humanitarianaidnonsense is about.
You want to maintain the force on the border in violation of everything, as
I've pointed out, and the reason, again, is you maintain a threat. As long as
you maintain a military threat, you can ensure that theGovernment won't demobilise,
okay? And that's important, because we want them to suffer. But of course,
that's less, at a lower level than terror. You know, the idea is precisely,
here I get back to your point, also you continue the economic warfare, and the
pressure on international lending institutions, intimidate the allies, they
won't give them aid, and so on. All of this was abetted, incidentally, by the
hurricane. The hurricane was a devastating blow. Close to onebillionUSD in
damage. TheUnitedStates, of course, doesn't give
them a penny. In fact, they love it, you know, they're gloating over it.
The allies, theUSallies are giving them a pittance, like Canada, and westernEurope,
are giving them virtually nothing. Partly because they're intimidated byBigBrother,
and partly because they're a lot more colonised than they like to believe. You
know, they like to believe that they're all independent, and free thinkers, and
so on. Mostly the european intellectuals believe everybit of nonsense they read
from the american press. The amount of cultural colonisation is veryhigh,
though they don't, they're not aware of it. So, you know, they're all upset
about sandinista repression, although the repression in ElSalvador and
Guatemala, which is a thousand times worse, that doesn't bother them at all. So
they keep giving them aid. So there's that. And, you know, this combination of
operations, it is assumed, will preventNicaragua from recovering. And after
all, that's the point. The point is to prevent what TomasBorge, TomasBorge
had it right on the nose, you've got to prevent them
from constructing a society that works, because if they do, others are going to
emulate it. And pretty soon, USdomination of the region is going to erode.
And besides, that kind of rot can spread to other places, where people have
similar problems, and decide to use their resources for their own ends, and so
on, you get in real trouble. So you've got to prevent it from working. And theUnitedStates
certainly has the means to do that, short of the Reagan-ite absurdity of just
inflicting pain and terror for its own sake. Well, that's the kinder, gentler
methods. And one part of that is that you've got to cut back the coverage, you
know, part of that is the role of theMedia. Stop reporting it, so people forget
about it, and don't notice it, and so on. And the idea is, the effect will be
you'll quiet the domestic dissent. You'll return the public to apathy and
obedience by stop, by not reporting this stuff anymore. So I think you're point
is precisely accurate. The role of theMedia in this system is precisely, to
keep quiet about what's going on. And I expect we will find less coverage. I
mean, you know, you'll find coverage when you can, you know, you can find
something you'll call sandinista oppression. Or when, if there's mass
starvation, as there may well be, because of the hurricane, that'll be covered,
and it'll be attributed to sandinista incompetence, you know, or mismanagement,
or something. So that kind of thing will be covered. Or here's another thing that'll
be covered. The next big move, it's already been announced, is for theContras
to demand that, they've asked for tenmillionUSD to establish an independent
televisionstation in Nicaragua. Well, if Nicaragua allows, what's called, an
independentTelevisionstation, that means it's telling theUnitedStates, you take
over ourTelevision. There is no way in the world in
which a small country can compete with theUnitedStates inTelevision. I
mean, that's just out of the question, you know. I mean, if Nicaragua continues
to do what most countries do, and have StateTelevision, then of course, they
can be denounced as totalitarian. Notice, we don't
denounceIsrael as being totalitarian because it has onlyStateTelevision,
but that's the usual dichotomy. So the idea is, now we demand that Nicaragua
have a Televisionstation run by theUnitedStates, with beginning capital of tenmillionUSD,
which by, I mean, nicaraguan standards there's- I- you don't even know how to
discuss it. It's out of, you know, it's ["]off the wall["]. I mean, theUnitedStates
already dominates theMedia in much of the country. Much of theMedia, the only
thing you hear is USTradio from powerful radiotransmitters in Honduras and CostaRica,
and evenTelevision. If they can, if theUnitedStates can put a televisionstation
right inManagua, with all the resources theUnitedStates can pour into it. I
mean, they just, you know, that's the propagandaagency for all ofNicaragua. So,
that's the next thing, and theMedia will be all excited about this. And that'll
be the test of freedom, you know, they're only free if
they allow the total communicationssystem to be run by theUnitedStates,
otherwise they're totalitarians. [absurdity] That'll be the next line
that comes along. And there will be that kind of coverage, but no coverage
about what's going on. That's got to decline, precisely so that the american
movement will decline, and people will go back to the passivity and obedience
that becomes them, as I said. So I think your point is quiteaccurate. And the
question, as usual, is whether the american population is going to allow them
to get away with it. You know, that's the device, we don't have to let it work.
56. Excuse
me, I'm gonig to play the heavy.
57. Excuse
me, can I have just one more question?
58. Certainly
one more. We do have, we have timeconstraint on the theater that we have to
abide by. I apologise for that. This is. At least, we're not going to
have third question in the round.
59. Sorry,
I talk too long.
60. Bravo,
ProfessorChomsky, you are verybrave. This is about theUN. I don't get
information from theNewYorkTimes, and ABC, NBC, all the news. When I want
information, I go to the specialised agencies of theUN. And there you can find,
nowhere did they know that the population of the world was fivebillion, theUN
got that information, information on the radioactivity of the air, and so forth.
They have a vast amount of information. They also had information about cesium
in milkproducts which were going to highly populated areas, Boston and NewYork
for twoyears. TheUN had this information. Citizensgroups badgered theMedia to
bring this information. It was never there. But, at theUN, we were able to get that information. So what
we did is we wrote a proposal which was presented to theGeneralAssembly,
because we felt that we as parents have a right to vital information about the
food and the water and the air, and theUN has that information, and it just
sits there. So, we wrote this proposal calling for a twoway global informationservice.
We presented it to theGeneralAssembly, verywell in[19]87 at the international
conference on the relationship between disarmament and development, it was a veryimportant
conference. It received verygood support. A year later, we tried to present the
proposal again. This time we had gained the support of the swedishGovernment,
the australianGovernment, and CostaRica. There was violent, violent opposition
to the proposal, to the point where two ambassadors were told that they would
be terminated if they, in any way, supported any proposal asking for a global
informationservice. Now, in september, theUN is meeting again, and we're going
to try to ["]push["] the proposal. We were shocked by the opposition
that this proposal got, because, after all, it's a verymodest proposal. We're
just asking for vital information, and we tried to get, anyway, terrible, the
opposition. So we're going to present the proposal again in september. Do you
have any ideas on strategy? Sound of laughter.
61. Was
that a question or a statement? Well, it wasn't a question, so I don't really
have to answer it, but let me just say in response to the nonquestion, that I, actually
I have a book coming out. I like these phrases like ManufactureOfConsent and NecessaryIllusions,
and so on. They're too good to [discard] let drop. So, I have another book
coming out calledNecessaryIllusions, thanks toReinholdNiebuhr. And in
it, one of the things. It's more of this kind of stuff. One of the things I
discuss is the coverage of theUN, and it's extremelyinteresting. It's not that theUN
is never covered. Whenever theUN passes a resolution denouncing the russians
for the invasion ofAfghanistan, big story, you know. If theUN condemns theUnitedStates
for violation ofInternationalLaw, there's no story. The coverage is extremelyinteresting
when you look closely. I actually, if, for those of you who were there this
afternoon I mentioned one example, the terrorismthing, which is veryimportant.
But let me take one case which is illustrative of the kind of thing you're
talking about. That sameUNsession, in1987, there was a big series of disarmamentresolutions. And they were veryinteresting,
because they came out right at the time that RonaldReagan
was being hailed in the frontpages as a peacemaker. That was the summit
in Washington[DC], december1987, the summit inWashington[DC], Reagan the
peacemaker, you know, veryexcited, and so on. Well, right at that time theUN
passed a series of disarmamentresolutions. Here's what they were. There was a resolution opposing militarisation of outer space,
StarWars. Onehundredandfiftyfour to one, no abstentions. You never get a vote
like that in theUN. You can guess who the one was. A
vote against, a vote in favour of a, of, opposed to the development of new
weapons of massdestruction, a hundred, I think it was onehundredandthirtyfive
to two. TheUnitedStates ["]picked up["] France on that one. [Of
course.] A vote for a comprehensive testban,
which is, incidentally, supported by something like seventyfivepercent of the
American population, the vote on that was like, I don't know, onehundredandforty
to three, something like that. France and England picked up on that one. That's
the way the resolutions were. Well, they were not reported, because that just
wouldn't fit with the idea of theUnited, ofRonaldReagan the peacemaker. On the
other hand, other things were reported, like, for example, the resolution
condemning the russians inAfghanistan. Big story on that. And there was a lot
of coverage of theUN, but this is the way it was. Now, this has been going on
over the years, for many years. You go back to the1940s and theearly1950s, and theUN
was everybody's["]darling["]. Tremendous coverage of theUN, it was
marvelous, it was magnificent. And the reason was that, or let's say the
correlation is, I assume the reason, that, at that point, theUnitedStates had
an automatic majority at theUN. Anything theUnitedStates proposed, theUN voted.
That just had to do with the relations of power at the time. The russians were
obnoxious. They kept vetoing things. And there were all, you take a look back
at the discussion at that time, the leading american scholars, you know,
anthropologists and so on, had all kind of ["]deep["] theories about
why the Russians are vetoing everything at theUN. The, I was a graduatestudent
at the time, and, you know, we used to make fun of, the three or four of us who
sort of thought this was idiotic, made fun of this. One of the main proposals,
which came from people likeMargaretMeade and others, was that the reason that russians
were so negative and obnoxious at theUN was because they raised their children
in swaddling clothes. Sound of laughter. And that makes them negative. And then
when they get up at theUN, they just say no all the time. Diaperology is what
we called it. Anyhow that was the big, you know, profound theory. Well, over
the years, the thing has changed, you know, by now theUnitedStates is isolated
at theUN. The United States vetoes everything. We veto way more resolutions
than anybody else. These, the votes I just reported are not untypical, you
know. So what happened? Well, it turns out that theUN has lost itsMoralauthority.
You find articles, like theNewYorkTimesMagazine had a big story, about why the
world is out of step literally. Sound of laughter. You know, how come the whole
world is against theUnitedStates? What's wrong with them? I mean, it's not that
we raise our babies wrong, you know, it's that they, the rest of the world, is
doing something wrong. And then comes the profound analysis of why the world is
out of step, and you know, what's the matter with the worldculture, and so on
and so forth. And theUN has lost its Moralauthority, theUnitedStates doesn't ["]pay
its dues["] anymore, you don't report it, and now they, theUN is, you
know, is obnoxious, because they're not following orders. Well, you know,
that's a dramatic example of how theMedia ["]fall in line["]. And
what you're talking about is another case of it. And, again, as you, just the
way you're doing, the reason you're getting such outraged reaction is that,
implicitly at least, you're exposing all of this. And that's no good. So
therefore, the outraged reaction, which is just all the more reason to keep
doing it. Thanks.
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