Manufacturing Consent
 

In a recent thread here (Provocative Assertion), the argument turned fairly quickly to the power of large corporations and their abuse of that power. The most definitive exposition on that theme I've ever seen is Noam Chomsky's 17-part video: "Manufacturing Consent". I've always thought of Chomsky as a socialist, and of myself as a conservative, but I must say that Chomsky makes a very good case here. I've watched the first 4 in the series and in time will watch them all. Rather interesting commentary by an extremely articulate and thoughtful scholar.

I find Chomsky to be somewhat difficult to categorize, and, at least in the past, occasionally difficult to believe.

In earlier years, when he spent a lot of time condemning the US involvement in Viet Nam, many of his assertions were demonstrated to conflict with historical fact. (I can't give specific examples - it's been many, many years since I was into researching that era.) I believe a lot of the discrepancies can be attributed to ideological bias.

More recently, since he seems to have gotten out of his "Communist/socialist apologist" mode, I, too, have found him to be very insightful and much more candid about the realities of the world than what recent "historians", the mainstream press, history as presented in the public schools (sample space of my kids, only), and, of course, the fairy tales constantly spun by the government would have the public believe.

He's definitely worth reading - he makes one stop and think.

And, according to my son who's a linguistics professor, he's topnotch in linguistics, too. Most people don't realize that Chomsky's day job is prof of linguistics at MIT.

One of Chomsky's students, Steven Pinker, now a prof at Harvard, wrote a book called "Words & Rules" which summarizes his work as an extension of Chomsky's quite nicely. I found it a good read if you're interested in such things. I enjoyed Pinker's "The Language Instinct" too.

I was a prof at MIT** for 8 years (20+ years ago), and occasionally attended Chomsky's talks. I didn't always agree (mostly because of the heavy socialist bias), but always found him provocative and therefore interesting.

** I was the odd man out in my family. Grandfather a physician, father a PhD research chemist and prof, son a cell biologist -- I'm the only Engineer.

As a fellow conservative, I was interested in watching the vid with your comments in mind. Then I got sidetracked by something at the time marker 10:12. Is that Brit Hume next to Jean Piaget?

I didn't notice; but then I rarely watch Fox here in Canada.

Probably not--just struck me. Here is the 1975 shot from the video, and a present day shot.

I've never watched Chomsky, just read him. But zowie is that guy an obsessive footnoter. I've never seen more complete footnotes from anybody. If he's hard to believe, at least he's got many immaculate sources for his assertions that can be checked.

Trevor

I can't recall specifics (but generally related to our invasions of Cambodia and Laos, anyway) after all this time, but his opponents found numerous errors in cause and effect arguments. As an illustration, he would write that event A happened which resulted in response B. Yes, the events may have happened as he described, although records show that the decision to take action B occurred prior to event A happening. He used this cause and effect implication to support his point of view at the time.

One can say that since he was writing contemporaneously with, or shortly after, the events, he was not privy to this type of info, but there were numerous examples cited by several of his critics, and they all appeared to make the US policy look bad. It just struck me that he was more interested in axe grinding than in impartial commentary.

I will grant that, all things considered, we were very often not the "good guys" during that period, but we were also not always exclusively the "bad guys" either, as he seemed to portray.

But again, as I said earlier, he seems to have outgrown that phase.

when it comes to politics, for some reason, even the most even-handed and unbiased observations are taken as axe-grinding. Chomsky was more of an activist than most academics, granted, but I don't think he's unjustified in saying what he says. his theory did tend to exceed his grasp, though...

I feel that as a participant in that other thread who believes that large corporations are a greater threat to a 'free market' than any socialist, I should point out that your perception of Chomsky (or most anyone else) is probably more influenced by your own beliefs than his.

People who consider themselves conservative seem quick to label those who disagree with them as being left wing, but this doesn't have to be the case, and in fact rarely is. What do you call some one who believes that the government shouldn't be spending our children's futures away, that people and organizations should be held accountable for their actions, and that there need to be checks and balances in government? To me, that would be a conservative, but being some one who believes those things and who sees what alleged conservatives have done over the last decade and are doing now, the last thing I want to be called is conservative.

Perhaps it isn't Chmsky's mellowing or maturing that has made him more acceptable. Maybe it's your own!

Actually, a better description of my "mellowing" process, CWT, would be that I have come to realize that, almost without exception, when the government of the USA or Canada gets involved in a process they screw it up. They do so, in my opinion, largely in response to "special interests" among which the big corps are a powerful segment, and they are prone to believing polls without understanding that the spin doctors are the basis of those opinions -- not an understanding of the issues.

I am not conservative in a political sense -- politically I believe less is better -- Ike was a good president because he didn't do anything. I am conservative in the sense of believing that more often than not, "things" are better left alone to evolve as they will. Chomsky's point in the piece I mentioned is that the public are bombarded with "messages" manipulated by the powers that be -- governments, special interest groups, media, and the big corps alike -- and that this bombardment of info "spin" means that it is very difficult for the "ordinary" citizen to know what is actually going on.

Democracy depends on representation, but intelligent representation requires that the voter have at least a rudimentary grasp of the issues. Chomsky's point in this instance is that a grasp of the true issues is nearly impossible to come by; we are all manipulated -- not by fear as we might be in a totalitarian government, left or right, but by "message" bombardment.

Frank Herbert (original author of the Dune series) wrote two novels in which the principal character was an agent of the BuSab, an agency whose task it was to make sure that the government, given near instant polls and information on events and an overly fast response, could not act too quickly. To quote from Wikipedia's take on those novels:

I'm that ilk of "conservative", CWT.

-- This part may be censored if the moderators feel it is a bit over the top --
The best response to Saddam would have been none at all. The best response to the music and entertainment industries was certainly not the DCMA. 9/11 was a victory for the wrong side because the response is so painful to everyone who must cross a border or travel when compared to the risk. The feds blew it in New Orleans and haven't fixed it yet. The US position on Cuba really didn't accomplish anything at all. In each of those cases, we were lied to, our info was "spun" to us, and it took us a long time to discover it.

without disagreeing with you too much (because I really don't - if anything, I might be more conservative than you in your sense of the word...), I do have to ask: what makes you think we live in a democracy? the US was created as a kind of liberalized constitutional oligarchy, and over time it's become progressively more federalist and corporativist. the things people usually point to as "democratic" mostly have to do with social welfare or economic liberalism; there's no real democratic interaction in the US above the level of local politics, and not as much there as you might hope.

don't get me wrong, I'm a great fan of democracy, and I wish we had it. But that's not built into the American model

ironically, the next great democratic movement might start in China. I know there's a lot of people studying it there, and Tieneman is bound to swing around again...

I believe in all those things, and I'd call myself a libertarian. However the method you want to use to accomplish those things is what makes you a socialist.

Never heard of this before. I read the Wiki entry. Fantastic premise, sounds great - I'm gonna buy if/when I can find it.

I can't see anything "over the top" here.

I agree that the label is problematic.

The philosophy of many of those who currently call themselves "conservative" bears little or no resemblance to what was referred to as conservatism in years past. I can't think of a single-word descriptor that I would apply to them, but fascist comes fairly close.

It's curious that when Hitler and Stalin referred to themselves as socialists (National- and Soviet, respectively) very few bought into that terminology, but when Bush, Cheney, and their ilk call themselves conservative, almost everyone (except for a few actual conservatives) seems content to go along with applying that label.

Just another example of words losing their real meaning due to constant misuse, I guess.

Yes, and then you should start laying brown eggs. That place can only be held together by a heavy hand - didn't say that was right, but it remains a fact. Add democracy and watch Iraq look like a sideshow. Go back to the Twenties and China was a collection of powerful, feudal, warlords, vis-a-vis Afghanistan.

Think that has changed...?

Sounds so simple, isn't it?

But please, explain...who gives USA the right to invade foreign nations..?

Not exclusively the bad guys? Yes, the other bad guys were the corrupt governments that were working together with the USA. Just before Cambodia and Laos, USA gave approval to the Indonesian Government for the invasion of East Timor, and 300.000 East-Timor citizens were killed. The American press didn't report the massacre at all, just the news slowly came out in the European press and then, it couldn't be ignored.

300,000 people....

Naom Chomsky has been for many years one of the few americans who spoke the truth...a bright light in the dark...while nobody else cared...except about lies...and he deserves a lot of respect for doing so. One of the most intelligent and capable persons of our generation.

.

Or a Fascist, as the case may be.

Either way, to call somebody a socialist just because they object to multinational corporate monopolies destroying any semblance of a free market while threatening the sovereignty of every nation on earth, including the US would be:

go back to the 18th century and the US was a collection of independent colonies of a large and brutal empire. think that has changed?

China (unlike Afghanistan) is an industrialized nation with a high rate of literacy and education, and the beginnings of a strong semi-liberal economy. and (as more philosophers than I care to note have pointed out) democracy and violence go hand in hand. not because people who believe in democracy are violent, but because people who don't believe in democracy are unwilling to give up power. not many people in the US care about political democracy; not many people in the US care about politics at all. that's not true of China.

maybe it takes not having it to appreciate it. and maybe in the coming years we'll all come to appreciate it more.

True. I appreciate it now more than I used to. ;)

Interesting...

fas·cism /ˈfæʃɪzəm/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[fash-iz-uhm] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
–noun
1. (sometimes initial capital letter) a governmental system led by a dictator having complete power, forcibly suppressing opposition and criticism, regimenting all industry, commerce, etc., and emphasizing an aggressive nationalism and often racism.
2. (sometimes initial capital letter) the philosophy, principles, or methods of fascism.
3. (initial capital letter) a fascist movement, esp. the one established by Mussolini in Italy 1922–43.

So you advocate that government should control all industry, and commerce, etc, yet you call ME the fascist??

socialism is a set of populist philosophies about economic systems that tends to create political oppression through obsessive attempts to create equality.

fascism is a set of elitist philosophies about social and cultural cohesion that tends to create political oppression through obsessive attempts at establishing group superiority.

they are often difficult to distinguish from each other, since the rhetoric of the modern world blandly equates individual superiority (through competition) with equality (through freedom of competition). to my mind, frankly, the only real difference between them is that they use different words when they get around to name-calling (which they always do); and even that's disappearing, since 'fascist' and 'socialist' have become cliché insults lacking any real sense or meaning.

that being said: merry christmas!

Sounds to me very much like the government we've had for the last 7 years:
✔ Extreme right-wing. - Makes Reagan look like a liberal!
✔ Militarist. - Why invade one country when you can invade two?
✔ Nationalisitic. - Ok, this one's just for propaganda purposes, while he sells our sovereignty to multianational coporations.
✔ Xenophobic - Let's build walls (fences) like the Soviets did!
✔ Jingoistic. - "Mission Accomplished"
✔ antonym democratic. - I wonder if Republican rallies still require loyalty oaths (Like the Nazis used to require) now that Bush isn't running.



Now, if you cold please point out where I have EVER suggested "that government should control all industry, and commerce, etc." I have suggested that the government's job is to keep those things from running amuck — a far cry from controlling them. I suggest that we need to recognize that corporations are not benevolent institutions, nor are they American, nor of any other nationality. They exist for their own good and no one else's, which is why we have thousands of SuperFund sites across America, and doubtless many thousands more undiscovered polluted wastelands throughout the third world, much of Europe and certainly China.

OK, if this thread continues to get personal, not only will it be closed but some people will be invited to take holiday vacations.

thank you!

Wow, I didn't understand when I made the original post that I was opening a can of worms.
Best wishes to all -- enjoy the holiday.

I'd like to know who you feel got personal, and at what post number. :confused: Since your comment comes immediately after a post of mine, I naturally reread it. I see the definition of fascist supplied by OS X's dictionary along with a short description of how it fits with recent history, and an explanation of my view of Government's job with respect to Business.

Prior to post #21, I had thought that we were speaking in general terms about what makes a Socialist or a Fascist, but perhaps I was wrong. It's hard to know, because for the last decade in this country people who are even slightly right of center have tended to describe anyone even a little left of their position as being on the left wing. That's made it more or less a conditioned response to ignore references to Socialism as merely chaff.

I didn't realize that "socialist" has become an insult, and didn't intend it as such. It was just a statement of fact. While I may be against socialism, that doesn't mean that I think the "socialist" label is an insult.

See above.

In every thread where government control of an industry was discussed, you have been for government control. So which industry should government NOT control? You're even for government control of music and media distribution, and how iPhones are priced and sold.

You're confusing my assertion that government needs to fulfill its role of providing law and order in business as well as the rest of society with the idea that government should manage those businesses. I believe that everyone should be held accountable for their actions, and that includes businesses. In fact, I think that businesses should be held to higher standards than individuals, and that those at the top of the corporate ladder should bear that extra burden. I think it's ridiculous to expect a child to clean up after themselves and not hold a corporation to that same minimum standard.

The problem with this assertion (for me anyway) is that "be held accountable" is pretty vague. What do you mean by that? There are laws on the books for providing law, order, and accountability. Are you asserting that they're ineffective, or just that they aren't enforced? Perhaps we'd understand your position better if you gave us an example of what you'd like to see happen in some specific instance.

I mentioned cleaning up after yourself because I think it's a great example of the government's failure to do its job. There are no naturally occurring Super Fund Sites in the United States. Virtually every one was caused by the activities of business. I would make every business responsible for the full cleanup of every site that they created or added to. If they didn't clean it up in short order, then I would have the government do it, and charge them what the government spent on the clean up, and I would make that charge 100% non tax deductible. Since the Captain is responsible for his ship, I'd also like to see a fine for CEOs and board members and their estates for those who held those positions when the toxic waste site was created or added to. Since the government is well known for purchasing $900 hammers, I think you would very quickly see businesses acting more responsibly.

Note that none of this applies to how the business runs itself as a Socialist would like to do. I don't care how they run their business or what they charge for their products. I do care about the mess they leave behind. It is all about businesses living up to their responsibilities.

Here's one take on what Boards should be responsible for in corporate governance:

1. its human resource principles – respect and dignity for all
2. its dedication to accurate and transparent accounting and financial standards
3. its concern for the environment, for good business ethics and conduct, for social advancement
4. its over-riding passion to serve customers
5. its insistence on fair treatment of suppliers – and competitors
6. its uncompromising standard to comply with government laws and regulations in all countries in which it operates
7. its desire to work with others to lead society to a better economic standard and quality of life

I certainly agree that the average corporation doesn't come close.

I think it's government's job to see that they do, and our government, especially recently, has failed in its job.

If the United States is anything like Canada in this regard, the real difficulty is that the Feds, the States, and Municipalities play pass the responsibility for minding the store to each other like musical chairs played to the flight of the bumblebee. States relax their laws to attract a potentially large employer to a depressed region or, just as bad, turn a blind eye to these things lest the mill or whatever it is pull up stakes and go where the laws are easier. There is a complete lack of uniformity.

That's a problem too, but the big problem this decade has been that the fox is guarding the henhouse. The EPA is basically a rubber stamp for anything any big business would like to do, and we've all seen what happened to the anti-trust case against Microsoft right after the 2000 elections.

"that the fox is guarding the henhouse" is one way to look at it. Another, equally viable, is that politicians try very hard to avoid putting anyone out of work. When the going gets tough for a lot of companies, they pull up stakes and move to a state that cares less, or they close down and move to Mexico, or they export the work and infringements to somewhere with lower standards or easily bribed watchdogs. At the end of the day, the world doesn't benefit. It's just not as easy as enforcing the law.

lol - you obviously haven't watched much television, at least not what passes for television for the far right. socialist isn't as bad as fascist, granted (it's about on a par with the way republican politicians in the US use liberal), but I can't think of any time I've heard someone say "wow, you're such a socialist" and mean something positive by it. I will add - as a general rule - that when it comes to identification terms, the only 'fact' you have is what the person calls himself or herself. if cwt does not think of himself as a socialist, he's not a socialist; he may have some ideas that are similar to socialist thought, but then so did both Franklin and Theodore Roosevelt.

some of the people from the deep south still have this problem - they want to use the N word for african americans. they're not trying to be mean; that's just the word they use for blacks, and it's a fact that those people are black, you know... but that's just pure prejudice passing itself off as logic.

if you want to argue this further, that would be fine, but please read my quote (below), because that's where I'm going to go with this. ;)

Socialist has very different connotations in different countries too. Here in Canada there is a Socialist party called the New Democratic Party. To call someone a socialist is not an insult at all.

I agree.

Do you or do you not think that Apple should be forced to sell the iPhone in a certain way or without certain restrictions on its use? Do you or do you not advocated telling music vendors how to sell their products?

I fully agree. In a free market, the victims of such waste dumping would be able to sue the company, but in our system of mercantilism we are forced to depend on government to protect us, and we have lost our ability to look after ourselves. When government then, predictably, is sold to the highest bidder, the power is turned against us. The only solid solution is to remove this power from government and return it to the people.

I watch very little other than educational programs. Zero news, none of the top shows in the mainstream, and only a few entertainment programs. I certainly would never watch far-right or far-left programs, and there are no libertarian or centrist programs that I know of. Cwt espouses all of the socialist ideals I know of, so I used the label, in my opinion, correctly and without malice.

America is different from many countries in that the same companies that would move much of their manufacturing still very much want access to our markets. That would make it much easier to enforce the law, if we had the political will to do it.
Here in America, there's a mad rush to prove you're not liberal at all, let alone left wing. Generally, if a "Ditto Head*" or somebody that listens to :eek: Sean Hannity :eek: sees you as being less conservative than they are, they'll usually react like you're a communist. Nuance escapes them, and that makes the masses go farther right than they really believe, condoning the Christian version of religious fatwas like prayer in school, or condemning 'liberal' spending while running up record deficits and wasting time on issues like Freedom Fries or gay marriage when the country has real problems to worry about.

The funny thing is that conservative has so little real meaning, as does liberal. I know lots of people who call themselves conservative but don't fit any definition of it that I'm aware of, and most people I know that get branded as liberal are more conservative in many ways than those who claim to be conservative.


*A Rush Limbaugh fan. :eek:

excellent. and by that reasoning, you would not possibly object to cwt calling you a fascist, so long as he believes that you espouse all the fascist ideas that he knows of. glad we could settle this. :)

I'm not sure what you mean by that, but if you mean would I like to see the iPhone sold by multiple carriers, yes, but I don't see that being the government's job. If music vendors want to sell their music, then they should sell it. Adding DRM strikes me as dishonest in that they're trying to have their cake and eat it too. DRM is for rentals.

Now if Apple creates a mess producing iPhones, they ought to be required to clean it up, and I wouldn't have a problem with the US Government requiring them to clean up the mess in another country. That pollution, or its affects would find its way here in one form or another.

I agree, but I hope you're aware that "this power" calls itself conservative.

I just want to say that I didn't think Carlos meant me in particular at the time, and I didn't mean him either, although I did leave the door open if he cared to step into that role. ;) Honestly, I don't know anyone who's truly conservative to the point of Fascism or liberal to the point of socialism.

What scares me is politicians who whip people into a frenzy about manufactured issues so that they can manipulate the system. Can anybody tell me what business school prayer or flag burning could legitimately have in a Presidential campaign? When I see things like that, and then Newspeak like "No child left behind" then I start thinking that 1984 is just around the corner.


For anyone not familiar with 1984.

You can call me anything you want. I will however post the definition if your usage is incorrect.

Unfortunately I'm well aware of the bastardization of that word in the current way it is used. I would probably fit the original conservative definition, but have very little in common with those taking the word today.

hmmm... the bar you set for your own use of the term 'socialist' was reasonable belief given your current understanding of the world:
dictionary definitions or other third-party attempts at defining meaning did not come into the issue. by those standards, cwt has a perfect right to call you (or anyone) fascist, and so long as he has a 'reasonable belief' that that is the case, he cannot (by your own definition) be wrong. or are you holding a double standard, here, where your 'reasonable beliefs' ought to count as facts, while other people's 'reasonable beliefs' only count as opinions?

I'll add that the one definition you posted was not to correct cwt's usage of the word fascism, as you claim, but rather to suggest that cwt's beliefs were even more fascist. not exactly kosher, that...

so, which standard are we going to use?

I don't care, you win.

Labels are, of course, generalizations. I tend to be liberal on social issues, conservative on economic issues, and Libertarian on political issues.... or even Socialist leaning (my definition of Socialist) on some issues such as Medicare, Social Security, and national health care. Contradictory, isn't it? Most of us are.

What we believe is irrelevant except when we go to the polls and vote. You need only look at the last candidate you voted for who won, and that's who and what you are in the only arena that matters. (This assumes the votes were actually counted, but that's another issue for another time.)

As I get older, the more I have come to recognize that it is not corrupt, abusive corporations or even the federal bureaucracy that most impact my life. They are not the ones who infringe on my personal freedoms the most. They are not the ones who have the most impact on my pocket book. That honor goes to state and local governments. I paid more in state and local taxes last year than I sent to Uncle Sam. It was the state Utilities Commission that negotiated a huge rate increase for electricity in a budget that included large bonuses for dozens of the utility's executives. The same Commission also approved an equally large increase for natural gas in a state that has extremely low taxes on natural gas production. Sure glad we regulate those utilities!

In the last Presidential election in my congressional district, the majority of votes went to a conservative President, a conservative Governor, one of the most liberal Congressmen in Washington DC and two liberal Senators. All were elected.

No wonder our leadership seems to lack direction.

it's not about winning, it's about making sense.

The way I see it, moving jobs to save a little on labor costs while keeping your prices the same or raising them, and successfully lobbying Congress for tax breaks for large corporations does have a huge impact on all of our pocket books. I would have no problem giving tax breaks to Big Oil for example, if they cleaned up after themselves (the Valdez spill for example, is still a problem almost twenty years later) and if they were investing in American workers while seriously (less than a few days profit per year isn't serious) developing alternative sources of energy.

When was the last time you bought something other than food which wasn't manufactured on the Pacific Rim?

Okay... but how do you change anything if:

1. Your vote is not counted. (Have you seen the new touch screen voting machines that do not produce a paper copy of your vote.... you cannot verify who you voted for and so no recount is possible?)

2. Your fellow citizens vote consistently for grid lock.

3. Federal policy is directed in such a way as to support the moneyed interests and the stock market, regardless of party.

4. Economic prosperity is measured by GNP/GDP, regardless of the fact that virtually all of the increase is going to the moneyed few.

5. The conservatives run up the national debt to absurd numbers while the feds hold down interest rates to avoid inflicting the pain of illogical economic policy. (Wonder why the dollar is falling?) And the last time we had a balanced budget, it was under the control of the tax and spend liberals? Huh?

Just one example of what I'm talking about. Huge tax cuts that dollar wise went overwhelmingly to the very well to do was followed by a housing boom.... 40 percent of the homes purchased in 2006 went to the wealthy as second homes or investment properties. Prices zoomed upward -- too many dollars chasing too few goods. The effect on Joe six pack is the price of a FIRST home is completely and maybe forever out of sight for his family because his wages were pretty much stagnant through this period. The rich got richer and the poor got poorer. When the bubble burst, the conservatives put forth government intervention to ease the pain on the lenders (protect the moneyed interests). And, of course, the bankruptcy laws were rewritten to remove the only chance Joe six pack had of ever making a recovery.

6. Our manufacturing base is slowly disappearing to foreign interests.... and the conservatives think a flat tax or a so called "Fair Tax" is the answer. And it seems they all support "free trade," even when it's not "fair trade" and no comparative advantage exists between the trading partners.

7. In the meantime back home, state/local sales taxes are pushing 10 percent, and yes we tax food. Utilities rates have doubled in the past few years. Property get reassessed every couple years and property taxes adjusted upward (housing boom didn't help here, either.) We tax used car purchases. Our public schools are failing so we throw huge dollar amounts at them, with no results. Our jails are overcrowded and need more money. There is no end in sight.

Oh, woe is me!

Exactly. And to add injury on top of injury, it doesn't seem to be improving the lives of the people in those countries. China has pollution on a scale never seen in America, India is still basically poor, etc. Where is the benefit of this allegedly free market?