Interesting interview found on Youtube:
1) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0OnTHz- ... re=related
2) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3WgX4TB ... re=related
3) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBAM0qEx ... re=related
4) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OoLForaQ ... re=related
5) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YASo_hl ... re=related
6) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4geUgrn ... re=related
7) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fa8XoS4K ... re=related
Noam Chomsky - Propaganda and Control of The Public Mind
Re: Noam Chomsky - Propaganda and Control of The Public Mind
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XnihgXhh3c
I found this most recent talk of Chomsky's very disturbing. At one point he points to the high voter abstinence, and says the research makes it look like these not voting are incredibly disenfranchised, as none of the candidates seem to meet the things they want. Apparently the voting percentage now is very similar to how it was before any of the civil rights movements came into effect, e.g. relatively rich white men. And most of the abstainers are profiled as those who would vote for the labor party if our country had one (e.g. socialism or something similar).
Is it possible that most of our policy is completely against the majority needs? That we are simply a Plutocracy that looks like a democracy?
Chomsky also points out that our entire party schema has right shifted tremendously since the 50s, such that the arguments from many of the democrats today are actually much more like conservative republican claims from sixty or seventy years ago.
I found this most recent talk of Chomsky's very disturbing. At one point he points to the high voter abstinence, and says the research makes it look like these not voting are incredibly disenfranchised, as none of the candidates seem to meet the things they want. Apparently the voting percentage now is very similar to how it was before any of the civil rights movements came into effect, e.g. relatively rich white men. And most of the abstainers are profiled as those who would vote for the labor party if our country had one (e.g. socialism or something similar).
Is it possible that most of our policy is completely against the majority needs? That we are simply a Plutocracy that looks like a democracy?
Chomsky also points out that our entire party schema has right shifted tremendously since the 50s, such that the arguments from many of the democrats today are actually much more like conservative republican claims from sixty or seventy years ago.
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El Duderino
- Posts: 177
- Joined: Mon Oct 27, 2014 12:24 pm
Reading Chomsky and watching the film Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media was a real turning point in my understanding of the world. Media, news, advertisements, sports, politics -- none of it has been the same since.
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RealPerson
- Posts: 875
- Joined: Thu Nov 22, 2012 4:33 pm
Re: Noam Chomsky - Propaganda and Control of The Public Mind
In health care, there is a steady expansion of soft coercion. You can decline some government "offer", but if you do....... It is a pseudochoice. Just a different form of the manipulation Chomsky talks about. This phenomenon takes on many forms. Reminds me to look up the definition of freedom, because I sure can't detect much of it in daily life.
Re: Noam Chomsky - Propaganda and Control of The Public Mind
Yes, but that's how the country (the U.S.) was designed in the first place -- only a minority had the right to vote, and for only two things at the federal level -- a representative and a presidential elector. Senators were appointed by state legislatures and non-white non-male people were not allowed to participate for the most part. It was never intended to be a democracy, but a republic with divided power structures. Since then, most people have been enfranchised and power has been concentrated in the executive.Slevin wrote: Is it possible that most of our policy is completely against the majority needs? That we are simply a Plutocracy that looks like a democracy?
Chomsky also points out that our entire party schema has right shifted tremendously since the 50s, such that the arguments from many of the democrats today are actually much more like conservative republican claims from sixty or seventy years ago.
As for the party shift, the chronological range is too short for a cogent analysis and falls into the fallacy of the linear narrative of history. There was a similar shift leftward from the early 1900s through the early 1970s, culminating with Nixon declaring himself to be a Keynesian and his endorsement of the Equal Rights Amendment after the passage of the 26th Amendment. At that time you could find many conservatives who were also pessimistic about the future on the basis of a false linear narrative.
I would bet it will start going leftward again in the 2020s -- harbingers of that change being the legalization of gay marriage and decriminalization of marijuana. Just because Chomsky's generation failed to continue the shift leftward earlier in his life does not mean the next generation will not resurrect it.
The really big historical difference now is that America is a de facto world empire that is unchallenged since about 1990. The long-term ramifications of that are unknown.