Post by Papa C. on Feb 1, 2006 14:59:48 GMT
Chomsky Quotes
"You begin to conform, you being to get the privilege of conformity. You soon come to believe what you're saying because it's useful to believe it, an then you've internalized the system of indoctrination and distortion and deception, and then you're a willing member of the privileged elite's that control thought and indoctrination. That happens all the time, all the way to the top. It's a very rare person, almost to the point of non-existence, who can tolerate what's called "cognitive dissonance" -- saying one thing and believing another. You start saying certain things because it's necessary to say them and pretty soon you believe them because you just have to."
American Class Differences
In the United States you’re not allowed to talk about class differences. In fact, only two groups are allowed to be class-conscious in the United States. One of them is the business community, which is rabidly class-conscious. When you read their literature, it’s all full of the danger of the masses and their rising power and how we have to defeat them. It’s kind of vulgar, inverted Marxism. The other group is the high planning sectors of the government. They talk the same way - how we have to worry about the rising aspirations of the common man and the impoverished masses who are seeking to improve standards and harming the business climate. So they can be class conscious. They have a job to do. But it’s extremely important to make other people, the rest of the population, believe that there is no such thing as class. We’re all just equal, we’re all Americans, we live in harmony, we all work together, everything is great. George Bush was trying to create conditions for exporting jobs overseas. He continued to help out with the undermining of unions and the lowering of real wages. So what does he mean when he and the media shout "Jobs, jobs, jobs?" It’s obvious: "Profits, profits, profits." Figure out a way to increase profits. The idea is to create a picture among the population that we’re all one happy family. We’re America, we have a national interest, we’re working together. There are us nice workers, the firms in which we work and the government who works for us. We pick then-they’re out servants. And that’s all there is in the world-no other conflicts, no other categories of people, no further structure to the system beyond that. Certainly nothing like class. Unless you happen to be the ruling class, in which case you’re very well aware of it.
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The is a business run society. 1 out of every 6 dollars (1 Trillion dollars/yr Major financial commitment) in the entire US economy is used for marketing (form of manipulation and deceit) an effort to create artificial wants, to control the way people look and think about things. Marketing is an inefficient use of funds, doesn't produce anything. alot of it is straight vulgar propaganda, advertising. Most marketing is tax free, so the people pay for the privilege of being propagandized. This is standard academic (social sciences) and public relations institutional knowledge. You would have to break through alot of psychic resistance to successfully organize a battle against this. You're struggling against 5 hours a day of television, the movie industry, books, the schools etc... The scale of the efforts and the frenzied dedication to controlling peoples minds is pretty impressive. But then again, if you think of the stakes, it's not too surprising.
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"There is no reason to accept the doctrines crafted to sustain power and privilege, or to believe that we are constrained by mysterious and unknown social laws. These are simply decisions made within institutions that are subject to human will and that must face the test of legitimacy. And if they do not meet the test, they can be replaced by other institutions that are more free and more just, as has happened often in the past."
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"People who believe in a better way of life know that the way we live now is criminal. Denial of freedoms, death by starvation and exploitation, denigration of people's capabilities everywhere. If you see that these outcomes are socially produced, then you understand that every person who dies as a result was effectively murdered. Once you accept the possibility of attaining a humanist alternative, you have to be a terrible hypocrite, coward or cynic to live passively with the contrast between what is and what could be."
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"When you come back from the Third World to the West - the U.S. in particular - you are struck by the narrowing of thought and understanding, the limited nature of legitimate discussion, the separation of people from each other. It's startling how stultifying it feels, since our opportunities are so vastly greater here."
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"You liberate yourself through participation with others ... Popular organizations and umbrella groups help create a basis for this."
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"I do not think that the State ought to have the right to determine historical truth and to punish people who deviate from it."
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"The ideal is to create a completely fragmented atomized society where everybody is totally alone, doing nothing but trying to pursue created wants, and the wants are created."
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"The general population recognizes that the organized institutions do not reflect their concerns and interests and needs. That means an attack on the fundamental structure of State capitalism. I think that's in order. That's not something far off in the future."
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"There are people with power. There are people who own the country, and they're not going to let the country get out of control."
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Chomsky baffles U of T graduates
National Post - Toronto - June 6, 2000
"Leaders of industry, academic and public intellectuals have emphasized the need to regiment public minds every bit as much as an army regiments the body of its soldiers; to impose a philosophy of futility and lack of purpose in life, which can then be exploited to concentrate human attention on the more superficial things that comprise much of fashionable consumption so people will accept, and even welcome their meaningless and subordinate lives as they seek to gain wealth."
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"Personally, I'm in favor of democracy, which means that the central institutions of society have to be under popular control. Now, under capitalism, we can't have democracy by definition. Capitalism is a system in which the central institutions of society are in principle under autocratic control. Thus, a corporation or an industry is, if we were to think of it in political terms, fascist; that is, it has tight control at the top and strict obedience has to be established at every level -- there's little bargaining, a little give and take, but the line of authority is perfectly straightforward. Just as I'm opposed to political fascism, I'm opposed to economic fascism. I think that until the major institutions of society are under the popular control of participants and communities, it's pointless to talk about democracy."
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"For those who stubbornly seek freedom, there can be no more urgent task than to come to understand the mechanisms and practices of indoctrination. These are easy to perceive in the totalitarian societies, much less so in the system of 'brainwashing under freedom' to which we are subjected and which all too often we serve as willing or unwitting instruments."
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"I think we should try to rise to the level of minimal moral integrity. Once we can rise to the level of minimal moral integrity, then we can discuss these issues seriously. If we can't even rise to that level, there isn't any point talking. Minimal moral integrity requires that if we think something is wrong when they do it, it's wrong when we do it." (Chomsky discussing 9-11)
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"If you go to one demonstration and then go home, that's something, but the people in power can live with that. What they can't live with is sustained pressure that keeps building, organizations that keep doing things, people that keep learning lessons from the last time and doing it better the next time."
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"There's no more morality in world affairs, fundamentally, that there was at the time of Genghis Khan."
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"The Bible is probably the most genocidal book in our total canon."
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"Why should workers agree to be slaves in a basically authoritarian structure? They should have control over it themselves. Why shouldn’t communities have a dominant voice in running the institutions that affect their lives?"
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"The Biggest international terror operations that are known are the ones that are run out of Washington."
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"If the Nuremberg laws were applied, then every post-war American president would have been hanged."
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"The best political leaders are the ones who are lazy and corrupt."
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"What happened in the 1980s is the U.S. government was driven underground."
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"If I point out that General Motors tries to maximize profit and market share, that's not a conspiracy theory, that's an institutional analysis."
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"Education is a system of imposed Ignorance."
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"If you're on a radio news show in Laramie (Wyoming), chances are very strong that you pick up what was in The [New York] Times that morning and you decide that's the news. In fact, if you follow the AP wires you find that in the afternoon they send across tomorrow's front page of The New York Times. That's so that everybody knows what the news is. And the perceptions and the perspectives and so on are sort of transmitted down, not to the precise detail, but the general picture is pretty much transmitted elsewhere."
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"The U.S. media are alone in that you must meet the condition of concision. You gotta say things between two commercials or in 600 words. And that's a very important fact, because the beauty of concision -- you know, saying a couple of sentences between two commercials -- the beauty of that is you can only repeat conventional thoughts."
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"Now, what about making the media more responsive and democratic? Well there are very narrow limits to that; it's kind of like asking how do we make corporations more democratic. Well the only way to do that is get rid of them...And unless you're ready for a social revolution...the media are going to have their present structure and they're going to represent their present interests. Now that's not to say that one shouldn't try to do things, I mean it makes sense to try to push the limits of a system."
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"The information is there but it's there to a fanatic, you know, somebody who wants to spend a substantial part of their time and energy exploring it and comparing today's lies with yesterday's leaks and so on...The easy thing to do, you know, you come home from work, you're tired, you've had a busy day...so you turn on the tube and say it's probably right you know, or you look at the headlines in the paper and then you watch the sports or something. That's basically the way the system of indoctrination works. Sure the other stuff is there, buy you're going to have to work hard to find it."
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"Modern industrial civilization has developed within a certain system of convenient myths. The driving force of modern industrial civilization has been individual material gain, which is accepted as legitimate, even praiseworthy, on the grounds that private vices yield public benefits, in the classic formulation. Now, it's long been understood -- very well -- that a society that is based on this principle will destroy itself in time. It can only persist with whatever suffering and injustice it entails, as long as it's possible to pretend that the destructive forces that humans create are limited, that the world is an infinite resource, and that the world is an infinite garbage can."
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"The question is whether privileged elites should dominate mass communications, and should use this power as they tell us they must, namely to impose necessary illusions, to manipulate and deceive the stupid majority, and remove them from the public arena....In this possibly terminal phase of human existence, democracy and freedom are more than values to be treasured, they may well be essential to survival."
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"A part of the reason why the media in Canada and Belgium and so on are more open is that it just doesn't matter that much what people think."
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"Another poll revealed that "faith in God is the most important part of American's lives." Forty percent "said they valued their relationship with God above all else"; 29 percent chose "good health" and 21 percent "happy marriage." Satisfying work was chosen by 5 percent, respect of people in the community by 2 percent. That this world might offer basic features of a human existence is hardly to be contemplated. These are the kinds of results one might find in a shattered peasant society. Chiliastic visions are reported to be particularly present among blacks; again, not surprising, when we learn from the New England Journal of Medicine that "black men in Harlem are less likely to reach the age of 65 than men in Bangladesh."
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"A propaganda system will consistently portray people abused in enemy states as worthy victims, whereas those treated with equal or greater severity by its own government of clients will be unworthy. The evidence of worth may be read from the extent and character of attention and indignation."
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"The average man follows not reason but faith and this naive faith requires necessary illusions, and emotionally potent oversimplification by the myth maker to keep him on course." (Chomsky quoting Reinhold Niebuhr)
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"More generally, people have little specific knowledge of what is happening around them. An academic study that appeared right before the presidential election reports that less than 30 percent of the population was aware of the positions of the candidates on major issues, though 86 percent knew the name of George Bush's dog. The general thrust of propaganda gets through, however. When asked to identify the largest element of the federal budget, less than 1/4 give the correct answer: military spending. Almost half select foreign aid, which barely exists; the second choice is welfare, chosen by 1/3 of the population, who also far overestimate the proportion that goes to Blacks and to child support. And though the question was not asked, virtually none are likely to be aware that `defense spending' is in large measure welfare for the rich. Another result of the study is that more educated sectors are more ignorant--not surprising, since they are the main targets of indoctrination. Bush supporters, who are the best educated, scored lowest overall."
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"...those who try to resist the technologically advanced but morally primitive Western societies will pay a bitter price."
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MCMASTER UNIVERSITY, HAMILTON, ONTARIO
"Take, say, sports -- that's another crucial example of the indoctrination system, in my view. For one thing because it -- you know, it offers people something to pay attention to that's of no importance. (laughter) That keeps them from worrying about -- (applause) keeps them from worrying about things that matter to their lives that they might have some idea of doing something about. And in fact it's striking to see the intelligence that's used by ordinary people in sports. I mean, you listen to radio stations where people call in -- they have the most exotic information (laughter) and understanding about all kind of arcane issues. And the press undoubtedly does a lot with this."
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University of Wyoming, Laramie American Frat Student
"Yeah - for the last hour and forty-one minutes you've been whining about how the elite and how the government have been using "thought control" to keep radicals like yourself out of the public limelight. Now -- uh -- you're here. I don't see any CIA men waiting to drag you off. You were in the paper, that's where everyone here heard you were coming from -- in the paper -- and I'm sure they're going to publish your comments in the paper. Now, in a lot of countries you would have been shot for what you have done today. So what are you whining about? This is -- we are allowing you to speak and I don't see any thought control!" Chomsky "First of all, I haven't said one word about my being kept out of the limelight. The way it works here is quite different. Now, I don't think you heard what I was saying, but the way it works here is that there is a system of shaping, control, and so on, which gives a certain perception of the world. I gave one example. I'll give you sources where you can find thousands of others. And it has nothing to do with me -- it has to do with marginalizing the public, and ensuring that they don't get in the way of elite's who are supposed to run things without interference."
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RE: Corporations
A business or a big corporation is a fascist structure internally. Power is at the top. Orders go from top to bottom. You either follow the orders or get out.
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"I don't think people ought to be forced to rent themselves in order to survive."
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"If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all."
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"If you assume that there's no hope, you guarantee that there will be no hope. If you assume that there is an instinct for freedom, that there are opportunities to change things, there's a chance you may contribute to making a better world. That's your choice."
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RE: NAFTA
During what’s been called the "Mexican economic miracle" of the last decade, their wages have dropped 60%. Union organizers get killed. If the Ford Motor Company want to toss out its work force and hire super cheap labor, they just do it. Nobody stops them. Pollution goes on unregulated. It’s a great place for investors. NAFTA will very likely be quite harmful for American workers too. We may lose hundreds of thousands of jobs, or lower the level of jobs. Latino and black workers are the ones who are going to be hurt most. But it will certainly be a big bonanza for investors in the United States and for their counterparts in the wealthy sectors in Mexico. They’re the ones - along with the professional classes who work for them - who are applauding the agreement.
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"The basic fact is that the United States has organized under it's sponsor ship and protection a new-colonial system of client states ruled mainly by terror and serving the interests of a small local and foreign business and military elite. The fundamental belief, or ideological pretense, is that the United States is dedicated to furthering the cause of democracy and human rights throughout the world, though it may occasionally err in the pursuit of this objective. Over the past 25 years at least, not only has official terror been responsible for torture and killing on a vastly greater scale that its retail counterpart, but, furthermore, the balance of terror appears to have shifted to the West and its clients, with the United States setting the pace as sponsor and supplier. The old colonial world was shattered during World War II, and the resultant nationalist-radical upsurge threatened traditional Western hegemony and the economic interests of Western business. To contain this threat the United States has aligned itself with elite and military elements in the Third World whose function has been to contain the tides of change. This role was played by Diem and Thieu in Sough Vietnam and is currently served by allies such as Mobutu in Azire, Pinochet in Chile, and Suharto in Indonesia. Under frequent U.S. sponsorship the neo-fascist National Security State and other forms of authoritarian rule have become the dominant mode of government in the Third world. Heavily armed by the west (main the United States) and selected for amenability to foreign domination and zealous anti-Communism, counterrevolutionary regimes have been highly torture - and bloodshed-prone. Since the installation and support of military juntas, with their sadistic tortures and bloodbaths, are hardly compatible with human rights, democracy and other alleged Western values, the media and intellectuals in the United States and Western Europe have been hard-pressed to rationalize state policy. The primary solution has been massive suppression, averting the eyes from the unpleasant facts concerning the extensive torture and killing, the Disspora, the major shift to authoritarian government and its systematic character, and the U.S. role in introducing and protecting the leadership of this client fascist empire."
From The political Economy of Human Rights, Volume 1, pages ix, 8, 11
