Considering the ‘Propaganda Model’

1. Considering the ‘Propaganda Model’ An overview of the politics of Noam Chomsky and key points associated with the PM that typically are not part of discussions on the model

2. Greetings from Canada! • Greetings everyone! • I am so sorry I cannot be there in person • But I hope that what I have prepared here will be of interest and will generate debate and discussion • And I hope to meet all of you in the future, as I think this should be an annual event!

3. Overview of the presentation • Focus is on two major areas • Noam Chomsky’s major political arguments • Key points associated with the PM that are typically not discussed • Goal: encourage discussion and debate • Chomsky’s political work is presented in a wide variety of books and essays

4. Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies Understanding Power Profits Over People The Prosperous Few and the Restless Many Language and Politics Class Warfare Perspectives on Power Manufacturing Consent (by Herman and Chomsky) Some key works . . .

5. US government consistently opposes Third World ultra-nationalism Tolerates social and political reforms only when results can be controlled Nationalistic regimes that demonstrate a willingness to serve foreign investors are permitted a degree of free-play On the role of the US in the world

6. When precedence is given to the needs of investors Over the needs of the indigenous population Fifth Freedom Consider US rhetoric about ‘preserving order’, ‘encouraging democracy’ and ‘freely-elected governments’ in death-squad countries El Salvador Nicaragua, Indonesia Democracy is ‘tolerated’ . . .

7. ‘The methods are not very pretty. What the US government did in Nicaragua, or what our terrorist proxies did in El Salvador or Guatemala, isn’t ordinary killing’ ‘A major element is brutal, sadistic torture – beating infants against rocks, hanging women upside down with their breasts cut off and the skin of their faces peeled back so they’ll bleed to death’ The methods, quoting Chomsky . . .

8. Chomsky’s concept of the Fifth Freedom

9. Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms • During World War 2 US President Franklin Roosevelt proclaimed that there were four freedoms • Freedom of speech • Freedom of worship • Freedom from want • Freedom from fear • Chomsky adds a fifth freedom

10. The Fifth Freedom • Chomsky summarizes all US policy in relation to what he terms the Fifth Freedom • The freedom of the First World to rob and exploit • To pillage the so-called ‘developing world’ • Profit from natural resources that belong to indigenous populations

11. The Fifth Freedom: examples

12. Columbus’ ‘discovery’ of America ‘launched, in terms of scale, the first major act of genocide in world history’ Decimation of native indigenous population Vietnam Chomsky asserts the US invaded Vietnam Chomsky on Columbus & Vietnam

13. Chomsky on global hegemony • Goal of US foreign policy is to see that correct indigenous forces are in control • Those that will allow native resources to be robbed, plundered, by elite interests • Pursuit of the Fifth Freedom • Disproportionately profiting largest capital- holders

14. How the Fifth Freedom works . . . • Crushing labor and popular resistance • Removing or displacing democratically elected governments • Installing collaborators that favor private investment of foreign capital and sanction exporting of profits

15. Pursuit of the Fifth Freedom • US sponsorship of countless dictatorships • Nicaragua, Indonesia, Uruguay, Paraguay, Guatemala • Brutal human rights records, but willingness to comply with US foreign policy interests • Ultimate goal: pursuit of the Fifth Freedom

16. Chomsky’s point . . . • Western democracies often take action to oppose democracy and positive social reform abroad when it is in their economic interests to do so

17. Saddam Hussein Useful throughout 1980s Received US support, despite atrocities In 1990 Hussein violated US economic interests Objective achieved when Kuwait’s oppressive US friendly government was put back into place Cheap Middle East oil supply Iraq and the Middle East

18. Chomsky on foreign policy? Reflecting the nature of society Social structures of capitalism Oppressive Foreign policy Violent To what extent are the capitalist democracies to blame for the rise of state terror and repression in the developing world? Endorsement, funding of violent regimes Fifth Freedom Why does ‘terror’ exist?

19. Slavery and institutionalized racism Reconciled with idea of the US as the land of liberty, equality of opportunity The ‘Washington Connection’ Links of terror between US and its clients in developing world Reconciled with enthusiasm for human rights Consider

20. Historical Revisionism • The ability of the system to reconstruct and shape the perspective of history according to its interests

21. Chomsky cites countless examples US policies/actions leading to sponsorship of governments Subservient to US political-economic interests/agendas Guatemala, Nicaragua, Indonesia, Chile, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay, Iran, and US-occupied South Vietnam (until 1975) The Fifth Freedom: conclusions?

22. Chomsky on Intellectuals

23. Have created a ‘value-free’ technology Response to real-world problems Negate value positions Dynamics of professionalism Institutional affiliations Supportive of power? Institutional interlocks Chomsky charges that they have betrayed their own profession by contributing to American imperialism and the ideologies that sustain it Intellectuals (1)

24. Intellectuals (2) • Chomsky’s views echo C. Wright Mills, and Jacoby’s take on intellectuals, presented in The Last Intellectuals

25. American Power and the New Mandarins Assent, and you are sane; Demur, you’re straightaway dangerous, And handled with a chain. ‘much madness’, emily dickinson Intellectuals (3)

26. Chomsky –The Bigger Picture Control Mechanisms, Intellectuals, Fear, Globalization, What’s Really Happening NOW

27. Control Mechanisms (1) • Language and Politics • Chomsky points out that he has repeatedly been challenged about his credentials when speaking about foreign policy issues • Underlying implication • Specialization functions as a mechanism of exclusion

28. If one does not possess the requisite ‘expertise’ in the form of institutional certification, one is typically excluded from discussion on various topics Particularly those of import to society as a whole Problem is, disciplines typically ‘filtering out’ potential dissenters Control Mechanisms (2)

29. ‘Throughout history, the structures of government have tended to coalesce around other forms of power – in modern times, primarily around economic power’ ‘it's ridiculous to talk about freedom in a society dominated by huge corporations’ Chomsky on Power & Freedom

30. ‘Boards of directors are allowed to work together, so are banks and investors and corporations in alliances with one another and with powerful states. That's just fine. It's just the poor who aren't supposed to cooperate’ ‘Business wants the popular aspects of government, the ones that actually serve the population, beaten down, but it also wants a very powerful state, one that works for it and is removed from public control’ Chomsky on the Role of the State

31. Prisons & inner-city schools . . . • ‘Both prisons and inner-city schools target a kind of superfluous population that there's no point educating because there's nothing for them to do. Because we're a civilized people, we put them in prison, rather than sending death squads out to murder them.’

32. Fear How is it ideologically serviceable? And how can it be seen to operate as a control mechanism?

33. Fear – ideologically serviceable • ‘You need something to frighten people with, to prevent them from paying attention to what's really happening to them.’

34. Fear – a control mechanism • ‘Now that . . . workers are superfluous, what do you do with them? First of all, you have to make sure they don't notice that society is unfair and try to change that, and the best way to distract them is to get them to hate and fear one another.’

35. Chomsky on Globalization Globalization – what does it entail?

36. ‘There are two important consequences of globalization. First, it extends the Third World model to industrial countries.’ ‘In the Third World, there's a two-tiered society – a sector of extreme wealth and privilege, and a sector of huge misery and despair among useless, superfluous people.’ Chomsky on Globalization

37. ‘The goal is a society in which the basic social unit is you and your television set. If the kid next door is hungry, it's not your problem. If the retired couple next door invested their assets badly and are now starving, that's not your problem either.’ ‘There's a very committed effort to convert the US into something resembling a Third World society, where a few people have enormous wealth and a lot of others have no security . . .’ Social goals?

38. The Role of the Media, & the PM The Propaganda Model

39. ‘The real mass media are basically trying to divert people. Let them do something else, but don’t bother us (us being the people who run the show). Let them get interested in professional sports, for example.’ ‘Let everybody be crazed about professional sports or sex scandals or the personalities and their problems or something like that. Anything, as long as it isn’t serious. Of course, the serious stuff is for the big guys. "We" take care of that.’ The role of the mass media . . .

40. Understanding how media function

41. Media, big business, the state and academia have shared interests Elite media interlock with other institutional sectors in ownership, management and social circles Effectively circumventing their ability to remain analytically detached from the power structures of society Institutional Nexus

42. Media: realities • Self-censorship, without any significant coercion • Communications industry dominated by corporate empires • Media monopoly, ownership • News production processes fused to advertising values • Media: instruments of power

43. The Propaganda Model (proper) • Discussions usually limited to five filters • Ownership, size, profit orientation • Advertising • Sources • Flak, PR • Anticommunism, socialism, othering

44. Elements commonly not discussed • Controls are tighter the closer you get to the centers of economic and political power • Media often fix the premises of debate • Self-censorship without significant coercion • Symbiotic nature of relationship between journalists and their sources • Official sources usually dominate the ‘news’

45. More . . . • Media often engender fear • US versus THEM • Messages about marginal, disadvantaged, often not emphasized • Media is ‘guided’ by market forces • The PM does not predict a closed system • The PM is often misrepresented

46. And still more . . . • Chomsky says there is a clear demarcation between the state and the government • The former sets the conditions for public policy and is stable • The state is ‘the actual nexus of decision-making power’ • The government is just ‘one component of the state system, at a particular moment’

47. Chomsky forces the question . . . What of intellectuals, academics, within this system? Turning the mirror so it faces us Policing ideologized spectrums of opinion? The role of universities and impacts of various institutional interlocks, affiliations Fear Career interests And ultimately . . .

48. In Canada . . . • A colleague of mine advises students not to put the PM in the titles of their papers if they intend to include in grad applications • Given (1) the intellectual climate and (2) the ‘reality’ in Canada . . . • This is very good advice indeed • As scary and sad as this is, it is the truth

49. ‘Invisible controls’ . . . • If the second and third order predictions of the PM were tested? • I am absolutely positive the results would be overwhelmingly supportive of the PM • Problem is: almost impossible to test • Committees running students out of programs or hiring decisions: very insulated

50. Hiring decisions . . . • In terms of hiring committee decisions • When all else fails? • Those with the power and requisite political or personal desire to do so may label work applying the PM as ‘political criticism’ • As opposed to ‘scholarship’ • End of story, no problem, next vitae please