“Manufacturing Consent”
... for fascism
“If the triumph of communism
is the worst imaginable result,
the support of fascism abroad
is justified as a lesser evil.”
In 1988, just before the destruction of the USSR, #Herman and #Chomsky published a theory on the use of mass media "to inculcate individuals with the values, beliefs, and codes of behavior" that "integrate them into the institutional structures of the larger society." (p.1.) The media’s "societal purpose," they explained, is to "defend the economic, social, and political agenda of privileged groups that dominate the domestic society and the state." (p.298.)
This propaganda model focused on five thematic "filters" of the mass media:
1) size, concentrated ownership, owner wealth and profit orientation...;
2) advertising as primary income source ...;
3) reliance... on info. provided by government, business and "experts" funded and approved by these primary sources and agents of power;
4) "flak" as a means of disciplining the media;
5) "anticommunism" as a national religion and control mechanism. (p.2.)
With the "specter" of communism as "the ultimate evil," the media created a "cultural milieu in which anticommunism is the dominant religion." By "elevating opposition to communism to a first principle of Western ideology and politics," the media used it as a "potent" "political-control mechanism." This "fragment[ed] the left and labor movements" and sidelined "social democrats" accused of being "too soft on communists." While many Cold War "liberal" progressives supported US-led wars justified with anticommunist pretexts, "others lapsed into silence, paralyzed by the fear of being tarred with charges of infidelity to the national religion." (p.29.)
By stirring "anti-Communist fervor ... the demand for serious evidence in support of claims of ‘communist’ abuses is suspended, and charlatans can survive as evidential sources." These "charlatans" take "center stage" as media "experts" and "remain there even after exposure as highly unreliable, if not downright liars." (p.30.)
Source: Edward S.Herman and Noam Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent, 1988.
Source: Ukraine: A Captive but Unconquerable Nation, Bulletin of the World AntiCommunist League, Jun 1969
