BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Dickey
Date: 09 Jun 07 - 11:25 PM

Where is it on public record that GWB is a slime-eater Amos? Hmmmm. I can't find even one instance.

Does it appear on public record that Chomsky is a Hypocrite?

I find about 102,000 instances.

I see no need to mount a personal attack on you to prove my point.

However you seem to think it is necessary to attack people personally to bolster your weak arguments and make them more believeable.

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Amos
Date: 09 Jun 07 - 01:20 PM

Dickey:

It is clear you have severe misunderstandings about logic. If I were to call you a slime-eater, that would be an ad hominem attack in an argument we were having.

In Bush's case it simply a statement of what is already well-established on the public record.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 09 Jun 07 - 11:50 AM

"You mean like the Shrink that sexually abuses his vulnerable patients"

Like what?

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Amos
Date: 09 Jun 07 - 12:22 AM

Not quite the words I would have chosen, Don, but yer a gentleman.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Don Firth
Date: 08 Jun 07 - 10:56 PM

You're getting a little over the top, there, Dickey.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Dickey
Date: 08 Jun 07 - 10:42 PM

You mean like the Shrink that sexually abuses his vulnerable patients?

No reason the question the professionalisim of the treatments he dispenses is there?

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 08 Jun 07 - 01:02 PM

Once again, so what?

When it comes to politicians ad hominem makes a lot more sense,. because it's the person as such you are dealing with in a whole range of actions that affect you. Rather analogous to a marriage partner - it'd be daft to suggest that ad hominen wouldn't be appropriate in a dispute between husband and wife.

It's rather a different matter when what is in dispute are the views of an academic or a polemicist. In such a case personal actions are generally beside the point, and shouldn't be allowed to intrude into arguments about the ideas.

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Dickey
Date: 08 Jun 07 - 10:04 AM

Chomsky, for all of his moral dudgeon against American corporations, finds that they make a pretty good investment. When he made investment decisions for his retirement plan at MIT, he chose not to go with a money market fund, or even a government bond fund. Instead, he threw the money into blue chips and invested in the TIAA-CREF stock fund. A look at the stock fund portfolio quickly reveals that it invests in all sorts of businesses that Chomsky says he finds abhorrent: oil companies, military contractors, pharmaceuticals, you name it.

http://www.hoover.org/publications/digest/2912626.html

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Dickey
Date: 08 Jun 07 - 10:00 AM

Dear Amos:

Methinks you suffer from the same dilusions as Chmosky, Do as I say not as I do.

Would you say that calling GWB a slime eater is an ad hominem attack?

Subject: RE: BS: A Declaration of Impeachment

From: Amos - PM
Date: 05 Jun 07 - 04:16 PM

T:

If you honestly feel that no lies have been promulgated by the Bush Administration, you either haven't been paying attention, or you are so deeply wrapped in your wooly cloud of true-believer denial that you can't draw a bead on reality even after two cups of coffee.

So far, all we have seen of the impeachment movement is a LOT of grass roots vocalization and one article from Conyers.

But -- ya never know. Keep your fingers crossed and your slime-eater may have to face the music some day.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Don Firth
Date: 07 Jun 07 - 03:35 PM

I have and I do verify, BB. No snap judgments. At least not on my part.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: beardedbruce
Date: 07 Jun 07 - 02:42 PM

QAmazing! A case where you might allow that Bush is right!

I was sure that you would try to change the rotation of the Earth before admitting Bush could ever be right!

NOW, how about trying " to verify from other, more reliable sources"
about what else he has said, instead of making snap judgements in the future?

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Don Firth
Date: 07 Jun 07 - 02:39 PM

Barring some cosmic cataclysm, the sun rises in the East and will continue to do so, no matter who says what about which--Chomsky, Bush, Carl Sagan, or Bozo the Clown.

Now, of Bush said it, granted, it might prompt me to verify from other, more reliable sources, primarily because so much of what he has said in the past has proven to be unreliable. Nevertheless, even a stopped clock is right twice a day. . . .

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: KB in Iowa
Date: 07 Jun 07 - 02:26 PM

I hate to agree with Dickey but (assuming the info in the article is substantially correct) he has a point. I am reminded of the glee with which many of us on the left jumped all over Rush when he was caught with some prescription drugs he shouldn't have had. Hypocrite was bandied about rather freely in that case. This reads to me like a "do as I say, not as I do" situation. I have never cared for that attitude.

The above opinions do not mean I think Chomsky is wrong. I generally think he is pretty well on the mark, but I would be more impressed if I thought he was following his own advice. I think I will check to see if I can find out whether or not the article is accurate.

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Amos
Date: 07 Jun 07 - 02:07 PM

Small dose of your own medicine, Sir Dick; if I categorize you as a vector of a mental disease, it makes your assertions suspect, since you just might be raving mad. In the past you have gone out of your way to try and foist similar categorical imperatives on others, such as Chomsky, Clinton, FDR, and gawd all knows who else. The reason it might feel uncomfortable is because it distorts the truth. I am pretty sure you are _not_ raving mad, in the usual sense.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: beardedbruce
Date: 07 Jun 07 - 01:32 PM

If Bush said that the sun rose in the East, a number of those here ipso facto would argue with the fact.

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Don Firth
Date: 07 Jun 07 - 12:57 PM

Re:   argumentum ad hominem.

Don't argue with me, Dickey. Take it up with Aristotle.

If an axe murderer says that the sun rises in the East, does the fact that the assertion was made by an axe murderer ipso facto mean that the sun doesn't rise in the East?

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 07 Jun 07 - 12:08 PM

At least we can say that if Noam Chomsky does it, it must be OK for others to do it regardless of the fact that he says it is not OK.

Why should that follow? Why can't we say he's right when he says that, and wrong if he does that?

One way and another I suspect that all of us have in our time done things we have thought were wrong. In fact anyone who says they haven't is almost certainly a liar.

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Dickey
Date: 07 Jun 07 - 11:23 AM

At least we can say that if Noam Chomsky does it, it must be OK for others to do it regardless of the fact that he says it is not OK.

Does a double standard come into play here? One standard for Chomsky and another for everybody else.

"contagious mental weakness. Dickey is a prime carrier, right up there with Tarheel."

Now what does that have to do with the validity of my assertion? That is a personal Ad Hominem attack designed to discredit my assertion.


"Classic argumentum ad hominem:   

The fallacy of attacking the character or circumstances of an individual who is advancing a statement or an argument instead of trying to disprove the truth of the statement or the soundness of the argument.

Don Firth"

How many personal attacks do you mount every day Amos?

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Amos
Date: 07 Jun 07 - 10:21 AM

I guess we're all occasionally vulnerable to the Pigeonhole Disease. You know, we take one or two data points that define a category, such as hypocrite, and then extrapolate fromt hem to completely assume tons of other things -- in this case label Chomsky as hypocritical and thus throw all his positions into the trash. It's a human weakness, and it is (as the 2004 election demonstrated) a contagious mental weakness. Dickey is a prime carrier, right up there with Tarheel.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 07 Jun 07 - 09:30 AM

"Don't take any advice from that guitar teacher - I've heard him play a few bum notes from time to time..."

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Barry Finn
Date: 07 Jun 07 - 03:40 AM

"If a judge takes a bribe is his verdict still correct?"


It doesn't mean shit Dickey, your question should've been

"If a Judge takes a bribe does it mean that the defendant is more innocent or more guilty?" You're twisting the night away! The action of the Judge has no baring on the status of the questionable person. Just as the fashion or the banking methods of Norn have no baring on his views. That was silly of you Dickey.

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Dickey
Date: 07 Jun 07 - 01:31 AM

"attacking the character or circumstances"

When one engages in the same practices he is supposedly against, it is not against his character or circumstances. It is against his actions that belie his "truths". It is self condemnation.

If a judge takes a bribe is his verdict still correct?


Richard Nixon: "I am not a crook" Yeah, Dick, just because you are a crook is nor reason to doubt your word.

Bill Clinton: "I did not have sex with that woman" Bill, we believe you 100% regardless of what the woman said.

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Don Firth
Date: 06 Jun 07 - 08:12 PM

Classic argumentum ad hominem:   

The fallacy of attacking the character or circumstances of an individual who is advancing a statement or an argument instead of trying to disprove the truth of the statement or the soundness of the argument.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 06 Jun 07 - 05:33 PM

Wolfgang is spot on there.

This kind of things just aren't relevant. Argue with Chomsky's analysis, or question his facts - but the kind of stuff Dickey is going on about is as relevant as attacking him for his fashion sense or lack of it.

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Dickey
Date: 06 Jun 07 - 01:21 PM

What is the definition of Hypocrite?

Is the testimomy of a drug dealer about the benefit of drugs as honest as the testimony of a recovered drug addict about how bad drugs are?

Mr Chomsky is against property rights but he still copyrights his books. He is against trusts but he still has one.

He is against tax avoidance but he still sets up a trust.

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Wolfgang
Date: 05 Jun 07 - 01:13 PM

We all like our villains or heroes to be villainous or heroic through and through. Life often isn't so.

Great scientists can be social assholes, fine singers can be lousy thinkers, ruthless dictators can be really caring regarding their pets.

If all of the above (Dickey's post) was true about Chomsky, would that make any of his analyses worse? If he was poorer would that make any of his analyses better?

Parts of this discussion remind me of the too many Ewan MacColl threads (like if he has changed his name, was a deserter etc.):

Many debaters liked mentioning details they thought were negative about his life. Would (or should) that make him less influential in the folk world? Some of the rest defended each bit about MacColl as if it was unconceivable to adore the songwriter and collector but to consider him politically naive.

The I tell you something bad about a person you seem to admire approach makes one error, an overly defensive attitude makes the other.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Amos
Date: 05 Jun 07 - 11:44 AM

Calling someone a war profiteer for publishing anti-war analyses widely is really, really stupid, IMHO, not to mention deeply hypocritical and schizoid.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Dickey
Date: 05 Jun 07 - 10:36 AM

Noam Chomsky
Peter Schweizer, National Post March 21, 2006

    One of the most persistent themes in Noam Chomsky's work has been class warfare. The iconic MIT linguist and left-wing activist frequently has lashed out against the "massive use of tax havens to shift the burden to the general population and away from the rich," and criticized the concentration of wealth in "trusts" by the wealthiest 1%. He says the U.S. tax code is rigged with "complicated devices for ensuring that the poor -- like 80% of the population -- pay off the rich."
    But trusts can't be all bad. After all, Chomsky, with a net worth north of US$2-million, decided to create one for himself. A few years back he went to Boston's venerable white-shoe law firm, Palmer and Dodge, and, with the help of a tax attorney specializing in "income-tax planning," set up an irrevocable trust to protect his assets from Uncle Sam. He named his tax attorney (every socialist radical needs one!) and a daughter as trustees. To the Diane Chomsky Irrevocable Trust (named for another daughter) he has assigned the copyright of several of his books, including multiple international editions.
    Chomsky favours massive income redistribution -- just not the redistribution of his income. No reason to let radical politics get in the way of sound estate planning.
    When I challenged Chomsky about his trust, he suddenly started to sound very bourgeois: "I don't apologize for putting aside money for my children and grandchildren," he wrote in one e-mail. Chomsky offered no explanation for why he condemns others who are equally proud of their provision for their children and who try to protect their assets from Uncle Sam. (However, Chomsky did say that his tax shelter is OK because he and his family are "trying to help suffering people.")
    Indeed, Chomsky is rich precisely because he has been such an enormously successful capitalist. Despite his anti-profit rhetoric, like any other corporate capitalist Chomsky has turned himself into a brand name. As John Lloyd recently put it in the lefty New Statesman, Chomsky is among those "open to being "commodified" -- that is, to being simply one of the many wares of a capitalist media market place, in a way that the badly paid and overworked writers and journalists for the revolutionary parties could rarely be."
    Chomsky's business works something like this. He gives speeches on college campuses around the country at US$12,000 a pop, often dozens of times a year. Can't go and hear him in person? No problem: You can go online and download clips from earlier speeches -- for a fee. You can hear Chomsky talk for one minute about "Property Rights"; it will cost you US79 cents. You can also buy a CD with clips from previous speeches for US$12.99.
    But books are Chomsky's mainstay, and on the international market he has become a publishing phenomenon. The Chomsky brand means instant sales. As publicist Dana O'Hare of Pluto Press explains: "All we have to do is put Chomsky's name on a book and it sells out immediately!"
    Putting his name on a book should not be confused with writing a book because his most recent volumes are mainly transcriptions of speeches, or interviews that he has conducted over the years, put between covers and sold to the general public. You might call it multi-level marketing for radicals. Chomsky has admitted as much: "If you look at the things I write -- articles for Z Magazine, or books for South End Press, or whatever -- they are mostly based on talks and meetings and that kind of thing. But I'm kind of a parasite. I mean, I'm living off the activism of others. I'm happy to do it."
    Chomsky's marketing efforts shortly after Sept. 11 give new meaning to the term "war profiteer." In the days after the tragedy, he raised his speaking fee from US$9,000 to US$12,000 because he was suddenly in greater demand. He also cashed in by producing another instant book. Seven Stories Press, a small publisher, pulled together interviews conducted via e-mail that Chomsky gave in the three weeks following the attack on the Twin Towers and rushed the book to press. His controversial views were hot, particularly overseas. By early December 2001, the publisher had sold the foreign rights in 19 different languages. The book made the best-seller list in the United States, Canada, Germany, India, Italy, Japan and New Zealand. It is safe to assume that he netted hundreds of thousands of dollars from this book alone.
    Over the years, Chomsky has been particularly critical of private property rights, which he considers simply a tool of the rich, of no benefit to ordinary people. "When property rights are granted to power and privilege, it can be expected to be harmful to most," Chomsky wrote on a discussion board for the Washington Post. Intellectual property rights are equally despicable, apparently. According to Chomsky, for example, drug companies who have spent hundreds of millions of dollars developing drugs shouldn't have ownership rights to patents. Intellectual property rights, he argues, "have to do with protectionism."
    Protectionism is a bad thing -- especially when it relates to other people. But when it comes to Chomsky's own published work, this advocate of open intellectual property suddenly becomes very selfish. .."
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/issuesideas/story.html?id=1385b76d-6c34-4c22-942a-18b71f2c4a44

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Dickey
Date: 01 Jun 07 - 03:20 PM

"When someone rambles on about what they think they know, it is most certainly suspect as to its accuracy"

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Stringsinger
Date: 01 Jun 07 - 11:52 AM

Corporations now control the government. We the people have to take it back.
Corporations own the major media too. We need to take that back also.

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Dickey
Date: 01 Jun 07 - 11:31 AM

Amos:

It appears that you tiptoe your way through a minefield with your statements but you placed the mines so you know where they are.

If mainstream media produces hundreds of articles supporting an end to the war and almost none supporting the war, evidently Halliburton and the administration have no control.

Chomsky says the media is controled by big business or the government or both.

True or false?

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Riginslinger
Date: 01 Jun 07 - 10:31 AM

"'The press, in other words, has come to be regarded as an organ of direct democracy, charged on a much wider scale, and from day to day, with the function often attributed to the initiative, referendum, and recall.'"


                That's what I mean. Why doesn't he just say what he thinks? I repeat: Chomsky needs an editor.

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Amos
Date: 31 May 07 - 11:59 PM

Dickey, you haven't heard a goddamn word i've said.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Dickey
Date: 31 May 07 - 11:31 PM

"Haliburton, Titan, and their ilk"

I hear all the mainstream media yelling about end the war. Why does Haliburton, Titan, and their ilk who control the media allow this to happen?

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Amos
Date: 31 May 07 - 12:55 PM

"The press, in other words, has come to be regarded as an organ of direct democracy, charged on a much wider scale, and from day to day, with the function often attributed to the initiative, referendum, and recall. The Court of Public Opinion, open day and night, is to lay down the law for everything all the time. It is not workable. And when you consider the nature of news, it is not even thinkable. For the news, as we have seen, is precise in proportion to the precision with which the event is recorded. Unless the event is capable of being named, measured, given shape, made specific, it either fails to take on the character of news, or it is subject to the accidents and prejudices of observation.

Therefore, on the whole, the quality of the news about modern society is an index of its social organization. The better the institutions, the more all interests concerned are formally represented, the more issues are disentangled, the more objective criteria are introduced, the more perfectly an affair can be presented as news.

At its best the press is a servant and guardian of institutions; at its worst it is a means by which a few exploit social disorganization to their own ends. In the degree to which institutions fail to function, the unscrupulous journalist can fish in troubled waters, and the conscientious one must gamble with uncertainties. "

Chomsky, quoted on another thread.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Amos
Date: 31 May 07 - 12:33 PM

I think you're choosing the wrong side of the stream, there, Dick. The government's orchestrated PR campaigns, exercised through a compliant media, have historically all been on the line of defending the war, ignoring Bush's offences, and protecting the administration from any criticism.

Big corporations do not act with any single voice. Even ONE big corporation has a hard time coordinating their "shore stories".

But it is generally the case that large corporations who profit from the war -- Haliburton, Titan, and their ilk -- will surely support PR that defends their revenue stream from the war. Large corporations who profit from oil revenues will surely support PR that minimizes environmental harm and will oppose or suppress stories that promote alternative engineering.

It is fortunate for this country, and the world, that there are enough outlets and voices reaching public ears that counter-examples and alternative interpretations can be found and can find a venue somewhere.

Where government and large corporations are concerned, it is almost always "Follow the money", except when it is "Cherchez la femme....". :D


A

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Riginslinger
Date: 31 May 07 - 10:35 AM

It seems to me like they're just telling the public whatever they think will benefit themselves. Trying to figure out the truth seems to have become a full time proposition.

             I don't think one can totally rule out looking at news generated in the Arab/Muslim world either.

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Dickey
Date: 31 May 07 - 09:04 AM

I am still trying to figure out if the government and big corporations that are served by the news media want us to believe the lies that Bush should be impeached, the war is lost, etc. -OR- are they telling us the truth.

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Riginslinger
Date: 30 May 07 - 06:17 PM

Chomsky is right about a number of things, but I find him really hard to read. I think he needs a really good editor.

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Stringsinger
Date: 30 May 07 - 05:47 PM

Since most major TV stations are owned by corporate interests it makes sense that their primary role is to protect those interests. It's politics. The media moguls and powerbrokers have no intention of serving the public by offering programming for the "public good".
They will mobilize public support for their interests ahead of any other interests that would get in their way. Sponsorship plays a role in the retention of the media special interests by financing them.

I think Chomsky is right on.

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Amos
Date: 30 May 07 - 01:33 PM

Here's essence of Chomsky:

It's the primary function of the mass media in the United States to mobilize public support for the special interests that dominate the government and the private sector.

While I don't know if I would support the "primary function" part of that statement I think functionally, it describes the mass media wellt o observe they are used to mobilize public support for special interests whenever the special interests can bargain, trade, bully or buy the coverage.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Amos
Date: 30 May 07 - 12:37 PM

Some organizations manage to field enough pressure across many pressure-points to orchestrate a media campaign.

The most obvious of these is wide-area purchased advertising as is done for commercial purposes or political campaigns.

Less obvious, and more insidious is to "make news" by generating controversy. This can "entrain" the media response because controversy sells papers. The tactic is to blow up the controversy with exagerrated or false data (for example, stating that Iraq was buying uranium from Niger). An editor who smells a hot controversy will give it column-inches or air-time because he knows that it will stir people up, and increase his viewers or readers.

The original code of ethics of the Fourth Estate required that reporter's have the temerity to question, fact-check and investigate such manufactured news. But it is too often the case that in the pressure to get something out, they do not.

Given enough dollars or influence it is possible for a coordinate dorganization to manipulate the media, certainly. The point I was making earlier is that there is no single organization that holds such control lines. The public microphone is constantly the target of grabbery and squabble.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: GUEST,dianavan
Date: 30 May 07 - 11:32 AM

No magic, Dickey, they are both right.

Amos said the media is controlled by many people. According to Chomsky, those people serve the ends of the dominant elite.

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Dickey
Date: 30 May 07 - 10:59 AM

So is what Amos said correct or is what Chomsky said correct?

Or is there a magic way to claim that both are correct?

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: GUEST,dianavan
Date: 30 May 07 - 02:40 AM

"...the media serve the ends of a dominant elite..." - Chomsky

Exactly what Amos said.

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Dickey
Date: 30 May 07 - 12:51 AM

Amos:

At least that sound like a statement.

So Chomsky was wrong about his Manufacturing Consent?

The mass media serve as a system for communicating messages and symbols to the general populace. It is their function to amuse, entertain, and inform, and to inculcate individuals with the values, beliefs, and codes of behavior that will integrate them into the institutional structures of the larger society. In a world of concentrated wealth and major conflicts of class interest, to fulfill this role requires systematic propaganda.
In countries where the levers of power are in the hands of a state bureaucracy, the monopolistic control over the media, often supplemented by official censorship, makes it clear that the media serve the ends of a dominant elite. It is much more difficult to see a propaganda system at work where the media are private and formal censorship is absent. This is especially true where the media actively compete, periodically attack and expose corporate and governmental malfeasance, and aggressively portray themselves as spokesmen for free speech and the general community interest. What is not evident (and remains undiscussed in the media) is the limited nature of such critiques, as well as the huge inequality in command of resources, and its effect both on access to a private media system and on its behavior and performance.
A propaganda model focuses on this inequality of wealth and power and its multilevel effects on mass-media interests and choices. It traces the routes by which money and power are able to filter out the news fit to print, marginalize dissent, and allow the government and dominant private interests to get their messages across to the public. The essential ingredients of our propaganda model, or set of news "filters," fall under the following headings: (I) the size, concentrated ownership, owner wealth, and profit orientation of the dominant mass-media firms; (~) advertising as the primary income source of the mass media; (3) the reliance of the media on information 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; and (5) "anticommunism" as a national religion and control mechanism. These elements interact with and reinforce one another. The raw material of news must pass through successive filters, leaving only the cleansed residue fit to print. They fix the premises of discourse and interpretation, and the definition of what is newsworthy in the first place, and they explain the basis and operations of what amount to propaganda campaigns...."

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Herman%20/Manufac_Consent_Prop_Model.html

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Amos
Date: 30 May 07 - 12:39 AM

Dickey:

If you continue to be abusive, I am going to stop discussing things with you. It is beneath you.

Media are controlled by different people, primarily by their own executives, their network executives, and their networks' owner corporations' executives. In addition, different media are partially controlled or pressured by advertisers, and by people connected to those who make up the staff of the individual medium. Indirectly, pressures are also brought to bear by interest groups who try to make enough noise to make the media feel their advertising revenue is at risk. Governmental offices also try to exercise pressure, especially on large media organizations. Sometimes they succeed.

So, the answer is, there is no single group that control all media. There are lots of groups and individuals who pressure the media, and the usual corporate chains of command.

Any questions?

A

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Dickey
Date: 30 May 07 - 12:05 AM

Amos:

I assume that you think you stated some sort of fact but in reality it amounts to a brain fart. It wouldn't even get the E meter off the peg.

Who controls the media:

____ The Government

____ Big Corporations

____ Nobody. The big media exposes what Corporations do and government secrets

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Stringsinger
Date: 29 May 07 - 01:12 PM

Noam Chomsky is a shining voice in the forest of American ignorance. You can take what he has to say about Iran to the bank.

Frank

Subject: RE: BS: Noam Chomsky on Iran, etc.
From: Amos
Date: 29 May 07 - 09:58 AM

DIckey:

You know what they say about "assume", I expect. Facts are tricky devils and they come in case-by-case sets, and it is very easy to find them completely reversing expectatiosn based on assumption.

A