Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media Page #15

which does a lot of rotten things

in the world, OK?

There's no contradiction there.

Greece was a free society

by the standards of Athens, you know.

It was also a vicious society

as regards its imperial behaviour.

There's virtually no correlation - maybe none -

between the internal freedom of a society

and its external behaviour.

You start your line of discussion

at a moment that is historically useful for you.

- But you picked the beginning.

- The grand fact of the post-war world

is that the Communist imperialists,

by the use of terrorism,

by the use of deprivation of freedom,

have contributed to the continuing bloodshed.

The sad thing about it is,

not only the bloodshed,

but the fact that they seem to dispossess you

of the power of rational observation.

I think that's about five per cent true.

Or maybe ten per cent true. It certainly is true...

- Why do you give that?

- May I complete a sentence?

It's perfectly true that there were areas

of the world, in particular, Eastern Europe,

where Stalinist imperialism...

very brutally took control

and still maintains control.

But there are also very vast areas of the world

where we were doing the same thing.

And there's quite an interplay in the Cold War.

What you just described is, I believe,

a mythology about the Cold War.

It may have been tenable ten years ago but

it's inconsistent with contemporary scholarship.

Ask a Czech.

Ask a Guatemalan, ask a Dominican.

Ask the president of the Dominican Republic,

ask a person from South Vietnam, ask a Thai.

Obviously, if you can't distinguish between

the nature of our venture in Guatemala

and the nature of the Soviet Union's in Prague,

we have difficulties.

Er... now, what about making the media

more responsive and democratic?

Well, there are very narrow limits for 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.

I mean, if you have concentrated power...

I don't want to say you can do nothing.

Like the church can show up

at the stockholders' meeting

and start screaming

about not investing in South Africa.

And sometimes that has marginal effects.

I don't want to say it has no effect.

But you can't really affect the structure of power.

Because to do that would be a social revolution.

Unless you're ready for a social revolution,

that is, power is going to be somewhere else,

the media are going to have their present

structure and represent their present interests.

That's not to say

that one shouldn't try to do things.

It makes sense

to try to push the limits of a system.

It only takes one or two people

that think they have integrity as journalists

to give you some good press.

That's important. That goes back

to something that came up before.

There are contradictions.

You know, things are complex.

It's not monolithic. I mean, the mass media

themselves are complicated institutions

with internal contradictions.

So, on the one hand, there's the commitment

to indoctrination and control.

But on the other hand,

there's the sense of professional integrity.

She works alone,

as her own boss,

writing newspaper columns

and producing radio commentaries

for a hodgepodge of small clients

across the country.

This so-called leather-lunged Texan

has been firing questions at our chief executive

for almost 40 years.

Many a young man in this country

is disillusioned

by his government these days.

Well, this is a question which you very properly

bring to the attention of the nation.

It's not that we haven't held press conferences.

I was just waiting for Sarah to come back.

Mr President, that's very nice of you

and I appreciate it.

Sir, I want to call your attention to a real

problem we've got in this country today.

The unique, terrifying McClendon

questions reflect her desire to get information.

I want to ask your new man what he feels...

- Here.

With enough know-how and persistence,

she usually gets her man.

What would you do

if you were in a situation

where you were trying to be an honest reporter

and you were worried sick about your country

and you saw how sick it was,

and you were facing this weak White House

and a weak Congress,

as a reporter, what would you do?

I think there are a lot of reporters

who do a good job.

I have a lot of friends in the press

who I think do a terrific job.

I know they are. They want to...

Well, first of all,

you have to understand what the system is.

And smart reporters do understand what it is.

You have to understand

what the pressures and commitments are,

what the barriers are

and what the openings are.

Right ater the Iran-Contra hearings,

a lot of good reporters understood, "Things are

going to be more open for a couple of months".

So they rammed through stories

they couldn't even talk about before.

- And ater Watergate.

- The same ater Watergate.

Then it closes up again.

Most people, I imagine,

simply internalise the values.

That's the easiest way

and the most successful way.

You just internalise the values and then

you regard yourself, in a way correctly,

as acting perfectly freely.

All right, let's get to the White House now

where I think veteran correspondent

Frank Sesno can tell us

a little bit about self-censorship.

That internal guidance system's

always going on, isn't it?

- Is there any formal censorship there?

- There's no self-censorship.

If somebody tells me something, I'll pass it on,

unless there's a particular,

compelling reason not to.

I can't deny that I'd like to have access

to the Oval Office

and all the same maps

the President's looking at.

But that's not possible, it's not realistic,

and probably not desirable.

Hello. How are you?

Go and sit down there, please.

Welcome to Holland.

I'll introduce you first with a few lines.

Professor Chomsky, Noam Chomsky.

Chomsky has been called

the Einstein of modern linguistics.

The New York Times has said he's arguably

the most important intellectual alive today.

But his presence here has sparked a protest.

This book has poisoned the world.

All lies are in there.

As the Vietnamese people,

we come here to burn the book.

He said that in Vietnam

there is no violation of human rights

and no crime in Cambodia - it's wrong.

Chomsky using his profession,

he using that to poison the world.

And we come here to protest that.

I don't mind the denunciations, frankly.

I mind the lies.

Intellectuals are very good at lying.

They're professionals at it.

Vilification is a wonderful technique.

There's no way of responding.

If somebody calls you an anti-Semite,

what can you say? "I'm not an anti-Semite"?

If somebody says,

"You're a racist, you're a Nazi",

you always lose.

I mean, the person who throws the mud

always wins,

because there's no way of responding.

Professor Chomsky seems to believe

that the people he criticises fall

into one of two classes - liars or dupes.

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