% FROM THE NOAM CHOMSKY ARCHIVE
% http://www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu:/usr/tp0x/chomsky.html
% ftp://ftp.cs.cmu.edu/user/cap/chomsky/
% Filename:    articles/chomsky.loot.propaganda-system
% Title:       Letter from Lexington (column)
% Author:      Noam Chomsky
% Appeared-in: Lies of Our Times (LOOT), May 1992
% Source:      jaske@bat.bates.edu (Jon Aske)
% Keywords:    JFK
% Synopsis:    
% See-also:    articles/chomsky.z.vain-hopes-false-dreams

Letter from Lexington

April 6, 1992

Dear LOOT,

Media critique has generally focused on how the news and opinion
sections ensure right thinking. Book reviews are another
intriguing element of the system of doctrinal control. In
particular, the _New York Times Book Review_ serves as a guide to
readers and librarians with limited resources. The editors must
not only select the right books, but also reviewers who adhere to
the norms of political correctness. What follows are some
illustrations, drawn from successive weeks.

In the study of any system, it is often useful to look at
something radically different, to highlight crucial features.
Let's begin, then, by looking at a society that is close to the
opposite pole from ours: Brezhnev's USSR.

Consider policy formation. In Brezhnev's USSR, economic policy
was determined in secret, by centralized power; popular
involvement was nil, except marginally, through the Communist
Party. Political policy was in the same hands. The political
system was meaningless, with virtually no flow from bottom to
top.

Consider next the information system, inevitably constrained by
the distribution of economic-political power. In Brezhnev's USSR
there was a spectrum, bounded by disagreements within centralized
power. True, the media were never obedient enough for the
commissars. Thus they were bitterly condemned for undermining
public morale during the war in Afghanistan, playing into the
hands of the imperial aggressors and their local agents from whom
the USSR was courageously defending the people of Afghanistan
(see E.S. Herman and N. Chomsky, _Manufacturing Consent_, 226f.).
For the totalitarian mind, no degree of servility is ever enough.

There were dissidents and alternative media: underground
_samizdat_ and foreign radio. According to a 1979 US
government-funded study, 77% of blue-collar workers and 96% of
the middle elite listened to foreign broadcasts, while the
alternative press reached 45% of high-level professionals, 41% of
political leaders, 27% of managers, and 14% of blue-collar
workers. The study also found most people satisfied with living
conditions, favoring state-provided medical care, and largely
supportive of state control of heavy industry; emigration was
more for personal than political reasons (James Miller and Peter
Donhowe, _Washington Post Weekly_, Feb. 17, 1986, p. 16).

Dissidents were bitterly condemned as ``anti-Soviet'' and
``supporters of capitalist imperialism,'' as demonstrated by the
fact that they condemned the evils of the Soviet system instead
of marching in parades denouncing the crimes of official enemies.
They were also punished, not in the style of US dependencies such
as El Salvador, but harshly enough.

The concept ``anti-Soviet'' is particularly striking. We find
similar concepts in Nazi Germany, Brazil under the generals, and
totalitarian cultures generally. In a relatively free society,
the concept would simply evoke ridicule. Imagine, say, that
Italian critics of state power were condemned for
``anti-Italianism.'' Such concepts as ``anti-Soviet'' are the
very hallmark of a totalitarian culture; only the most dedicated
and humorless commissar could use such terms.

Well-behaved party hacks were guilty of no such crimes as
anti-Sovietism. Their task was to applaud the state and its
leaders; or even better, criticize them for deviating from their
grand principles, thus instilling the propaganda line by
presupposition rather than assertion, always the most effective
technique. The commissar might say that leaders erred in their
defense of Afghanistan against ``the assault from the inside,
which was manipulated'' by Pakistan and the CIA. They should have
understood that ``it was an Afghan war, and if we converted it
into a white man's war, we would lose.'' Similarly, a Nazi
ideologue might have conceded that the ``encounter'' between
Germans and Slavs on the Eastern front was ``less than
inspiring,'' though for balance, we must recall that it was ``a
total war between rival nations for control of a territory both
groups were willing to die for''; and for the Slavs ``the terms
of the conflict'' were ``less mortal'' than for the Germans
needing _Lebensraum_, ``staking not only their fortunes but also
their very lives on the hope of building new lives in untried
country.''  The Slavs, after all, could trudge off to Siberia. I
return to the source of the quotes directly.

With these observations as background, let us turn to our own
free society.

Begin again with policy formation. Economic policy is determined
in secret; in law and in principle, popular involvement is nil.
The Fortune 500 are more diverse than the Politburo, and market
mechanisms provide far more diversity than in a command economy.
But a corporation, factory, or business is the economic
equivalent of fascism: decisions and control are strictly
top-down. People are not compelled to purchase the products or
rent themselves to survive, but those are the sole choices.

The political system is closely linked to economic power, both
through personnel and broader constraints on policy. Efforts of
the public to enter the political arena must be barred: liberal
elites see such efforts as a dangerous ``crisis of democracy,''
and they are intolerable to statist reactionaries
(``conservatives'').  The political system has virtually no flow
from bottom to top, apart from the local level; the general
public appears to regard it as largely meaningless.

The media present a spectrum of opinion, largely reflecting
tactical divisions within the state-corporate nexus. True, they
are never obedient enough for the commissars. The media were
bitterly condemned for undermining public morale during the war
in Vietnam, playing into the hands of the imperial aggressors and
their local agents from whom the US was courageously defending
the people of Vietnam; a Freedom House study provides a dramatic
example (see Herman and Chomsky, _Manufacturing Consent_, chapter
5, 5.2, and appendix 3). For the totalitarian mind, again, no
degree of servility is enough.

There are dissidents and other information sources. Foreign radio
broadcasts reach virtually no one, but alternative media exist,
though without a tiny fraction of the outreach of _samizdat_.
Dissidents are bitterly condemned as ``anti-American'' and
``supporters of Communism'' as demonstrated by the fact that they
condemn the evils of the American system instead of marching in
parades denouncing the crimes of official enemies. But they are
not severely punished, at least if they are privileged and of the
right color. Again, the concept ``anti-American'' is particularly
striking, the very hallmark of a totalitarian mentality.

Let us now turn to the _Times Book Review_, keeping to the
reviews, not the books.

The March 15 issue carries Morton Kondracke's review of Paul
Hollander's _Anti-Americanism_; the author and reviewer are loyal
apologists for atrocities by the US government and its clients.
Kondracke applauds this worthy exposure of the crime of
anti-Americanism, though he feels Hollander may go too far in
citing benefits for the handicapped as an illustration of the
leftist deviation of Congress.

``Anti-Americanism'' (equivalently ``the left,'' or ``Marxists'')
is defined by the author as ``a generally critical disposition
toward existing social arrangements,'' the ``cultural belief''
that ``this is a severely flawed and possibly doomed society,
though still a menace to its citizens and humanity.'' Kondracke
agrees that ``the left gets more respect and attention in the
news media than its ideas merit,'' and is ``strongly
influential'' in colleges and the church. But all is not lost:
``there is not a single Marxist or `anti-American' major daily
newspaper (or even major newspaper columnist) in the country''
and the dangerous ``mainline churches'' are losing membership.
Fortunately, those with ``a generally critical disposition toward
existing social arrangements'' are almost entirely barred, though
we must keep up our guard in case the heresy finds a tiny outlet.

Kondracke is particularly outraged that even though ``the
Communist alternative has collapsed,'' the anti-Americans (by
implication, pro-Communists) maintain their ``permanently
adversarial culture'' and continue to ``hate their nation.'' They
``have not recanted,'' even though they have been proven
``disastrously wrong'' in their wild claims that the Sandinistas
and other evil-doers ``represented a bright future for mankind''
---or, to replace raving by reality, that the Sandinistas might
have offered hope for Nicaraguans. The criminals in this case
include the World Bank, Central American Jesuits, the leading
figure of Central American democracy, Jose Figueres, a great
enthusiast for US corporations and the CIA, indeed, a rather
broad range. But that just shows how awesome the anti-American
conspiracy is.

Kondracke does not remind us how the anti-Americans were refuted,
though his record suggests that he would agree with _Time_
magazine's admiring review of the technique that brought about
the latest of the ``happy series of democratic surprises'' as
``democracy burst forth'' in Nicaragua in February 1990: to
``wreck the economy and prosecute a long and deadly proxy war
until the exhausted natives overthrow the unwanted government
themselves,'' with a cost to us that is ``minimal,'' leaving the
victim ``with wrecked bridges, sabotaged power stations, and
ruined farms,'' and thus providing the U.S. candidate with ``a
winning issue'': ending the ``impoverishment of the people of
Nicaragua.'' Kondracke's enthusiasm for terrorist violence and
illegal economic warfare was no less, and his love of
``democracy'' is of the same order.

The anti-Americans, Kondracke explains, are driven only by ``the
pleasure of struggle against the world in which they live.'' But,
he concludes triumphantly, ``for all their raving against
America, few America-haters ever leave.'' Love it or leave it,
but don't dare to say that its magnificence is flawed.
Totalitarian cultures do not often reach such heights.

In the next week's issue (March 22), Caleb Carr reviews a book on
the 1862 Sioux Uprising in Minnesota. After the obligatory
frothing at the mouth about the evils of PC, Carr explains that
the ``Minnesota encounter'' was ``a total war between rival
nations for control of a territory both groups were willing to
die for.''  For one nation, ``settlement was generally their last
hope''; they were ``staking not only their fortunes but also
their very lives on the hope of building new lives in untried
country.'' For the natives, at least at first, ``the terms of the
conflict'' were ``less mortal''; they could, after all, trudge
off further West.  Carr describes the ``encounter'' as ``less
than inspiring,'' and praises the author for recognizing that
both nations were guilty of crimes. Those of the Sioux are
outlined in gory detail (``atrocious behavior,'' ``sadism and
blood lust,'' ``a particular penchant for torturing infants and
children,'' etc.); the rhetoric differs for the settlers seeking
_Lebensraum_ (broken treaties, hanging of 38 Sioux, expulsion
even of some who were not ``guilty'' of resistance, etc.) But the
difference is only fair, given the asymmetry of need in the
``encounter.''

The following week, we are treated to a review by Arthur
Schlesinger (AS) of John Newman's _JFK and Vietnam_, a review by
the leading Kennedy hagiographer of a book of Kennedy
hagiography. Both author and reviewer, of course, affect a
critical stance, stressing that the hero may have erred by
concealing his noble commitment to ``limited war'' (wholesale
international terrorism), rather than full-scale aggression---as
distinct from the lower-level aggression that JFK launched in
1961--2, another of those unspeakable truths.

AS is full of praise for this ``solid contribution,'' with its
``meticulous and exhaustive examination of documents,'' etc.; an
astonishing judgment that merits separate discussion. Newman's
thesis that JFK intended to withdraw from Vietnam even without
victory is ``essentially right'' AS believes. He adds that he,
AS, had made the same point 30 years ago in his _A Thousand
Days_, where he gave JFK's view that ``it was a Vietnamese war,
and if we converted it into a white man's war, we would lose.''

AS does not remind us that LBJ commonly made similar remarks
after picking up the mantle: we do not want ``our American boys
to do the fighting for Asian boys,'' he proclaimed during the
1964 election campaign. True, this is not quite the same as the
JFK-AS version: for LBJ, it was a point of principle, while for
JFK-AS, it was sheer expedience, a question of how to win. But
that aside, by AS's reasoning, LBJ must have been deeply
committed to withdrawal rather than escalation. AS also does not
remind us that in his huge history of Camelot, published in 1965
before the war had lost its popularity among elites, there is not
a single phrase suggesting that JFK intended to withdraw, which
leaves only three possibilities: (1) the historian was keeping it
secret; (2) this close JFK confidant didn't know; (3) it wasn't
true.

Author and reviewer blame the evil military for thwarting JFK's
secret designs. Both cite what AS calls ``a hysterical 1962
memorandum'' in which the Joint Chiefs predict ``that `the fall
of South Vietnam to Communist control would mean the eventual
Communist domination of all the Southeast Asian mainland' and
that most of Asia would capitulate to what the military still
stubbornly called the `Sino-Soviet Bloc'.'' ``Such hyperbole,''
AS explains, ``confirmed Kennedy's low opinion of the military.''

Turning to _A Thousand Days_, we discover that it was JFK's
_State Department_ that babbled on about the ``Sino-Soviet
Bloc.'' The ``hyperbole'' about South Vietnam is, furthermore,
standard fare in internal documents back to the 1940's, based on
fear of the potential appeal of Communist success. AS also spares
us JFK's thoughts on this matter. In 1956, Senator JFK described
Vietnam as ``the cornerstone of the Free world in Southeast Asia,
the keystone to the arch, the finger in the dike.'' Burma,
Thailand, the Philippines, and India ``are among those whose
security would be threatened if the red tide of Communism
overflowed into Vietnam . . . Moreover, the independence of Free
Vietnam is crucial to the free world in fields other than the
military. Her economy is essential to the economy of all of
Southeast Asia; and her political liberty is an inspiration to
those seek to obtain or maintain their liberty in all parts of
Asia---and indeed the world. The fundamental tenets of this
nation's foreign policy, in short, depend in considerable measure
upon a strong and free Vietnamese nation''---that is, the
murderous Diem dictatorship, a terror state with minimal domestic
support, as generally conceded.

Perhaps JFK changed his tune later. No chance. Until the end he
held that ``for us to withdraw from that effort would mean a
collapse not only of South Vietnam, but Southeast Asia. So we are
going to stay there'' (May 1963). Withdrawal ``only makes it easy
for the Communists,'' who would sweep over Southeast Asia; we
must therefore ``win the war'' (Sept. 1963). Even reduction of
aid to the Far East would hand Southeast Asia to the Communists
and have ``the inevitable effect'' of threatening India and
perhaps even the Middle East (March 1963). By comparison, the
Chiefs sound pretty mild.

To the end, JFK's public position was that our ``objective'' is
to ensure that ``the assault from the inside, and which is
manipulated from the North, is ended'' (Nov. 12, 1963). The
internal record hardly differs. Like Newman, AS cites Michael
Forrestal and Roger Hilsman as insiders on withdrawal, failing to
add that Forrestal explicitly conditioned withdrawal on victory
and condemned even pursuit of a ``negotiated settlement . . .
between North and South Vietnam'' as ``folly'' (Nov. 13, 1963);
while Hilsman, who outlined the October 1963 Taylor-McNamara
withdrawal proposal (NSAM 263) in his 1964 book _To Move a
Nation_, gave his judgment that without victory, JFK ``might well
have introduced United States ground forces into South Vietnam---
although I believe he would not have ordered them to take over
the war effort.''

To guard doctrinal purity, it is not essential to demonstrate
that JFK intended to withdraw from Vietnam. Rather, it is
important to ensure that debate over the US war be constrained
within the dove-hawk spectrum: the permissible choices lie
between international terrorism (allegedly JFK) and full-scale
aggression (LBJ, the Kennedy advisers who stayed on). And all
choices must be sanitized: they are defense against ``the assault
from the inside'' in JFK's words---in fact, as he knew, the
``assault'' by indigenous guerrillas against a terrorist client
regime that could not survive _political_ competition.

If these goals are achieved, the propaganda system will have done
its duty.