“what are called opinions “on the left” and “on the right” in the media represent only a limited spectrum of debate, which reflects the range of needs of private power—but there’s essentially nothing beyond those “acceptable” positions. So what the media do, in effect, is to take the set of assumptions which express the basic ideas of the propaganda system, whether about the Cold War or the economic system or the “national interest” and so on, and then present a range of debate within that framework—so the debate only enhances the strength of the assumptions, ingraining them in people’s minds as the entire possible spectrum of opinion that there is.”
― Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky
― Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky
“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 fulfil this role requires systematic propaganda.”
― Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media
― Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media
“Look, part of the whole technique of disempowering people is to make sure that the real agents of change fall out of history, and are never recognized in the culture for what they are. So it's necessary to distort history and make it look as if Great Men did everything - that's part of how you teach people they can't do anything, they're helpless, they just have to wait for some Great Man to come along and do it for them.”
― Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky
― Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky
“Earlier in the twentieth century some critics called fascism “capitalism with the gloves off,” meaning that fascism was pure capitalism without democratic rights and organizations.”
― Profit Over People: Neoliberalism and Global Order
― Profit Over People: Neoliberalism and Global Order
Sherry’s 2025 Year in Books
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