Noam Chomsky: Fear, Hope, & Zinn

[Shireling]

Noam Chomsky: "The Center Cannot Hold: Rekindling the Radical Imagination"
(from Democracy Now!)


I’m just old enough to remember those chilling and ominous days of Germany’s descent from decency to Nazi barbarism... This is one possible outcome of collapse of the center when the radical imagination, which in fact was quite powerful at that time, nonetheless fell short.
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There’s a recent scholarly study which is kind of illuminating. It finds that, by large majorities, they (anti-government movement)support “maintaining or expanding spending on Social Security, child care, and aid to poor people” and other social welfare measures, though support falls off significantly when it comes to "aid to blacks and welfare recipients.”

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Well, for the radical imagination to be rekindled and to lead the way out of this desert, what is needed is people who will work to sweep away the mists of carefully contrived illusion, reveal the stark reality, and also to be directly engaged in popular struggles that they sometimes help galvanize. So what is needed, in short, is the late Howard Zinn. Terrible loss.


To watch, listen to, or read entire talk (long, but good):

http://www.democracynow.org/2010/5/31/noam_chomsky_the_center_cannot_hold

[Jim__]

1. One of the problems is "the mists of carefully contrived illusion" ...

have been carefully put in place by the corporations that control the media. How do you reach people who get their information from that same mist-placing media?

[Shireling]

2. I agree

He touched on many things in this talk, but not the media, which is a huge part of the problem.

[tom_paine]

3. You don't. American Corporate M$M/RW Lie Machine is the most powerful propaganda structure in human

history.

Only painful personal experience is enough to overcome such coordinated, sophisticated, plausibly deniable propaganda for the vast vast VAST majority of American Subjects, and even then, I suspect that the Corporate M$M/RW Loe Machine has a contingency plan.

Just like the Nazis, it will be "blame the Liberals, Gays and anyone else who might have been noticing what is really going on". Not the Jews, this time, though, because that would be bad PR (plus Israel and America's Jewish Leadership has pretty much joined our ne Kinder and Gentler Nazis).

It is almost impossible for this situation, like that of Weimar in the late 1920s, to end well. The only question that remains is what kind of authoritarianism will American ultimately bow down to: Ultra-Right Corporate Neofeudalism, or something even more Uber-Right and Nazi-like, but more Hitler than Speer (the Patron Saint of Corporate Executives).

[Shireling]

4. I'm glad you're still around

Tom Paine. I've always enjoyed reading your posts. I keep telling myself that it can't be as bad as it seems, but I know that it is.

But, America has always prided itself in not bowing down to others. Maybe that spirit will return.

[Vinnie From Indy]

5. Agreed

The very real danger of continued and accelerated economic hardship will be an environment extremely fertile for right-wing extremism. This latest push for fascism will be greatly aided by the perfected art of Madison Avenue at creating illusion. These right wing forces will adopt the latest greatest, techniques of propaganda in concert with the age old practices of scapegoating and fear to seize and hold power. That is the real danger we face in America and, tragically, it appears that it is unstoppable.

[FailureToCommunicate]

8. +1 We recently experienced the Nazi propaganda exhibit at the DC Holocaust museum...

Knowingly or unknowingly, modern MSM 'mist spreaders' have adopted many of the same techniques.

[JeffersonChick]

6. Uh, I'm confused

They support aid to "poor people", but not to "welfare recipients"? Wouldn't aid to poor people be... welfare?

[Shireling]

7. Yeah

That confused me too. But, perhaps they are more comfortable with helping "poor people" than helping the stereotyped "welfare recipients".