Quotes

Media Control

Section 1: Early history of propaganda

·      “…Turning a pacifist population into a hysterical, war-mongering population which wanted to destroy everything German, tear the Germans limb for limb…” (11/12)

·      “more intelligent members of the community” (12)

·      “State propaganda, when supported by the educated classes and when no deviation is permitted from it, can have a big effect.” (13)

Section 2: Spectator democracy

·      “the common interests elude public opinion entirely… and only be managed by a specialized class of responsible man” (15)

·      “…the big majority of the population, they are what Lippmann called “the bewildered herd””(16)

·      “Those of us who have rationality have to create “necessary illusions” and emotionally potent “oversimplifications” to keep the naïve simpletons more or less on course.” (20)

Section 3: Public Relations

·      “That raised two serious problems. For one, democracy was malfunctioning.” (23)

·      “Do you support our policy? But you don’t want people to think about that issue. That’s the whole point of good propaganda.” (26)

·      “The media are a corporate monopoly.” (29)

Section 4: Engineering Opinion

·      “But it is effective in changing opinion, contrary to what a lot of people believe.” (33)

·      “By the prevailing conception that’s a problem, a crisis that has to be overcome. The population ahs to be driven back to the apathy, obedience and passivity that is their proper state.” (33)

·      “If you want to have a violent society that uses dorce around the world to achieve the ends of its own domestic elite, it’s necessary to have a proper appreciation of the martial virtues and none of theses sickly inhibitions about using violence.” (34)

Section 5: Representation As Reality

·      “It’s also necessary to completely falsify history. That’s another way to overcome these sickly inhibitions…” (35)

·      “When you have total control over the media and the educational system and scholarships is conformist, you can get that across.” (36)

·      “It is necessary to overcome the sickly inhibitions against the use of military force and other democratic deviations.” (37)

Section 6: Dissident Culture

·      “Skepticism about power has grown, and attitudes have changed on many, many issues, It’s kind of slow, maybe even glacial, but perceptible and important.” (39/40)

·      “Everybody thought that the use of violence to suppress people out there was just right.” (40)

·      “Organization has it’s effects. It means that you are not alone.”(40)

Section 7: Parade of Enemies

·      “useful to prepare instead of just reacting.” (42)

·      “But they’re losing their attractiveness as an enemy, and it’s getting harder and harder to use that one, so some new ones have to be conjured up.”(43)

·      “There’s always an ideological offensive that builds up a chimerical monster, then campaigns to have it crushed.”(45)

Section 8: Selective Perception

·      “This in an unusually explicit and comprehensive testimony, probably unique in its detail about what’s going on in a torture chamber.” (48)

·      “Very little information about that ever appeared. The media never asked whether exposure of the atrocities…”(49)

·      Talking about bombing in Lebanon. ”All, fine the United States backed it. That’s one case. Yu didn’t see anything in the media about it or any discussion about whether Israel and the Unites States should observe the UNSC..”(51)

Section 9: The Gulf War

·      “We continued with “quite diplomacy” and ended up with ample reward for the aggressors.” (57)

·      “Was there a way out? … These questions were not discussed, and it’s crucial for a well-functioning propaganda system that they not be discussed.” (60)

·      “It was drilled into people’s heads over and over again: He’s about to take everything.”(63)

·      ‘It’s whether we want to live in a free society or whether we want to live under what amount to a form of self-imposed totalitarianism, with the bewildered herd marginalized, directed elsewhere, terrified, screaming patriotic slogans...”(65)

War on Terror

·      “it requires too much detailed analysis.”(69)

·      “…Guidelines: principles of fairness, accuracy, relevance, and so on…”(70)

·      “in order to rise to the absolutely minimal moral level we have to agree, in fact insist, that if some act is right for us then it’s right for others, and if it’s wrong when others do it then it’s wrong when we do it.”(77)

·      “namely, that we and our allies are the main victims of terrorism, that terrorism is a weapon of the weak.”(81)

·      “…credibility. Another term for it is declaring that we’re a terrorist state and you’d better be aware of the consequences of you get in our way.” (84)

·      “we accept moral truisms. If we rise to that level, we can then, and only then, honestly raise the question of how to respond to terrorism crimes.”(98)

·      “leaves us with a dilemma… either conventional hypocrisy…other option…that we profess with grand self-righteousness.” (100)