User Profile

The elite domination of the media and marginalization of dissidents that results from the operation of these filters occurs so naturally that media news people, frequently operating with complete integrity and goodwill, are able to convince themselves that they choose and interpret the news “objectively” and on the basis of professional news values.

— Manufacturing Consent by Edward S. Herman, Noam Chomsky, Edward S. Herman, and 1 other

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 by Edward S. Herman, Noam Chomsky, Edward S. Herman, and 1 other

the Seattle police resorted to force and used chemical agents against many nonviolent protesters well before a handful of individuals began breaking windows, both then and later the media reversed this chronology, stating that the police violence was a response to protester violence. In fact, the vandals were largely ignored by the police, while peaceful protesters were targeted for beatings, tear gas, torture with pepper spray, and arrest.

— Manufacturing Consent by Edward S. Herman, Noam Chomsky, Edward S. Herman, and 1 other

exaggeration of protester violence, their downplaying of police provocations and violence, and their complaisance at illegal police tactics designed to limit all protestor actions, peaceable or otherwise.

— Manufacturing Consent by Edward S. Herman, Noam Chomsky, Edward S. Herman, and 1 other

We have long argued that the “naturalness” of these processes, with inconvenient facts allowed sparingly and within the proper framework of assumptions, and fundamental dissent virtually excluded from the mass media (but permitted in a marginalized press), makes for a propaganda system that is far more credible and effective in putting over a patriotic agenda than one with official censorship.

— Manufacturing Consent by Edward S. Herman, Noam Chomsky, Edward S. Herman, and 1 other

(Admiral William Leahy, in response to a proposal to destroy Japanese rice crops in 1944, stated that this would “violate every Christian ethic I have ever heard of and all known laws of war”).

— Manufacturing Consent by Edward S. Herman, Noam Chomsky, Edward S. Herman, and 1 other

in Uruguay’s 1984 election, under another military regime that jailed the leading opposition candidate and also refused to allow a second major candidate to run, but organized by a government approved by the U.S. State Department, the Times once again found that “Uruguay is resuming its democratic vocation . . . the generals are yielding to the infectious resurgence of democracy in much of Latin America.”

— Manufacturing Consent by Edward S. Herman, Noam Chomsky, Edward S. Herman, and 1 other

There is little reason to believe that they would not like to understand why they are working harder with stagnant or declining incomes, have inadequate medical care at high costs, and what is being done in their name all over the world.

— Manufacturing Consent by Edward S. Herman, Noam Chomsky, Edward S. Herman, and 1 other

‘Suppose I do have kids. What if when they grow up, they blame me for everything that’s wrong with their lives?’ She laughed and said, ‘What do you mean, if?’

— Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang

“They say violence never solves anything, but to quote The Onion: ‘That’s only true so long as you ignore all of human history.’ Violence is the only way to get some people’s attention.

— Radicalized by Cory Doctorow