propaganda, american style by noam chomsky

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Propaganda,American-style

by Noam Chomsky

Pointing to the massive amountsof propaganda spewed bygovernment and institutionsaround the world, observers havecalled our era the age of Orwell.But the fact is that Orwell was alatecomer on the scene. As earlyas World War I, Americanhistorians offered themselves toPresident Woodrow Wilson tocarry out a task they called

"historical engineering," by whichthey meant designing the facts ofhistory so that they would servestate policy. In this instance, the


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U.S. government wanted tosilence opposition to the war. Thisrepresents a version of Orwell's

1984, even before Orwell waswriting.

In 1921, the famous Americanjournalist Walter Lippmann said

that the art of democracy requireswhat he called the "manufactureof consent." This phrase is anOrwellian euphemism for thoughtcontrol. The idea is that in a state

such as the U.S. where thegovernment can't control thepeople by force, it had bettercontrol what they think.. TheSoviet Union is at the opposite

end of the spectrum from us in itsdomestic freedoms. It's essentiallya country run by the bludgeon. It'svery easy to determine what


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propaganda is in the USSR: whatthe state produces is propaganda.

That's the kind of thing thatOrwell described in 1984 (not avery good book in my opinion).1984 is so popular because it'strivial and it attacks our enemies.

If Orwell had dealt with a differentproblem-- ourselves--his bookwouldn't have been so popular. Infact, it probably wouldn't havebeen published.

In totalitarian societies wherethere's a Ministry of Truth,propaganda doesn't really try tocontrol your thoughts. It just gives

you the party line. It says, "Here'sthe official doctrine; don't disobeyand you won't get in trouble.What you think is not of great


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importance to anyone. If you getout of line we'll do something toyou because we have force."

Democratic societies can't worklike that, because the state ismuch more limited in its capacityto control behavior by force. Sincethe voice of the people is allowed

to speak out, those in powerbetter control what that voicesays--in other words, control whatpeople think. One of the ways todo this is to create political debate

that appears to embrace manyopinions, but actually stays withinvery narrow margins. You have tomake sure that both sides in thedebate accept certain

assumptions--and that thoseassumptions are the basis of thepropaganda system. As long aseveryone accepts the propaganda


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system, the debate is permissible.

The Vietnam War is a classic

example of America's propagandasystem. In the mainstream media--the New York Times, CBS, and soon-- there was a lively debateabout the war. It was between

people called "doves" and peoplecalled "hawks." The hawks said,"If we keep at it we can win." Thedoves said, "Even if we keep at it,it would probably be too costly

for use, and besides, maybe we'rekilling too many people." Bothsides agreed on one thing. Wehad a right to carry out aggressionagainst South Vietnam. Doves and

hawks alike refused to admit thataggression was taking place. Theyboth called our military presencein Southeast Asia the defense of


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South Vietnam, substituting"defense" for "aggression" in thestandard Orwellian manner. In

reality, we were attacking SouthVietnam just as surely as theSoviets later attacked Afghanistan.

Consider the following facts. In

1962 the U.S. Air Force begandirect attacks against the ruralpopulation of South Vietnam withheavy bombing and defoliation . Itwas part of a program intended to

drive millions of people intodetention camps where,surrounded by barbed wire andarmed guards, they would be"protected" from the guerrillas

they were supporting--the "VietCong," the southern branch of theformer anti-French resistance (theVietminh). This is what our


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government calls aggression orinvasion when conducted bysome official enemy. The Saigon

government had no legitimacyand little popular support, and itsleadership was regularlyoverthrown in U.S.-backed coupswhen it was feared they might

arrange a settlement with the VietCong. Some 70,000 "Viet Cong"had already been killed in theU.S.-directed terror campaignbefore the outright U.S. invasion

took place in 1972.

Like the Soviets in Afghanistan,we tried to establish a governmentin Saigon to invite us in. We had

to overthrow regime after regimein that effort. Finally we simplyinvaded outright. That is plain,simple aggression. But anyone in


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the U.S. who thought that ourpolicies in Vietnam were wrong inprinciple was not admitted to the

discussion about the war. Thedebate was essentially overtactics.

Even at the peak of opposition to

the U.S. war, only a minusculeportion of the intellectualsopposed the war out of principle--on the grounds that aggression iswrong. Most intellectuals came to

oppose it well after leadingbusiness circles did--on the"pragmatic" grounds that the costswere too high.

Strikingly omitted from the debatewas the view that the U.S. couldhave won, but that it would havebeen wrong to allow such military


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aggression to succeed. This wasthe position of the authentic peacemovement but it was seldom

heard in the mainstream media. Ifyou pick up a book on Americanhistory and look at the VietnamWar, there is no such event as theAmerican attack on South

Vietnam. For the past 22 years, Ihave searched in vain for even asingle reference in mainstream

journalism or scholarship to an"American invasion of South

Vietnam" or American"aggression" in South Vietnam. InAmerica's doctrinal system, thereis no such event. It's out ofhistory, down Orwell's memory

hole.

If the U.S. were a totalitarian state,the Ministry of Truth would simply


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have said, "It's right for us to gointo Vietnam. Don't argue with it."People would have recognized

that as the propaganda system,and they would have gone onthinking whatever they wanted.They would have plainly seen thatwe were attacking Vietnam, just

as we can see the Soviets areattacking Afghanistan.

People are much freer in the U.S.,they are allowed to express

themselves. That's why it'snecessary for those in power tocontrol everyone's thought, to tryand make it appear as if the onlyissues in matters such as U.S.

intervention in Vietnam aretactical: Can we get away with it?There is no discussion of right orwrong.


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During the Vietnam War, the U.S.propaganda system did its job

partially but not entirely. Amongeducated people it worked verywell. Studies show that among themore educated parts of thepopulation, the government's

propaganda about the war is nowaccepted unquestioningly. Onereason that propaganda oftenworks better on the educated thanon the uneducated is that

educated people read more, sothey receive more propaganda.Another is that they have jobs inmanagement, media, andacademia and therefore work in

some capacity as agents of thepropaganda system--and theybelieve what the system expectsthem to believe. By and large,


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they're part of the privileged elite,and share the interests andperceptions of those in power.

On the other hand, thegovernment had problems incontrolling the opinions of thegeneral population. According to

some of the latest polls, over 70percent of Americans still thoughtthe war was, to quote the GallupPoll, "fundamentally wrong andimmoral, not a mistake." Due to

the widespread opposition to theVietnam War, the propagandasystem lost its grip on the beliefsof many Americans. They grewskeptical about what they were

told. In this case there's even aname for the erosion of belief. It'scalled the "Vietnam Syndrome," agrave disease in the eyes of


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America's elites because peopleunderstand too much.

Let me gives on more example ofthe powerful propaganda systemat work in the U.S.--thecongressional vote on contra aidin March 1986. For three months

prior to the vote, theadministration was heating up thepolitical atmosphere, trying toreverse the congressionalrestrictions on aid to the terrorist

army that's attacking Nicaragua. Iwas interested in how the mediawas going to respond to theadministration campaign for thecontras. So I studied two national

newspapers, the Washington Postand the New York Times. In

January, February, and March, Iwent through every one of their


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editorials, opinion pieces, and thecolumns written by their owncolumnists. There were 85 pieces.

Of these, all were anti-Sandinista.On that issue, no discussion wastolerable.

There are two striking facts about

the Sandinista government, ascompared with our allies inCentral America--Honduras,Guatemala, and El Salvador. Oneis that the Sandinista government

doesn't slaughter its population.That's a well-recognized fact.Second, Nicaragua is the only oneof those countries in which thegovernment has tried to direct

social services to the poor. Thistoo, is not a matter of debate; it isconceded on all sides to be true.


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On the other hand, our allies inGuatemala and El Salvador areamong the world's worst terrorist

states. So far in the 1980s, theyhave slaughtered over 150,000 oftheir own citizens, with U.S.support. These nations do little fortheir populations except torture,

terrorize, and kill them. Hondurasis a little different. In Honduras,there's a government of the richthat robs the poor. It doesn't killon the scale of El Salvador or

Guatemala, but a large part of thepopulation is starving to death.

So in examining the 85 editorials,I also looked for these two facts

about Nicaragua. The fact that theSandinistas are radically differentfrom our Central American alliesin that they don't slaughter their


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population was not mentionedonce. That they have carried outsocial reforms for the poor was

referred to in two phrases, bothburied. Two phrases in 85columns on one crucial issue,zero phrases in 85 columns onanother.

That's really remarkable controlover thought on a highly debatedissue. After that I went through theeditorials on El Salvador and

Nicaragua from 1980 to thepresent; it's essentially the samestory. Nicaragua, a country underattack by the regional superpower,did on October 15, 1985, what

we did in Hawaii during WorldWar II: instituted a state of siege.There was a huge uproar in themainstream American press--


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editorials, denunciations, claimsthat the Sandinistas are totalitarianStalinist monsters, and so on.

Two days after that, on October17, El Salvador renewed its stateof siege. Instituted in March 1980and renewed monthly afterwards,

El Salvador's state of siege was farmore harsh than Nicaragua's. Itblocked freedom of movementand virtually all civil rights. It wasthe framework within which the

U.S.-trained and -organized armyhas carried out torture andslaughter.

The New York Times considered

the Nicaraguan state of siege agreat atrocity. The Salvadoranstate of siege, far harsher in itsmethods and it application, was


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never mentioned in 160 NewYork Times editorials onNicaragua and El Salvador, up to

now [mid-1986, the time of thisinterview].

We are often told the country is abudding democracy, so it can't

possibly be having a state of siege.According to news reports on ElSalvador, Duarte is heading amoderate centrist governmentunder attack by terrorists of the

left and of the right. This iscomplete nonsense. Every humanrights investigation, even the U.S.government in private, concedesthat terrorism is being carried out

by the Salvadoran governmentitself. The death squads are thesecurity forces. Duarte is simply afront for terrorists. But that is


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seldom said publicly. All this fallsunder Walter Lippmann's notionof "the manufacture of consent."

Democracy permits the voice ofthe people to be heard, and it isthe task of the intellectual toensure that this voice endorseswhat leaders perceive to be the

right course. Propaganda is todemocracy what violence is tototalitarianism. The techniqueshave been honed to a high art inthe U.S. and elsewhere, far

beyond anything that Orwelldreamed of. The device of feigneddissent (as practiced by theVietnam- era "doves," whocriticized the war on the grounds

of effectiveness and not principle)is one of the more subtle means,though simple lying andsuppressing fact and other crude


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techniques are also highlyeffective.

For those who stubbornly seekfreedom around the world, therecan be no more urgent task thanto come to understand themechanisms and practices of

indoctrination. These are easy toperceive in the totalitariansocieties, much less so in thepropaganda system to which weare subjected and in which all too

often we serve as unwilling orunwitting instruments.

---

[This is an expanded version of an article

excerpted from Propaganda Review (Winter 198788). Subscriptions: $20/yr. (4 issues) from MediaAlliance, Fort Mason, Bldg. D, San Francisco, CA94123. This article was drawn from an interview


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conducted by David Barsamian of KGNU-Radio inBoulder, Colorado (cassettes available for sale;write David Barsamian, 1415 Dellwood, Boulder,

CO 80302), and an essay from Chomsky's bookRadical Priorities, edited by C.P. Otero (1984).Black Rose Books, 3981 Boulevard St. Laurent,Montral H2W 1Y5, Quebec, Canada.] Source:Free Words

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