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Tag Archives: Abby Martin

Project Censored On Critical Media Literacy and Civic Engagement

23 Fri Sep 2016

Posted by ztnh in Anti-Capitalism, Anti-Fascism, Anti-Imperialism, Anti-War, Education, Political Economy, Political Science, Sociology

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Abby Martin, Amy Goodman, Behind the Headline with Mnar Muhawesh, critical media literacy, deep state, Democracy Now!, Dr. Andy Lee Roth, KPFA, KPFA 2016 Fall Fund Drive, Media Democracy In Action, Mickey Huff M.A., military-industrial complex, MintPress News, Mnar Muhawesh, Pacifica Radio Network, Project Censored, service learning, transcript

ProjectCensoredLUMPENPROLETARIAT—On this week’s edition of Project Censored, co-host and educator, Mickey Huff delivered another excellent hour-long broadcast.  This Friday’s broadcast focused on the upcoming annual Project Censored book, Censored 2017: The Fortieth Anniversary Edition, including the themes of critical media literacy and civic engagement, both, in education and in the public realm, generally.  They remind us, citizens of an ostensibly democratic society, that civic engagement is a daily way of life.  We can limit our participation to a sporadic electoral cattle call, or disengage civically, at our own peril, not to mention that of our families and communities.  Capital never sleeps.  As Project Censored‘s Dr. Andy Lee Roth noted:

“Media power is political power.  [But the] corporate media have played a crucial, perhaps unintentional, role in diminishing the public’s understanding of what it means to participate in a democratic society.

“As Ben Bagdikian, who we dedicated this year’s volume to, noticed back, almost, 30 years ago:  Most Americans no longer experience democracy on a daily basis in their lives.  And that’s a deep and profound problem.  And I think one of the aims of producing a Top 25 list, like we do in the book each year, is to better inform people, so that they might engage with these issues in their daily lives.”

Project Censored is, perhaps, the finest media watchdog group out there.  You need to peep game.  Listen (and/or download) here. [1]

Messina

***

[Working draft transcript of actual radio broadcast by Messina for Lumpenproletariat and Project Censored.]

censored-2017-cover-749x1024PROJECT CENSORED—[23 SEP 2016]  [KPFA station identification by Erica Bridgeman(sp?)]

“Welcome, everybody, to the Project Censored show on Pacifica Radio.  I’m Mickey Huff.  Peter Phillips is taking a well-deserved day off, although he will be joining me as a guest, briefly, at the end of the show today.

“This is the last day of the KPFA Fund Drive.  And we are very, very close to our goal.  And my goal, coming down here from Sonoma County today, is to make the goal; get us over that hump.  And we can’t do it without you, the great listeners of community radio, free speech radio, KPFA.

“Again, this is the Project Censored show.  I’m Mickey Huff.  And we have a fantastic, whirlwind, show for you today.  So, it’s going to be quick.  Some of you may know that it’s so quick that we jumped in without the theme music.  So, [chuckles] we are ready to raise money.  And you can call at 800.439-5732—800.439-5732—or online at KPFA.org.

“I have something special for you, today, folks—the brand new, hot-off-the-press, fresh-baked Project Censored book, Censored 2017: The Fortieth Anniversary Edition. [2]  My co-editor, and associate director, Andy Lee Roth, and I finished it over the summer.  It’s got a dynamite foreword by the one and only Mark Crispin Miller, fantastic cartoons by Khalil Bendib.  And we’re offering it to you today on the Project Censored show for a $120 pledge.  It’s not even on the shelves yet.  Be the first cool kid on your block to have a copy, a shiny copy—Censored 2017, $120 pledge.  Project Censored: The Movie, our award-winning film, $100.  A bumper sticker and membership for KPFA, $25.  I just want to get ten people calling in right now and get this over with, so we could get over the hump.  That’s how close we are, here, folks, at free speech radio.  800.439-5732 is the number to call.

“So, let’s get on to the content of today’s programme.  On today’s programme, we are looking at Censored 2017: The Fortieth Anniversary Edition.  Noam Chomsky says:

It is immensely gratifying to be able to congratulate Project Censored on the fortieth anniversary of its remarkable achievements, both, in bringing to us critically important stories, that have had little or no media attention and in engaging young activists, who will be able to carry on this very valuable work.  A crucial contribution to a more just and democratic society.

“This is what Noam Chomsky says about Project Censored and our Fortieth Anniversary Edition, Censored 2017.

“And I am joined, right now, by my co-editor and my associate director at Project Censored, Andy Lee Roth.  Andy, thanks so much for joining us today on the Project Censored show.”

DR. ANDY LEE ROTH:  “Hi, Mickey.  It’s great to be on the air with you.”

MICKEY HUFF, M.A.:  “So, Andy, you and I did a lot of work on this 450-page book, ten chapters.  Tell our listeners a little bit about what goes into our stories.  Maybe, talk a little bit about the process as educators.  I read that Chomsky blurb a moment ago.  Right?  And I think that he, rightfully, notes that one of things, that Project Censored has done over the years, that’s maybe different than other media organisations, is critical media literacy education.

“So, talk to us a little bit about that and how we go through the stories.”  (c. 5:27)

DR. ANDY LEE ROTH:  “Yeah.  I mean the Top 25 List—that is the first of, as you mentioned, ten chapters in this year’s book, um it is—the determination of each year’s 25 stories is, really, a year-long process, that involves, literally, hundreds of people, faculty, and students from college and university campuses across the country and, indeed, around the world and, ultimately, the participation of Project Censored’s panel of expert judges, more than two dozen experts, activists, media scholars, professional journalists to help us to vet the stories, that we’re looking at and considering for inclusion in the Top 25 each year.

“So, this year, to be a little more specific, the Top 25 stories, that feature in Censored 2017 were researched by some 221 students, 33 faculty members from 18 colleges and university campuses across the U.S. and in Canada.  And we looked at, this year, to whittle down to the Top 25, we’ve identified and vetted and summarised some 235 stories from the independent press, what we call VINs, or validated independent news stories.  And each of those 235 stories, from which the 25 were selected, are posted up on the Project Censored website.  They are available to the public there as a resource.”

MICKEY HUFF, M.A.:  “And, Andy, that’s ProjectCensored.org.  You could see the stories researched year-round.  We have, roughly, 20 campuses, as you were rattling down the numbers there.  There’s, again, so much work, that goes into this project, that was founded by Carl Jensen at Sonoma State University and carried on by Peter Phillips for so long, who’s still contributing to the book every year.

“And, yeah, you and I have done, I think, seven of these together.  This would be my eighth, I think, total.

“And, Andy, let’s talk a little bit, too, about some of the other things—well, let’s stick with the first chapter momentarily, since you were just talking about the validated independent news stories.  And, without going into details, since this doesn’t come ’til October 4th [2016].

“But what can you tell us about the kinds of stories, or a pattern of types of stories, that are censored and under-reported over the years?  That is, a continuation into this year’s volume.”  (c. 8:06)

DR. ANDY LEE ROTH:  “Yeah, absolutely.  I mean I can say that some of the story topics touched on issues, such as the global presence of U.S. military forces. [3]  This year, we talked some about the crisis of evidence-based medicine; links between climate change and gender-based inequality.

“But I wanna step back from, even, that level of detail on the Top 25 and talk about why it’s important to put together a list, an annual list, of stories, that are under-reported in the corporate media.  And I’m sure this really goes to the issue that the idea, that I think undergirds everything we do at Project Censored.  And it’s certainly an informing theme in Censored 2017, which is the idea that media power is political power.

“There are many ways, that we could unpack the meaning of that term, or the meaning of that statement.  And I wanna just, briefly, touch on two of them.

“Media power is political power.  First, one way is that the corporate media have played a crucial, perhaps unintentional, role in diminishing the public’s understanding of what it means to participate in a democratic society.

“As Ben Bagdikian, who we dedicated this year’s volume to, noticed back, almost, 30 years ago:  Most Americans no longer experience democracy on a daily basis in their lives.  And that’s a deep and profound problem.  And I think one of the aims of producing a Top 25 list, like we do in the book each year, is to better inform people, so that they might engage with these issues in their daily lives.

“Now, a second way, if I could just very quickly come back to the idea of media power is political power, has to do with what we’re doing when we produce the Top 25 list.  And that’s engaging students directly in examining the content of the corporate news, comparing and contrasting it with what’s available when we turn to independent news sources.  And, then, educating the public about what they found when they do that.

“And, so, for those listeners, who haven’t seen the Top 25 List before, it’s important to note that, in addition to crediting the journalists and the independent news outlets, that broke these stories of our Top 25 List, we also identify by name the student researcher and the faculty evaluator, who did the vetting work to see:  Well, has this story been covered in the corporate press?

“And I think it’s the hands-on engagement, that the students get by working with, and as the project is something, to our knowledge, I think completely distinctive about Project Censored as a media watchdog group, as one of the longest-standing media watchdog groups in the country.”  (c. 11:21)

MICKEY HUFF, M.A.:  “That’s right, Andy.

“Andy Lee Roth, we’re speaking to, the associate director of Project Censored, my colleague and co-editor of Censored 2017: The Fortieth Anniversary Edition, that’s coming out soon.

“You just heard Andy say one of the key things, that we do at Project Censored, is critical media literacy education, outreach to students and schools.  And we think that this is a really big part of making people aware of the amount of censorship, propaganda, and mis– and disinformation, that are going on in the corporate news media and corporate deep state messaging, that take place in the United States, all under the guise or rubric of a free press or a protected free press.

“Well, Andy, you’re going to stay on with us.  But we have, joining the programme now, we have someone, that is from the millennial generation—right?—that gets a lot of disdain in the corporate media and among two major political candidates.  And, but, I’d have to say our next guest is, not only a stalwart independent journalist, but really the kind of reporting, that she does is, to quote on of the subtitles of our 2014 book, Andy, she’s an exemplar of speaking, exemplifying it by fearless speech in fateful times.

“And our next guest is founder of MintPress News.  And that would be Mnar Muhawesh.  And she has a programme called Behind the Headline.  Her website is MintPressNews[.com].  Mnar Muhawesh, welcome to the programme.”  (c. 12:55)

mnar-muhawesh-pink-profile-pic-101x120

Mnar Muhawesh (MintPress News)

MNAR MUHAWESH:  “[chuckles]  Thank you so much, Mickey, for having me.  And thank you for the kind introduction.  I appreciate that.”

MICKEY HUFF, M.A.:  “Well, Mnar Muhawesh, we at Project Censored, as you heard Andy Roth saying, not only do we point out censored stories and do we point out and criticise many of the problems, that take place in media—right?—but we also celebrate courageous, independent journalists, that are willing to go and tell the stories, that we really need to know to understand what’s happening around the world.

“And [clears throat] you—I’d have to say that the stories, that you cover at MintPress News are so significant, in terms of what they hit on, that the corporate media, either, miss altogether or grossly distort, that, again, I can’t say the word exemplar.

“This is the kind of reporting, that we need in the United States and around the world today.  And I’d like you to talk to us a little bit about what you do at MintPress News.  You have a story on Syria in our book this year.  And you also have a segment in our ‘Media Democracy In Action‘ chapter on MintPress News.  Tell us about what you do, Mnar Muhawesh, and how people can find out more.”  (c. 14:03)

MNAR MUHAWESH:  “Well, thank you.  I’m honoured that [chuckles], you know, I’m being—you know, our work is being featured.  But, you know, MintPress, it was started—I started my press for the exact reasons, that you do Project Censored.  I mean we focus on how the media manipulates.  They propagate.  They provide so much disinformation to the public about issues, that we should be highly informed about.

“And the reason, that I pursued journalism in the first place is because I was a victim of disinformation, as a Palestinian-American.  My parents moved us overseas for three-and-a-half years, almost four years, to Jerusalem.  And we lived under Israeli occupation and apartheid.  So, I saw, firsthand, what U.S. foreign policy was doing to people overseas.  And I saw that it was funding a police state, an apartheid state, a militarised state, like Israel.

“And, so, when I came back to the United States, I saw the media provide so much disinformation about Palestinians, about Palestinian liberation.  And they painted the picture.  They, basically, flipped the narrative.

“And, so, from there, I was—you know—about twelve, twelve-and-a-half, 13 years old I had—even though I was so young, I had seen how the media specialised, basically, in flipping the narrative on most foreign policy issues.

“And, so, when it comes to, you know, the war in Iraq, I was very vocal in my high school, speaking out against it.

“And, so, when this war in Syria came along, we were one of the first news organisations to stand up and say that the narrative we were being, basically, fed about the crisis in Syria was, not only disinformation, but our [American government’s] foreign policy was the one, that had basically created this chaos inside Syria.  And our [corporate] media was perpetuating this narrative, so that we can justify more war.

“And, so, that’s the kind of work, that we do.  And something, that we, specifically, specialise in is looking at how these special interests, how the military-industrial complex influences policies at home and abroad.  So, we like to say that we’re the neocon watchdogs [chuckles] in our media.  (c. 16:03)

MICKEY HUFF, M.A.:  “So, Mnar, tell people the website and a little bit about the programme, that you do.”

MNAR MUHAWESH:  “So, our website is MintPressNews.com.  And we launched about four years ago.  And, most recently, in the last year, we launched a video segment called Behind the Headline.  And, basically, it’s just a video format of what we already do at MintPress.  But, you know, with the new age of journalism you gotta get on video.  So, we added that to our reporting.

“And the show is supposed to launch this month on FreeSpeech TV  I.  It’ll be airing on Dish Network and on Roku.  And, basically, what we’re trying to do is we’re trying to reach an audience [scoffs], that, you know, turns to the TV to get information.  Unfortunately, even liberal media, that’s available on TV is not quite telling the truth about some of the most important stories, like the war on whistleblowers, the truth about the money-making schemes of the War On Terror.

“And, so, we wanted to be in the forefront of that information and be able to dissect those narratives and be able to reach people, that are, normally, watching TV.  And, unfortunately, we do have a rise of this pseudo-liberal media.  And we, even, wanna challenge that.

“We have news stations, even like, Democracy Now!.  I love Democracy Now!.  I love Amy Goodman.  But we just have to be honest that, sometimes, even those news organisations do perpetuate those deep state narratives.  I mean I just saw the other day that they were celebrating the Libyan Revolution on Twitter.  Then, I thought:  That was a CIA-backed revolution.  And, so, sometimes even our so-called liberal media is perpetuating those kinds of narratives, maybe unknowingly.  I’m not sure.

“And, so, we wanna be able to challenge those kinds of narratives as well.”

MICKEY HUFF, M.A.:  “Mnar Muhawesh.  MintPress News.  Again, agreed, here, at Project Censored.  We have sometimes gotten into hot water because we’ve also criticised colleagues on the left of the spectrum. 

“But, again, you know, I’d like to go back to the idea that we’re not, necessarily, interested in tearing down.  We’re interested in building up.”

MNAR MUHAWESH:  “Yes.”

MICKEY HUFF, M.A.:  “And, if we can call out this kind of reporting, and call out where there might be disagreements, we can actually have a dialogue, that a free press is supposed to really help generate in a robust democracy.

“So, Mnar Muhawesh, you will be joining us October 21st [2016], at the Fortieth Anniversary Celebration of Project Censored.  You are going to be involved in a great round-table discussion with Abby Martin of Empire Files; with David Talbot, author of The Devil’s Chessboard; and also Mark Crispin Miller, who did the foreword to our book this year.  So, we look forward to seeing you October 21st at Sonoma State University.  People can find out more at ProjectCensored.org.

“Mnar Muhawesh, thank you for your work at MintPress News.  And thank you for joining us on the Project Censored show today.”  (c. 18:52)

MNAR MUHAWESH:  “Thank you so much, Mickey.”

MICKEY HUFF, M.A.:  “ [SNIP]

[Mickey Huff transitions to focusing on appealing free speech radio KPFA’s audience for financial support, as KPFA/Pacifica Radio Network is listener-sponsored and does not take any corporate underwriting.  KPFA is reportedly currently facing a very serious budgetary crisis and has reported concerns of no longer being able to broadcast full time.]

[Dr. Andy Lee Roth gives a few previews of the stories featured in Censored 2017, such as anonymous edits to Wikipedia articles critical of police being traced back to police agency IP addresses.]  (c. 23:13)

[Mickey Huff continues appealing for the sustenance of listener-sponsored free speech, community, radio.]

MICKEY HUFF, M.A.:  “[SNIP]  And we need you to call in:  800.439-5732.  We’re very close to meeting the Fall Fund Drive goal, people.  And we need people power.  And the kind of people power we need right now, at free speech radio, is for you to call in:  800.439-5732.

“You can get the brand new Censored 2017: Fortieth Anniversary Edition for a $120 pledge.  You can get the DVD, Project Censored: The Movie, Ending the Reign of Junkfood News for $100 dollars.

“You can become a member of KPFA, for $25; and get a Project Censored bumper sticker.  So, when you’re driving around or, not just stuck in traffic, but are traffic, people can read that and say:  Huh?  The ‘News That Didn’t Make The News’?  I wonder what that is.  And, on one side of your car you have the KPFA bumper sticker and, on another, Project Censored.

“800.439-5732.  And, yes, this is the Project Censored show.  And, yes, these are Project Censored premiums.  And, no, we are not profiting from these premiums.  And I want to make sure that there is full disclosure that we offer these materials to KPFA at cost.  We do not profit from our own items through KPFA, just like Peter Phillips and I, my co-host, who’s gonna join us later to talk about his chapter, we come down here from Sonoma County as volunteers, in support of community radio ‘cos this is what we believe it means, not only, to be a part of this kind of community, but as professors and academics and public intellectuals, we believe that these are the kind of things we are supposed to do to contribute to our democratic culture.  (c. 25:28)

“Please call 800.439-5732.  Please show your support, not only for this kind of programming, but please support KPFA free speech radio, Pacifica.

“You know, this programme is on 35 stations around the U.S.  But we do it right here.  We come to Berkeley, California., home of the free speech movement., home of community radio.  It started here, after World War II.  Please call in: 800.439-5732.  That’s the number to call.

“You heard Andy Lee Roth talk about what’s in the 2017 book.  Be the first to have it.  800.439-5732.  For a $120 pledge—$10 dollars a month, people, $10 dollars a month; I don’t even think you can get two draft beers or lattes.  $10 dollars a month gets you this book Censored 2017: The Fortieth Anniversary Edition and keeps things going, here, at KPFA.

“This is your radio station.

“$100 dollars gets you the DVD of Project Censored: The Movie, award-winning—I might add—Ending the Reign of Junkfood News.   You can get a bumper sticker and become a member of KPFA for $25.

“We’re gonna have some other people on this show talking about the contents of this book.

[SNIP]

[SNIP]”

MICKEY HUFF, M.A.:  “ [SNIP]  (c. 27:36)

“We’ve also got our next guest, that’s going to be coming on—Susan Rahman.  She has a—she has several contributions.  She has a contribution on service learning.  And that attaches to critical media literacy, very important educational work, that you heard Andy Lee Roth talking about.

MICKEY HUFF:  Critical media literacy, very important educational work […]  This is what Project Censored is about.  We’re not just about calling out the censored stories and calling out propaganda.  We’re also about supporting independent journalism and supporting places like KPFA with our volunteer efforts.

And we’re about education.  We are about teaching the next generation how to speak truth to power.

“This is what Project Censored is about.  We’re not just about calling out the censored stories and calling out propaganda.  We’re also about supporting independent journalism and supporting places, like KPFA with our volunteer efforts.  And we’re about education.

“We are about teaching the next generation how to speak truth to power.  (c. 28:00)

[SNIP]  (c. 59:59)

Learn more at PROJECT CENSORED.

[This transcript will be expanded as time constraints, and/or demand or resources, allow.]

***

[1]  Terrestrial radio transmission, 94.1 FM (KPFA, Berkeley, CA) with online simulcast and digital archiving:  Project Censored, this one-hour broadcast hosted by co-host Mickey Huff, Friday, 23 SEP 2016, 13:00 PDT.

Non-specific programme summary posted by Project Censored on KPFA’s archive page:

“The News That Didn’t Make the News. Each week, co-hosts Mickey Huff and Peter Phillips conduct in depth interviews with their guests and offer hard hitting commentary on the key political, social, and economic issues of the day with an emphasis on critical media literacy.”

[2]  Copies of the new Project Censored book, Censored 2017: The Fortieth Anniversary Edition, are available as a thank-you gift when you become a KPFA listener-member by donating to free speech radio.  They are also available directly from Project Censored here.  About the new book:

“This special 40th anniversary volume features chapters on surveillance technology, the rising police state, and what’s being done to stop it; a brief history of CIA media manipulation; how we can improve upon scholarly research methods of controversial topics and conspiracies; an overview of how major public relations firms generate propaganda, selling empire for governments and corporate clients around the globe; and why critical media literacy education is at the root of achieving social justice for all in our times. It’s a work that deconstructs the challenges we face and proposes many solutions to achieve a more equitable and just world!”

[3]  Read, i.e., US imperialism, US/NATO imperialism, capitalist imperialism, American Unified Combatant Command, etcetera.

If memory serves, the USA is the only nation on Earth with the nerve and hubris to formally carve up the entire planet into segments, which its military is working to dominate and control, as with its Unified Combatant Command scheme.  US imperialism, in this case, is no longer an occulted, or secret, conspiracy theory.  It is publicly documented military and government policy.  This permanently belligerent military stance can only be possible when the citizenry has, either, predominantly acquiesced or disengaged from monitoring and critiquing its foreign policy.  Either scenario gives the military free reign to impose its will, in our name, across the globe, but primarily for the benefit of war profiteers within the military-industrial complex.

***

[24 SEP 2016]

[Last modified  15:10 PDT  26 SEP 2016]

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Used & Betrayed: 100 Years of US Troops as Lab Rats

30 Mon May 2016

Posted by ztnh in Anti-Imperialism, Anti-War

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Abby Martin, Media Roots, TeleSur, The Empire Files

media rootsLUMPENPROLETARIAT—On this Memorial Day, we pause from the usual tradition of solemnly remembering our military workers, who have died while serving our nation’s, often imperialistic, military objectives.  Abby Martin has focused the latest episode of her current TV show Empire Files to remembering the abuses, which our military leadership has knowingly inflicted upon our loyal military workers. [1]  Rather than avoid placing our troops in harm’s way, too often our military leaders have intentionally endangered our military personnel for the sake of experimentation without informed consent.  This 31-minute documentary also explores how many of our military veterans are denied medical care, and essentially left to die, when their illnesses, cancers, and ailments threaten to expose military wrongdoing.

Abby Martin‘s narration concludes:

“America’s politicians and military commanders tell young men and women all over the country that if you sacrifice, if you obey our orders without question you’ll be taken care of.  The reality is they’re treated like nothing but disposable equipment.  And, when they ask for help for being poisoned, they are met with a brick wall of lies and denial.  With the largest military budget in world history, the U.S. government would rather invest billions to deny the science behind sick vets just to get out of paying meager benefits.

“As long as the corporate elite rule for profit over life, our loved ones will continue to be sacrificial pawns just to serve their interests.  For those in the military today, this history shows that, without a doubt, the orders given to you from your so-called leaders cannot be trusted.  And your life could depend on exercising your right to walk away from them.”

Messina

“Used & Betrayed: 100 Years of US Troops as Lab Rats” by Empire Files

MEDIA ROOTS—[27 MAY 2016]  On Memorial Day, politicians will speak at ceremonies all over the country and repeat their favorite mantra: “Support the troops.”

This pledge is hammered into the American psyche at every turn.  But there’s a hidden, dark history that shows that the politicians are in fact no friend to service members–but their greatest enemy.

An easy way to prove this is to look at how they so quickly betray and abandon their soldiers after purposely ruining their lives, and even after using them as literal lab rats.

In this disturbing chapter of The Empire Files, Abby Martin documents decades of experimentation on unwitting US troops—from nuclear tests to psychotropic drugs—as well as knowingly exposing them to deadly poisons, from Agent Orange to sarin gas.

Most infuriating is that the hundreds of thousands of veterans seeking help from the government for the side-effects of these tests are always met with lies and denial.  Be prepared to be armed with info and pissed off about how veterans are really treated in the US Empire.

Learn more at MEDIA ROOTS.

***

[1]  Abby Martin is the founder of Media Roots, an independent news, culture, and information website.  Your author used to work with Martin at Media Roots prior to her starting work on her now-defunct TV show for RT, Breaking The Set.  Abby Martin is currently the host of Empire Files broadcast on TeleSur.

***

[2 JUN 2016]

[Last modified  22:54 PDT 2 JUN 2016]

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Requiem for the American Dream: Noam Chomsky and the Principles of Concentration of Wealth & Power (2015)

13 Fri May 2016

Posted by ztnh in Anti-Capitalism, Anti-Fascism, Democracy Deferred, Documentary Film, History of Economic Theory, Political Economy, Political Science

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

Abby Martin, Aristotle (384-322 BCE), class mobility, Democracy Now!, Dr. Noam Chomsky, George Monbiot (b. 1963), Gloria Steinem (b. 1934), James Madison, KPFA, Malcolm X, Marxian economics, Pacifica Radio Network, Ralph Nader, reserve army of labour, RogerEbert.com, UpFront

ChomskyRequiemforAmericanDream2016LUMPENPROLETARIAT—One of the most influential and widely cited intellectuals on the Left is linguist, activist, and political analyst Dr. Noam Chomsky.  In a 2015 documentary film, Dr. Chomsky’s radical analysis has been focused on the various adverse effects of capitalist modes of production upon contemporary life, namely the increasing concentration of wealth and power and the vicious punishment inflicted upon the working classes.

The film is entitled Requiem for the American Dream: Noam Chomsky and the Principles of Concentration of Wealth & Power.  Its filmmakers invested some four years researching the voluminous archives of Chomsky writings and audio recordings in order to bring this film to fruition.

From a Marxian perspective, among others, we observe how inequality of power and income distribution is fundamentally built into capitalistic social relations.  Dr. Chomsky’s arguments do not approach concentration of wealth and power from a formal Marxian perspective, but the conclusions at which he arrives are nevertheless very similar.  And, indeed, a number of the arguments Dr. Chomsky makes have largely come down to us from Dr. Marx (and Marxian analysis) beforehand, for example, the reserve army of the unemployed.  In Requiem for the American Dream, we find a composite narrative comprised of arguments made by Chomsky over the years, which the filmmakers have woven together, for the public record, into a compelling indictment of capitalist modes of production.

Free speech radio KPFA is in the midst of its 2016 Spring Fund Drive.  And it has broadcast excerpts of this documentary, which it is offering as one of the many thank-you gifts offered to incentivise listener support for free speech radio.  For example, this broadcast:  Listen (and/or download) here. [1]

UPDATE—[Summer 2016]  Requiem for the American Dream has now been added to the films available on Netflix and other video streaming services.  (Also see new notes added below.)

Messina

***

[Transcripts of excerpts from Requiem for the American Dream by Messina for Lumpenproletariat and free speech radio KPFA]

*

[Excerpts broadcast on UpFront for Friday, 13 MAY 2016, 07:00 PDT]  [2]

DR. NOAM CHOMSKY:  (c. 0:17)  “Each time, the taxpayer is called on to bail out the crisis, increasingly the major finance institutions.  If you had a capitalist economy, you wouldn’t do that.  In a capitalist system, that would wipe out the investors, who made risky investments.  But the rich and powerful, they don’t want a capitalist system.  They want to be able to run to the nanny state, as soon as they are in trouble and get bailed out by the taxpayer.  That’s called too big to fail.”

[SNIP]

[From the film’s introduction]

DR. NOAM CHOMSKY: “During the Great Depression, which I’m old enough to remember—and most of my family were unemployed, working class—it was bad, much worse, subjectively, than today.  But there was an expectation that things were going to get better, that there was a real sense of hopefulness.  There isn’t today.

“The inequality is really unprecedented.  I mean, if you look at total inequality, it’s like the worst periods of American history.  But, if you refine it more closely, the inequality comes from the extreme wealth in a tiny sector of the population, a fraction of one percent.  There were periods, like the Gilded Age in the ’20s and and the roaring ’90s and so on, when a situation developed rather similar to this.

“Now, this period is extreme ‘cos, if you look at the wealth distribution, the inequality mostly comes from super wealth.  Literally, the top one-tenth of a percent are just super wealthy.  Not only is it extremely unjust in itself, inequality has highly negative consequences on the society as a whole because the very fact of inequality has a corrosive, very harmful, effect on democracy.

“You opened by talking about the American Dream.  Part of the American Dream is class mobility.  You’re born poor; you work hard; you get rich.  It was possible for a worker to get a decent job, buy a home, get a car, help his children go to school.  It’s all collapsed.

[PRINCIPLE #1: REDUCE DEMOCRACY]

“Imagine yourself in an outside position, looking from Mars.  What do you see?  In the United States, there are professed values, like democracy.  In a democracy, public opinion is gonna have some influence on policy.  And, then, the government carries out actions determined by the population.  That’s what democracy means.

“It’s important to understand that privileged and powerful sectors have never liked democracy, and for very good reasons.  Democracy puts power into the hands of the general population and takes it away from them.  Now, it’s kind of a principle of concentration of wealth and power.  Concentration of wealth yields concentration of power, particularly so as the cost of elections skyrockets, which kind of forces the political parties into the pockets of major corporations.

“And this political power quickly translates into legislation, that increases the concentration of wealth.  So, fiscal policy, like tax policy, deregulation, rules for corporate governance, a whole variety of measures, political measures designed to increase the concentration of wealth and power, which in turn yields more political power do the same thing.  And that’s what we’ve been seeing.

“So, we have this kind of vicious cycle in progress.  You know; actually, it was so traditional that it was described by Adam Smith in 1776.  You read the famous Wealth of Nations.  He says, in England the principle architects of policy are the people who own the society—in his day, the merchants and manufacturers.  And they make sure that their interests are very well cared for, however grievous the impact on the people of England or others.  Now, it’s not merchants and manufacturers.  It’s financial institutions and multinational corporations—the people who Adam Smith called the masters of mankind.  And they are following the vile maxim:  All for ourselves and nothing for anyone else.  They’re just gonna pursue policies, that benefit them and harm everyone else.  And, in the absence of a general, popular reaction, that’s pretty much what you’d expect.

“Right though American history, there’s been an ongoing clash between pressure for more freedom and democracy coming from below and efforts at elite control and domination coming from above.  It goes back to the founding of the country.  James Madison, the main framer, was as much a believer in democracy as anybody in the world.  But they, nevertheless, felt that the United States system should be designed and, indeed, his initiative was designed so that power should be in the hands of the wealthy because the wealthy are the more responsible set of men.  And, therefore, the structure of the formal Constitutional system placed most power in the hands of the Senate.  Remember the Senate was not elected in those days.  It was selected from the wealthy—men, [who], as Madison put it, had sympathy for the property owners and their rights.

“If you read the debates at the Constitutional Convention, Madison said:  The major concern of the society has to be to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority.  And he had arguments.  Suppose everyone had a vote freely.  He said:  Well, the majority of the poor would get together and they would organise to take away the property of the rich.  And he said:  That would, obviously, be unjust.  So, you can’t have that.  So, therefore, the Constitutional system has to be set up to prevent democracy.

“That’s just of some interest that this debate has a hoary tradition, that goes back to the first major book on political systems—Aristotle‘s Politics.  He says:  Of all of them, the best is democracy.  But, then, he points out exactly the flaw, that Madison pointed out.  If the essence were democracy for free men, the poor would get together and take away the property of the rich.  Well, same dilemma, they had opposite solutions.  Aristotle proposed what we would now call a welfare state.  He said:  Try to reduce inequality.

“So, the same problem, opposite solutions.  One is:  Reduce inequality, you won’t have this problem.  The other is:  Reduce democracy.

“If you look at the history of the United States, it’s a constant struggle between these two tendencies—that democratising tendency, that’s mostly coming from the population and pressure from below.  And you get this constant battle going on—periods of regression and periods of progress.  The 1960s, for example, were a period of significant democratisation.  Sectors of the population, that were usually passive and apathetic, they become organised, active, and started pressing their demands.  And they became more and more involved in decision-making, activism, and so on.  They just changed consciousness in a lot of ways:

“Minority rights:  ‘If democracy means freedom, then why are our people not free?  If democracy means justice, why don’t we have justice?  If democracy means equality, why don’t we have equality?’ [Malcolm X film clip]

“Women’s rights:  ‘This inhuman system of exploitation will change, but only if we force it to change and force it together. [Gloria Steinem film clip]

“Concern for the environment:  (c. 19:45) [Walter Cronkite audio clip]

“Opposition to aggression:  [SNIP] [Dr. Benjamin Spock film clip]

“Concern for other people:  [SNIP]  [Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. audio clip]

“These were all civilising effects.  Now, that caused great fear.  [SNIP]

[SNIP]  (c. 59:59)

Learn more at UPFRONT.

[This transcript will be expanded as time constraints, and/or demand or resources, allow.]

***

ROGER EBERT—[29 JAN 2016]  “Requiem for the American Dream,” a film by Peter Hutchison, Kelly Nyks and Jared P. Scott, might be subtitled “Professor Chomsky Explains It All for you.” As Errol Morris did with Robert McNamara in “The Fog of War,” the directors here point their cameras in close-up at Noam Chomsky for a feature-length disquisition that’s interspersed with snazzy graphics and illustrative archival footage. In large part because Chomsky is a very good speaker with a wealth of incisive ideas to share, the result is a film that feels less like a lecture than a provocative X-ray of current American political realities.

It couldn’t be more timely, not only because the idea that it is its heart—the impact of the concentration of wealth and power on our politics—has received so much attention of late, but more specifically because its animating concerns are central to the current year’s presidential election. For that reason, its appeal could be more ecumenical than might be assumed. How many Americans currently would agree that the American dream is in big trouble? A good percentage, recent polls suggest. That’s why Chomsky’s leftist analysis, as a starting point for discussion at the very least, could offer as much food for thought for the supporters of Donald J. Trump as it will sustenance for Bernie Sanders’ legions.

The film’s title aptly pinpoints its area of interest. Though Chomsky, a veteran MIT professor who first gained renown for his groundbreaking work in linguistics, comments frequently on global conflicts and America’s involvement therein, we hear almost nothing on those subjects here (which even the film’s admirers might consider a weakness). The upside to this decision, though, is that the discussion has a tight, logical focus that aids its clarity and organization.

In essense, Chomsky asks why America seemed to reach the zenith of its economic and civic vibrancy in the 1950s and ‘60s and then go into a decline that has left few except the top tenth of a percent of Americans truly fulfilled or satisfied. To answer the question, he constructs a narrative that entwines ideas and events, both harkening back to 1776. In that year, British moral philosopher Adam Smith published “The Wealth of Nations,” in which he argued that merchants and manufacturers dominate government in defense of their own interests regardless of how it affects the rest of society. In examining the government that resulted from the American Revolution, begun in the same year, Chomsky finds that even James Madison, whom he calls as a great a believer in democracy as anyone then, wanted U.S. society controlled by “the wealthy”—property owners might be a better term—which he thought was the most “responsible” element of the citizenry. Thus was launched a never-ending battle between those desiring more democracy from below against those seeking more elite control from above.

Learn more at ROGER EBERT.

***

Late August, 2016

Messina’s Notes on REQUIEM FOR THE AMERICAN DREAM: THE 10 PRINCIPLES OF CONCENTRATION OF WEALTH AND POWER

INTRODUCTION

Requiem for the American Dream opens with a pair of subtitles providing some context for Dr. Chomsky’s expertise in socioeconomic and sociopolitical critical analysis:

“NOAM CHOMSKY is widely regarded as the most influential intellectual of our time.  Filmed over four years, these are his final long-form documentary interviews.”

Those two statements are valid.  However, the first statement must be qualified by serious and valid complaints levelled against Dr. Chomsky in his role as celebrated public intellectual. [3]  Nevertheless, Dr. Chomsky speaks poignantly against socioeconomic injustice:

“Part of the American Dream is class mobility.  You’re born poor; you work hard; you get rich.  It was possible for a worker to get a decent job, buy a home, get a car, help his children go to school.  It’s all collapsed.”

Dr. Chomsky reminds us, very simply:

“In a democracy, public opinion is going to have some influence on policy.  And, then, the government carries out actions determined by the population.  That’s what democracy means.

“It’s important to understand that important and privileged sectors have never liked democracy, and for very good reasons.  Democracy puts power into the hands of the general population and takes it away from them. [4]  It’s kind of a principle of concentration of wealth and power.”  (c. 4:46)

[On money and wealth influencing government]

[Citing Adam Smith (1776) on ‘the masters of mankind’, back in the olden days it was the merchants, today it’s corporations and their rules for corporate governance in the absence of popular resistance.]

In Requiem for the American Dream, Dr. Chomsky opens by emphasising the widening inequality currently plaguing the United States and the contrast between the post-Great Depression sense of hopefulness among Americans for better living standards and the socioeconomic bleakness of the post-Global Financial Crisis.

“Not only is it extremely unjust in itself, inequality has highly negative consequences on the society as a whole because the very fact of inequality has a corrosive, very harmful, effect on democracy.”

Dr. Chomsky notes that he is old enough to remember the post-Great Depression years when most Americans still believed in the American way, which would provide prosperity for all, even those in blue collar jobs, as long as you were willing to work hard.  These days many are forced to work beyond their retirement years at minimal wage scales with paltry social services.  We see elderly and hobbled people working in our retail stores, unable to retire because of the high cost of living.

Today, nobody really thinks a blue collar job can provide prosperity or even sustain a single-income household, nor that they may even find a blue collar job.  Today, everyone must have an intellectual type of job to avoid poverty, or live in a multiple-income household, sacrifice parenting time, both parents must find jobs, or find some kind of hustle, flipping houses, stock trading, selling retail merchandise online, or starting some kind of small business, which hopefully can become a big business, which can capture market share from competitors and, ultimately, drive them out of business.  In capitalism, of course, big fish eat little fish.

It would have been nice to see Dr. Chomsky’s arguments, in their critique of widening inequality, include a Marxian perspective and a clear understanding and explication of capital.  Here, Dr. David Harvey or Dr. Richard Wolff, or any other scholar of Marxian political economy, could have explained that the extraction of surplus value in capitalist employer-employee relations depends always upon the exploitation of the worker.  Since capitalist social relations begin with uneven relations of power, the working classes are doomed from the start to be at the mercy of the owning, or capitalist, classes, which employ them, and which can only desire to drive wages down or to engage in a global race to the bottom in terms of finding the lowest wages on Earth in order to undercut their competition.

As a student of economics, Marxian political economy has provided your author with the clearest analysis of how capital functions in circuits and how capitalist modes of production shape our societies.  But, admittedly, Marxian political economy and heterodox economics, generally, is still not unanimously embraced by all academics and universities and colleges.  And the debate rages on about the true dynamics of capitalist modes of production, or capitalist economies, which endure largely mystified to the general public.  Unfortunately, as Dr. Michael Hudson has often lamented, many economists, and other intellectuals, may have Dr. Marx’s political economy texts on their bookshelves.  But when you open them up, you notice that they have no margin notes.  You notice few have actually read Dr. Marx, despite the tremendously influential legacy of his writings.  Dr. Chomsky’s introduction provides a compelling critique of inequality and its “corrosive, very harmful, effect on democracy”.  But, unfortunately, it doesn’t give the audience an opportunity to question the nature of capital, which drives inequality.

PRINCIPLE #1:  REDUCE DEMOCRACY (c. 7:00)

“Right through American history, [SNIP]  ”  [4]

[On the struggle in American history between the competing interests of the ruling classes versus the working classes]

[On Madison arguing to protect the opulent minority against the impoverished working classes.  So, the Constitution must prevent the poor from organising against the rich a democratic struggle.]

[On Aristotle’s Politics, which celebrates democracy as the best political form of organisation, so long as it included means for reducing inequality.]

[Periods of democratisation, animated by pressure from below, are cyclically countered by periods of antidemocratic governance.  For example, the 1960s and ’70s show popular uprisings for democracy, or socioeconomic justice is followed by COINTEL-PRO, assassinations, and police state repression, and so forth buttressed by equally repressive laws.]

PRINCIPLE #2: SHAPE IDEOLOGY  (c. 12:59)

“There has been an enormous, concentrated, coordinated business offensive beginning in the ’70s to try to beat back the egalitarian efforts, that went right through the Nixon years.”

[On the Powell Memorandum, as an expression of right-wing, or conservative, reaction to the ‘democratising wave’ represented by the Civil Rights movement and subsequent identity politics single-issue campaigns.  Also see the documentary film Heist: Who Stole the American Dream on the Powell Memo…]

[On the Trilateral Commission and the book entitled The Crisis of Democracy, which bemoaned “an excess of democracy”, as a similar expression of liberal internationalist, or center-left, reaction to the ‘democratising wave’ of the ’60s and ’70s.  Many of these liberal internationalists staffed the Carter administration: Brown, Vance, Blumenthal, Mondale, and Young.  Also see Dr. Laurence Schoup on the Council On Foreign Relations.]

[On the Carter administration and the anti-intellectual reaction against egalitarian-minded students]

[The ruling elites conclude the people are becoming too educated, so the schools must be brought under control.  Academic autonomy for schools and academic freedom for educators come under increasing attack.  As the ’70s give way to the ’80s, flower power gives way to investment power.  The American national culture largely shifts from a more egalitarian worldview to a more individualistic, or depoliticised and/or apathetic, consumerist worldview.]

PRINCIPLE #3: REDESIGN THE ECONOMY  (c. 16:35)

“Since the 1970s, there’s been a concerted effort on the part of the masters of mankind, the owners of society, to shift the economy in two crucial respects.”

[If one studies the history of economic thought, or, more pointedly, the history of economic theory, from the earliest ancient texts through today, we find that there has been a perpetual ideological struggle over how societies should design their economies, whether it respects the contributions of the working classes through prosperous wages, or whether it seeks to exploit and devalue them.  Admittedly, we humans often didn’t understand capital, money, credit, international trade, the democratising potential of labour relations, and so on.  But, wherever economic theory and policy has helped reduce income inequality, the ruling classes have responded furiously through think tanks, which work to increase the influence of money in political processes by which they can then increase the power of the wealthy over the working classes.  For example, as Ilan Ziv’s Capital, A Six-Part Series, demonstrates Keynesian policy, which helped capitalist economies get out of the Great Depression, were soon rolled back by the neoclassical economics and their top-down policies favoring the owning classes over the working classes.]

[Chomsky discusses the financialisation of the American economy, as manufacturing declines as major source of employment for Americans.  See Hyman Minsky, et al, on financialisation.  See Boom Bust Boom!]

[Bureau of Economic Analysis graph:  Value of Sector % to GDP, 1950:  Manufacturing 28%, Finance 11%]

[On the decline of the manufacturing sector in the USA and the rise of the financial sector.  Banks, which once were intermediaries serving a useful function in society, lending for productive activity, increasingly become speculative institutions, who dominate society through financial trickery, complex financial instruments, and such.  (Enter David Harvey on fictitious capital.)]

[On financial deregulation.]

[Bureau of Economic Analysis graph:  Value of Sector % to GDP, 2010:  Manufacturing 11%, Finance 21%]

[By the 1970s, corporations, such as General Electric, “could make more profit playing games with money, than you could by producing in the United States.”]

(c. 20:14)  “You have to remember that General Electric is substantially a financial institution today.  It makes half its profits just by moving money around in complicated ways.  And it’s very unclear that they’re doing anything that’s of value to the economy.  So, that’s one phenomena, what’s called financialisation of the economy.”

[On offshoring of production, or the global race to the bottom of the labour barrel, which pits workers to compete against one another to lower wages.  “Meanwhile, highly paid professionals are protected.”]

“And, of course, the capital is free to move.  Workers aren’t free to move, labor can’t move, but capital can.”

Enter immigration debates, which are devoid of any foundation or basis in economic reality.  Yet, the classics, reminds Dr. Chomsky, such as Adam Smith have long argued that “free circulation of labour is the foundation of any free trade system; but workers are pretty much stuck.”

[Images of a document dated February 26, 1997 with the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System seal, entitled Monetary Policy Report to the Congress, Pursuant to the Full Employment and Balanced Growth Act of 1978, and signed by Alan Greenspan, the Chairman of the Board.]

“Policy is designed to increase insecurity.”

[Alan Greenspan argued in official testimony that “greater worker insecurity” had helped keep wages down in the late 1990s.]

[The two forces of financialisation and off-shoring have helped fuel the concentration of wealth and power, argues Dr. Chomsky.]

[(c. 23:22)  On Chomsky’s history of anti-war activism and association with the New Left]

[On the totalitarian notion of ‘anti-Americanism’, a subtle survey of Dr. Chomsky’s anarchist tendencies, or anarcho-syndicalist perspectives.]

PRINCIPLE #4: SHIFT THE BURDEN  (c. 27:03)

[On the egalitarian nature of the economic growth of the 1950s and 1960s in the United States, when the manufacturing sector was at its peak.]

[On the plutonomy.]

[On the precariat, or the precarious proletariat, the working people, or working classes.  Notably, either, Dr. Chomsky or the filmmakers avoid the language of class analysis, preferring for the more nebulous terms of plutonomy and precariat or middle class.]

[(c. 30:23)  On the shifting tax burdens in American society.  Tax Foundation statistics graph on Tax Rates.  The marginal tax rate for the highest earners has steadily declined since the 1960s.]

[On regressive tax policies, such as shifting taxes to wages and consumption and away from dividends and capital gains.  For example, General Electric pays zero taxes.]i 

(c. 31:34) “So, in fact, General Electric, are paying zero taxes and they have enormous profits.  Let’s them take the profit somewhere else, or defer it, but not pay taxes.  And this is common.

“The major American corporations shifted the burden of sustaining the society onto the rest of the population.”

PRINCIPLE #5: ATTACK SOLIDARITY  (c. 32:14)

“Solidarity is quite dangerous.  From the point of view of the masters, you’re only supposed to care about yourself, not about other people.”

[On the distortion of Adam Smith and classical notions of capitalism, missing Adam Smith’s foundation of sympathy and empathy for others, as articulated in his Theory of Moral Sentiments.]

[On public schools being based on the principle of solidarity.  Privatisation of public education represents a clear attack on the principle of solidarity.  Free and affordable education was a central element of the American economic growth of the 1950s and 1960s.]

[On the burdens of student loan debt, which also diminish civic engagement and the capacity for political consciousness.]

PRINCIPLE #6: RUN THE REGULATORS  (c. 37:12)

***

[1]  Terrestrial radio transmission, 94.1 FM (KPFA, Berkeley, CA) with online simulcast and digital archiving:  UpFront, hosted by Brian Edwards-Tiekert, Friday, 13 MAY 2016, 07:00 PDT.

Also see these broadcasts, which feature Requiem for the American Dream:

  • Against the Grain; 13 DEC 2016.

[2]  For example, consider the archives at Media Roots:

  • “Ralph Nader & Abby Martin on US Rigged Corporate Elections” by Media Roots, 21 DEC 2015.
  • “MR Original – The Two-Party Dictatorship Post-OWS” by Felipe Messina, Media Roots, 17 OCT 2011.
  • “Ralph Nader Audience Q & A at Berkeley’s Hillside Club” video by Media Roots with transcript by Messina, 17 OCT 2011.
  • “Media Roots Interview with Ralph Nader” by Abby Martin, 6 OCT 2011.

[3]  One complaint many of us on the Left have long held against Dr. Chomsky is his tepid critique of the Democratic Party and the anti-democratic nature of the two-party system, or two-party dictatorship.  Few people on the Left would deny that the Democratic Party, since at least the 1990s, has worked against the interests of progressives and the working classes, for example, with Bill Clinton’s ‘Reinventing Government’ initiatives, which Law & Economics expert Dr. William K. Black has long demonstrated provided drastic deregulation of financial institutions, which laid the foundation for the Global Financial Crisis of 2007/2008.  Yet, few people on the Left have been willing to openly critique or challenge electorally the Democratic Party, particularly during presidential elections.  They myth of the so-called spoiler vote has only been challenged courageously, on a national level, by a few public figures, of which Ralph Nader is an early pioneer. [2]  Your author has followed Noam Chomsky’s speeches, articles, and publications somewhat closely.  But Dr. Chomsky’s public statements in broadcast media have rarely, if ever, mounted an open challenge to the anti-democratic nature of the Democratic Party’s collusion with the Republican Party to obstruct alternative political parties from their full political expression on a national stage, particularly regarding the presidential debates.  In this regard, Dr. Chomsky has failed to live up to his reputation as an intellectual champion of the people, of the working classes.

Another valid complaint many on the Left have also long held against Dr. Chomsky is his wilful refusal to display any meaningful curiosity about the origins, causes, and perpetrators of the crimes of 9/11.  Your author must admit to having held a similar aversion to the 9/11 Truth Movement, initially perceiving it as a hobby of comfortable suburbanite liberals, which was of secondary order importance to the issues plaguing front-line communities, such as police state terrorism, gentrification, the school-to-prison pipeline, racial residential segregation, and so forth.  But during your author’s time working with Media Roots (circa 2011-2013), the importance of critically analysing the crimes of 9/11 became increasingly obvious.  In a recent Seattle town hall, entitled “Why Do Bill Moyers and Robert Parry Accept Miracles?“, Dr. David Ray Griffin, a leading scholar on the crimes of 9/11, called out public intellectuals and media figures, such as Dr. Noam Chomsky and the Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi.  Dr. David Ray Griffin argued:

(c. 5:48)  “A few people, from the beginning, started saying that the official account of the attacks, according to which they were carried out by foreign Muslims in other countries was false and that 9/11 was an inside job carried out by people and agencies in our own government.  An emerging movement to make this case came to be called the 9/11 Truth Movement.  This movement argued from the beginning that 9/11 was a false flag attack designed to allow the Bush-Cheney administration and its Pentagon to attack Afghanistan and then Iraq.

“But most of the traditional anti-war journalists, such as Noam Chomsky, George Monbiot, Norman Solomon, and Matt Taibbi, along with the writers at CounterPunch, In These Times, The Nation, Mother Jones, The Progressive, and Democracy Now! did not endorse the 9/11 Truth Movement.  Most of them, in fact, attacked it.

“In the first years, to be sure, we did not have a very impressive membership.  The movement had few professionals in the relevant disciplines, such as physics, architecture, and engineering.  But, in 2005, physics professor Steven Jones started explaining why the World Trade Center buildings could not have come down without explosives.  Due to some books and coverage by C-SPAN, professional organisations began to form, including Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth.  By now we have a dozen professional organisations, including Firefighters for 9/11 Truth, Intelligence Officers for 9/11 Truth, Journalists for 9/11 Truth, Medical Professionals for 9/11 Truth, Military Officers for 9/11 Truth, Political Leaders for 9/11 Truth, Religious Leaders for 9/11 Truth, Scientists for 9/11 Truth, and Veterans for 9/11 Truth.”

“The 9/11 Truth Movement is now very impressive in, both, size and professional membership.  Nevertheless, the traditional anti-war leadership has continued to distance itself from the 9/11 Movement.  There have been a few notable exceptions, including Richard Falk and former CIA analyst Bill Christison and Ray McGovern.

“Most of the anti-war leaders have maintained the stance, that they took in the first years after 9/11, in spite of all the changes in the 9/11 Truth Movement in the intervening years.

“For example, when I was interviewed on Democracy Now! in 2004, the main argument against my position was that I could not name one structural engineering expert, who said it is not feasible that the planes caused the towers to come down.  The movement’s lack of architects and engineers at that stage constituted a persuasive argument.  But, now, there are 1,500 members of Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, who say it is not feasible that the planes caused the towers to go down.  So, one would suppose that Democracy Now! would have reassessed its position.  But it has not.

“Progressive journalists, in general, have not availed themselves of the evidence provided by the 9/11 Truth Movement to argue against the legitimacy of the so-called War On Terror.  If any major journalist could have been expected to do so, it would have been Bill Moyers.  (c. 9:55)  [SNIP]

[SNIP]

Dr. David Ray Griffin went on to make his case for the intellectual dishonesty perpetrated by the so-called ‘Left Gatekeepers’, whose stamp of approval or disapproval of a particular cause or issue can, either, elevate or suppress that issue.  Although Dr. Griffin focuses on Bill Moyers and Robert Parry as his two case studies, Dr. Noam Chomsky is one such ‘Left Gatekeeper’, who can be celebrated for taking courageous stances on U.S. imperialism and domestic socioeconomic justice, but must also be very seriously criticised for his avoidance of key issues, such as the two-party dictatorship and 9/11.  Granted, had Dr. Chomsky held nothing back (assuming he is willfully censoring himself), his fate may have gone the way of Gary Webb or Martin Luther King, Jr. or Malcolm X or Fred Hampton or any public figure who dares to take a fearless and principled stand against tyrannies of the state.  But, political assassinations aside, intellectual honesty or dishonesty is a choice one makes, which ultimately defines one’s public legacy.

[4]  This is what one finds when one undertakes a critical study of the history of economic theory, a more or less bifurcated academic discipline with contending theories and contending interests.  In modern academia, we’ll find mostly neoclassical economics departments throughout the nation, with a few alternative, or heterodox, economics departments.  The heterodox economics departments usually provide superior economics training because of their pluralistic approach, which allows them to study the dominant neoclassical perspectives alongside heterodox, or Post-Keynesian, Institutional, or Marxian perspectives.

***

[13 MAY 2016]

[Last modified  12:11 PDT  13 DEC 2016]

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