Noam Chomsky? Wow, there is a reliable source... if you are a hard leftist in the first place. People like Chomsky start out with the presupposition that the government is hostage to malevolent business interests, and than try to build a case to prove it. It is just another version or Gramscian revisionism: since Marx's predictions about the immiseration of the proletariat and the development of class solidarity didn't come true, an explanation has to be concocted. Thus, the bourgeoisie has determinaed upon a strategy of cooptation, were modest concessions are made to pacify the proletariat, and mass culture overtakes folk culture so that corporate interests are able to establish hegemony over the cultural products consumed by the proletariat. One of the most important ways of doing this is through the news media, which although ostensibly liberal, are limited by the necessity of maintaining revenue from truly criticizing corporate interests, and thus make only cosmetic attempts at criticism, while ultimately supporting the foreign adventures that corporate interests demand. Not only is, as Lenin said, imperialism a natural outgrowth of capitalist exploitation, but the sops thrown the proletariat in this country require exploitation of workers elsewhere.
How am I doing? See, it practically writes itself, without recourse to one actual shred of proof. The supposed examples are just window dressing for a predetermined conclusion. |
