Noam Chomsky Quotes About Propaganda

• It’s a shameful moment for U.S. media when it insists on being subservient to the grotesque propaganda agencies of a violent, aggressive state.

  Noam Chomsky

  Agency, Media, Moments

  "Noam Chomsky on Media’s “Shameful Moment” in Gaza & How a U.S. Shift Could End the Occupation". "Democracy Now" with Amy Goodman, www.democracynow.org. August 11, 2014.

• The leading student of business propaganda, Australian social scientist Alex Carey, argues persuasively that “the 20th century has been characterized by three developments of great political importance: the growth of democracy, the growth of corporate power, and the growth of corporate propaganda as a means of protecting corporate power against democracy.

  Noam Chomsky

  Mean, Democracies Have, Australia Day

  Noam Chomsky (1997). “World Orders, Old and New”, p.89, Pluto Press

• Because they don't teach the truth about the world, schools have to rely on beating students over the head with propaganda about democracy. If schools were, in reality, democratic, there would be no need to bombard students with platitudes about democracy. They would simply act and behave democratically, and we know this does not happen. The more there is a need to talk about the ideals of democracy, the less democratic the system usually is.

  Noam Chomsky

  School, Reality, Democracy

  Noam Chomsky (2004). “Chomsky on Mis-Education”, p.16, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

• The point of public relations slogans like "Support Our Troops" is that they don't mean anything ... that's the whole point of good propaganda. You want to create a slogan that nobody is going to be against and I suppose everybody will be for, because nobody knows what it means, because it doesn't mean anything. But its crucial value is that it diverts your attention from a question that does mean something, do you support our policy? And that's the one you're not allowed to talk about.

  Noam Chomsky

  War, Mean, Media

  WBAI Radio Interview, January 1992.

• That's the whole point of good propaganda. You want to create a slogan that nobody's going to be against, and everybody's going to be for. Nobody knows what it means, because it doesn't mean anything.

  Noam Chomsky

  Mean, Want, Propaganda

  Noam Chomsky (2011). “Media Control: The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda”, p.26, Seven Stories Press

• The first modern propaganda agency was the British Ministry of Information a century ago, which secretly defined its task as "to direct the thought of most of the world" - primarily progressive American intellectuals, who had to be mobilized to come to the aid of Britain during World War I.

  Noam Chomsky

  War, Agency, Tasks

  "How the Magna Carta became a Minor Carta, part 1" by Noam Chomsky, www.theguardian.com. July 24, 2012.

• Propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state...

  Noam Chomsky

  Media, Political, Democracy

  "On Propaganda". WBAI Interview, chomsky.info. January 1992.

• All over the place, from the popular culture to the propaganda system, there is constant pressure to make people feel that they are helpless, that the only role they can have is to ratify decisions and to consume.

  Noam Chomsky

  Inspirational, Media, People

• You don't have any other society where the educated classes are so effectively indoctrinated and controlled by a subtle propaganda system - a private system including media, intellectual opinion forming magazines and the participation of the most highly educated sections of the population. Such people ought to be referred to as "Commissars - for that is what their essential function is - to set up and maintain a system of doctrines and beliefs which will undermine independent thought and prevent a proper understanding and analysis of national and global institutions, issues, and policies".

  Noam Chomsky

  Truth, Independent, Issues

  "Language and Politics". Book by Noam Chomsky, 1988.

• State propaganda, when supported by the educated classes and when no deviation is permitted from it, can have a big effect. It was a lesson learned by Hitler and many others, and it has been pursued to this day.

  Noam Chomsky

  Class, Lesson Learned, Lessons

  Noam Chomsky (2011). “Media Control: The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda”, p.13, Seven Stories Press

• Concision is a technique of propaganda. It ensures you cannot do anything except repeat clichés, the standard doctrine, or sound like a lunatic.

  Noam Chomsky

  Technique, Sound, Doctrine

  "Noam Chomsky on America's Economic Suicide". Interview with Laura Flanders, www.alternet.org. May 4, 2012.

• I think there is a good reason why the propaganda system works that way. It recognizes that the public will not support the actual policies. Therefore it is important to prevent any knowledge or understanding of them.

  Noam Chomsky

  Thinking, Support, Understanding

  Noam Chomsky (2010). “The Chomsky Reader”, p.48, Pantheon

• We are hurtling towards self-destruction at an alarming rate thanks chiefly to an advertising and propaganda system that goads people from infancy towards apathy, isolation, passivity, helplessness and separation.

  Noam Chomsky

  Self, People, Apathy

• For the totalitarian mind, adherence to state propaganda does not suffice: one must display proper enthusiasm while marching in the parade.

  Noam Chomsky

  Mind, Liberty, Libertarian

  Noam Chomsky (1993). “Rethinking Camelot: JFK, the Vietnam War, and U.S. Political Culture”, p.114, South End Press

• There is massive propaganda for everyone to consume. Consumption is good for profits and consumption is good for the political establishment.

  Noam Chomsky

  Political, Propaganda, Profit

  "'The United States Has Essentially a One-Party System'". Interview with Gabor Steingart, www.spiegel.de. October 10, 2008.

• Anti-union propaganda has been considerably more successful here [ in the U.S.] than in Europe, even among working people who would benefit [from] unions.

  Noam Chomsky

  Successful, Europe, People

  Source: www.iww.org

• The dominant propaganda systems have appropriated the term "globalization" to refer to the specific version of international economic integration that they favor, which privileges the rights of investors and lenders, those of people being incidental. In accord with this usage, those who favor a different form of international integration, which privileges the rights of human beings, become "anti-globalist."

  Noam Chomsky

  Rights, People, Favors

  Interview with Sniježana Matejčić, June 2005.

• It's like these people are programmed by Karl Rove. What he wants is to have liberal critics ridicule Bush because he says 'nucular' and 'misunderestimate' and talks with a probably fake Texas accent and so on, because then can come back with the big propaganda apparatus saying, 'See, those elite liberals who run the world and are sitting around drinking French wine and eating quiche don't understand us ordinary guys'; regular guys like the guy working on the assembly line and George Bush, who is going back to his ranch to cut brush.

  Noam Chomsky

  Running, Drinking, Wine

• For those who stubbornly seek freedom, there can be no more urgent task than to come to understand the mechanisms and practices of indoctrination. These are easy to perceive in the totalitarian societies, much less so in the system of 'brainwashing under freedom' to which we are subjected and which all too often we serve as willing or unwitting instruments.

  Noam Chomsky

  Freedom, Practice, Tasks

  "The Chomsky Reader". Book by Noam Chomsky, 1987.

• The Second World War ended with a radicalization of the population in the United States and everywhere else, and called for all kinds of things like popular takeovers, government intervention, and worker takeovers of factories. Business propagated a tremendous propaganda offensive. The scale surprised me when I read the scholarship - it's enormous, and it's been very effective. There were two major targets: one is unions, the other is democracy.

  Noam Chomsky

  War, Two, Government Intervention

  Source: www.iww.org

• Ronald Reagan in the US was not a particularly popular president, but after his death sectors of wealth and power created a huge propaganda campaign that converted this disgraceful figure into a semi-divinity.

  Noam Chomsky

  President, Campaigns, Divinity

  Source: chomsky.info

• If [climate change ] became a serious proposal in the United States, there would be a huge propaganda onslaught by the business community, the energy corporations and many others, to try to frighten the population into opposing it - claiming that if they have it, all sorts of terrible things will happen, like you won't be able to heat your home, or whatever the story is.

  Noam Chomsky

  Home, Community, Trying

  Source: www.truth-out.org

• You can't mention Hezbollah in the U.S. media without putting in the context of "Iranian-supported Hezbollah." That's its name. Its name is Iranian-supported Hezbollah. It gets Iranian support. But you can mention Israel without saying US-supported Israel. So this is more tacit propaganda.

  Noam Chomsky

  Israel, Media, Names

  Source: www.counterpunch.org

• The community itself didn't support the union. Now that's kind of interesting about [Barack] Obama, because Obama was supposedly a community organizer in Chicago at that time. Now I'm sure he read the Chicago Tribune, so he knew about it, but when he went to show his solidarity with the workforce, the first place he went was Caterpillar. I don't think he's forgotten, and the labor movement didn't react. Even radical labor historians didn't remember. It was only 15 years ago, after all, but that's a real triumph of propaganda in many ways.

  Noam Chomsky

  Real, Thinking, Years

  Source: www.iww.org

• Every time a candidate came up from the base, that is with popular support, the Republican establishment went into high gear to destroy them with massive propaganda attack ads and so on. It was one after another, each one crazier than the last.

  Noam Chomsky

  Support, Gears, Lasts

  Source: www.truth-out.org

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