Oy! Noam Chomsky Compares Right-Wing Media To “Nazis”

[alienlovechild 75]

"Add Noam Chomsky to the growing list of people using the Nazi analogy lately. Speaking to the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, he alluded to right-wing media as “substantive content — crazy content, but it does give answers,” and warned that if Americans weren’t properly educated about what was really happening to them, they could be in for a repeat of the Nazi takeover of Germany in the 1930s.

Chomsky, an influential linguist and liberal activist, did give himself some wiggle room — he prefaced his comments by saying “I don’t want to press the analogy too hard,” and later repeated that the analogy wasn’t a perfect one. But it was provocative stuff, and veered into Godwin’s Law territory. Chomsky singled out Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage as dealers of dangerous rhetoric, but he didn’t call out any cablers by name, although they seemed to be swept up in his critique of right-wing media:

The memory that comes to my mind — I don’t want to press the analogy too hard, but I think it’s worth thinking about — is late Weimar Germany. There were people with real grievances, and the Nazis gave them an answer. ‘It’s the fault of the Jews and the Bolsheviks and we’ve got to protect ourselves from them, and that will take care of them.’ And you know what happened…

[...]Germany in the 1920s was at the peak of Western civilization. A decade later, it was at the pits of human history.

Unless an answer can be given to these people, unless they can be led to understand what’s really happening to them, we could be in for trouble."

http://www.mediaite.com/online/oh-boy-noam...media-to-nazis/

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

I think he'd be the first to admit that the analogy is overused.

The media does border on propaganda, given that its just another battleground of the partisan divide.

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

This is a first.

[HAL 9000 96]

I remember an SNL skit on a plane where Rob Scneider had the Chomsky Reader on him. Good stuff.

[Chica Yeyé 41]

I remember an SNL skit on a plane where Rob Scneider had the Chomsky Reader on him. Good stuff.

it was funneh. Chomski has been saying that for decades. Of course, for those who have never read him this might come as a OH NOESS!!!

[HAL 9000 96]

I remember an SNL skit on a plane where Rob Scneider had the Chomsky Reader on him. Good stuff.

it was funneh. Chomski has been saying that for decades. Of course, for those who have never read him this might come as a OH NOESS!!!

I found Manufacturing Consent to be a very telling read...

[alienlovechild 75]

I think he'd be the first to admit that the analogy is overused.

The media does border on propaganda, given that its just another battleground of the partisan divide.

If he was more intelligent he wouldn't throw around terms like that so loosely. He's a senile old man if he thought Weimar Germany as at the "peak of Western civilization".

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

He isn't alone in that opinion.

The weimar constitution has been compared quite often with that of the US.

He isn't alone in that opinion of the media either.

Its fairly well known, for example that US ad agencies, for example, took not a few pointers from Dr. Goebbels.

Whatever analogy you want to use, the point is that the mass media (especially in this country) is a heavily politicised commercial product that doesn't serve the purpose of the 4th estate.

[alienlovechild 75]

The weimar constitution has been compared quite often with that of the US.

Whatever analogy you want to use, the point is that the mass media (especially in this country) is a heavily politicised commercial product that doesn't serve the purpose of the 4th estate.

The Weimar constitution didn't last 20 years compared to the U.S. Constitution 222 years and counting. There's a lot more differences.

Weaknesses in Weimar:

Proportional representation and voting by list- Not in U.S. Constitution

Allocation of presidential powers- Not in U.S. Constitution (no chancellor vs. president) but U.S. president does have some emergency powers.

Unbalanced distribution of power between the Reich and state governments- No Prussia dominating Federal government but no national police force either.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weimar_Constitution

The U.S. media was usually political so there's nothing new. The key is allow more media to speak against each other rather than silencing the "wrong" ones. Who's the judge to silence the wrong speakers?

Edited October 16, 2009 by alienlovechild

[scandal 951]

Chomsky has been a mouthing-off jackass for decades. This is absolutely nothing new for him.

He has bona fide and well respected academic credentials in linguistics. But his political rantings are just that - rantings.