Noam Chomsky - Turning the Tide U.S. intervention in

The Challenge Ahead
Classics in Politics: Turning the Tide Noam Chomsky
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was subjected to both kinds of critique, one absurd, the other serious,
the first influential, the second non-existent, except for readers of
marginal journals. PBS was compelled to acknowledge the first kind of
critique and even to run a program expounding it. The second kind,
whatever its merit, can be safely ignored. The difference lies not in
intellectual content, but simply in clout. There are no takeover bids or
pressures in Washington coming from the “left.” 22 The net effect is to
entrench the spectrum of discussion well within the framework of the
state propaganda system, with significant effects for the functioning of
democracy.
The ignored and irrelevant critique is called “left-wing” or “radical” or
“Marxist” in US political theology, as is critical discussion of state and
private power generally, terms virtually without meaning in this context
except as a form of generalized abuse and a device for avoiding the need
to attend to heresy. It is worthy of mention that the highly indoctrinated
modern technological societies have taken a long step backwards in
these respects from the medieval period, when it was taken for granted
by theologians that heresy must be carefully considered and refuted;
now it is sufficient merely to label it as such, with some appropriate
“scare word.” 23
We might pursue this matter slightly further. The media are
constantly criticized as dissident and antagonistic to established power,
so much so that they constitute a threat to the survival of American
institutions, some allege; for example, the authors of the Trilateral
Commission study Crisis of Democracy. The “left-wing” critique holds
(and I believe, demonstrates) that the media tend overwhelmingly to be
subordinated to state and private power. Are these two claims
contradictory? Not really, when we look more closely. We might make a
distinction between the state and the government, where the state is a
system of institutions, including private institutions that set conditions