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

The Challenge Ahead
Classics in Politics: Turning the Tide Noam Chomsky
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aspirations and expectations, are of no small significance. 31 They reflect
the concentration of real power, and are factors influencing the stand
that elected officials take on public issues.
1.6 “The Ultimate Target”: the Public Mind
The task of rendering the human mind “impotent for expression” (see
section 1.1 above) nevertheless must be diligently pursued, as
illustrated by recurrent Crises of Democracy. This point too has been
clearly understood in the business community. An AT&T executive
observed in 1909 that “the public mind . . . is in my judgment the only
serious danger confronting the company.” “From the turn of the century
until this day,” Gabriel Kolko comments, “it was the object of a cultural
and ideological industry that was as unrelenting as it was diverse:
ranging from the school to the press to mass culture in its multitudinous
dimensions.” 32 The success of government propaganda during World
War II helped inspire the growth of the US public relations industry, a
unique and highly significant institution. Its patron saint, Edward
Bernays, who served on the government propaganda commission during
World War I, wrote in the 1920s that 33
The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits
and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic
society . . . it is the intelligent minorities which need to make use
of propaganda continuously and systematically. In the active
proselytizing of minorities in whom selfish interests and public
interests coincide lie the progress and development of America.
The alleged “coincidence” is a widely-held dogma, traceable in one