Tomgram : Noam Chomsky, America’s Real Foreign Policy

/tomgram%3A_noam_chomsky%2C_america%27s_

  • Tomgram: Noam #Chomsky, America’s Real Foreign Policy
    http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175863/tomgram%3A_noam_chomsky%2C_america%27s_real_foreign_policy

    In the 1950s, President #Eisenhower and Secretary of State John Foster #Dulles explained quite clearly the dilemma that the U.S. faced. They complained that the Communists had an unfair advantage. They were able to “appeal directly to the masses” and “get control of mass movements, something we have no capacity to duplicate. The poor people are the ones they appeal to and they have always wanted to plunder the rich.”

    That causes problems. The U.S. somehow finds it difficult to appeal to the poor with its doctrine that the rich should plunder the poor.

    #Etats-Unis

    • The current issue of the premier journal of media criticism, the Columbia Journalism Review, has an interesting article on this subject, attributing this outcome to the media doctrine of “fair and balanced.” In other words, if a journal publishes an opinion piece reflecting the conclusions of 97% of scientists, it must also run a counter-piece expressing the viewpoint of the energy corporations.

      That indeed is what happens, but there certainly is no “fair and balanced” doctrine . Thus, if a journal runs an opinion piece denouncing Russian President Vladimir Putin for the criminal act of taking over the Crimea, it surely does not have to run a piece pointing out that, while the act is indeed criminal, Russia has a far stronger case today than the U.S. did more than a century ago in taking over southeastern Cuba, including the country’s major port — and rejecting the Cuban demand since independence to have it returned. And the same is true of many other cases. The actual media doctrine is “fair and balanced” when the concerns of concentrated private power are involved, but surely not elsewhere .