>At 05:07 PM 5/16/01 -0700, Joanna wrote:
>>As one who got off the boat from Romania in 1963, I'd like to add one more
>>major item of difference: propaganda. The propaganda in the US is a million
>>times as effective as what they term "communist propaganda." More toxic,
>>more ubiquitous, more invisible. When I was teaching at UC Berkeley in the
>>early eighties I had many students write essays about how advertising was a
>>public service because it kept consumers informed. Kid you not!
>>
>
>
>Ditto! Without the media, this "union" would not survive to the next
>winter.
"Automobiles, bombs, and movies keep the whole thing together...." - Adorno & Horkheimer, dead old farts
>A related thought: the production of propaganda hinges on the cooptation of
>the scribbling class.
>Stalin and Co. made a grave mistake by antagonizing the scribbling class,
>and they paid for it dearly - by having a significant segment of opinion
>makers against them. The US ruling class made no such mistake, and with
>the brief interlude of the McCarthy era, they coopted the scribling class
>to their propaganda project.
But the McCarthy era was the time of the CIA's heavy subsidy of culture - Encounter, the Boston Symphony, etc. That was the carrot. The stick was that if you didn't go along, you were blacklisted, fired, or otherwise marginalized. Worked rather well, I think.
Doug