----- Original Message ----- From: Jeffrey Fisher <jfisher at igc.org> To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Sent: Monday, December 02, 2002 5:49 PM Subject: leftists on tv, film at 11
>
> On Monday, December 2, 2002, at 06:18 PM, Carrol Cox wrote:
>
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > First a fact: The enemy owns, and will _always_ own the TV stations.
>
> defeatist. you've just written off the bulk of mass media. if the enemy
> can own it, so can we. it just takes work.
we can create our own media like Free Speech TV which is available on the Dish Network. I have no idea how many people this reaches but I assume it is more than any other left/progressive media in the US just given the number of subscribers to the Dish Network.
>
> > >
> > Secondly, Reagan and _all_ bourgeois politicians use an invisible
> > jargon
> > in which the public has been trained by the totality of our culture.
> > The
> > language belongs to them, not to us, and whatever we say will either
> > (a)
> > be intterpreted with _their_ meanings or (b) seem strange, "jargonish,"
> > opaque, counter-intuitive.
>
> again, you've already given up the ship in the premises of your
> argument. no wonder the ship always goes down.
I agree with you. Yes, propaganda can be overwhelming but it does not have to work. Very often it does not. The fact that something called the "Vietnam Syndrome" still exists in a great portion of the population is evidence that propaganda, no matter how massive, doesn't always work.
>
> > Chomsky has focused on this from the
> > beginning. "The US military action to arrest Noriega was a terrorist
> > attack on Panamanian people." Nothing abstractly difficult about that
> > language, and it is easy enough (if someone will sit still for, say, 20
> > minutes listening to the recitation) to provide the facts -- but the
> > proposition is fundamentally unintelligible,
I don't agree..."unitelligible" by whom? Editorial writers of the NY Times? That I agree with. The general population? I don't agree with this. You should give the general population more credit. Very often the population is opposed to the actions of the state..
because in the language of
> > public discourse (the language used by Reagan & the Washington Post and
> > even, for the most part, by the _Nation_) combining "US" and
> > "terrorist"
> > is a misuse of words. By definition the U.S. is for peace and liberty
> > and freedom, and that definition cannot be violated by any rhetoric.
If it can't be "violated by any rhetoric" then how do you explain the activism that exists? Why do people all over the world orgainize and have demos whenever the world financial elite have a meeting. Why was there 200,000 people in Washington last month to protest the coming destruction against Iraq? How does this happen?
If one takes the time to give a definition of terrorism, and then shows how US actions meet that definition, then I think people can see it. They may not like it at first because many people do see themselves through the eyes of the state, but it can be shown quite easily how the US is a terrorist state.
> >
> > Now this barrier of language _can_ be broken through in one-to-one (or
> > very small group) extended conversation. I have done it myself many
> > times over the last 37 years. BUT . . .
True
>
> i don't know. yes, it's easier for the enemy, so to speak, to speak in
> cant and get away with it, because people understand it, and when they
> don't it resonates, anyway (a la mcluhan), and people are often happy
> enough to let it be that way. but giving people a reason to think
> differently about things, or even just to think about things at all, is
> going to be work no matter which way you slice it. the truth about
> "leftists" on tv or whatever is not that they have to avoid mass media
> or mass media appeal; it's that they have to be fucking smarter about
> using mass media. yes, if you show up on the o'reilly factor screaming
> bloody revolution, you'll look like an idiot and only reinforce already
> ingrained stereotypes. what i don't understand is why someone like
> jennings, even, can't go onto o'r's show and kick the shit out of him.
> truth is, no one wants to. it's sullying and that's not how you change
> minds, anyway.
I didn't see the O'R show you refer to above, but it is very hard for any leftist, when permitted on TV or radio, to make their point....you cna be sure that the host of the program will use slander and other attacks to discredit the viewpoint. So the leftist will spend the whole time trying to defend themselves against positions they don't even adopt.-Tony