Forum Post: Documentaries: "Manufacturing Consent" "The Corporation" & "The Take"
Posted 12 years ago on Feb. 19, 2012, 3:33 a.m. EST by struggleforfreedom80
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watch´em all here:
http://struggleforfreedom.blogg.no/1323595118_documentaries.html
These are important documentaries. I used to be in an organization that showed "The Take" quite often. I do think that the criticism of Parties and organization is a bit unfounded though in these though.
I also suggest "Harlan County, USA"
How long has this guy been preaching the same tired old message? His version of socialism has the same flaws that our republic has. If the average person was better informed either would work fine. If people are going to stay ignorant then there will always be some small group making the important decisions. Besides he doesn't have much real evidence that it could work, just his beliefs.
Advocating democracy and freedom must be done all the time, especially when there´s so little of it.
That is certainly true, just advocating for this socialist libertarian type of system seems a waste of time. Nothing changes unless you can change people. An electorate uninformed or misinformed will become slaves to the few, whether they know it or not, just as quickly under any system. So why work toward anarchy which has so little evidence it would work in the first place? Better to place your efforts in educating the public. If they choose to remain uninformed then there is no point in changing things.
But you see, Libertarian Socialism is all about freedom and democracy:
http://struggleforfreedom.blogg.no/1320873951_the_society_we_should.html
If one believes in democracy and freedom, then the ideas of libertarian socialism is pretty logical and reasonable, and not something that is thought of as "unachievable".
And I will be advocating the ideas and the type of society I want to see come into place. Doing something other than that would be illogical. I do realize thatthere will be a period of reform, but like I said in the article, we should always strive for the best :)
If that's what you believe then of course you have to advocate it. Personally I don't see it as the best. I also don't see it as workable for a complex society, and certainly not evolving from our current system, unless it throws out individual rights first.
It is absolutley workable, my friend. Take Catalonia. huge areas were based on - to a very large extent - anarcho syndicalist principles including 2000 workplaces run and controlled by the workers:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUig0lFHDDw
That was the 1930s. just imagine what can be done in a highly advanced technological 21 century.
If communities of the scale we saw in C can make it work, why not equally big ones side by side making up a large scale soceity. Its gonna work just fine.
Catalonia doesn't count as working. The anarchists didn't build anything, they denied people their right to own and control their own property. (The Un and the European Union both consider the right to own property as a basic human right.) Even if you allow that owners had no rights in the face of a mob majority, that society didn't build anything it developed more as a parasite.
You ignore the need for a very well informed population to make it work in a complex society. That is why the only working anarchistic systems are relatively primitive. How can the people intelligently vote on any change or advance they don't understand? Innovation and risk, things that lead a society to advance are not likely to be encouraged by this type of society. Even if you could put it together it's likely to stagnate, or worse, become a society run by experts that the population turns to for help making their decisions.
You´re wrong. They organized society very well with lots of participation in production and so on. This is nonsense.
I have not said that Catalonia was perfect, but there were things there that we can learn from. About property rights, they come in all kinds of variations. I am also for private property, it depends on which ones we´re talking about.
I dont ignore the need for a well informed public. More people have to become more informed, yes, not every single individual but lots more, yes. So that´s an important issue in present time - enlightening people, getting people involved and convincing. And in a Libertarian Socialist society which has lively active participatory democracy and free education, coursing, free access to information in general etc etc, the amount of people well informed and active will increase alot.
They reorganized an existing society using what it had built, taking over what they wanted. That really isn't building, it's closer to theft.
Workers taking over workplaces and more participation in the society by the people is not theft at all, it´s making society more DEMOCRATIC
Current property rights in today´s society (or in Catalonia before takeover) are not laws of nature, they can be changed.
Also read this: http://struggleforfreedom.blogg.no/1320872575_the_free_ride_society.html
It's only democratic when your majority immorally denies property rights. By your reasoning a majority can do what it wants. When the rules of society are no longer constant then the society is no longer stable. Besides in the case of Catalonia, that was during the civil war, how much voting was done at the point of a gun? It was just a different group in charge leading things. Had it lasted it could have failed as completely as Stalin's 5 year plans.
Workers have the right to pool their resources today, build something, and control what they produce. Few want to accept the risk, which is probably why there are so few coops.
No, I accept democratic decitions even though I disagree with them.I will however continue to argue and work for changing the rules in a democratic way. Democracy, in the sense of each person having one vote, having a say in how the rules one has to follow should be, is pretty reasonable, dont you think?; and is much better than the alternative: dictatorship and minority rule. Besides, you know the kind of democracy I want: a more direct locally based democracy where people control their own lives.
Who´s talking about wars and guns? I´m talking about the fact that people started organizing workers councils, democraticly run workplaces and active participation, and that this shows that ideas like this are not unachievable.
You really need to read this one: http://struggleforfreedom.blogg.no/1320872575_the_free_ride_society.html
Exactly, which is why I am more a supporter of Tolstoy or Orwell, because they don't take it lying down. They advocate active resistance to wrongs in the spread of democracy.
And while we experiance a world gone mad, by upholding examples where anarchism works (amish communities, co-ops, labor unions, credit unions) then we can help our fellow man find peace and stability, where chompskism is impotent.
agreed
Have you ever examined an instinct?
"If people are going to stay ignorant then there will always be some small group making the important decisions"--
Yes, but Chomskys point about language having instinctual, genetic aspects, opens the door to unconscious control. If this is wrong our instincts would be plain to us in our society, rather than having to haggle about them, perhaps never even knowing they are instincts.
Have you ever examined an instinct? Did it look back at you and tell you to "get lost?" If so, WHY did it do that? If our behaviors patently are agaisnt human survival, and the survival of many species, are we being illogical to assume another species, long extinct itself, is not competing through our unconsiously directed thought patterns of the instincts we inherited, more inclined to survival but still holding us back?
Who exactly are you talking about, the films are all by different people??
The initial interview was with Noam Chomsky. I've seen him in so many different interviews through links on here I feel like I've watched him age.
"I've seen him in so many different interviews through links on here"
Good! Continue that trend :) Chomsky´s such a brilliant mind, he deserves much more attention.
Sorry, I see him as someone content with throwing out the theory and going back into his academic tower. His theories have too many flaws that he tends to cover with a blind faith. His strength has always been in the area of hypothesis not in testing those ideas.
Well, you´re free to see him this way, but you are wrong. Chomsky has always, very thoroughly, presented solid arguments and scources backing his claims.
With a better informed populace then republicanism does work, but state socialism does not no matter how much effort is put into it
And neither does corporatism.
For both seek to extract value from those that labor, and hand it to those that don't
Capitalism as practiced in an anarchistic society is what really works.
If we look at the Amish or at orthodox monks, they practice pure anarchistic syndicalism where those that perform the work own the means of production.
And their lifestyle is the envy of our society, no unemployment, social equality, long life, and a happy soul.
Yet they don't use technology, at least they don't depend upon it.
Take away every source of oil, or collapse the world economy, and these folks will continue unharmed.
Maybe we should learn something from them.
Chomsky doesn't propose a state run socialism, he advocates what you seem to support. The anarchistic syndical state seems to function on a somewhat simple level, if all the members agree and the goals and possess a high degree of altruism. The Amish and monks have a religious culture to further bind them together and members that don't fit in do leave.
Chomsky seems to believe that this could work on a larger scale and here I believe he's wrong. The Amish and monks you mention never took land or resources from others, they have built their society up from nothing to be successful. This is something a modern anarchistic syndicalist system hasn't been able to do.
He usually does, but then turns and defends the communist's in vietnam, over the democratically elected south vietnamese when it counted, he is wrong historically when it matters
But that doesn't mean he is always wrong, I do agree with him on many things, I was just asked when and where I disagreed with him, and it is on this hair that I split.
you are so wrong that i am stunned - do you know anything about vietnam and voting - look to the 1950's to start. i would like to see some evidence of what you say about noam!
OOPS, missed your last sentence, actually if you google mondragon corp. you can see that anarchism does work, and quite well on a large scale.
Not to mention credit unions, labor unions, par insurance(members are owners) like nation wide and western southern, and farmer co-ops.
Anarcho-syndacalism works whenever tried, and are the few areas of stability in todays world
interesting, Noem seems to get it right from time to time, though he does have a few fatal flaws, as he ignores how state sponsored socialism leads to the same results as corporatism, and his equation of capitalism to corporatism.
Chomsky needs to be taken with a few grains of salt, like Orwell or Tolstoy, he's alot closer than a Jack Walsh or milton freeman though.
Could you be more specific in you criticism to Chomsky. Exact statements and/or quotes from Chomsky would be nice.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4Tq4VE8eHQ
What went on in the soviet union absolutely was socialism, as put forth by Karl marx, his critique of it, though correct, ignores that that system of statism IS socialism.
Had the soviet union been succesful, he would have supported it as he also is on record as defending vietnamese socialism:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYlMEVTa-PI
Notice he also gives cover to nazi Germany as well, loosely as it may be.
ANY anti-democratic system is a failure, and state socialism is indefensible.
"What went on in the soviet union absolutely was socialism" It depends on what you define as "socialism" But like he said, originally S meant workers controlling production
Karl Marx was advocating this original socialism, workers taking over the institutions, not a dictator ruling an entire state. In other words, you´re wrong.
"Had the soviet union been succesful, he would have supported it as he also is on record as defending vietnamese socialism"
This is nonsense. Chomsky has advocated Anarcho-Syndicalism all his life, and has always criticized leninism/leninist-like regimes (and all other tyrannical regimes for that matter). He´s not advocating tyrannical regimes in the debate. So wrong, again.
Your post: This is nonsense. Chomsky has advocated Anarcho-Syndicalism all his life, and has always criticized leninism/leninist-like regimes (and all other tyrannical regimes for that matter). He´s not advocating tyrannical regimes in the debate. So wrong, again.
He has advocated anarchism at times, then socialism at others, he's defending the socialists in vietnam in that above clip and in others he defends the nazi form of socialism, or if not defending it, his brand of anarcho-socialism would be impotent to right the wrongs of auswitz,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAZC6EGzJA8But then he comes to the defence of the totalitarian palastinians against the democratically elected isrealies:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5F3GBihGMM Which is my main problem with Noam, his propensity to defend dictatorships, yet tear at democratically elected leaders, Anarcho-syndacalism IS about democracy, but Noams brand of defacto socialism, doesn't work, nor has it. And he defends totalitarians and libertarians as well
It seems to me, debndan, that you've digested Chomsky's thought only very superficially, and incorrectly. It's a pretty wild interpretation of his comments in that YouTube clip (or anywhere else) by which he can be understood as defending "the nazi form of socialism", or that of the North Vietnamese. Etc. etc.
Better attention is called for. Much better.
He has always advocated libertarian socialism.
What is your problem? One can analyze a society and point to some factors that are good without necessarily advocating the entire regime. Your argumentas dont make any sense, my friend.What you write about defending nazism and "totalitarian palestinians" you are going to have to explain, youre making no sense.
He has never supported or advocated totalitarian regimes. Youre using strwamen
By advocating non-intervention he both supports and advocates those types of regimes, which is the WHOLE of the problem I have with Noam.
The above links I provided, he is a critic of democratically elected governments and equates them to terrorists, then with his silence on the actual terrorism of both the Palestinians and earlier the terror inflicted by the vietnamese communists, he is their advocate.
["By advocating non-intervention he both supports and advocates those types of regimes"]
Think that through, debndan. In what way, exactly, does it make sense? Should we infer implicit support and advocacy for any society/system/government by anybody who doesn't advocate [implicitly military] intervention against it? Yes? Is this what you're implying? If not, please explain.
Only if you are implying that can you follow logically to the conclusions about Chomsky that you do. But even then -- even if that conclusion is justified within the terms of your premises -- it's still a totally wrong conclusion, because the premise is so spectacularly bad.
This is incredible. So if one don´t want military intervention and/or bombing of another country that means you must support the regime?? Is this your argument? Again, you´re just talking nonsense.
So if a regime is democratically elected, that means it can´t do anything wrong and can´t be criticized?? What´s going on, man?
again, in both clips, noam is critiquing DEMOCRATICALLY elected regimes that are defending themselves from totalitarian forces, yet does not turn around and critique those totalitarian forces.
He equates those democratic governments with terrorists, yet does not do so with the undemocratic forces, that actually practice terroristic acts.
terrorism - controlling the populace through fear and threat
Again, so if a regime is democratically elected, that means it can´t do anything wrong and can´t be criticized?? C has criticiced totalitarian regimes all the time
And by the way. Israel is the occupyer of palestine. The major responsibility is on the occupyer. Israel is a terrorist state, so your arguments fall apart again.
If a regime is democratically elected I will defend their right to exist over anti-democratic terrorist
And Israel is not an occupier, they were attacked, they defended themselves, and the Palestinians lost. Period.
We´re not tslking about "the right to exist", we´re talking about if democratically elected regimes can be criticized when doing something awful.
I´m afraid you are mistaken. Israel is occupying palestine. Thats why the entire world including the UN (with the exeption of USA and Israel of course) condemn the occupation and advocates Israel accepting the 1967 boarders.
Yes we are talking their right to exist, both clips are Noam's opposition to both the democratically elected governments of south vietnam(he even stated his opposition goes back to mid 50's, when vietnam first elected their leaders) and Israel
and the reason why people want Israel to go back to the 1967 borders is because in 1967 Israel was ATTACKED. Those that attacked them were undemocratic forces, Israel is the democracy.
If you and Noam are truly for democracy, then why defend antidemocratic terrorists?
If we believe in democracy in all things at all times, then once again , Noam has been WRONG,
free your mind!When the world's two great propaganda systems agree on some doctrine, it requires some intellectual effort to escape its shackles. One such doctrine is that the society created by Lenin and Trotsky and molded further by Stalin and his successors has some relation to socialism in some meaningful or historically accurate sense of this concept. In fact, if there is a relation, it is the relation of contradiction.
It is clear enough why both major propaganda systems insist upon this fantasy. Since its origins, the Soviet State has attempted to harness the energies of its own population and oppressed people elsewhere in the service of the men who took advantage of the popular ferment in Russia in 1917 to seize State power. One major ideological weapon employed to this end has been the claim that the State managers are leading their own society and the world towards the socialist ideal; an impossibility, as any socialist -- surely any serious Marxist -- should have understood at once (many did), and a lie of mammoth proportions as history has revealed since the earliest days of the Bolshevik regime. The taskmasters have attempted to gain legitimacy and support by exploiting the aura of socialist ideals and the respect that is rightly accorded them, to conceal their own ritual practice as they destroyed every vestige of socialism.
As for the world's second major propaganda system, association of socialism with the Soviet Union and its clients serves as a powerful ideological weapon to enforce conformity and obedience to the State capitalist institutions, to ensure that the necessity to rent oneself to the owners and managers of these institutions will be regarded as virtually a natural law, the only alternative to the 'socialist' dungeon.
The Soviet leadership thus portrays itself as socialist to protect its right to wield the club, and Western ideologists adopt the same pretense in order to forestall the threat of a more free and just society. This joint attack on socialism has been highly effective in undermining it in the modern period.
One may take note of another device used effectively by State capitalist ideologists in their service to existing power and privilege. The ritual denunciation of the so-called 'socialist' States is replete with distortions and often outright lies. Nothing is easier than to denounce the official enemy and to attribute to it any crime: there is no need to be burdened by the demands of evidence or logic as one marches in the parade. Critics of Western violence and atrocities often try to set the record straight, recognizing the criminal atrocities and repression that exist while exposing the tales that are concocted in the service of Western violence. With predictable regularity, these steps are at once interpreted as apologetics for the empire of evil and its minions. Thus the crucial Right to Lie in the Service of the State is preserved, and the critique of State violence and atrocities is undermined.
It is also worth noting the great appeal of Leninist doctrine to the modern intelligentsia in periods of conflict and upheaval. This doctrine affords the 'radical intellectuals' the right to hold State power and to impose the harsh rule of the 'Red Bureaucracy,' the 'new class,' in the terms of Bakunin's prescient analysis a century ago. As in the Bonapartist State denounced by Marx, they become the 'State priests,' and "parasitical excrescence upon civil society" that rules it with an iron hand.
In periods when there is little challenge to State capitalist institutions, the same fundamental commitments lead the 'new class' to serve as State managers and ideologists, "beating the people with the people's stick," in Bakunin's words. It is small wonder that intellectuals find the transition from 'revolutionary Communism' to 'celebration of the West' such an easy one, replaying a script that has evolved from tragedy to farce over the past half century. In essence, all that has changed is the assessment of where power lies. Lenin¹s dictum that "socialism is nothing but state capitalist monopoly made to benefit the whole people," who must of course trust the benevolence of their leaders, expresses the perversion of 'socialism' to the needs of the State priests, and allows us to comprehend the rapid transition between positions that superficially seem diametric opposites, but in fact are quite close.
you, like chomsky, use a whole lot of words to say a whole lot of nothing.
Again, as I've asked elsewhere, name ONE place that has practiced marxism that didn't turn into a blood bath?
I can name a whole lot of places that anarchism has actually worked namely
Amish communities, Monkish communities, par insurance, credit unions, labor unions, farmers co-ops etc.
But you chomsky/marxists arn't interested in what works, just what other people have worked for, not much difference between you and the corporatists you deride
you both want a free ride.
spoken like a brainwashed chomskite
Yes, Chomsky is also criticizing democratically elected regimes (cf f.ex Israel) when they commit crimes and horrible acts. Pretty logical.
The overwhelming majority of the world and the UN has voted for and support the 67 borders. So now democratic ideas are not so important for you all of a sudden..?
"If you and Noam are truly for democracy, then why defend antidemocratic terrorists?"
The correct way to deal with this is to criticize and object to the horrible immoral acts in any case, whether its done by dictators or democratically elected politicians. Chomsky is criticizing democratic regimes when they do bad things, as well as dictatorships like here f.ex: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nz11K1wUbrc
Democratic Ideals are always important to me, but the UN is far from democratic, only a handful of states that are members are democratically elected, and those that are tend to side with the US and Israel, but those that are opposed to democracy, tend to side with chomsky.
I could understand his critique of Israel if he also took a stand against the agression of the 1967 war, but he never does, nor did he critique the totalitarian north vietnamese.
Now when he calls for the democratic forces to cease and desist yet does not advocate the same for the anti-democratic forces, then he's not being intellectually honest.
And, in fact, if we or Israel listened to him on this, then democracy would die over their, just as it did in vietnam. We're not talking theory here, for his Ideas were tried, and we have the results. To repeat and expect a different out come would be insanity.
The worst of democracies, is still preferable then the best of dictators.
But I did like the critique of that latest clip, though I would disagree inasmuch as whenever marxism is tried outside the democratic system, then something similar to russia or china is always the result whereas he said that it wasn't marxism at all.
And that is why I oppose state sponsored socialism, and whenever anarcho-syndacalism is called de facto socialism, I get in a bunch.
But, as I said much much earlier, some things from chomsky I agree with. It's just that with libertarian socialism it precludes intervention. And that only works if the antidemocratic forces also do not intervene.
Which is why I said earlier that I much prefer tolstoy or orwell when it comes to anarcho-syndachism. It's about what actually works, not in theory but in practice.
The Amish societies and monkish societies are the most stable I know of, and are proof that syndicalism works. So are the credit unions, labor unions, worker co-ops like mondragon, participant insurers etc. They are stable.
But whenever Marxism is tried, like in russia, china, vietnam, north Korea, cambodia, liberia, congo,seirra leone, uganda, and on and on, then the outcome is also always the same.
Unless of course you can name just one place on God's green earth where marxism was tried that didn't degenerate into a bloodsoaked horror?
your problem with noam is that you cannot understand what he is saying - there is no other explanation! not sure what you have read but you are as incorrect as one can be on where he stands and what he has done - not just what he has written but what he has done. i do not have time to read all of this but a brief glance at what you write shows you know very little for some reason - this is what you wrote - "terror inflicted by the vietnamese communists, he is their advocate." - how old are you? do you know nothing of the war in vietnam - you need help. i suggest you read young on the subject - i thinkit is called "the vietnam wars"
Your ad hominem aside, I fully understand Noam, And yes, I'm old enough to remember vietnam.
Again, here is his own words:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAZC6EGzJA8
In that video he plainly states that he did not believe in vietnamese intervention in the mid 1950's
This is when the south was a democratically elected government. Whatever else you may think of vietnam, when we originally went in, it was to support a democratically elected government I.E. Noam C would rather stay neutral when marxist forces attacks democratically elected governments
This is what people don't understand about Noam, deep down he is a MARXIST, his only problem with it, is his belief that it just hasn't been done right
or another clip, again HIS OWN WORDS: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJb1xxwl81E
Here he critiques leninism and says that it was never socialism, of course this is quite convenient of him to critique it in the late 80's when it was apparent that the soviet system was a failure.
But where was his critique in the 60's and 70's when it actually counted, Oh, that's right he admittedly was part of the new left that seemed to think marxism would work.
And it's also interesting that he also defends the german socialist movement, which, arising from neitcheze's libertarianism(hmmmm)with a smattering of marx & hegel, broke into the two camps of nazism and communism, in that clip.
So yes, I understand him very very well, I've read his books, and seen his lectures.Maybe you should try to understand whom you are defending. And whom Noam has attacked in the past.
at first i thought you couldn't read but it is pretty clear you do not want to know what chomsky thinks. use google and you will find lots of material that he wrote in the 60"s and 70"s. here is the history from 1954 - south vietnamese democracy?? was that before or after they cancelled the elections - and was that because they were going to lose badly?? "the Geneva Accords. These agreements separated Vietnam into two zones, a northern zone to be governed by the Viet Minh, and a southern zone to be governed by the State of Vietnam, then headed by former emperor Bảo Đại. A "Conference Final Declaration", issued by the British chairman of the conference, provided that a "general election" be held by July 1956 to create a unified Vietnamese state. Although presented as a consensus view, this document was not accepted by the delegates of either South Vietnam or the United States. In addition, three separate ceasefire accords, covering Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam, were signed at the conference.
[This is what people don't understand about Noam, deep down he is a MARXIST]
Deep down? Considering how Chomsky is, and always has been, willing to explain his thinking in uncommon detail and depth, it seems odd that you find it necessary to dismiss so much of what he actually says and dig "deep down" to get what he's really about.
Maybe what's called for is uncommonly careful attention on your part, to learn to discern what he's actually saying -- which is quite consistent over the years (tho not perfectly), and not extremely difficult to understand.
You say you "fully understand Noam". But you don't. There can be reasonable disagreements over some points of interpretation, but that doesn't mean that any wild misinterpretation is just another point of view among others.
Incidentally . . . what are you trying to achieve by putting "Marxist" in ALL CAPS?
socialist want to help people
why is that exclusive of democracy?
debndan knows neither history nor theory
Socialists may say this, and even believe it, but the tendancy is to harm people once their right to a fair vote is removed(democracy)
State socialism and corporatism are both failures, where as Democracy in all things works
well i agree with you about democracy but you are seriously misguided as to the rest - and where is your beloved democracy in greece, portugal etc - is it in the streets or in the palaces of the troika? and what about here - do we have democracy or a subverting of democracy as madison planned! can we have democracy without economic democracy - you seem to have done very little thinking on these matters - step up son! sorry but you must be young - you have lots of work to do - lots of capitalist history in you to unwind - socialists - which ones are those - define the term and then point out the countries - you never refuted chomskys main point about the term - maybe you did but i cannot wade through all this nonsense to find it so - try again if possible