MANUFACTURING CONSENT

588 Pages·1994·18.99 MB·English

by  Mark Achbar

Table of Contents

Title Page
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Introduction

PART ONE - THOUGHT CONTROL IN A DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY
PART TWO - ACTIVATING DISSENT

PRODUCTION CHRONOLOGY
RESOURCE GUIDE
INDEX
other important titles from
Copyright Page
For Marjorie, Ben and Francine Achbar
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Many people were involved in the process of putting this book in your hands.
My sincere thanks to:
Peter Wintonick and Francis Miquet, my friends and partners, for allowing
this project to usurp some of Necessary Illusions’ meager resources;
Linda Barton and Dimitrios Roussopoulos of Black Rose Books, for their
encouragement and confidence;
Rodolfo Borello and Andrew Forster, for their design sensitivity and their
professionalism in working to an impossible deadline;
Jane Broderick, for copy editing the book and creating the index, to the same
impossible deadline;
Merrily Weisbord and Robert Del Tredici, my mentors in the medium of print;
Caroline Voight, Stacy Chappel, and Robert Kwak for their command of the
keyboard, and Susan Grey, for her additional research;
Blake Gulband and Nat Klym, for their practical advice;
The National Film Board of Canada, especially Steven Morris, Trevor Gregg,
Maurice Paradis and David Verrall, for their cooperation and technical support;
David Pollack, of Inframe Productions, and Colin Pearson, for their generous
contribution of image grabbing technology, and Jason Levy for his time;
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Martine Cote and Kate M Donell, for their help in processing the images;
Tom Tomorrow, for his illustrated attitude;
James McGillivray, for finally delivering the cards;
Cha Cha Da Vinci and Leah Léger for keeping their zapper on the pulse of
Springfield;
Christine Burt, for her tactful assessments;
Elaine Shatenstein and Cleo Paskal, whose editorial comments substantially
improved the quality of this effort;
John Schoeffel, for his useful suggestions throughout;
David Barsamian, whose interviews added so much to the film and this book;
Carlos Otero, for his example and help with setting priorities;
Sabrina Mathews, whose curiosity guided much of the substance of the
additonal material and whose stamina kept the machine running;
Edward S. Herman, whose chapters in Manufacturing Consent: The Political
Economy of the Mass Media provided the unifying concepts behind much of our
film;
Carol Chomsky, for her generosity in providing and reproducing family
photos for the film and for her support and corrections on the rough cuts.
And to Noam Chomsky, whose work has been the focus of mine for over six
years, for his encouragement, his inexhaustible energy, his willingness to
respond to all our questions and requests, and for his bemused tolerance of our
cameras, which made possible the film on which this book is based.
INTRODUCTION
Having been active in the peace and anti-nuclear movements in the early 1980s,
I was drawn, in 1985, to a talk entitled “The Drift Toward Global War,” by
Noam Chomsky. The speaker’s name was familiar to me but the ideas it
represented were not. The long, oak-paneled hall at the University of Toronto
was filled well beyond capacity. I set up my tape recorder near the podium just
in time for the superlative-strewn introduction. Applause, then Chomsky, and
down to business. Every 45 minutes I quickly flipped my cassette, or inserted a
new one, anxious not to miss a word.
That night, a soft-spoken man with a dark, ironic sense of humor, and a
command of facts I had never before encountered, irrevocably shifted my
political paradigm. After what seemed like minutes of sustained applause, I
apprehensively approached the mild-mannered speaker with others for whom
two and a half hours was not enough. For a moment, no one spoke. There was an
awe-struck lull, which I shattered, intruding on his personal space with my
microphone for the first of many times. I found a tolerant, empathetic man
prepared to patiently rearrange the oxide on my cassette—and my understanding
of the abuse of power in the world.
Regardless of the ineloquence of the question, Chomsky immediately grasped
the intent, and answered, I later came to realize, at the same level at which he
would answer a historian interviewing him for the BBC. I was struck by his utter
lack of condescension. That moment, and many others I’ve since witnessed and
filmed, are, I believe, deep reflections of Chomsky’s faith in the ability of so-
called ordinary people to understand and act on the issues he raises. He actually
tries to live the egalitarian philosophy he espouses.
I listened to the cassettes I recorded that night many times over the next two
years. And I kept an eye and an ear out for Mr. Chomsky, regularly scanning the
mass media. But he was nowhere to be found. You could dig up his books if you
hunted in the right stores, but he wasn’t “out there” in any appreciable way.
Fortunately, in 1987, at the invitation of Dimitri Roussopoulos, the publisher
of this book, Chomsky came to speak at Concordia University in Montreal, the
city I then called home. Again, the hall was filled to overflowing. I sat with Terri
Nash, whose Oscar-winning film, If You Love This Planet, based on a a lecture
by anti-nuclear activist Helen Caldicott, was reaching substantial audiences in
schools and on television. I remember thinking, “Maybe I can do for Noam what
Terri did for Helen.”
This book, like the film on which it is based, is designed as a stepping-stone to
related texts by Chomsky, Edward S. Herman, and others and to organizations
active in a range of issues. I have presented a complete transcript of the film,
and, as topics arise, have sought out relevant passages from different sources,
though mainly from Chomsky’s writings, talks and interviews, which offer
further insight, with the hope of enticing the reader back to the source. The
Resource Guide, beginning on page 239, lists several non-mainstream
organizations and sources of information in print, audio, film, video, and on
computer networks. I consider this Resource Guide as a work-in-progress and
welcome suggestions for additions and improvements in future printings.
In reviewing an early draft of this book, Chomsky expressed reservations
about the utility of the format. Although several collections of his talks and
interviews have been published, to my surprise he questioned the ability of the
spoken word transcribed, as compared to the written word in articles and books,
to clarify issues: “The more considered and careful versions that reach print in
the normal course of affairs,” he wrote, “are far preferable.” He voiced this
concern along with eight single-spaced pages of much-appreciated notes aimed
at improving this book. Several are included verbatim.