Quote for 2008-05-14

progressive

(Wed, 14 May 2008 21:00:01 -0500 (CDT)) --- C h o m s k y o n " S p e c i a l I n t e r e s t s "

Many terms in political discourse are used in a technical sense
that's very much divorced from their actual meaning, sometimes
even the opposite of it.

Take the "national interest." The term is commonly used as if
it's something good for all of us. If a political leader says,
"I'm doing this in the national interest," you're supposed to
feel good because that's for you.

But if you look closely, it turns out that the national interest
is not defined as the interest of the entire population. It's
really the interests of small, dominant elites who command the
resources that enable them to control the state--basically
corporate-based elites. Correspondingly, the "special
interests," of whom we're all supposed to be suspicious, really
refer to the general population.

This became very clear during the last few presidential
campaigns. President Reagan is largely a figment of the public
relations industry, and the public relations industry, and the
public relations aspects of it, including control over language,
are very striking. Every choice of terms by the Reagan public
relations machine was carefully crafted.

In both the 1980 and the 1984 elections, Reagan and his handlers
identified the Democrats as the "party of special interests."
That's bad, because we're all against the special interests. But
if you asked who the special interests were, they listed women,
poor people, workers, young people, old people, ethnic
minorities,--in fact, the vast majority of the population.

One group was not listed among the special interests--the
corporations. In the campaign rhetoric, that was never a SPECIAL
interest, and in their [view] that's right--because that's the NATIONAL
interest.

--Noam Chomsky

[From: "Propaganda Systems: Orwell's and Ours" by Noam Chomsky,
Premier Issues of _Propaganda Review_. For more information about
_PR_, email ppaull@igc.org]

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