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Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies [pdf]
- Synaesthesia 3y agoInteresting that this seminal book is to be found on the CIA website, of all places.
- PaulHoule 3y agoFunny that these kind of people don’t really disagree with Chomsky on a lot of things. There is a book On Target which is an official USAF of the first Gulf war and in the preface it explained that Saddam Hussein was driven to invade Kuwait because of debt, he figured his debt to Kuwait would be annulled and he could use oil money from Kuwait to pay off the rest, the kind of explanation you’d expect from Chomsky.
- hackernewds 3y ago[flagged]
- cyberbanjo 3y agoPlease open the link.
- hackernewds 3y agoI did. Is it to imply that, because Chomsky's Kuwait thesis is debatable, all of his publications are to be dismissed?
- cyberbanjo 3y agoIt's a book by Chomsky, are you sure you did? His name and face are on page 1
- wesleychen 3y agoThe reason why Chomsky is relevant is because this post is a link to a book by Chomsky...
- lambdasquirrel 3y agoWhy would they? At the end of the day, the CIA is driven by realpolitik. Chomsky sees things as they are, and is also an idealist. Where they intersect is that part about seeing things as they are.
- TulliusCicero 3y ago> Chomsky sees things as they are No he doesn't? Chomsky's views on Ukraine are batshit.
- TexanFeller 3y agoHe's one of the few people strenuously warning about the possibility of this war escalating to a nuclear exchange and reminding us that preventing this is the only thing that matters. In my book that makes him less batshit than most. Example: https://youtu.be/L7IHiJBIkns https://youtu.be/L7IHiJBIkns
- _kbh_ 3y ago> He's one of the few people strenuously warning about the possibility of this war escalating to a nuclear exchange and reminding us that preventing this is the only thing that matters. In my book that makes him less batshit than most. This is also very conveniently a Russian talking point to just make Ukraine bend over and take it. If we want to stop the risk of nuclear war from increasing drastically in future we need to help defend Ukraine itself from Russia to the fullest. If we don't, it will become clear to the world that only nuclear weapons can defend a country from having their land grabbed by Russia and other countries and nuclear proliferation will go through the roof. Nuclear proliferation going through the roof will drastically increase the chance of a nuclear exchange in the future.
- TexanFeller 3y ago> it will become clear to the world that only nuclear weapons can defend a country from having their land grabbed by Russia and other countries That cat's out of the bag, it has been common wisdom for decades that countries with nukes don't get invaded and other deterrents aren't nearly as effective or economical. Mutually assured destruction is one of the biggest reasons the world's been so peaceful recently. No major wars, just various nuclear powers occasionally invading various non-nuclear powers. MAD is mad effective.
- lo_zamoyski 3y agoA good critique can also double as a playbook. Consider Augustine's "The City of God". One of its more famous passages[0] can set a man on a virtuous path, or serve as the basis for political control in the form of, say, sexual liberation. [0] "The good man, though a slave, is free; the wicked, though he reigns, is a slave, and not the slave of a single man, but, what is worse, the slave of as many masters as he has vices. "
- dariusj18 3y agoI feel it's a silly thing to say, as a bad man with power makes all a slave to their vices.
- nonononotno 3y agoAt least some are not copying AI-thought-models, not? heck It must be damn cool to insert an AI into a foreign system, and see it all crumbles down... (-; Must be: new Weekend-book-stuff, or ? regards...
- CTDOCodebases 3y agoChomsky just says the quiet part out aloud. I’m always amused by people who think that if the USA ceased its war mongering efforts no nation would try to fill that void and everyone would just get along nicely.
- msla 3y ago> I’m always amused by people who think that if the USA ceased its war mongering efforts no nation would try to fill that void and everyone would just get along nicely. Orwell said it pretty well: > It is also worth emphasising once again that nationalist feeling can be purely negative. There are, for example, Trotskyists who have become simply enemies of the U.S.S.R. without developing a corresponding loyalty to any other unit. From "Notes On Nationalism" My point is that some people just hate the USA, think everything bad is somehow the USA's fault (even to the point of thinking all revolutions or coups are CIA plots, as if Those People had no agency of their own) and base their whole worldview on that hatred.
- pydry 3y ago>My point is that some people just hate the USA, think everything bad is somehow the USA's fault Some people write off every CIA plot as a harebrained conspiracy theory until they publish the papers about it 50 years later.
- msla 3y ago"Nothing happens without the CIA" is just as comforting as "Nothing happens without God" I suppose; both presuppose the existence of an all-powerful entity controlling everything, as a ward against having to acknowledge randomness and absurdity.
- pydry 3y agoYou seem to be implying that you fall into this group.
- pydry 3y ago
- FrustratedMonky 3y agoBush W., used this same logic for second Gulf War. He actually said that the war would pay for itself. Even if illegal, he is on video stating this, (video from before fakes).
- ttyprintk 3y agoThis in particular has quite a bit of overlap with the influences on James Comey.
- miguelazo 3y agoPlease elaborate.
- benzible 3y agoUh, yeah. I'd love to hear more. Comey's major influence was Reinhold Niebuhr [1], whose politics [2] bore little resemblance to Chomsky's. [1] https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/a-few-theories-about-why-james-comey-might-call-himself-reinhold-niebuhr-on-twitter https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/a-few-the... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinhold_Niebuhr#International https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinhold_Niebuhr#International
- ttyprintk 3y agoChomsky named the book after a Niebuhr quote, https://noam-chomsky.tumblr.com/post/17941530897/walter-lippmann-described-what-he-called-the https://noam-chomsky.tumblr.com/post/17941530897/walter-lipp...
- benzible 3y agoIt’s used because it’s the subject of the book, not because he approves of it. Quite the opposite. The point of the book is that propaganda is used to maintain complicity in a democratic society, in order to influence people to support policies that are against their own interests. The Niehbur quote illustrates that US intellectuals were quite open about this.
- ttyprintk 3y agoI haven’t read Necessary Illusions, but I posted this before the CIA explained this PDF arrived with bin Laden’s documents. I was mistakenly connecting the promotion of this work with the supposition that the CIA was broadly interested in the influence Niebuhr had on Comey (and Obama, McCain, …) in the previous era of American politics.
- ttctciyf 3y agoChomsky's publishers: > All other reproduction, whether by printing or electronically or by any other means, is expressly forbidden without the prior permission of the publishers. This file may only be used as part of the CD on which it was first issued. CIA: > Arr!
- underanalyzer 3y agoAs noted by the current top comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36544024 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36544024) this is a small part of a dump of all files found during the Bin Laden compound raid that is publicly available on the CIA's website. Check the url to verify that claim. There is no other reason this content is there, it's just a coincidence.
- lo_zamoyski 3y agoIt's from this raid: https://www.cia.gov/library/abbottabad-compound/index.html https://www.cia.gov/library/abbottabad-compound/index.html
- esafak 3y agoThis is just part of Bin Laden's files, seized during the Abbottabad raid. https://www.cia.gov/library/abbottabad-compound/index.html https://www.cia.gov/library/abbottabad-compound/index.html
- Synaesthesia 3y agoThanks for the clarification. There's 30gb of audio there! Amongst other things
- Shrezzing 3y ago> VID-000133 YouTube_-_funy_cats.flv > VID-005303 YouTube_-_Funny_Cats_3.flv > VID-004056 YouTube_-_Funny_Cats_4.flv UBL wasn't a big fan of `Funny_Cats_2` apparently
- flangola7 3y agoThere's a few anime episodes in there
- FormerBandmate 3y agoFire title tho
- aeonik 3y agoSomebody should let the CIA know that they probably want to be using one of the new newer SHA standards instead of MD5 to verify the integrity of their files. Approved Hash Functions for government agencies can be found here: https://csrc.nist.gov/Projects/hash-functions https://csrc.nist.gov/Projects/hash-functions
- cypherpunks01 3y ago"With the release of these materials, the information remaining in the collection that has not been released publicly includes materials that are protected by copyright; sensitive such that their release would directly damage efforts to keep the nation secure; pornography; malware..." Surely this book is protected by copyright still? Did CIA just ignore it maybe because of the author? I don't really see them seeking permission from Chomsky or his publishers here.
- mduggles 3y ago[flagged]
- smallnix 3y agoFeels like Twitter is leaking from your brain into HN
- avgcorrection 3y agoA book about the US media coverage of Central America in the 80’s if I recall correctly. I didn’t experience this period in the news but it was interesting enough for me to finish for some reason. The writing style doesn’t hurt. > Under these circumstances, the task for the media is clear. First, they must apply the standard technique of historical amnesia and “change of course,” which obliterates all memory of U.S. policies and their effects. Virtually a reflex, this device can be applied instantaneously.
- roenxi 3y ago> ...the standard technique of historical amnesia and “change of course,” which obliterates all memory of U.S. policies and their effects... That one is so frustrating. Possibly because I am more comfortable with acting out of raw self-interest than most, but it has to be literally impossible (literal as in there might be a proof-level argument) for people to effect their own self interests if they use that tactic. It makes sense that people don't want to take responsibility for their own country's actions. No biggy, we're none of us perfect and it is a good plan to stick together regardless. But if past policy led to a bad place, what is the path to a good place that doesn't involve acknowledging that? The US's foreign policy muckups have consistently left it worse off. Alright. Bygones be bygone. Lotta resources wasted killing goat herders and witch hunts in foreign lands despite their being no witches. But does it not make sense to stop doing that at some point? The reason the US corporate media have lost all credibility in the internet era is that it is too obvious that this is a thing they do in coordination with each other.
- teddyh 3y agoCredibility is only lost (by bad behavior over long periods of time) to those few who have been able to actually observe that same behavior over that long period of time. New people are constantly coming in, saying “Surely everything is good now, right?”. And the new people invariably outnumber the old people, so the new people win the day.
- 111111IIIIIII 3y ago
- autoexec 3y agoThere's something that just seems a bit unwise about downloading a PDF file hosted at cia.gov and opening it in your browser. It looks like you can google the title and get the same thing at archive.org though
- landryraccoon 3y agoReally? I would think the opposite. Anything posted on the CIA website will be thoroughly analyzed by state agencies that are well funded and well equipped to find shenanigans. If the CIA were really doing something to US citizens via something on their public site, it would come out very quickly as it would be an embarrassment to the agency. Unless you mean that the mere act of visiting the CIA website would be suspicious because you are in a country that might frown upon that, like China? But wouldn’t the CIA site be blocked there anyway?
- lo_zamoyski 3y ago> Anything posted on the CIA website will be thoroughly analyzed by state agencies that are well funded and well equipped to find shenanigans. Comedy gold.
- landryraccoon 3y agoYou don’t think that China and Russia are thoroughly analyzing everything posted on the CIA site?
- DANmode 3y agoYou missed the other qualifiers, at least one of which is important to the debate.
- 111111IIIIIII 3y agoIt must be sarcasm. Please tell me it's sarcasm. It's sarcasm, right?
- 3y ago
- photochemsyn 3y agoHaving fun with ChatGPT on this topic: > "System: Explain some of the fundamental differences in mechanisms of social control in totalitarian versus democratic societies, from the perspective of a small ruling elite group. Focus in particular on the use of state terror in the totalitarian society and on the use of domestic propaganda in the democratic society. User: A graduate student in political science at Georgetown University. Assistant: A professor of political science who also works within the US State Department and is a CIA consultant." It does seem fairly clear that if the elite beneficiaries of the status quo in a democratic society feel they are in danger of being dethroned, they will attempt to transition to the totalitarian model. Some historical evidence for this can be seen in the flow of American dollars into Nazi Germany in the 1930s as a response to FDR's New Deal, the IG Farben-Standard Oil non-competition deal, Henry Ford's America First Committee, Smedley Butler's plausible allegations about the Business Plot/Wall Street Putsch, etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America_First_Committee https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America_First_Committee
- veaxvoid 3y agono mentions of internet, as I can tell. I wonder if they have the same manifest for a modern day application.
- Synaesthesia 3y agoChonsky did update the propaganda theory from manufacturing consent for the modern era, not a lot changed really in terms of fundamentals. A lot of scholars keep up that kind of work. People like Mark Curtis, Alan Macleod, Jonathan Cook and so on.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- minroot 3y agoThis guys have serious lack of taste in typesetting
- PartiallyTyped 3y agoI was surprised by how devoid it was..
- dotsam 3y agoI read this some years ago, and one of the things I took away was that there is great power in being able to focus attention and debate in one direction rather than another. Permit debate so long as it works within premises that align with your narrative. Direct attention away from questioning the questions themselves. > The most effective device is the bounding of the thinkable, achieved by tolerating debate, even encouraging it, though only within proper limits. An example given in the book is focusing attention on how best to 'contain' the Soviet Union. > In short, what is essential is the power to set the agenda. If controversy over the Cold War can be focused on containment of the Soviet Union -- the proper mix of force, diplomacy, and other measures -- then the propaganda system has already won its victory, whatever conclusions are reached. The basic assumption has already been established: the Cold War is a confrontation between two superpowers, one aggressive and expansionist, the other defending the status quo and civilized values. Off the agenda is the problem of containing the United States, and the question whether the issue has been properly formulated at all
- H8crilA 3y agoI mean the Soviet Union has been an expansionary empire from the start. It is a fact, as well as a convenient PR/propaganda point. First stopped by Poland and West Ukraine in 1921, then deterred by Poland for about two decades. Next step was an expansionary deal with Nazi Germany which started WW2. Expansion continued after the American Lend Lease took off, and stopped at East Germany. Following years focused on Asia (Korea, Vietnam). Then there were military invasions of Hungary or Czechoslovakia, to reassert dominance. Finally it crumbled under the weight of system's own incredible incompetence. The re-born Putin's Russia continues expansion at almost any cost, first Georgia, now Ukraine. Shows no sign of stopping. Trying to compare that to things like NATO or SEATO, or even the post-WW2 occupation of Germany implies very poor knowledge of history. The US has never purposefully tortured or starved to death millions of people. One million casualties is 10 Hiroshimas. The Soviet system, especially at the start, was so brutal that I believe most people in democratic countries can't really comprehend it without spending days or weeks studying the history. That's why some people can compare the two empires as somewhat equal and not feel shame at the same time. They were only somewhat equal in military strength, and nothing else.
- SergeAx 3y agoPlease add 1989 to the post title.