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CHOMSKY 1. Reduce Democracy. Chomsky finds
this acted on by the very "founding fathers" of the 2. Shape Ideology. The Powell Memo
from the corporate right, and the Trilateral Commission's first ever report,
called "The Crisis of Democracy," are cited by Chomsky as roadmaps
for the backlash. That report referred to an "excess of democracy,"
the over engagement of young people with civic life, and the view that young
people were just not receiving proper "indoctrination." Well,
there's a problem that's been fixed,
huh? 3. Redesign the Economy. Since the 1970s
the 4. Shift the Burden. The American
Dream in the 1950s and 60s was partly real. Both the
rich and the poor got richer. Since then, we've seen the steady advance of
what Chomsky calls the plutonomy and the precariat,
that is the wealthy few who run the show and get all the new wealth,
and the precarious proletariat. Back then, taxes were quite high on
corporations, dividends, and wealth. Not anymore. 5. Attack Solidarity. To go after
Social Security and public education, Chomsky says, you have to drive the
normal emotion of caring about others out of people's heads. The 6. Run the Regulators. The 1970s saw
enormous growth in lobbying. It is now routine for
the interests being regulated to control the regulators, which makes things
much easier on the regulated. 7. Engineer Elections. Thus we've seen the
creation of corporate personhood, the equation of money with speech, and the
lifting of all limits under Citizens United. 8. Keep the Rabble in Line. Here Chomsky
focuses on attacks on organized labor, including
the Taft Hartley Act, but one could imagine further expansions on the theme. 9. Manufacture Consent. Obsessive
consumers are not born, they're molded by
advertising. The goal of directing people to superficial consumption as a
means of keeping people in their place was explicit and has been reached. In
a market economy, Chomsky says, informative advertisements would result in
rational decisions. But actual advertisements provide no information and
promote irrational choices. Here Chomsky is talking about, not just ads for
automobiles and soap, but also election campaigns for candidates. 10. Marginalize the Population. This seems as
much a result as a tactic, but it certainly has been achieved. What the
public wants does not typically
impact what the |