this post was submitted on 23 Aug 2023
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I'm capable of worrying about two things. Perhaps even three on a good day.
Media being bad because capitalism pushes them to do evil to further their own ends is not the same thing as censorship enforced with state violence. These are both bad things, but uniquely bad in their own ways. I'm sad that Chomsky's age has caught up to him and he can no longer distinguish the two.
press x to doubt
It's incredible that somebody could be so deplorably ignorant to think that US doesn't enforce censorship with state violence. US tortured Manning and is currently having UK torture Assange for revealing US war crimes. Chapter 10 in this book gives lots of examples of political repression in US where activists have been harassed, arrested, and even assassinated by the state https://archive.org/details/DemocracyForTheFew16147062951821
The only thing you should be sad about is your own ignorance. Maybe instead of claiming that Chomsky can't distinguish things you should learn about what your regime actually does. Just a thought.
When people talk about censorship, they usually mean of media. Yes, I'm aware that the US government is an evil institution that targets activists and whistleblowers. You'll never believe me, but I actually despise my government and nearly every person in it. However, authoritarian regimes also strike down those people, but additionally censor the media on top of it. So to say that state censorship is worse here and now is just asinine. There's no need to make things up to seem worse than they are when they're already very bad, it just leads to people swinging at ghosts.
Every government is authoritarian by its very nature. The government derives authority from having monopoly on legalized violence. The only reason there is the illusion of freedom of speech is due to the fact that mainstream views are carefully curated. Any ideas that are seen as a threat are eliminated just as ruthlessly in the west as anywhere else. Entire books have been written on this subject.
Nobody is making anything up here. The reality is that state censorship in the west is no different from the countries you consider authoritarian, the only difference is that it's dressed up in a way that's palatable to western public. In fact, it could be argued that governments in places like China are simply more honest with their public. They're explicit regarding what ideas they reject while the west uses sophistry to create an illusion of freedoms that don't translate into anything tangible.
For goodness' sake, can we not do this? I'm an anarchist, I know this. I oppose the state on a conceptual level for this very reason. I'm speaking to you like a normal person using language that I know you understood the intended meaning of. There's no need to engage in academic fartsniffery here. Just be normal.
The owners of our media have a vested interest in maintaining their own control. They are not compelled to act by outside force, they largely act of their own free will to maintain their position in our corrupt system. Understanding this distinction is crucial to being able to fix it. This is the true insidious nature of our system, at this point it is maintained by people pursuing their own interests rather than by an overarching plot. There's no need for one anymore, it is self-sustaining and perpetuating, like a cancer.
Meanwhile, I'm not an anarchist, and I do not oppose the state at a conceptual level. However, I do think that the state represents the interests of the class that controls power in society, and that western capitalist states fundamentally represent the interests of capitalists. So, when people talk about capitalist states having some sort of free speech for the oppressed working class, I find that surreal to be honest.
Any meaningful free speech translates into tangible action, and when that happens the state uses brutal methods to stomp it out. MLK and Fred Hampton are two prominent examples of what happens when people in US try to exercise freedom of expression in a meaningful way.
They are the capitalist class who built the system to serve their own interests. The owners of the media are not compelled by force because they are the people whom the state represents. The state is a management bureaucracy for resolving the differences between capitalists in a civilized way.
What's crucial for fixing anything is understanding the nature of the state and whom it serves. Your comment makes it pretty clear that you lacking this understanding.