NPR is a social engineering program for folk who think they’re too smart to be so easily deceived and manipulated like a rat in a cage....but good luck convincing them that they are fools.
Well, actually, a friend of mine listens to NPR, and when I cast light aspersions on this habit, she replied, "I have to drive to work. What else is there?" (She lives in a fairly reddish state, far from Sodom, Gomorrah, and Babylon.) A difficult question to answer unless you can get your car on the Internet.
I gave up NPR when they started cheerleading for the wars in ex-Yugoslavia -- I think. It was some war or other, and I may be getting confused. There's always a war.
Listening to classical music would be better than letting the worm into your brain on your way to work. Better no information than wrong information. This idea that “It’s all I can get” is bull-squirt. If all I had to listen to was speeches by T-rump, do you think I’d listen? Jeez Louise, NO. She listens because it’s easy and she wants to. Plus, anyone can find good reporting on the internet before or after work. Like CommonDreams tho that’s getting a little Russia Russia Russia phobic. Consortium News is good. Even has Caitlin. Truthout and truthdig are pretty good. Grayzone is excellent tho not immediate. One just has to work a bit. Being a citizen requires something of us.
You are so right! Looking back I can remember many times when I heard manipulative statements on NPR like “the higher your education, the more liberal you are.”, implying that being liberal is good and only smart people are liberal. The thing is the left is not really liberal in the true sense of the word. I think the unfortunate reality is that there is a higher likelihood that you become more indoctrinated the higher you go in the institutions. I also recall shows promoting humans becoming cyborgs ( back in 2014), not doubt brought to us by the Welcome Trust. It really creeps me out that I took all that in, at least I figured out what they are about back in 2015 or so and stopped listening.
You note that "...there is a higher likelihood that you become more indoctrinated..."
...this reminds me of something Noam Chomsky noted in his "Chronicles of Dissent" piece 35-40 years ago (Propaganda in the US vs in the USSR, which can be read here: https://chomsky.info/dissent02/)
He stated: "Propaganda very often works better for the educated than it does for the uneducated. This is true on many issues. There are a lot of reasons for this, one being that the educated receive more of the propaganda because they read more. Another thing is that they are the agents of propaganda..."
Yeah, it's really quite an excellent (and prescient) piece. In fact, so much so that I'm considering pasting the whole thing into one of these comment boxes, as sometimes even just the simple clicking of a link is enough of an obstacle to prevent someone from actually reading something important... the "Concision Technique" section of the same article is wonderfully illuminating (and accurate)... this is of course assuming that submitting that much text is even allowed in these comment sections (I don't know?)
Coincidentally, here is a section of the Chomsky piece which I'm referring to (here: https://chomsky.info/dissent02/), where he actually discusses public radio...
The “Concision” Technique of U.S. Media
February 2, 1990
Barsamian: I’m interested that you’ve said that commercial radio is less ideological than public radio.
Chomsky: That’s been my experience. Here I’d want to be a little more cautious. Public radio out in the sticks, in my experience, is pretty open. So when I go to Wyoming or Iowa I’m on public radio, for longer discussions. That would be very hard to imagine in Boston or Washington. Occasionally you might get on with somebody else to balance you for three minutes, in which there are three sentences for each person. But anything that would be more in depth would be very difficult. It’s worth bearing in mind that the U.S. communications system has devised a very effective structural technique to prevent dissidence. This comes out very clearly sometimes. The United States is about the only country I know where anywhere near the mainstream you’ve got to be extremely concise in what you say, because if you ever get access, it’s two minutes between commercials. That’s not true in other countries. It’s not true outside of the mainstream either. You can get maybe ten or fifteen minutes, you can develop a thought. If you can get on a U.S. mainstream program, NPR, Ted Koppel, it’s a couple of sentences. They’re very well aware of it. Do you know Jeff Hansen?
Barsamian: He’s at WORT, Madison.
Chomsky: Last time I was out there, he wanted to arrange an interview when I was in the area giving some talks on the media. He started by playing a tape that he had that you’ve probably heard where he had interviewed Jeff Greenfield, some mucky-muck with *Nightline*. He asked Greenfield, How come you never have Chomsky on? Greenfield starts with a kind of tirade about how this guy’s a wacko from Neptune. After he calmed down and stopped foaming at the mouth, he then said something which was quite right: Look, he probably “lacks concision.” We need the kind of people who can say something in a few brief sentences. Maybe the best expert on some topic is from Turkey and speaks only Turkish. That’s no good for us. We’ve got to get somebody who can say something with concision, and this guy Chomsky just rants on and on. There’s something to that.
Take a look at the February/March 1990 Mother Jones. There’s an interesting article by Marc Cooper in which he does an analysis of the main people who appear as experts on shows. Of course, they’re all skewed to the right, and the same people appear over and over. But the commentary is interesting. He talks to media people about this and they say, These are people who know how to make their thoughts concise and simple and straightforward and they can make those brief two-sentence statements between commercials. That’s quite significant. Because if you’re constrained to producing two sentences between commercials, or 700 words in an op-ed piece, you can do nothing but express conventional thoughts. If you express conventional thoughts, you don’t need any basis for it or any background, or any arguments. If you try to express something that’s somewhat unconventional, people will rightly ask why you’re saying that. They’re right. If I refer to the United States invasion of South Vietnam, people will ask, “What are you talking about? I never heard of that.” And they’re right. They’ve never heard about it. So I’d have to explain what I mean.
Or suppose I’m talking about international terrorism, and I say that we ought to stop it in Washington, which is a major center of it. People back off, “What do you mean, Washington’s a major center of it?” Then you have to explain. You have to give some background. That’s exactly what Jeff Greenfield is talking about. You don’t want people who have to give background, because that would allow critical thought. What you want is completely conformist ideas. You want just repetition of the propaganda line, the party line. For that you need “concision”. I could do it too. I could say what I think in three sentences, too. But it would just sound as if it was off the wall, because there’s no basis laid for it. If you come from the American Enterprise Institute and you say it in three sentences, yes, people hear it every day, so what’s the big deal? Yeah, sure, Qaddafi’s the biggest monster in the world, and the Russians are conquering the world, and this and that, Noriega’s the worst gangster since so-and-so. For that kind of thing you don’t need any background. You just rehash the thoughts that everybody’s always expressed and that you hear from Dan Rather and everyone else. That’s a structural technique that’s very valuable. In fact, if people like Ted Koppel were smarter, they would allow more dissidents on, because they would just make fools of themselves. Either you would sell out and repeat what everybody else is saying because it’s the only way to sound sane, or else you would say what you think, in which case you’d sound like a madman, even if what you think is absolutely true and easily supportable. The reason is that the whole system so completely excludes it. It’ll sound crazy, rightly, from their point of view. And since you have to have concision, as Jeff Greenfield says, you don’t have time to explain it. That’s a marvelous structural technique of propaganda. They do the same thing in Japan, I’m told. Most of the world still hasn’t reached that level of sophistication. You can go on Belgian national radio or the BBC and actually say what you mean. That’s very hard in the United States.
Yes, I just started with his excellent "Concision Technique" dissection, which I actually pasted above. It's about 35 or so years old, and yet even more valid/applicable than ever!
Congratulations. 🎉🍾🎈. For all I hate NPR, there’s something to be said for sunlight is the best disinfectant and The antidote to bad speech is more speech. The longer one listens to NPR the more it shows itself to be what it is. I just like to hurry the process along! 🤪
NPR is a social engineering program for folk who think they’re too smart to be so easily deceived and manipulated like a rat in a cage....but good luck convincing them that they are fools.
Well, actually, a friend of mine listens to NPR, and when I cast light aspersions on this habit, she replied, "I have to drive to work. What else is there?" (She lives in a fairly reddish state, far from Sodom, Gomorrah, and Babylon.) A difficult question to answer unless you can get your car on the Internet.
I gave up NPR when they started cheerleading for the wars in ex-Yugoslavia -- I think. It was some war or other, and I may be getting confused. There's always a war.
Listening to classical music would be better than letting the worm into your brain on your way to work. Better no information than wrong information. This idea that “It’s all I can get” is bull-squirt. If all I had to listen to was speeches by T-rump, do you think I’d listen? Jeez Louise, NO. She listens because it’s easy and she wants to. Plus, anyone can find good reporting on the internet before or after work. Like CommonDreams tho that’s getting a little Russia Russia Russia phobic. Consortium News is good. Even has Caitlin. Truthout and truthdig are pretty good. Grayzone is excellent tho not immediate. One just has to work a bit. Being a citizen requires something of us.
Pacifica Network:
https://pacificanetwork.org
I listen to KPFA out of San Francisco/Berkeley - used t wisen to WBAI out of NY.
I remember KPFA in San Franciso/Berkeley, lol. Born in Berkeley.
You are so right! Looking back I can remember many times when I heard manipulative statements on NPR like “the higher your education, the more liberal you are.”, implying that being liberal is good and only smart people are liberal. The thing is the left is not really liberal in the true sense of the word. I think the unfortunate reality is that there is a higher likelihood that you become more indoctrinated the higher you go in the institutions. I also recall shows promoting humans becoming cyborgs ( back in 2014), not doubt brought to us by the Welcome Trust. It really creeps me out that I took all that in, at least I figured out what they are about back in 2015 or so and stopped listening.
You note that "...there is a higher likelihood that you become more indoctrinated..."
...this reminds me of something Noam Chomsky noted in his "Chronicles of Dissent" piece 35-40 years ago (Propaganda in the US vs in the USSR, which can be read here: https://chomsky.info/dissent02/)
He stated: "Propaganda very often works better for the educated than it does for the uneducated. This is true on many issues. There are a lot of reasons for this, one being that the educated receive more of the propaganda because they read more. Another thing is that they are the agents of propaganda..."
Wow! I will have to check that out. Thanks for the link.
Yeah, it's really quite an excellent (and prescient) piece. In fact, so much so that I'm considering pasting the whole thing into one of these comment boxes, as sometimes even just the simple clicking of a link is enough of an obstacle to prevent someone from actually reading something important... the "Concision Technique" section of the same article is wonderfully illuminating (and accurate)... this is of course assuming that submitting that much text is even allowed in these comment sections (I don't know?)
Coincidentally, here is a section of the Chomsky piece which I'm referring to (here: https://chomsky.info/dissent02/), where he actually discusses public radio...
The “Concision” Technique of U.S. Media
February 2, 1990
Barsamian: I’m interested that you’ve said that commercial radio is less ideological than public radio.
Chomsky: That’s been my experience. Here I’d want to be a little more cautious. Public radio out in the sticks, in my experience, is pretty open. So when I go to Wyoming or Iowa I’m on public radio, for longer discussions. That would be very hard to imagine in Boston or Washington. Occasionally you might get on with somebody else to balance you for three minutes, in which there are three sentences for each person. But anything that would be more in depth would be very difficult. It’s worth bearing in mind that the U.S. communications system has devised a very effective structural technique to prevent dissidence. This comes out very clearly sometimes. The United States is about the only country I know where anywhere near the mainstream you’ve got to be extremely concise in what you say, because if you ever get access, it’s two minutes between commercials. That’s not true in other countries. It’s not true outside of the mainstream either. You can get maybe ten or fifteen minutes, you can develop a thought. If you can get on a U.S. mainstream program, NPR, Ted Koppel, it’s a couple of sentences. They’re very well aware of it. Do you know Jeff Hansen?
Barsamian: He’s at WORT, Madison.
Chomsky: Last time I was out there, he wanted to arrange an interview when I was in the area giving some talks on the media. He started by playing a tape that he had that you’ve probably heard where he had interviewed Jeff Greenfield, some mucky-muck with *Nightline*. He asked Greenfield, How come you never have Chomsky on? Greenfield starts with a kind of tirade about how this guy’s a wacko from Neptune. After he calmed down and stopped foaming at the mouth, he then said something which was quite right: Look, he probably “lacks concision.” We need the kind of people who can say something in a few brief sentences. Maybe the best expert on some topic is from Turkey and speaks only Turkish. That’s no good for us. We’ve got to get somebody who can say something with concision, and this guy Chomsky just rants on and on. There’s something to that.
Take a look at the February/March 1990 Mother Jones. There’s an interesting article by Marc Cooper in which he does an analysis of the main people who appear as experts on shows. Of course, they’re all skewed to the right, and the same people appear over and over. But the commentary is interesting. He talks to media people about this and they say, These are people who know how to make their thoughts concise and simple and straightforward and they can make those brief two-sentence statements between commercials. That’s quite significant. Because if you’re constrained to producing two sentences between commercials, or 700 words in an op-ed piece, you can do nothing but express conventional thoughts. If you express conventional thoughts, you don’t need any basis for it or any background, or any arguments. If you try to express something that’s somewhat unconventional, people will rightly ask why you’re saying that. They’re right. If I refer to the United States invasion of South Vietnam, people will ask, “What are you talking about? I never heard of that.” And they’re right. They’ve never heard about it. So I’d have to explain what I mean.
Or suppose I’m talking about international terrorism, and I say that we ought to stop it in Washington, which is a major center of it. People back off, “What do you mean, Washington’s a major center of it?” Then you have to explain. You have to give some background. That’s exactly what Jeff Greenfield is talking about. You don’t want people who have to give background, because that would allow critical thought. What you want is completely conformist ideas. You want just repetition of the propaganda line, the party line. For that you need “concision”. I could do it too. I could say what I think in three sentences, too. But it would just sound as if it was off the wall, because there’s no basis laid for it. If you come from the American Enterprise Institute and you say it in three sentences, yes, people hear it every day, so what’s the big deal? Yeah, sure, Qaddafi’s the biggest monster in the world, and the Russians are conquering the world, and this and that, Noriega’s the worst gangster since so-and-so. For that kind of thing you don’t need any background. You just rehash the thoughts that everybody’s always expressed and that you hear from Dan Rather and everyone else. That’s a structural technique that’s very valuable. In fact, if people like Ted Koppel were smarter, they would allow more dissidents on, because they would just make fools of themselves. Either you would sell out and repeat what everybody else is saying because it’s the only way to sound sane, or else you would say what you think, in which case you’d sound like a madman, even if what you think is absolutely true and easily supportable. The reason is that the whole system so completely excludes it. It’ll sound crazy, rightly, from their point of view. And since you have to have concision, as Jeff Greenfield says, you don’t have time to explain it. That’s a marvelous structural technique of propaganda. They do the same thing in Japan, I’m told. Most of the world still hasn’t reached that level of sophistication. You can go on Belgian national radio or the BBC and actually say what you mean. That’s very hard in the United States.
Its worth a try to post that section of the interview, or maybe at least the most relevant passages.
Yes, I just started with his excellent "Concision Technique" dissection, which I actually pasted above. It's about 35 or so years old, and yet even more valid/applicable than ever!
Congratulations. 🎉🍾🎈. For all I hate NPR, there’s something to be said for sunlight is the best disinfectant and The antidote to bad speech is more speech. The longer one listens to NPR the more it shows itself to be what it is. I just like to hurry the process along! 🤪