Travel plan idea blog

KAL Flight 007 mentioned by Chomsky as evidence the American press has been indoctrinated

So the dean of my department founded the ISCS, the International Society of Chomskyan Studies. I try to help out by contributing articles to the journal, speaking at conferences, and serving on the editorial board. I didn't really have any ideas for this latest issue of our journal but I did have Radical Priorities, a collection of works by Chomsky from the late 1960s to the early 21st century.

I actually bought this book while traveling. I was in Seattle before my cruise to Alaska. We were walking around the university area not far from our hotel (which is not real close to downtown) and this book was in the window. I was sort of looking at the book cover but I was more interested in the conversation police were having with a homeless guy not far away. He was a murder suspect and it was scary how this real life experience reminded me of TV. I still remember this one cop saying, "If there's something you have to get off your chest, tell me now. Is there anything you wanna get off your chest? You can tell me now or we can go downtown and we can talk about it there."

Anyway, I ended up buying the book and at the last board meeting for the ISCS I offered to write a book review of it. You're probably wondering where I'm going with all this (unless you remember the title of this blog entry in which case you're just wondering how much longer I can drag this out before getting to some sort of point).

As part of my review I'm reading an article from 1984 titled, "1984: Orwell's and Ours." Chomsky is arguing that American media is so indoctrinated that they never really strays far from the party line (more indoctrinated than Orwell imagined). He cites as evidence that none of the mainstream media called the Vietnam War an invasion. Even critics of the war in the media said that the US had good intentions.

In the next example he mentions KAL 007 which Sharon Slayton wrote about on this blog a while back. Chomsky considers coverage of this incident in the press compared to other disasters more evidence that the American media has been brainwashed. Here's what he says and my question for you is other than KAL 007 which of these disasters have you heard of and from what source?

I doubt that any story has ever received the coverage of the downing of KAL Flight 007 last fall, sure proof that the Russians are the most barbaric devils since Attila the Hun so that we must place Pershing missiles in Germany and step up the war against Nicuragua. The densely printed NY Times index devotes seven full pages to the atrocity in September 1982 alone. In the midst of the furor, UNITA, the "freedom fighters" supported by the U.S. and South Africa, took credit for downing an Angolan jet with 126 killed. There was no ambiguity, the plane was not off course flying over sensitive installations, there was no RC 135 U.S. reconnaissance jet nearby confusing the issue (possibly jamming radar). It was simple premeditated murder. The incident received 100 words in the NY Times and no comment anywhere in the media.

This is not the only such case. In Oct. 1976, a Cuban airliner was bombed by CIA-backed terrorists, killing 75 civilians. In 1973 Israel downed a civilian plane lost in a sandstorm over the Suez canal with 110 killed. There was no protest, only editorial comments about how "No useful purpose is served by an acrimonious debate over the assignment of blame" (NY Times).

Posted by James Trotta at October 27, 2009 8:18 PM