Besides manufacturing consent.
Inventing Reality by Michael Parenti
if I had a PDF link I'd give it to you
In the United States, for over a hundred years, the ruling interests tirelessly propagated anticommunism among the populace, until it became more like a religious orthodoxy than a political analysis. During the Cold War, the anticommunist ideological framework could transform any data about existing communist societies into hostile evidence. If the Soviets refused to negotiate a point, they were intransigent and belligerent; if they appeared willing to make concessions, this was but a skillful ploy to put us off our guard. By opposing arms limitations, they would have demonstrated their aggressive intent; but when in fact they supported most armament treaties, it was because they were mendacious and manipulative. If the churches in the USSR were empty, this demonstrated that religion was suppressed; but if the churches were full, this meant the people were rejecting the regime’s atheistic ideology. If the workers went on strike (as happened on infrequent occasions), this was evidence of their alienation from the collectivist system; if they didn’t go on strike, this was because they were intimidated and lacked freedom. A scarcity of consumer goods demonstrated the failure of the economic system; an improvement in consumer supplies meant only that the leaders were attempting to placate a restive population and so maintain a firmer hold over them. If communists in the United States played an important role struggling for the rights of workers, the poor, African-Americans, women, and others, this was only their guileful way of gathering support among disfranchised groups and gaining power for themselves. How one gained power by fighting for the rights of powerless groups was never explained. What we are dealing with is a nonfalsifiable orthodoxy, so assiduously marketed by the ruling interests that it affected people across the entire political spectrum.
Michael Parenti, "Left Anticommunism: The Unkindest Cut"
You can download the PDF here . If you're not aware: the website libgen has almost every book you'd want.
yeah but that also means i get real sad when i want a book but it doesn't have it. cuz then i don't know what to do.
I wasn't able to find The Rising American Empire (1960) by Van Alstyne, thinking about ordering a used copy
Jean Baudrillard's "Simulacra and Simulations" is amazing for many reasons, but for what you're looking for, check out the chapter titled "The Implosion of Meaning in the Media."
https://www.e-reading-lib.com/bookreader.php/144970/jean-baudrillard-simulacra-and-simulation.pdf
Here's a taste: Are the mass media on the side of power in the manipulation of the masses, or are they on the side of the masses in the liquidation of meaning, in the violence perpetrated on meaning, and in fascination? Is it the media that induce fascination in the masses, or is it the masses who direct the media into the spectacle? Mogadishu-Stammheim: the media make themselves into the vehicle of the moral condemnation of terrorism and of the exploitation of fear for political ends, but simultaneously, in the most complete ambiguity, they propagate the brutal charm of the terrorist act, they are themselves terrorists, insofar as they themselves march to the tune of seduction (cf. Umberto Eco on this eternal moral dilemma: how can one not speak of terrorism, how can one find a good use of the media - there is none). The media carry meaning and countermeaning, they manipulate in all directions at once, nothing can control this process, they are the vehicle for the simulation internal to the system and the simulation that destroys the system, according to an absolutely Mobian and circular logic - and it is exactly like this. There is no alternative to this, no logical resolution. Only a logical exacerbation and a catastrophic resolution.
Everyone says Baudrillard is hard to read but I thought this was actually easy, is this just a particularly easy segment of his
I cannot lie, I did choose an easier passage in order not to scare people off. "The Implosion of Meaning in the Media" is a more approachable chapter though in my opinion.
Thanks for the recs, I'll check them out.
Are there any contemporary recs I should look for?
