"We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes."

- John Swinton - *The New York Times* - Speech at the New York Press Club 

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"A cynical, mercenary, demagogic press will produce in time a people as base as itself." 

- Joseph Pulitzer 

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"Hastiness and superficiality are the psychic diseases of the twentieth century, and more than anywhere else this disease is reflected in the press."

- Alexander Solzhenitsyn 

*"Such as it is, the press has become the greatest power within the Western World, more powerful than the legislature, the executive and judiciary. One would like to ask: by whom has it been elected, and to whom is it responsible?" 

--Alexander Solzhenitsyn 

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*“Freedom, once so embedded in the hearts of all Americans, was surrendered by Americans who believed the sinister men who were determined to enslave them. It was to be for a limited time only, we were assured. But tyrants never relinquish the powers they have gained; they incorporate them into perpetual law. It was done so quietly, so skillfully. A nation will fight then its full liberty is threatened, and the full plot exposed. But if liberties are subdued, little by little, no provocation for a nationwide revolt is given. Like thieves in the night, who move stealthily and without sound, so did the evil men move in your former free government, robbing away the heart and the body of your liberty, denuding your homes of its treasures, slowly stifling your tongues, imperceptibly silencing your press. They invaded the schoolrooms of your children, poisoning and debasing their minds, twisting them to their purposes so that future generations would know nothing of honor or pride and the might of free men. But you were not guiltless."

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“...A wise man distrusts his neighbor. A wiser man distrust both his neighbor and himself. The wisest man of all distrusts his government. Therefore, be watchful and sleepless; be brave, be strong; be without fear. This is not the end. Villains will try, again and again and again, to enslave you, until the end of time. It is in your hands to defeat them and to destroy them, whenever or however they appear. 

“If you do not, then may God have mercy on your souls!” 

--Taylor Caldwell, "The Devil’s Advocate" (1952) - pgs. 332 - 338

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"One cannot wage war under present conditions without the support of public opinion, which is tremendously molded by the press and other forms of propaganda."

-- General Douglas MacArthur

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" Everyone likes to say Hitler did this" and "Hitler did that". But the truth is Hitler did very little. He was a world class asshole, but the evil actually done, from the death camps to WW2 was all done by citizens who were afraid to question if what they were told by their government was the truth or not, and who because they did not want to admit to themselves that they were afraid to question the government, refused to see the truth behind the Reichstag Fire, refused to see the invasion by Poland was a staged fake, and followed Hitler into national disaster. 

" It's easy to look back and realize what a jerk Hitler was. But at thetime, Hitler looked pretty good to the world, with the help of the media. 

He was TIME Magazine's Man Of The Year in 1938. Stalin was TIME Man Of TheYear for 1939 and 1942. The lesson is that it isn't easy to spot a genocidal tyrant when you live with one, especially one whom the press supports and promotes. Tyrants become obvious only when looking back, after what they have done becomes known. 

" It is the very nature of power that it attracts the very sort of people who should not have it. The United States, as the world's last superpower, is a prize that attracts men and women willing to do anything to win that power, and hence are willing to do anything with it once they have it. It is racist to assume that tyrants appear only in other nations and that somehow America is immune simply because we're Americans. America has escaped the clutches of a dictatorship only through the efforts of those citizens who, unlike the Germans and Russians of the 1930s, have the moral courage to stand up and point out where the government is lying to the people." 

-- Michael Rivero

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*"If those in charge of our society - politicians, corporate executives, and owners of press and television - can dominate our ideas, they will be secure in their power. They will not need soldiers patrolling the streets. We will control ourselves."

-- Howard Zinn, historian and author

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" You can say anything you want in a debate, and 80 million people hear it. If reporters then document that a candidate spoke untruthfully, so what ? Maybe 200 people read it, or 2000 or 20,000. "

-- George Bush Snr's press secretary to reporters following the 1980 vice-presidential debate

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"Freedom of the Press belongs only to the man who owns one"

-- A.J. Liebling

*" If we who have the time and money to take to the streets don't do so, then the people are going to think that everything is OK."

-- Peruvian university student protesting Alberto Fujimori's illegal 
election victory, April 2000 - World Press Review, August 2000, p11

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"The press ... traditionally sides with authority and the establishment."

-- Sam Donaldson, ABC correspondent

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" The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum - even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there's free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits 
put on the range of the debate. "

-- Noam Chomsky, American linguist and US media and foreign policy critic

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"One of the intentions of corporate-controlled media is to instill in people a sense of disempowerment, of immobilization and paralysis. Its outcome is to turn you into good consumers. It is to keep people isolated, to feel that there is no possibility for social change."

-- David Barsamian, journalist and publisher

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" As the mainstream media has become increasingly dependent on advertising revenues for support, it has become an anti-democratic force in society."

-- Robert McChesney, journalist and media critic

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"... the media serve the interests of state and corporate power, which are closely interlinked, framing their reporting and analysis in a manner supportive of established privilege and limiting debate and discussion accordingly."

-- Noam Chomsky

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" Like blackbirds in flight, packs of reporters darken the sky, moving in swarms at the same speed and in predictable trajectory. When one lands, they all land. When one leaves, they all leave. The programmers and channel controllers from all the stations are part of the same well-paid elite, steeped in the same values, committed to the mission of maximising audience share and profits. They are chosen for their ability to play the 
game and not challenge the audience with too many controversial ideas or critical perspectives. It's no surprise that they circulate easily within the commanding heights of media power, moving from company to company and job to job. A kind of group think corporate consensus, steeped in market logic and deeply inbred by an un-brave news culture, breeds conscience-free conformity and self-censorship. This makes frightening sense in a globalised economy where consumerism is more desired than active citizenship, where power is increasingly concentrated and the public is increasingly unwelcome in a public discourse defined by the powerful. If your goal is to numb people and drive them away from active 
participation, then TV as "weapon of mass distraction" and wall to wall entertainment makes sense. Shut up and shop is the now the message, one that makes sense to advertiser dominated media outlets... "

-- Danny Schechter, Dung on all their Houses, Toward Freedom magazine, 
December / January 2000

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The purpose of commercial [media] is to induce mass sales. For mass sales there must be a mass norm ... By suppressing the individual, the unique, the industry ... assures itself a standard product for mass consumption."

-- John Whiting, KPFA/Pacifica Folio (North Bay), December 1999

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" The cost of being presented as a " responsible and serious candidate" by the media [is] usually to show fundamental agreement with the existing distribution of wealth and power. "

-- Michael Lerner, from the book The Politics of Meaning, 1997, p99

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" The U.S. public is depoliticised, poorly informed on foreign affairs ... and strongly patriotic in the face of a struggle with "another Hitler". 
Even though the public is normally averse to war, even with modest propaganda efforts ... the public can be quickly transformed into enthusiastic supporters of war."

-- Edward S. Herman, economist, author, and US media and foreign policy critic, Z magazine June, 1999

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" U.S. Ieaders commit war crimes as a matter of institutional necessity, as their imperial role calls for keeping subordinate peoples in their proper place and assuring a "favourable climate of investment" everywhere. They do this by using their economic power, but also (by means of "bombs bursting in the air" and) by supporting Diem, Mobutu, Pinochet, Suharto, 
Savimbi, Marcos, Fujimori, Salinas, and scores of similar leaders. War crimes also come easily because U.S. Ieaders consider themselves to be the vehicles of a higher morality and truth and can operate in violation of law without cost. It is also immensely helpful that their mainstream media agree that their country is above the law and will support and rationalise each and every venture and the commission of war crimes. "

-- Edward Herman, Z magazine Dec 1999 p41

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"The major media are large corporations, owned by and interlinked with even larger conglomerates. Like other corporations, they sell a product to a market. The market is advertisers - that is, other businesses. The product is audiences, [and] for the elite media, [they're] relatively privileged audiences. So we have major corporations selling fairly wealthy 
and privileged audiences to other businesses. Not surprisingly, the picture of the world presented reflects the narrow and biased interests and values of the sellers, the buyers and the product."

-- Noam Chomsky (from Take the Rich Off Welfare - Odonian Press, p133)

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