Fascism by any other name: on the cult of Conservatism
Explore the unsettling parallels between modern conservatism and fascism through incisive social science and sharp political humor. This curated reading list, featuring Al Franken's *Lies* and Edward S. Herman's *Manufacturing Consent*, unpacks the cult of blind loyalty and the mechanics of political manipulation. Discover essential books on authoritarianism, media propaganda, and the dangerous rhetoric shaping today’s political landscape.
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Manufacturing Consent
by Edward S. Herman
A "compelling indictment of the news media's role in covering up errors and deceptions" (The New York Times Book Review) due to the underlying economics of publishing—from famed scholars Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky. With a new introduction. In this pathbreaking work, Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky show that, contrary to the usual image of the news media as cantankerous, obstinate, and ubiquitous in their search for truth and defense of justice, in their actual practice they defend the economic, social, and political agendas of the privileged groups that dominate domestic society, the state, and the global order. Based on a series of case studies—including the media’s dichotomous treatment of “worthy” versus “unworthy” victims, “legitimizing” and “meaningless” Third World elections, and devastating critiques of media coverage of the U.S. wars against Indochina—Herman and Chomsky draw on decades of criticism and research to propose a Propaganda Model to explain the media’s behavior and performance. Their new introduction updates the Propaganda Model and the earlier case studies, and it discusses several other applications. These include the manner in which the media covered the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement and subsequent Mexican financial meltdown of 1994-1995, the media’s handling of the protests against the World Trade Organization, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund in 1999 and 2000, and the media’s treatment of the chemical industry and its regulation. What emerges from this work is a powerful assessment of how propagandistic the U.S. mass media are, how they systematically fail to live up to their self-image as providers of the kind of information that people need to make sense of the world, and how we can understand their function in a radically new way.
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Lies (and the Lying Liars who Tell Them)
by Al Franken
A New York Times Bestseller. Al Franken has been studying the rhetoric of the Right. He has listened to their cries of "slander," "bias," and even "treason." Examined the administration's policies of squandering our surplus, and alienating the rest of the world. Al bravely and candidly destroys the liberal media bias myth by doing what his targets seem incapable of: getting his facts straight.
