Manufacturing consent

Manufacturing consent is accomplished in several ways. In Chomsky and Herman’s widely known theory, various economic, political and social pressures placed on the media result in the ‘filtering’ of materials disseminated for public consumption. The filtering processes are mainly hidden from plain view, revealed only through empirical investigation and analysis. Their theory even attempts to explain why participants in media do not themselves recognize the inevitable bias in their coverage: the standards of journalistic integrity are themselves manufactured to produce the desired outcomes. To manufacture consent in this way requires the interplay of seemingly disparate institutions and norms, and is incredibly subtle.

Brutes prefer a less clever, more direct and coarser means of manufacturing consent: they simply do away with (e.g. kill, coerce, threaten, fire, bribe, etc., etc.) dissenters; and, those left over are those who are either true believers or have been given an incentive to stay silent.


Last Wednesday, we witnessed the Bush administration resort to this coarser method. Admiral William Fallon, the top U.S. commander in the Middle East, resigned his post. Why? Fallon had given an interview with Esquire magazine in which he aired his strong disagreements with the administration’s Middle East policy. By some accounts, he lobbied hard against war with Iran and for quicker troop withdrawals from Iraq. Evidently, this sort of public dissent could not be tolerated. Now, the yes-man General Patraeus is left standing and the Wall Street Journal reports that he is a front runner to take Fallon’s place. Manufacturing consent Bush/Cheney style. Numerous other examples can be offered. Given this, we better understand Bush’s repeated assertions that he listens to his generals. Of course he does, for in doing so, he is listening to himself.

Bush was not altogether unsubtle. In a statement, he thanked Fallon for serving "with honor, determination, and commitment." What he left out was that Fallon lacked a vital character trait: loyalty to Bush's unending war.