From: harelb@math.cornell.edu (misc.activism.progressive co-moderator)
Subject: Chomsky on Press Freedom
Organization: misc.activism.progressive on UseNet ; ACTIV-L@UMCVMB
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1992 08:44:05 GMT

Chomsky on Press Freedom

[...]

Let us turn now to freedom of the press in Washington's terror
states.  In El Salvador there was once an independent press:
@u<La Cronica> and @u<El Independiente>.  They were not funded by
a superpower attacking El Salvador, and they were not censored. 
Rather, one paper was closed when army tanks surrounded its
offices after a series of attacks including the machine-gunning
of a 14-year-old newsboy and bombing and assassination attempts
that drove the editor out of the country; the other was closed
when the security forces seized the editor and an associate,
disembowelled them with machetes, and shot them.  Is anyone
calling for the reopening of @u<La Cronica> and @u<El
Independiente>?  Of course not, for two good and sufficient
reasons: (1) Washington has commanded us to focus on @u<La
Prensa> and Nicaragua, where nothing remotely comparable has
happened, and being loyal cowards, we naturally obey; (2) the
idea of opening an independent press in El Salvador is absurd. 
It would be necessary to send in an international army to deter
the U.S.-run security forces and prevent the murder of the staff,
if such media ever approached the condition that according to
U.S. law justifies state control over speech: that is, if they
posed a "clear and present danger," namely, to the system of
privilege maintained by U.S. violence.

Accordingly, we do not speak of freedom of press in El Salvador. 
Or in Guatemala, where there has also been no censorship, and
no reporting of such trivialities as the slaughter of tens of
thousands of people in the past decade.  The reason for the
oversight is that some 50 journalists were murdered by the
security forces, some in spectacular fashion.  There is therefore
no need for censorship, which we abhor.

Meanwhile U.S. government propaganda relayed by the media as
"news" assures us that Duarte "gave the rebels free access to
the press" (@u<New York Times> Central America correspondent
James LeMoyne)@note{@u<NYT>, Nov. 29, 1987.}; technically true,
since no law bars such access, only the workings of the market
supplemented by state terror.

The real attitudes of U.S. elites towards freedom of the press
are revealed further by the response to events elsewhere during
the same period.  In the Philippines, the government closed three
radio stations and threatened others on October 7, accusing them
of "glorifying the enemies of the Government and openly defying
the Government of President Aquino by continuously transmitting
the propaganda of right-wing rebel groups and other enemies of
the state." This "crackdown on the media" was reported, but
without comment, along with the outlawing of the opposition
(Communist) party that had been legalized by the Marcos
dictatorship, police raids against "suspected communists," and
government authorization of vigilante groups -- that is, death
squads.@note{AP, @u<NYT>, Oct. 8; Keith Richburg, @u<WP>, Oct. 8;
Clayton Jones, @u<CSM>, Nov. 10, 1987.} There were no calls for
organizing a "democratic resistance" to overthrow this
"totalitarian" state, though they would be heard quickly enough
if Aquino were to undertake measures of social reform and
democratization that would threaten the interests of U.S.
corporations or the U.S. bases.

The major U.S. client state, which is endlessly lauded as a
stellar democracy, provides even more dramatic insight into the
real principles that animate those who courageously condemn
Nicaraguan "totalitarianism." Shortly after @u<La Prensa> was
suspended, Israel permanently closed two Jerusalem newspapers on
the grounds that "although we offer them freedom of
expression,... it is forbidden to permit them to exploit this
freedom in order to harm the State of Israel." The closure was
upheld by the High Court on the grounds that "It is inconceivable
that the State of Israel should allow terrorist organizations
which seek to destroy it to set up businesses in its territory,
legitimate as they may be"; the government had accused these two
Arab newspapers of receiving support from hostile groups.  To my
knowledge, the only mention of these facts in a daily newspaper
was in a letter of mine in the @u<Boston Globe>.  As @u<La
Prensa> was reopened, Israel closed a Nazareth political journal,
alleging that it supports the PLO, and shut down an Arab-owned
news office in Nablus on a similar charge, all "legal" under the
state of emergency that has been in force since 1948.@note{On the
State of Emergency, see Avigdor Feldman, B. Michael,
@u<Hadashot>, Aug. 14, 1987.} None of this was reported here;
@u<New York Times> correspondent Thomas Friedman chose the day of
the closing of the Nablus office to produce one of his regular
odes to freedom of expression in Israel.@note{Oct. 26, 1987.}
Similarly, the destruction of the independent press in El
Salvador never merited an editorial comment in the @u<Times>,
along with numerous other atrocities, even the assassination of
the Archbishop with the apparent complicity of the security
forces.

The libertarian passions of U.S. elites are very precisely
focused, much as in the case of other commissars, who condemn
abuses in U.S. domains while lauding the progress towards freedom
in the "peoples' democracies."

[Noam Chomsky, _Is Peace At Hand_, Z magazine, Jan 1988]