LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

...Reed tries to politicize an issue by twisting realities but does not offer any solutions for the very real problems of inner cities: under- or unemployment, lack of education, drug dependency, and violence...

...It seems to me that this is a critical question for serious media analysts...

...These issues are pathological, whether Reed likes it or not: the neglect and abuse of children, the issue of children bearing children, the cycle of dependency on government...

...She wants to believe that only poor women abuse their children, that only upper-status women (like herself, apparently) are truly fit to have children anyway, that only poor people receive state assistance, that there is an unhealthy "cycle of dependency on government," that we should begin the battle for world population control by restricting the reproductive practices of poor people...

...investment tax credits...

...omitted a crucial fact in his short-sighted article: that the legislator who argued for the use of the Norplant birth-control device was talking about abusive mothers, a not-so-uncommon characteristic of the underclass Reed considers mythical...

...Rothschild also misses an important thrust of Chomsky's media analysis: that the effectiveness of media propaganda is not to be read merely from the number of people sold, but also in the numbers confused, made apathetic, and left without meaningful options...

...David Peterson Evergreen Park, Illinois In his generally sympathetic review of Noam Chomsky's Deterring Democracy, Matthew Rothschild makes a number of critical statements regarding Chomsky's analysis of the media that are surprisingly wide of the mark...

...Chomsky explicitly (and correctly, in my judgment) rejects the use of any type of conspiracy theory to explain the macro-behavior of the American media...

...For Rothschild to suggest that Chomsky ignores the facts that reporters "routinely censor themselves by cozying up to their sources in Washington" and that owners "worry about alienating readers and viewers" is, therefore, inexplicable...

...Rothschild's criticism of Chomsky's alleged view that the media are "omnipotent," and his consequent failure to explain dissidence, is also invalid...

...Rothschild seems guilty of either a particularly juvenile misreading or, as seems more likely, the sort of semiconscious distortion effortlessly mastered by rich liberals, to shift the debate away from what makes them uncomfortable...

...Not only is this a burden on the rest of society, it is a damaging burden on this overpopulated planet...

...Chrysler, S&L, and bank bailouts...

...You can figure that stuff out from reading The Washington Posfs cocktail-party page, or even by watching the so-called evening news...

...Doesn't The Progressive's Publisher, Matthew Rothschild, have enough to keep him busy as a tycoon...

...Soon the death rate of the underclass will surpass its birth rate, and it will become extinct...

...Chomsky cannot bandy about such terms as "hoax" and "fraud" and then deny that he's operating from some sort of conspiracy theory...

...media leaders do similar things because they see the world through the same lenses, are subject to similar constraints and incentives, and thus feature stories or maintain silence together in tacit collective action and leadership-follower behavior...

...The book under review was not about the media, but Rothschild focuses his critical attention there, while entirely ignoring what Chomsky has said in writings that do address media questions in depth, such as Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media and Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies...

...The great majority of native-born poor are that way because they are con-genitally incapable of mastering marketable skills in a high-tech economy...

...Those who work, pay taxes, and vote are becoming less willing to subsidize the unemployable...

...The propaganda model posited by Chomsky and Edward S. Herman (in Manufacturing Consent, for example), and of Chomsky's own analyses in his new book and elsewhere, is designed to work as an invisible-hand explanation of media behavior—quite unlike what Rothschild's charge of conspiracy theory suggests...

...But that does not mean that all levels of society—whether the underclass Reed denies exists, the middle class, or the upper class (whatever that is)— should not be examined for the attitudes they have...

...Let me, for once, respond from my heart: I am sick and tired of engaging glib, arrogant members of the petit bourgeoisie who go on about "those people" in a vile rhetoric that takes the misery that is all too often the direct product of their own affluence as evidence that poor people have defective natures...

...A major focus on journalistic "intentions"—an elusive psychological area—rather than journalists' actual performance and the basic institutional factors that seem to explain that performance quite satisfactorily would be a retreat from serious media analysis...

...Child abuse is no more the province of the poor than of anyone else...

...Liberals and conservatives who are unsympathetic to Chomsky seize upon this criticism because it's the easiest place to attack—it's Chomsky at his weakest...

...He wonders why "a birth becomes pathological when it occurs in the maternity ward in Lincoln Hospital in the South Bronx, say, rather than within the pastel walls of an alternative birthing center...

...Rothschild's statement that Chomsky's theory of "why the media act so slavishly is inadequate" and that "he has little time to explain" the media's functioning is equally untenable...

...John Engelman Walnut Creek, California Adolph L. Reed Jr...

...All letters may be edited for clarity and conciseness...

...You can't dismiss the criticism simply because liberals and conservatives have also raised it...

...Matthew Rothschild Madison, Wisconsin The Underclass Myth Adolph L. Reed Jr.'s "The Underclass Myth" (Reflections, August issue) ignored the role biology plays in the formation of the underclass...

...But Herman himself concedes the point when he admits that Chomsky's media analysis "does not address the question of how effective it is in managing the public...

...It is their Zen...

...Julian C. Holmes Friendly, Maryland Some advice: Send out for a real book reviewer...

...Finally, Herman says I am off base when I criticize Chomsky for not explaining how dissidence occurs within the sophisticated system of indoctrination he posits...

...The author replies: Perhaps I should thank Dominique Radcliff for illustrating the ideological tendency my article criticized...

...Federal deposit insurance...

...He warns us to beware of "lurid, exploitative journalism that reproduces obnoxious class and racial prejudices," but how can a person conscientiously trying to make ends meet, and trying at the same time to contribute to society, read about a welfare mother with nine children and feel much sympathy toward her, regardless of race...

...To understand how and why things work so well among the elite that preys upon the public treasury and corrupts the public interest, one doesn't have to listen in on meetings between weapons lobbyists and members of Congress, between BCCI officials and CIA operatives, or between wealthy private-sector and bureaucrat guests at Washington social gatherings...

...it does not address the question of how effective it is in managing the public...

...Only by unbiased examination can progress be made...

...military contracts, and the like...

...How they adapt, and how they sometimes try to circumvent these institutional constraints, Chomsky and I discussed explicitly in Manufacturing Consent...

...Rothschild's charge against him won't stick...

...At times," Rothschild writes, "Chomsky's theory borders on conspiracy, seeming to require that thousands of policymakers and media personnel have taken secret oaths to dupe the American public...

...And Chomsky does disdain the inquiry into the media's conscious intentions— and so, evidently, does Ed Herman, who dismisses such an inquiry as "a retreat from serious media analysis...

...conscious intentions...

...But you can't have a hoax without a hoaxer, and to prove a hoax, you must get down to intent...

...This problem will only get worse as computer technology continues to superannuate low-skill jobs...

...The answer is too obvious to wonder about: The woman in the pastel room has a career and a good education...

...capital-gains exemptions...

...Members of the underclass seek relief in self-destructive behavior because they know they have nothing to hope for...

...Dominique Radclijf Washington, D.C...

...In most cases...

...she probably has learned and read about parenting...

...Radcliff accuses me of not offering solutions...

...letters to the Editor Readers React to Rothschild's Chomsky Review Although a number of serious errors cropped up in Matthew Rothschild's review of Noam Chomsky's Deterring Democracy (Books, October issue), one statement in particular ought not to pass uncorrected...

...Should government be expected to pick up the pieces for every irresponsible person who demands it...

...In the preface to Manufacturing Consent, Chomsky and I went to great pains to point out, "We do not use any kind of 'conspiracy' hypothesis to explain mass-media performance...

...The Progressive regrets the omission...

...You can't just wish the problem away as somehow unserious or insignificant, as Herman and Chomsky choose to do...

...Rothschild's understanding of Noam Chomsky (Books, October issue) was unsurprisingly limited...

...In fact, our treatment is much closer to a 'free-market' analysis, with the results largely an outcome of the workings of market forces...

...Either he has to be more careful with his language and analysis, or he has to concede the point...

...Yes, government should be held accountable for lack of decent, affordable housing, inadequate rehabilitation programs, and a failing education system...

...she has much to offer her newborn, whereas the baby in the Bronx will perhaps be born prematurely, will need state assistance, and may even become one more prison statistic or die young...

...Richard Musser Seattle, Washington The reviewer replies: It is foolish for Chomskyites to berate me for claiming that Noam Chomsky is a conspiracy theorist, since Chomsky himself invites the criticism...

...In the first chapter of that book, an edited version of which appeared in The Progressive itself, Chomsky and I spelled out in detail the institutional forces, like ownership and the profit drive, advertising, the economics and politics of sourcing, and the constraining effects of "flak" and ideology...

...Chomsky has always argued that institutional factors dominate and that individuals within the media must adjust to them or fail to advance and even face ouster...

...Also, Chomsky "disdains any inquiry into the media's...

...She is wrong on every count and succeeds only in revealing her own nasty prejudices...

...Chomsky's media analysis is designed to show the media's huge elite bias...

...One should also remember that publishers and editors as a class are genetically endowed with a morbid fear of "conspiracy theories...

...The editors welcome correspondence from readers on all topics, but prefer to publish letters that comment directly on material previously published in The Progressive...

...I assume this is because so many publishers and editors are themselves implicated in the faking of news...

...Evanston, Illinois Correction The cartoon panels by Howard Cruse in October's On the Line section should have been attributed to Choices, an anthology of pro-choice comic strips and stories published by Angry Isis Press of Oakland, California...

...They can't be that difficult to find...

...Censorship is largely self-censorship, by reporters and commentators who adjust to the realities of source and media organizational requirements...

...The truth is exactly the opposite...

...These are the standard responses of liberal and conservative critics to any analyses which trace media performance to the institutional factors that educate, constrain, and winnow out reporters...

...He twice used the word "conspiracy" in connection with Chomsky's media criticism, though that is not a word or concept one is likely to run into in Chomsky's work...

...Apparently, my proposals don't appeal because they don't call for modifying poor people's allegedly pathological behavior...

...Why not accept facts and figures researched by sociologists for what they are...

...As a result, the welfare system is growing stingy...

...Edward S. Herman Narberth, Pennsylvania Ihave only one minor nit to pick with Matthew Rothschild: that he believes Noam Chomsky depends on a "conspiracy theory" to explain the news media's usual posture of groveling before the elite and the Government...

...Upper-status children live in households that are likely to receive more in public assistance than their poor counterparts—tax subsidies for home ownership...

...Rothschild says that Chomsky "posits a conspiracy theory" and that "some kind of grand conspiracy exists to mislead the American people...

...Must Chomsky do this in detail in every volume...

...Knowing, as he did when he co-wrote Manufacturing Consent with Ed Herman, that this charge is coming, Chomsky should be more precise and less polemical in his descriptions...

...Adolph L. Reed Jr...

...Why muddle these issues...

...She maintains, moreover, that I muddle things by not simply accepting the class and racial prejudices presented by poverty researchers as "facts and figures...