Is this the BBC Radio 5Live mantra?

'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 


The more I listen to 5Live the more I realise that fevered debate is allowed but only within certain prescribed limits, outside of those limits the amount of debate is strictly controlled and contrary views openly attacked. If you can bear it take a listen to Victoria Derbyshire or Nicky Campbell's phone-ins and see if I am right.




Thanks to Biased BBC for reminding me of that Noam Chomsky quotation.

"The smart way to keep people passive & obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion but allow very lively debate within that..."

"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."

Not my words but those of the darling of the left Noam Chomsky. I wonder if the BBC have been using those words of his as their operational template for the last 20 years.

Maybe the BBC also agree with Noam Chomsky that "supporters of Israel are in reality supporters of its moral degeneration and probable ultimate destruction" and that "Israel's very clear choice of expansion over security may well lead to that consequence"