<<I am sure MT will like this one, even though it includes comments about the way that the Soviet Union is a country run by the bludgeon.>>
Thanks, plane. Actually, Chomsky had co-written a book titled "Manufacturing Consent" with Edward S. Herman. The concept is so closely associated with Chomsky's writings today that most people (myself included) are surprised when they find out that the phrase is Walter Lippmann's.
No, I'm not upset by comments that the U.S.S.R. is "run by the bludgeon." The "dictatorship of the proletariat" means exactly that. In a dictatorship, you do as you are told, or else. This is strictly according to plan, the plan being that a period of communist rule is required to bring about true socialism and then the state, or more likely the involvement of the state in the lives of its citizens, will gradually "wither away," i.e. shrink over time. What was not foreseen, or not adequately dealt with, was capitalist subversion, greed, parasitism and careerism.
OTOH, the framers of the Constitution did not foresee the manufacturing of consent. They envisaged what most of the texts on the subject refer to as a nation of "yeoman farmers," well-educated, beholden to no one and reasonably self-sufficient, casting intelligent and informed votes for their Congressmen and Senators, as well as for qualified delegates ("electors,") who would soberly elect the most suitable President from amongst the candidates. So, unlike the former U.S.S.R., the U.S.A. is NOT functioning according to plan. The whole fucking design is being subverted, effectively by the executive manipulating the electorate into electing a compliant legislature and thereby nullifying a key part of the system of checks and balances.
What do you think about Chomsky's idea, plane?