To mark his eightieth birthday The New Press have published a new selection of Noam Chomsky’s political and linguistic writings (The Essential Chomsky).
While some of the selections (which span almost five decades) would have to be included in any essential collection - the famous demolition of B.F. Skinner’s Verbal Behaviour, or his reflections on the 1967 march on the Pentagon, where he was arrested for civil disobedience – there are also some surprising omissions, eg. his brilliant…
Simone Bruno I would like to talk about the current crisis. How is it that so many people could see it coming, but the people in charge of governments and economies didn’t, or didn’t prepare?
Noam Chomsky Since financial liberalisation was instituted about thirty-five years ago, there has been a trend of increasing regularity of crises and deeper crises, and the reasons are intrinsic and understood.
So, for example, if you and I make a transaction, say you sell me a…
It is customary to mark significant dates in a scholar’s life with a festschrift – a publication containing original work in fields that the honoured academic has been involved in.
I think we can be sure that Noam Chomsky has little interest in such honours, but it seems churlish to allow his 80th birthday to pass on 7 December without some public marking of the value of his work and example to several generations of activists around the world. (I note with alarm that German historian…
Suspicion of the media is widespread, not only in Britain. But is it really true that the mass media put out “propaganda”? If so, exactly how is this achieved in an open society like Britain?
How can we end up with distorted reporting when there is no government censorship to keep reporters in line? How could there possibly be “brainwashing under freedom” as some have suggested? In this series of columns, we will be exploring questions like these, trying to shine some light on the…
My general feeling is that this kind of question can't be faced in a meaningful way when it's abstracted from the context of particular historical concrete circumstances.
Any rational person would agree that violence is not legitimate unless the consequences of such action are to eliminate a still greater evil.
PacifismNow there are people of course who go much further and say that one must oppose violence in general, quite apart from any possible consequences. I think that…
Shank: With similar nuclear developments in North Korea and Iran, why has the United States pursued direct diplomacy with North Korea but refuses to do so with Iran?
Chomsky: To say that the United States has pursued diplomacy with North Korea is a little bit misleading. It did under the Clinton administration, though neither side completely lived up to their obligations. The Iranian issue I don't think has much to do with nuclear weapons frankly.
Nobody is saying Iran…
Another unmissable book. If you're not keeping current with Chomsky, you're not keeping current with reality. In Failed States, Chomsky once again delivers an exhilarating/ depressing panorama view of the contemporary scene, inside and outside the United States, at dizzying speed.
He begins with the theme of his last book, Hegemony or Survival - the increasing threat to human survival posed by US military and energy policies - and ends with the contradiction between…
As war is becoming more and more of a reality, surrealism and madness characterise the pro-war lobby just as they continue to characterise the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. In the midst of heightened passion, political debates that have turned personal, not to forget the plagiarism by British officials, Milan Rai's Book War Plan Iraq: 10 Reasons Why We Shouldn't Launch Another War Against Iraq comes as a relief.
The book provides well-researched background information,…
