Noam Chomsky interview on his Life and Career (2003)

well some of it I do because I find that intellectually challenging and exciting and demanding and some of that I do because I just feel it has to be done so you know people are suffering bitterly throughout the world there are a lot of things we can do about it and that seems to be a responsibility that comes with privilege and freedom which we have to an unusual degree maybe unique degree to involve ourselves in these issues what do you think of the United States I think it's a complicated country it has wonderful achievements it's in some domains it's gone beyond any other country in the world protection for freedom of speech for example many other liberties it's got tremendous advantages incomparable had the biggest economy in the world over a century ago yeah I don't think it's used them properly the there's plenty of many of the actions that the US government has taken in the world I think are deplorable and should be stopped and reversed and it's you can't really comment on a country there's just too many facets to it there's a society there's a culture there's just too many things I mean when I take my grandson to a baseball game as I did last Sunday I enjoy being part of mainstream America when I look at US government foreign policy or the domestic highly regressive domestic policies I'm extremely critical Noam Chomsky will be with us for just a little under three hours and we will go to the phones in the next several minutes but for the first part his program we want to chat a bit about his life Philadelphia played a big role in your life what year were you born I was born in 1928 in Philadelphia a immigrant first-generation immigrant family Jewish my parents were very much involved in fact immersed in the Jewish community Hebrew culture my father was a Hebrew scholar ran the Hebrew school systems my mother taught in it deeply committed to Zionist Zionism we have to remember that that was something different then from what it is today and actually I grew up in a community which in which we were for most of the time the only Jewish family in a mostly German and Irish Catholic community and a lot of problems which incidentally my parents never knew about but the streets were complicated places problems for you that they never give us an example well as I say there was a lot of anti-semitism of those this is the 1330s deeply anti-semitic period the I don't like to say it but I grew up with a kind of a visceral fear of Catholics I knew it was irrational and got over it but it was just the street experience and there were periods during these were periods of complex ethnic conflicts in the cities um there were times when I was a young teenager where in Philadelphia there was a curfew I think a seven or eight o'clock curfew on teenagers if we wanted to go out in the evening we had to have parental authority there were times when the walk from the subway station to the Hebrew school was under police guard and it wasn't just Jews were not you know there was a lot of anti-semitism but a win in all directions actually get a pretty good picture of it from some of the novels written about the period describing urban ethnic conflicts which are complicated and real grew up in the middle of them we're had your parents come from and what were they like my father had come from Ukraine right before the first world war escaping the Czarist army my mother had come from what's now Belarus her family she came when she was a baby actually but and the two families were were first-generation immigrant families what would they like over your parents life well had a very warm loving child that I looked back at it was a lot of warmth and affection we they were both working they taught Hebrew school so I was in school actually from all day from the time I was about a year and a half old and it I was actually in an early years up to high school in a experimental school that was run by a Temple University a dewy-eyed in a school a wonderful place I don't know if there's anything like it today fostered the creative activity there was no competition that I didn't know I was a good student until I got to high school because the question never rose you know you weren't graded by your achievements I mean I knew I skipped the class but I didn't think anything in particular other didn't or did anyone else it was a very healthy exciting intellectual and social environment why did you decide to go to the University of Pennsylvania where you got I believe your undergraduate your masters and your PhD question never arose you didn't go into the idea of going public leaving home was inconceivable yeah we were working students both my wife and I you at home you went to the local school I worked in the afternoon the the the concept of going away to college just wasn't it wasn't in the you know didn't exist you didn't the question never came up when did you first get interested in linguistics that was sort of accident well it's complicated actually my father was a Hebrew scholar he did work on medieval in grammar and growing up as a child I you know read his manuscripts and the drafts of the book and so on I was kind of intrigued but but then I happened through actually through political contacts to meet zelich Harris who I later discovered was the most important and influential linguist in the country happened to be teaching at the University of Pennsylvania I was actually on the verge of dropping out of college at that time I was pretty bored with it as I got in at 16 and a lot of anticipation and excitement and was mostly killed in the first year and I was not really committed to staying I met him and he drew me back into college I suspect in retrospect that he was doing it on purpose but I don't know anyhow I started taking his graduate courses and through his influence other also mostly graduate courses in other fields and he was an extremely brilliant and exciting person in many respects and my interests developed through those contacts and then on from there when did you meet your wife Carol she was about 2 years old and I was about four years old I guess these were closely knit communities she was also from a Jewish community or father that and mother were from European immigrants and the families knew each other and we had sort of met as children and they went through a kind of similar history you know Hebrew schools Hebrew camps by time we were teenagers we interacted in a different fashion we married pretty young she was nineteen I had just turned 21 there are people that say there are two Noam Chomsky's as you know the language and the political activists which one of those do you prefer well I can't really say if the world would go away I would much I would be very happy to keep to what's called my professional work linguistics philosophy cognitive science and so on which I do find exciting exhilarating challenging and demanding and easily could could easily put my full-time activities into it on the other hand the other activities in their own way or difficult rewarding complicated also challenging and necessary again if you've just joined us our guests for the next two hours and 45 minutes Noam Chomsky who is now located at MIT how long have you been there almost 50 years what year did you go there and why I went there in 1955 and actually at that I had just I had been at Harvard for four years in a graduate fellowship and had just gotten a PhD from the University of Pennsylvania where actually hadn't been for four years I had no recognized academic field the work that I had was doing was didn't fit anywhere didn't have any academic home and I had no particular expectations of going on into an academic career because they didn't for one thing that did seem to be any possibilities but I did receive an invitation from MIT to be in the electronics lab I don't know a tape recorder from telephone practically and anoint nothing about electronics but I was the electronics lab at the time was directed by Jerry Wiesner later became Kennedy's science advisor who was a pretty very imaginative personally was he the laboratory itself was a mixture of all kinds of exciting activities a good deal of MIT at that time was in a transition from being primarily an engineering school to becoming primarily in fact totally a science-based University it's a ten-year transition which had a lot to do with things happening in American science and technology and so on and the electronics lab where I was was the center of a lot of these activities biology neurophysiology mathematics linguistics acoustics just on and on many of these were experimental efforts it wasn't at all clear that they were going to go anywhere some of them succeeded very well others failed but it was a great ferment of intellectual excitement and interaction and challenge now there were other places like it at the same time for example the laboratories and as I was primarily in the electronics lab in a research position but I also was asked to do some teaching I did I was able to teach introductory linguistics and philosophy courses the first ones in these areas that had been taught there but mainly I was my service to the university was teaching cram courses in French and German to graduate students who in those days had to pass a reading exam in French and German which they considered a total waste of time because they knew they were never going to look at anything and there was a technique for sort of getting them through the exam essentially teaching them to fake their way through the exam and that's of course as I was teaching first couple years on the screen is some shots of Massachusetts Institute of Technology which is on the Charles River right across from Boston in Cambridge Massachusetts how many students there you know I think there's roughly last time I looked it was about four thousand undergraduates and I think about maybe twice that many graduate students something roughly on that order my background on you says that you have published 65 political books and 33 linguistic books from a total of 60 different publishers we have been doing book shows here for many many years I've never heard of anybody publishing 98 books well a lot of those books are collections of talks interviews if you looked at the ones I actually sat down and wrote you know it wouldn't come as anything like that what was your first first book the first book was called syntactic structures and that was actually not intended for publication it was notes for an undergraduate linguistics course at MIT which at that time this material was basically unpublishable it did not belong in any recognized field I had submitted a couple of articles to journals which were returned and I'd submitted a book for publication and it was returned MIT press with the was returned with the sensible comment that didn't seem to belong anywhere and they oughta wait until the field exists before trying to submit a book which was not an unreasonable comment it did come out 20 years later by then the field have been established the first syntactic structures was actually notes which Dutch publisher who visited the so I'm sitting on my desk and asked if I would put it together and let them publish it as a monograph then they did what was your first political book first political book was American power and the new mandarins which was a collection of essays came out in 1969 it's just been reprinted it was essays and taught mostly a lot of them based on talks through the 1960s starting around 1963 I began I became pretty much involved in the Vietnam War issues and was giving many talks usually the audiences of two or three people it was absolutely no interest at the time but over the years had built up button to by the late sixties there were there were way more invitations and opportunities than I could take up I was also directly involved in activism and resistance what am i have to say four years every time I came to Washington the first thought that came to mind was the smell of tear gas in and out of demonstrations in and out of jail a number of times and the the essays were a collection of in the book were a collection of talks commentary discussions based on these activities I have on my lap here a Norman Mailer book called the armies of the night and up at the top is a picture of you back in 1967 what were you doing there at the Pentagon that was a big demonstration at the Pentagon and suppose it was October 1967 one of the first large-scale national demonstrations not the first one of the biggest on a national level actually Miller and I ended up in the adjacent cats and a detention center somewhere after we were arrested over the years lots of controversy lots of books we're gonna go the phones in about ten minutes and they'll have a chance to deal with these but the other book that I have in my lap and I've got a lot of your books is one that's a small one it's called 9/11 and it it was a best-seller what was what's your main point in this book about 9/11 well that book is a collection of interviews it's a it's not a it's a sample of interviews and it happens to be just those that happen to be electronically stored so for example it doesn't include the interviews on BBC II and so on under the right after 9/11 there was a massive requests from the United States and around the world for discussion of the events their background what they meant what they were gonna lead to and this is a slightly edited collection of a number of those interviews the point was if there is a single point that we should be aware of the role that we play in the world what happened on 9/11 is a horrifying atrocity it's probably the worst single act of large-scale terror that's ever taken place I don't think there's another single case where thousands of people were killed in one act on the other hand for much of the world the response to 9/11 was welcome to the club we've been through this and you often done it to us so for example the forgotten whether I quoted it in there but the the research journal of the Jesuit University in Managua Nicaragua which is one of the main research journals in Central America they published an editorial immediately after 9/11 describing it as everyone did as a horrifying atrocity expressing sympathy for the victims saying you could call it Armageddon and then they added but we have been through our own Armageddon in slow motion under the under massive terrorist attack organized and directed by the United States which led tens of thousands of people killed in the country practically ruined that may never recovered so we do sympathise with the terrible atrocity that was carried out against you but it's not unfamiliar to us and that was a reaction through a good deal of the world now that's why if you look at the there was an international Gallup poll taken shortly after September 11th I think it was about September 20th roughly in that about a week after asking this was at a time when the bombing of Afghanistan had in effect been announced but had not yet been undertaken so it was in that interim period and the question asked around the world was do you support if what it said actually is if the perpetrators of the terrorist attack are identified on that assumption would you be in favor of bombing the place where they came from their refuge and then there were two questions if it attacked only military targets second if it also hit civilians well it was never published in the United States but the responses were interesting there was very little support for the policy that was actually undertaken and incidentally we should say that they hadn't identified the perpetrators but in Latin America which is the region of most experience with the u.s. domination and intervention responses the support was extremely low it ranged from about 2% and support in Mexico to about 11% I think in Colombia and Venezuela the only marginal exception was Panama which has a very angular an American component there and even there 16 percent supported bombing I think 80 percent supported diplomatic means for the efforts for extradition and that reflects a history of experience long experience so yes all over the world there was overwhelming sympathy for the victims horror of the terrible atrocity but a recognition that life's more complicated we've been on the receiving end for a long time from European imperialism which was violent and destructive and from the US variant of it and I think it's only the first of all it's the nearest honesty to face this but if we're interested in reducing the threat of terrorism which is enormous exit if you want to really be frightened to read the recent heart Redman study a sponsored study of the Council on Foreign Relations on terrorist threats to the United States and they're pretty awesome well if you if you hope to reduce and lessen these threats you have to make a crucial distinction between the terrorists themselves who are carrying out criminal acts and you treat it like criminal acts and the reservoir of in which they're concerned their message kind of resonates even among people who hate and despise them but nevertheless recognize some authenticity to what they say and it's that a reservoir of you can't really call it sympathy but understanding where real grievances lie that have to be dealt with that's true no matter what kind of terrorism you're facing if you want to reduce the threat pay attention to the grievances from which they arise and if they're legitimate and then they often are a deal with them for one thing because they're legitimate for another because it's just sanity if you're hoping to reduce the terror these are topics discussed in book can Jess interviews Justin and Noam Chomsky's our guests and we're gonna go to the phones we have a call from Maryville Illinois first up go ahead please hello dr. Tomsky um I was introduced to your writings and works as an undergraduate about four years ago at the University of Illinois and I was I was intrigued by your you know by the straightforwardness that you had in your writings and I first read them on V net and anyway my question it's a two-part question they're unrelated parts my first question is what do you attribute the incompetence of today's leaders in this country as compared to you know the leaders such as FDR and in the early 20th century you know men of distinction and and honor I know you know presidents like Andrew Jackson and and some other ones were you know not very honorable but uh what do you would you attribute this I mean it's been it's been decades now where we've had leaders you know one after the other just you know promote these policies and enact these you know these wars and these you know what do you attribute that to nice car that's good well I'm not sure I would use the word incompetence I mean I think they're very competent they know what they're doing they're dedicated committed they even tell us very frankly what they're doing so for example the national security strategy that was announced last September was a very clear brazen statement of a program of sustaining world dominance by means of force and announcing the intention to rely on force to suppress any potential challenge to that dominance that's quite a departure as a policy statement and it sent many shutters around the world including the foreign policy a lead at home but there's nothing incompetent about it it's a very clear explicit statement Frank statement why they're pursuing those policies well we can look at them but if we take an honest look at the past it's not very pretty I mean we can ask for example why we were sitting where we're sitting there were people here after all lots of them you know millions of them what happened to them well the founding fathers were pretty frank about it they knew what they were doing so John Quincy Adams for example many years after his own very ugly contributions to this were over did have a change of heart and he condemned what they had done for in what he called exterminating the hapless race of Native Americans with ferocious cruelty or words approximately like that they understood what they were doing they cleared the continent they conquered half of Mexico in a war which was bitterly condemned within the country correctly it was a terrible war a century ago the United States conquered the Philippines killed a couple hundred thousand people that a good part of the military command ended up facing war crimes trials afterwards there was bitter condemnation of that to Mark Twain for example leading may be the leading writer in the United States wrote very bitter sardonic anti-war essays and and we can go on the history has not been a pretty one and that's why the the after the national territory was conquered power extended to the region of the United States was not a major actor in the global scene until after Second World War but it was regionally the dominant power in the care in Central America extending to Hawaii which was taken from its own citizens by force and guile on to the Philippines but particularly in Central America and the Caribbean and those are not if you take a look at the record there it's not at all attractive Washington DC for noam chomsky good morning good day um well there's more like 300,000 Philippines and that's my point and my disagreement with mr. Chomsky its to general mr. Chavez be specific as a prosecutor in factually and the facts are known the body counts are well known and everyone quotes them incorrectly that's my disagree with the I like to work very much and many people follow you but I think you need to if Hussein's criminal to be prosecuted then our involvement and participation in Helmut Kohl's involvement participation ATS is a prosecutable crime also and also our uranium war crimes or the wars in Ethiopia James Baker restarted in 91 and not 20 million Ethiopians are in risk of starving to death and there's plenty of food in this world there's no famine without war this is the heart of the matter and the generalizations goes farther away from it and look at their faces see them and thank you for your time well I certainly agree with you that one should be accurate about the facts and if you would like to bring up some specific questions about facts be happy to answer to think about them and if you know I made a mistake to correct it you're right about the tremendous suffering and agony throughout the world much of it we it's not by no means all the result of US policy obviously not problems in Africa are extremely ugly and complex in the Congo alone several million people have been killed in the last few years in the wars that would not be easy to handle and deal with though a good deal could be done about them there's plenty of starvation I don't think war is the only factor that lies behind the famine that often famines take place when as you say there's plenty of food but social and political conditions are such that the food isn't getting to the people who need it and there's plenty that can be done about that the AIDS epidemic is devastating not only Africa but many other parts of the world and resources there there are methods of treatment which require not huge sums of money and we could dedicate ourselves our portion of our resources to dealing with that we have ample resources many of them being used in destructive ways but your point is correct there's all sorts of horrible things going on in the world some of them were responsible for and there we have a direct responsibility to terminate what we're doing and improve the situation others are things we could assist and to the extent possible we have a responsibility to do that there are plenty of others which are gonna be well out of our control this book called Middle East illusions is in the bookstores right now by Noam Chomsky as we go to North Andover Massachusetts you're next go ahead please Oh professor Chomsky good afternoon I'm honored to ask you a question I have when you said to the grandson that you were able to enjoy a baseball game with last week with your love of words and your love of linguistics I was just curious if you ever had the opportunity to have any connection with mr. Edward L Bernays who was a resident of Cambridge for the last 40 years of his life was first in New York City and was for almost a hundred years connected with very powerfully the public years work of the American tobacco company working with Guatemala for a war that almost was started because of bananas in the 50s and all of these different media actions that I believe have really contributed to where we are now in our our worldview of we have got a corporate mentality of destroying what we don't like taking it over manipulation of it because his luring from his uncle Sigmund Freud was utilized to his best ability with twisting people's view of what was good for them so that he could sell products to them Thanks caller Eddie Bernays actually I never you're right he lived in Cambridge we weren't that far apart I never actually met him but all the other public relations yeah but I've written a fair amount I've looked at a lot of his work and in fact I've written a fair amount about it I suspect that it wasn't his Freud who was the big influence on him but rather in fact exactly what he said he said the major influence on him was his participation in the first state propaganda agency in the United States Woodrow Wilson's Committee on Public Information which was established in order to try to drive a basically pacifist population into support for the war that Wilson very much wanted to get into in in Europe and it succeeded within a short period of time the propaganda efforts they were called propaganda in those days it was more honest use of terminology the propaganda efforts of the Committee on Public Information a very Orwellian name was did succeed in driving a pacifist population into raving Andy German fanatics you know to the point where in the Boston Symphony Orchestra couldn't play Beethoven things like that it drove the country into a kind of hysteria and the participants in that committee included many people of subsequent great distinction and influence Edward Bernays was one another was walter Lippmann the leading public intellectual at 20th century and most important figure in American media both of them went through the experience and learned from it and wrote about what they learned from it what they learned as Bernays put it in his a famous book of his called propaganda late 1920s I think he said that we have learned that the intelligent minorities can engineer consent through the use of manipulation propaganda and control and we should do it for the benefit of the public it's for the benefit of the public that we should control them and engineer their consent Lippmann said pretty much the same thing also drawing from the experience of the wartime propaganda agency he wrote significant important essays on democracy in the 1920s called progressive essays and democracy they were both liberals kind of Wilsonian progressives he said well we've learned that there's a new art in the practice of democracy the art of what he called manufacturing consent ranae's his term was engineering of consent and this is very significant because the public should not be participants in the democratic process they should be spectators not participants they are ignorant and meddlesome Outsiders as he put it and for their own benefit we the intelligent minority the responsible men must control them Bernays is particular significance this had all sorts of influence all over the place but in the intellectual culture in political science and so on but Bernays this particular influence was exactly as you say and he was one of the founders of the modern public relations industry which grew into a massive industry right at that period had it existed before but it became very important after the at this time and its goal was to control attitudes beliefs to marginalize people to induce to drive them towards what were called the superficial things of life like fashionable consumption and keeps them out of the public arena where they don't belong Bernays --is first major achievement was a program that convinced women to smoke cigarettes women didn't smoke in those days but he had an elaborate public relations program including models walking down Fifth Avenue you know to show us with cigarettes showing this is what modern women are like and it did succeed in turning women into smokers with a tol that we need not discuss the Guatemala case you're correct he was the public relations he ran the public relations for the propaganda effort to support the overthrow the democratic government of Guatemala which led to horrifying atrocities which the country is still suffering from one of the examples that we should be anything but proud of and he did play a role on that you know he did a lot of other things he's famous at Cambridge for a campaign to save the Sycamores on Memorial Drive which was again a successful public relations campaign that many people admired Springfield Massachusetts for noam chomsky hello good afternoon professor Chomsky my question to you is do you believe that a nation should suffer a tantrum a detrimental cost in order to compensate for wrongs committed by the governors of that nation nearby segments of that nation in the past I'm not sure exactly what the question means are we respect your living under let me see if I can understand it suppose you're living under a dictatorship and the dictators carry out some horrendous Act so you're living in Stalinist Russia let's see and Stalin carries out horrible crimes are the people of Russia responsible for those crimes well to only a very limited extent because living under a brutal harsh a terrorist regime there isn't very much I can do about it they could think there's something they could do and to the extent that you can do something you're responsible for what happens suppose you're living in a free democratic society with lots of privilege enormous incomparable freedoms and the government carries out two violent brutal acts are you responsible for it yeah a lot more responsible because there's a lot you can do about it and therefore the the cost of if you're responsible if you share responsibility in criminal acts you are liable for the consequences Jacksonville Florida good afternoon hi professor Chomsky it's an honor to speak to you sir I'd like to have you addressed the idea of 9/11 as like a false flag or let it happen on purpose kind of situation I mean it's not exactly unprecedented unprecedented in American history or world history for that matter especially given the project for the American century where Paul Wolfowitz said that it would take like a Pearl Harbor like attack on America to be able to implement their plans and could you address that for me please well I know that's a widely held belief frankly I'm personally extremely skeptical about it I don't think there's any likelihood that an action like that could have been planned and I don't really think there are any historical precedents for it if the White House had and in any way involved in planning this it would have been an act of absolute madness on their part but for one thing you could never tell where what was going to where it was going to go for another would certainly have leaked on his inconceivable that a plan of that nature wouldn't have leaked and it just doesn't make any sense in my opinion and I don't think the evidence is at all compelling I've read what there is you're quite right about the exploitation of it when it happened it was exploited not just in the United States but all over the world so for example the Russians were exploited September 11th as they saw it as a window of opportunity to step up their really brutal repression and violence in Chechnya claiming for presenting it as a struggle against terrorism and expecting to get authorization from the United States the world ruler which indeed happened Israel used it as a window of opportunity to step up repression and the occupied territories claiming it's a war against terror China did the same in western China where they're carrying out again harsh repressive activities against the dissidents sometimes rebel groups again expecting us authorization which they got all over the world governments including more democratic governments used it as an opportunity to impose more discipline on their own populations so yes it was recognized throughout the world by state power as an opportunity to increase repressive actions that were underway or to imposed discipline and so on but that doesn't mean that all those countries planned they just recognized it as a window of opportunity and I think the same was true here if you just joining us we have about two hours and 15 minutes to go on our in-depth program on this Sunday afternoon with Noam Chomsky next call tre Illinois hello hello I'd like to question the effectiveness of demonstrations and especially civil disobedience in effectively changing US policy in the Vietnam War dragged out for 17 years public opinion turned against the war in 1968 if the war dragged on for seven more years and the PIA impulse and public opinion research showed that the public even though they hated the war they hated the demonstrators even more so that just prolonged the war like we have a March here in Peoria rally against the war in Iraq we had 200 marchers we've got five inches in the newspaper one little inch of new information why people should be against the war you're never going to be able to demonstrate in the street get coverage like that and get your message across you have to do direct door-to-door lit dropping literature dropping stuffing doorknobs or canvassing toward the door to get your message out with a full sheet of paper with all your arguments the media is not going to do your job for you did not get your message across in the detail and the full expression that you'd like to see maybe let us the error even would be more effective than the demonstration because demonstration is just one inch and letters you just get maybe four or five inches of full explanation of what you're doing and the Illinois during the Vietnam War we're much more effective in electoral politics with McCarthy and George McGovern in fact Democratic Congress caucus in the House voted against funding for the war despite the fact that McGovern lost that McGovern had just demonstrated enough strength in election districts across the country at the grassroots level of africanus Minh knew that next time up they would see challenges to congressional seats in the congressional districts with McGovern successfully elected delegates they saw the handwriting on the ward they voted to cut off the funds in the Democratic caucus in the house and the day after that Nixon signed the peace treaty and ended the war so that was the effective way electoral politics but here people I went to Chicago teaching for peace and justice yes essentially and then chortling over 10,000 people blocking one street in Chicago and they using that as a big victory but toddler you can easily use an alternative street run tanks down the street to mow people down that's a totally a symbolic victory these demonstrations don't accomplish anything in in Illinois here I'm going to let you go thanks the ax major point well you're one part of what you say I completely agree with just demonstrations not connected with day-to-day ongoing educational and organizing activities are pointless but take the case of the Vietnam War which was dragged out in that case I think there the evidence is pretty strong that the demonstrations were very effective they were they were part of on exactly what you're suggesting should be done they were part of every day-to-day organizing educational activities and the demonstrations grew out of them stimulated other people to join made other people understand what was happening contributed to the activism which ultimately after many years many years led to the appearance of political figures who were willing to become you know the leaders of the official leaders of a what was by then a mass popular movement and that was after years and years of very hard work including demonstrations and I think there's very strong evidence that they were successful if you want to have some direct evidence for it in 1968 after the Tet Offensive in January 1968 the business world turned strongly against the war because it was becoming very costly to the United States it was becoming costly because Lyndon Johnson was never able to call a national mobilization of the kind that was called during the Second World War which led to a very efficient economy he wasn't able to do that because there was too much discontent they had to fight what they call the guns and butter war which led to stagflation and economic problems the discontent was the result of activism including demonstrations Johnson was essentially there's a real power play from the business world he was essentially told to call off the war after the Tet Offensive which indicated was going to go on for a long he wanted to send 200,000 more trips to South Vietnam the Joint Chiefs of Staff were opposed the reason they said was because they thought they would need the troops for civil disorder control in the United States we're large segments of the population we're just getting out of hand now they mentioned women youth minorities others this is in the last part of the Pentagon Papers worth take a look at the disorder and the discontent revealed themselves in many ways the demonstrations being a very visible part but much more than that and the appearance of politicians Eugene McCarthy's a good case was much later and only when there was a mass base for it then the politicians appeared not before there were few the grinning and Morse were too but very few until there a mass popular movement had developed and I don't really agree with you about the Diamonds funny it can be if it's not done properly yes it can be destructive you can say that about anything the demonstrations on February 15th around the world were so and they're the biggest mass demonstrations in history I suppose they were so significant that actually the New York Times a little unhappily and it's a comment on them said day after that there are now two superpowers and on the planet and one is the United States meaning the US government the other is world public opinion well you know world public opinion was visible on February 15th and that led to the recognition that there's a powerful force there that has to be dealt with it didn't stop this war but you know the there's never been protests like this against the war at that stage you're quite correct in your account of how long it took to build up protests to the Vietnam War which actually started in 1962 this protest was before the war had actually started that indicates a major change and consciousness and understanding in the country and it's the basis I think for developing significant popular movements which will impede and help reverse the use of violence in world domination and control but it doesn't happen in a day and your point about the day to day explanation work leafleting and so on is absolutely correct unless that's a central part of the activity demonstrations don't mean anything jerusalem rhode island good afternoon i sir anti-terrorism bills were rushed through congress in the days after the Oklahoma City bombing and have been extended since September 11th the the problem is that clearly some of those bills had been written and printed before the bombing already the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force has issued Flyers urging the public to call for information about possible terrorists defenders of the US Constitution and and those people who would make numerous references to the Constitution or attempt to police the police and loan individuals I believe this is an undermining of basic democracy and and I believe that the FCC rule change that is proposed for on June 2nd that would allow the media companies such as Clear Channel Communications to be able to purchase newspapers will limit the Free Press as a novelist I believe that you probably also support not allowing these large media companies like Clear Channel to be able to purchase newspapers on top of on top of radio stations since two out of every three households are reached by six major media companies as a novelist um do you do you support the Free Press or do you support this media rule change that um that mr. Powell Michael Powell who was the son of the Secretary of Defense : Powell for some unusual reason but it has been eluded through Alice in Wonderland in the World Trade Center disaster written by David Icke what that a relationship between mr. Powell and Michael Powell and and the government's hidden agenda to eliminate basic civil liberties are do you support this media rule change by the FCC thanks caller yeah well on the specific question of the you brought up many interesting points on the specific question of the FCC ruling I'm on your side I don't think that I think that the planned ruling will increase monopoly the tendency towards centralization and monopolization of media which is a very bad thing it's been going on for years quite apart from this the major monitor of the study which they regularly published study which deals with this is been back Dickens book the media monopoly I think the first edition of it must have been about 20 years ago and he then identified if I remember correctly about 50 major concentrations of media in the country the last edition which was a year or two ago I think it was down to under 10 and the FCC ruling will reduce it even further and not in the print media but in including the print media in fact I think it's a very bad thing we want to diverse as a diverse oppressors we can get I don't think that's the only problem with the press at all but it's a problem on the other issue that you raised about anti-terrorism legislation and civil liberties here I think we have to be we have to have a certain caution terrorism is a serious issue I mean personally I don't object when I pass through security at the airport I think that's you know I could argue about the details but that something should be checked make sense on the other hand the Justice Department the bush Justice Department has claimed rights which are incredible the if they are implemented it is a major attack on civil liberties and to an extent they have been and to an extent they've even been upheld by the court I mean they've claimed the that the executive has the right to imprison people including citizens of the United States to hold them without trial without charge without access to family and lawyers and to do so indefinitely until the president declares that the war on terror is over which means indefinitely there's a new act under discussion Patriot two it's sometimes called which includes provisions that would grant the Attorney General the right to actually withdraw citizenship rescind citizenship on what's called inference the Attorney General's inference from some pattern of behavior that the person supports terrorists under this utterly outlandish no free and democratic society should tolerate anything remotely like this there are what's happening on Guantanamo is absolutely shocking and has been condemned by every human rights and civil rights organization throughout the world and maybe getting worse I don't know can't authenticate it but there are now reports in the British press and Australian press that there are plans for and it's Bennett the British Foreign Office has a agree that it's correct that there are plans to have execution chambers in Guantanamo where people can be executed without anything remotely resembling a fair trial on charges that and without proper legal representation or anything like that these these moves are act really shocking and we should be you're right that we should be deeply concerned about them I've might quote I can remember the wording a comment by Winston Churchill about this Churchill's bust is on George Bush's - desk II looked at it every day Churchill described he said that - something like this - to place a man in prison without charge and without the judgment of his peers in a fair trial is in the highest degree odious and the foundation of all totalitarian governments whether Nazi or communist Churchill said that in 1943 when he was opposing efforts to institute preventive detention for alleged intelligence purposes and in 1943 Britain was in pretty dire straits it was under attack by the most vicious and murderous military machine in history and its survival was not obvious nevertheless he took that position which is correct and he's right what's now being proposed is and in part implemented is in the highest degree odious and the foundation of all totalitarian societies whether not to your communists and we should be deeply concerned about that here's some of the ninety-eight books that Noam Chomsky has published over the last guess what we're talking about almost 50 years American power and the new mandarins and it forward by hards n this was 2002 when it came back out which one called World Order's old and new by Noam Chomsky remember the year this was out first published in 1994 and there's an expanded edition in 1996 and here's another one deterring democracy was a national bestseller can you still buy this one on the stores it was a national bestseller I doubt that's what it says rap to the top you should know never to believe anything that's put by a publisher run it covered that was 91 extended 92 most of these still in print yeah Carlsbad California go ahead please thank you yes sir I'm a military officer with 25 years of experience who's read Mark Twain's more prayer and I got a couple of quick questions for you and I'd like to know whether or not you think it's perfectly natural for a country to protect its borders and guard its national interests whether they be protecting a population against terrorism or securing economic interests and in the case of radical Islamic terrorism that we might have had the first the terrorist bubble in a failure in the wake of a failure of diplomacy and that that wasn't necessarily our failure looking at their motive intents and consequences and that that's the first part if I could come back to you well should a country have a right to defend its population and its economy certainly I don't think that's a question I didn't exactly understand what you meant about the Islamic terrorism well given the war in Iraq that we were over there perhaps in the in the face of radical Islamic terrorists no there's no look that was a fabrication there is no evidence whatsoever I mean Iraq was on Saddam Hussein's a horrible monster just as he was when he was supported by the United States the people now in office in the 1980s he was a hideous monster Osama bin Laden is another hideous monster but there are different monsters and they hate each other and there's no evidence whatsoever for of any meaningful evidence of a connection between Saddam Hussein's horrifying regime and the network's like al Qaeda they despise each other and have had no known connections the only effect of the war on in Iraq on terror is that it has as predicted increased recruitment for al Qaeda so it's increased the threat of terror exactly it was predicted by intelligence agencies in the United States and throughout the world and other specialists but the idea that attacking Iraq had something to do the war on terror is is just mendacity quick follow up Carlsbad yes sir thank you with respect to foreign policy and the pieces potential for peace in the Middle East do you think that first world countries which have a tremendous ability to provide resources and and aid to developing countries can promote peace in the face of Arab humiliation and overcome Israeli defensive mos well we have to ask that there's a rehear I think we might listen to the leading specialists on the topic namely from Israeli intelligence so the the chief of the former chief of Israeli military intelligence just pointed out in a book in Hebrew that until Arabs until Israel is willing to treat Arabs with respect as decent as human beings with rights there will never be an end to terror twenty years earlier a former head of Israeli military intelligence Oh show that harcavy said essentially the same thing he said until we deal with the legitimate grievances and demands of the Palestinian people under military occupation there will always be the threat of terror he was writing at a time when Israel was virtually immune from terror from within the territories just in the year 2000 the the head of the Israeli secret police Shabak the general security services which controlled the occupied territories essentially said the same thing they said until we deal with the legitimate grievances and demands of the Palestinian population under occupation we will never put an end to terror that the the so the humiliation is there and the degradation is there and the repression is there and yes it does lead to sometimes the terror certainly opposition and incidentally if we want to look ourselves in the mirror as we should this goes way back George Bush is not the first president to ask why do they hate us almost 50 years ago President Eisenhower in internal discussions with his staff which have since been Declassified discussed what he called the campaign of hatred against us in the Arab world not by governments which are on our side but by the people and his National Security Council gave an explanation for it they said that there is a perception in the Arab world that the United States supports corrupt and oppressive regime which blocked democracy and development and that we do it because of our interest in controlling the oil reserves of the region and furthermore they said that the perception is correct so it's very difficult to counter and they said yes we have to continue doing it you hear the same feelings expressed today even by wealthy Muslim managers of multinational corporations they perceive the United States correctly as supporting brutal corrupt repressive regimes that are blocking democracy and development and yes that leads to antagonism and often hatred it's not the source of some event Laden but it is the reservoir of background that the heads of Israeli military intelligence and the secret police we're talking about we have to be serious about that if you want to stop terrorism I'm the same is true elsewhere it takes a northern island as long as the British responded to our a terror with just escalation of violence it increased the terror when they came to the point of beginning to deal with the legitimate grievances it did improve the situation enormous Lee it's not a utopia but it's much better than it was 10 years ago Stamford Connecticut for our Noam Chomsky hello yes Chomsky I share your views and revulsion at much of US foreign policy and I think you're right once you understand it it's irrefutable ich rule evil and self ruthlessly self-interested in many many many instances and I find you to be an invaluable voice of criticism and dissent yet your views are almost never appear in the mainstream media do you feel you're censored at some level by the mainstream organs in this country well I wouldn't call it censorship you're right that I don't appear in the mainstream media and not just me but the same is true of other critical voices the media do in fact reflect a pretty rigid and I think narrow spectrum of opinion and if you don't belong to it you know if you're there it's it's not censorship it's their choice and decision Sharon Pennsylvania you're all with Noam Chomsky good afternoon good afternoon I have some disagreement but most agreement with you and one of the it's it's in the point that I feel you don't go far enough for instance just on the last point for instance NPR I read that even when you're speaking to a smaller audience at American University from which NPR broadcasters Diane Rehm Show your you've been barred from that program even when you're very conveniently to be interviewed and I think it has a lot to do with the fact that the chairman of NPR is the former head of all CIA propaganda foreign broadcast and the head for instance of PBS is the former head of voice of America now when you've got that on the suppose an alternative to the corporate media there's a big business media which is interlocked and owned by military-industrial weapons manufacturers and colludes with the CIA I think there is quite a bit of censorship and another I do read your stuff on Z mag dot org like a previous caller and that's very useful I think but it doesn't go far enough in many cases richness your your you claim that somehow it's not plausible that the administration or a faction within an intelligence supporting the administration had prior knowledge and saw that the only one that would benefit from this attack in 9/11 would be the war mongers within the Bush administration and the police state factions within the Ashcroft justic Justice Department I think is belied by the fact and this gets to the media that James Bamford the top NSA expert who wrote the book body of evidence points out from Declassified State Department and pentagon documents that in the early 60s the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Undersecretary of Defense had plans to terror bomb American cities murder American citizens even bombing an American ship in Guantanamo Harbor to frame up Cuba to blame Cuba for these u.s. government planned bombings and then use it as a pretext to invade now there is a real precedent there it was only called off by the Kennedy administration because apparently they figured this you know they Mike it might go awry but it shows that there are these uh clones of this very fanatical ultra-right faction almost duplicate at that time within the high levels of government that correspond to this Bush administration with this plans for world domination Thanks caller mr. Johnson well what you're referring to is operation Northwood you can its Declassified you can read it if you like it was a contingency plan called at the request of the Department of Defense and it did have roughly the character you describe but if you look at contingency plans they are all over the map they've got plans for everything and it was not implemented and it wasn't the only one there were other plans that came from the more liberal sectors of the Kennedy administration for example plans to stage a what look would look like a Cuban invasion of Haiti which could then be used as a basis for invading Cuba actually that one came from Arthur Schlesinger away over at the liberal end but you know from looking at contingency plans by governments I don't think you couldn't conclude very much on the 9/11 event you have to make a distinction crucial distinction between two things the earlier question at least as I understood it was whether the Bush administration was involved in planning it for that I think it's outlandish the question you're asking is whether there could have been foreknowledge of it well that's conceivable but then we have to be a little cautious because remember that in 1993 almost 10 years earlier there was an attempt to blow up the World Trade Center which came very close to succeeding and if it had succeeded would have caused tens of thousands of death deaths since that time there was no doubt in the intelligence community that operations of this kind were possible and might take place whether there was any foreknowledge of this one I haven't seen any convincing evidence of that but it's conceivable in a moment were gonna take a break in our guest Noam Chomsky is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania with a BA and MA and a PhD got out of there in 1955 has been at MIT since 1960 9550 actually 55 and has published a total of 98 books over these years you have three children Diane avi and Harry that's right where are each of them today what are they doing Ivy's the older oldest is teaching at Salem State College near Boston Latin American specialists in Latin American history teaches history Diane our second daughter is happens to be in Mexico at the moment but is primarily living in Nicaragua where she's been about 15 years as her family there our son Harry the third child is living in the Bay Area works and software engineering this kind of thing we have about an hour and 45 minutes to go and we'll be back with Noam Chomsky and more and your calls in just a moment [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] about ten years ago the United States had the highest wages in the world which is what you'd expect this is the richest country in the world by far and it has absolutely unparalleled advantages real wages have in fact stagnated or even declined for the majority the population since their peak around 25 years ago but in the mid-80s the effects of the double-edged so-called conservatism of the Reaganites namely markets for the poor and state protection for the rich that hadn't yet had its full impact by 1993 the impact was quite obvious the Wall Street Journal was able to exalt over what it called a welcome development of transcendent importance namely US labor costs had fallen below all other leading industrial powers apart from England wehaveto did fall below England for a while but then Margaret Thatcher succeeded in driving the working people and the poor down even more efficiently than us meanwhile profits were rising to new heights earlier this year every year Fortune magazine has a you know the big business magazine has a review of the fortune 500 you know the 500 top guys and this year earlier this year they reported dazzling profits that's their word for the 500 top corporations even though sales were stagnating so wages are going down sales are stagnating and profits are zooming to dazzling Heights sometimes called a paradox in fact if you look at Social Policy is not terribly paradoxical watching professor Chomsky there from 1994 and he's here in our studios for the next 1 hour and 45 minutes and we've got calls waiting to talk to him this one from Omaha Nebraska you're on the air Omaha please go ahead yes I appreciate the opportunity to ask a question I think it's in line what was what was just shown you know a little talk you're getting about economics stuff um I've been pretty deeply interested in socialism over the past twelve years and you know I keep hearing that you know socialism is on the rise again in the u.s. at least within the universities and stuff they say always say now all the faculties you know how he used in Westar more and more socialistic and yeah I guess I see is kind of rude of all the evil all this you know imperialism and capitalism economics creating all these mmm you know Wars and terrorism blah blah blah I just I'd like to hear more of your commentary on you know the potential or what's going on you know realistically now in the US and the world in terms of a sort of a true socialistic movement you know in terms of like the working class really taking charge of economics potentially rather than all this to me is what screwed up versions of what is called socialism you know through tax cuts and blah blah blah blah blah you know that they're going to read this true you know that's what you get to the mainstream media that they're going to create tax cuts and redistribute that mat so that's what they call socialism thanks a lot well the tax cuts are a curious kind of socialism I mean the tax cuts are intended to and having the effect of redistributing income even more toward the rich than is currently the case in fact the tax cuts are pretty clearly part of a an effort to destroy the progressive legislation of the past century including social spending in general Social Security medicare/medicaid the progressive taxes and so on that's virtually conceded I don't know how closely we've been following the business pages in the last couple of days but it's been revealed that the former secretary of the Treasury before it was fired commissioned a study by the top government economists Treasury Department during the budget and so on to estimate the likely effects of the Bush administration economic programs that includes a vast increase in federal spending primarily for the military which means high tech industry in general and tax cuts directed target directed primarily towards the most wealthy sectors enormous tax cuts they estimated deficits on the order of a forty four trillion dollars trillion dollars that's a lot of money that was supposed to be put into the February budget proposals but didn't appear there there's a debate about whether that was purposeful or not anyway it's now revealed and conceded the White House spokesperson Ari Fleischer was asked about it in a press conference a couple days ago and he said yes the figures are correct and then paraphrasing him he said something like this he said this means that Congress will have to be responsible in reforming Social Security Medicare and Medicaid now the kind of reform he's talking about is not funding it through reinstituting progressive tax measures but basically killing it they know that they cannot approach the population in an election on a platform saying we're gonna eliminate social spending and transfer wealth even more to the wealthy than it is today but they can and I think are intending to drive the country and through it a number of economists have called a fiscal train wreck which will then have the effect of eliminating social spending so this is about as remote many ver this is you it's it's government intervention on the benefit for the benefit of the wealthy now as far as socialism is concerned that term has been so evacuated of content over the last century that it's hard even to use I mean the Soviet Union for example was called a socialist society and it was called that by the two major propaganda operations in the world the u.s. the Western one and the Soviet one they both called it socialism for opposite reasons the West call that socialism in order to defame socialism by associating it with this miserable tyranny the Soviet Union called it socialism in order to gain whatever to benefit from the moral appeal that true socialism had among large parts of the general world population but this was about as a remote from socialism as he can imagine I'm the core notion of at least traditional socialism is that what you mentioned that working people have to be in control of production and communities have to be in control of their own lives and so on it's and you know this is this because the Soviet units exact opposite of that working people had no control over anything they were virtual slaves and the collapse of the Soviet Union is in fact small victory for socialism in my opinion eliminated one of the major barriers to it and should have been recognized as such but the term has been as I said so become so meaningless that it's hard even to use if we use it in the traditional sense which you brought up that goes you know that's goes straight back in American history you read the working-class press and the mid 19th century you know press published by artisans and what we're called factory girls young women from the farms working in the textile mills and eastern Massachusetts which was center of beginning of the Industrial Revolution their press was calling for they said their theme was that those who those who work in the mills ought to own them wage labor which was called wage slavery was regarded by most Americans as not very different from slavery even the Republican Party regarded wage labour as just a pro at best a preliminary to free labor but intolerable because it's kind of servitude a large part of the northern population fighting civil war was fighting under that banner this goes straight through the 20th century the idea that people should be in control of their own destinies and lives including the institutions in which they work in the communities in which they live and so on call it what name you want but that's traditional socialism and there are there are today attempts to describe a kind of a detailed vision of the future based on these notions the most extensive and detailed one I know is by Michael Albert that Zenith which you mentioned the participatory economics and there are other such proposals but I think this is deeply in a deeply ingrained and people's understanding and consciousness and barely below the surface in fact it's a call for a essentially extension of democracy to the industrial sphere and to the communities as well we should also bear in mind that the leading American social philosopher John Dewey I was as mainstream as apple pie he his main work was concentrated on democracy he pointed out over and over again that as long as we have what we call he called Industrial feudalism that is a tyrannical control private power controlling production commerce democracy will be very limited it has to we have to move to what he called industrial democracy if we hope to have significant democracy as for politics his position was that until that happens politics will be the shadow cast over Society by big business whatever and I think most of the population recognizes that and accepted New York City good afternoon good afternoon yes hello dr. Chomsky I heard you refer to your early experiences with Zionism I imagined a more universal and idealistic Zionism from that period and I was wondering if you could speak on the evolution of your relationship with Zionism and the State of Israel and also perhaps if you could speak on what your vision might be for an Israel maybe drawing on that more optimistic early Zionism and how the process of getting to that vision differs from Oslo Clinton and Barack in 2000 and now the road map well this left me brief but in this book that was mentioned before Middle East delusions there's a lot of discussion of that some of the essays there go back to over 35 years up to the present but to try to put it briefly at the time when I was a I was a Zionist youth leader an activist back in you know in the 1940s but for me Zionism meant opposition to a Jewish state and that was a recognized accepted part of the Zionist movement why no means a majority but it was a position within what was called the Zionist movement opposition to a Jewish state and I think the reasons for that we're good the same reasons why I'd be opposed to a Christian state or a white state or an Islamic Republic same reasons a state should be a state of its citizens and not of some privileged category of its citizens and the State of Israel incidentally by High Court ruling is the state of the Jewish people in Israel and in the Diaspora but not of its citizens and I'm opposed to that I've always been opposed to it so on that respect my views haven't changed the if this was merely a matter of symbolism wouldn't matter much so the fact that the United States has a day off on Sunday okay doesn't make it a Christian state in any sense that matters but if there were special privileges for Christians or White's or others it would be a different matter then I think we should be opposed to it and that's true in Israel after the establishment of the state in 1948 which the issue of the existence of Israel was essentially over as far as I'm concerned it should have the rights of any state in the international system I don't think states have many legitimate rights but that's another story but whatever rights you Accord to any state in the international system okay Israel should have those rights it should be democratic internally meaning the state of its own citizens not of a of the majority of them and other Jews elsewhere after 1967 the situation changed radically in 1967 Israel conquered the West Bank Sinai Gaza and the Golan Heights and since that time it's now the 36th year of a quite harsh and brutal occupation in which time Israel with that when I say Israel I mean the United States and Israel because just about everything Israel does is by u.s. authorization and with US diplomatic military and economic support they can't go much beyond what the US authorizes and what they have done is move to integrate the West Bank particularly into Israel to the extent that they want it so there are settlement massive settlement programs which have broken the West Bank into can tons effectively and the to get quickly to the Clinton Barack programs at Camp David they were a wookie map of what was proposed it's rather striking that the while there was much talk about the how magnanimous and generous the offers were you can't find a map I don't think a single map appeared in the American media they were available they were in the Israeli media and Europe standard scholarly sources and so on but they didn't appear if you look at the map you can understand exactly why the settlement was completely unacceptable to the Palestinians it broke the West Bank into effectively for virtually separated Canton's north central and southern with a little part of East Jerusalem the center of Palestinian commercial and industrial and cultural life separated from the three virtually a few connections but difficult ones and that program has that's a settlement program that was conscious continued rapidly under Clinton and Barack it's continuing even more under Chevron and Bush and it is undermining the possibility of a meaningful political settlement if you ask what the future ought to be in my opinion here I happen to agree with about two-thirds of the population of the United States according to polls and almost the entire world there has to be preliminary preliminary settlement on approximately the international border is the pre June 67 border with some adjustments because of changes since but mutual adjustments actually Clinton's chief negotiator Robert Maui discussed this in foreign affairs the main establishment Journal and he said what makes sense I think that there have to be effectively one-to-one land swaps which would be the basis for at least a political settlement that would lay the basis for an end to violence integration of a peaceful integration of Israel into the region as it leading industrial and financial senator but just part of it without further conflict if that stage can be reached and there is an overwhelming international consensus on that and strong popular support in the United States the US has been blocking that for 25 years it's part of the illusions that are talked about in the title of that book if we can get to that stage then the further questions you're raising that come up how about there will be serious problems of democratization both in Israel and in the new Palestinian state my own feeling remains pretty conservative it's what it was 40 60 years ago that the long term I don't think it makes much sense to break that territory into two parts if you know the area at all or if travel there you can see it's awfully artificial and harmful in the longer term I think there should be moved towards some kind of federal structure ultimately as relations let's hope improve among the people and nationalist sentiments are subside and hatreds subside moves towards closer integration and circumstances ferment weird about the halfway point with our end up with Noam Chomsky he has a professor at MIT and Cambridge here's a look at the outside of his office building where he works and eventually you'll see where his office is inside how much time do you spend there usually three full days a week days well for some reason like classes for many years have been on Thursdays so Thursday's classes Tuesdays and Fridays appointments interviews other things how many classes a year are different courses a year do you teach well technically I've been retired for the last couple of years but this year I had two courses at MIT and one 1/2 course that another University State University of New York how much are you speaking I can't even remember almost constantly I mean do you have you gone the road lot still quite a lot either I arranged that timing so that I can be on the road obviously fun days but I don't have commitments at work a fair amount - yeah I want to take a number of calls if you don't mind make some notes here so we can hear some voices of people that are watching and we'll go through a couple of these here and then we'll come back to see and have you wrap up some of the comments on their calls New York City next go ahead please yes I dr. Tomsky a couple of things I'm sorry I make this quick but a couple of challenges that you pointed out the United States being the only superpower and having a much larger role and responsibility in the global community some of the changes that need to happen and going back to the earlier colors points on sort of socialistic philosophy I mean good for the all is the way I would look at that it seems to almost oppose the foundation of the United States being more of a capitalistic system where it is profit driven and maybe I'm drawing too big of assumptions but it seems like we're more than plutocracy and democracy and a lot of the the people who are in a position make those changes on behalf of the United States also have special interests in their ears from the industrial society or that's prevalent propagating a lot of the industrial feudalism as you mentioned and thereby also creating some of the frustration the antagonism and resentment against the United States resulting in terrorism as we've seen it so how do you see something like this changing when you've got sort of a disinterested public or a public that's kind of being kept out of the whole process and about to be even more so with further meetings consolidations I was just curious to hear your thoughts on that we go to Fall River Massachusetts what your question comment yeah professor Chomsky already answered my question seems to me you're really holding Israel to a double standard you say nothing of the fact that no Jews can live in Saudi Arabia or Jordan but you you hold Israel to such a standard and also Jewish people cannot visit the Temple Mount and but when Jews control religious areas they're supposed to make it available to everybody so could you address that why do you hold Israel to a double standard Thanks Denver Colorado what do you have to say today yes I I just want to thank you very much for having Noam Chomsky on the show this is a great honor and one of the most important writers in history but I just want to present a hypothesis and I would like him to us to address us do you think the recent Sharon's move to refer to the old words as people say and see what appears to be all roads leading to Tehran far as military action do you think the deep on Tostan you'll see you'll see that point I'm making do you think the ban to stone model prevailed in Israel and do you think this wasn't is this a an effort to sort of neutralize the Arab opposition because I think it appears to me that the inevitable move for military action is will be against Iran probably within the next year or so one last one and then we'll come back to dr. Chomsky we go to Palo Alto California good morning professor Chomsky our I guess it's afternoon where you are yeah I have a couple questions about 9 1 111 the terrorists somehow prevented the US Air Force jet fighters from being scrambled in the normal ten minutes and they caused the delay of 75 minutes for the jet fighters to be sent up and they hit the Pentagon with a guided missile because if if it had been one of those airliners there would have been about a hundred thousand pounds of aluminum album along there and that could not possibly have vaporized the way the government said it did and somehow the terrorists arranged those cell phone calls and that's been shown by experiment to be impossible and somehow those terrorists put explosives in the World Trade Center buildings because Columbia University seismographs showed pulses that could only have been caused by explosives at the beginning of the fall of each of those buildings not as they were actually falling now all of these things you can read them for example at the cosmic penguin calm that has links to 55 different web sites containing information about these facts all right so thanks there's a lot there yeah maybe you can summarize some of it okay maybe these east ways to go backwards okay yeah well the last caller raised made a number of technical observations which I completely incompetent to comment on I have no idea whether there were seismographs that showed that they were explosives in the building and frankly I'm extremely skeptical the fact that a lot of material appears on internet sites is not very compelling the Internet is a very valuable instrument you can learn all sorts of things from it but anybody can put anything they like on the Internet that's part of its value and you have to evaluate the information I haven't checked any of the technical issues that you've discussed so I can't comment on them but I should say that I have extreme skepticism about them on Sharan I ran a quarter right before Sauron the O word namely occupied territories that you've already used as conquered territories which is pretty strong and accurate the and the road to Tehran and the efforts to neutralize the Arab world here I think we have to be extremely we have to look closely the Sharan plan and the bush plan as far as we have any information about them is simply a continuation of the Bantustan ization process if you read the Israeli press which has excellent reporters like from your house and you don't lady who write about this all the time what they're describing and what you see if you go to the West Bank is just breaking it up into Canton's I mean the separation wall which is going from north to south has already encircled a palestinian town calcula and it is virtually destroying it it was just announced that it's going to go to the east to settlements to the east Arielle and Amano well there's a story in The New York Times today about the settlement of Itamar which is even to the east of that whether that'll be included in the separation wall or not we don't know but it's a salient which was in the Clinton Barack plan that basically cuts the northern sector from the rest there is just no doubt that the separation wall or some equivalent will include the vast settlement and infrastructure programs to the east of Jerusalem extending almost to Jericho which cuts it again minoes city is a growing city they Ramallah do meme which was established primarily in the Clinton Barack period pretty much with the purpose of bisecting the West Bank and it's got infrastructure connections to Israel which essentially break up the Palestinian territories that plan as far as we know George Bush's vision as he calls it as far as we know anything about it is simply it is a kind of program which is called a bantha stone ization program in israel for good reasons could you say that word again Bantu Stan is Asian I mean it stands for that's a reference to the South African programs of the early 1960s of setting up black homelands which were called Bantustans transguy was the first there were several others they were never recognized by anyone but their idea was to set up black States under black leadership surrounded by white areas and it was one of the most grotesque efforts of the apartheid regime and its worst period that's been regarded as a model Israeli planners pretty openly and it's discussed in those terms criticized in those terms usually but it's not unreasonable I mean it's a canonization program setting up Canton's which have some connection but not much and are basically unviable is that an effort to neutralize the Arab world I think your suspicion is correct but it's certainly not going to work if it's anything like that program as for Iran being the next step it's certainly being set up whether and theirs unfortunately the United States is creating a self-fulfilling prophecy I mean it's very likely that the war in Iraq will inspire Iran to develop weapons of mass destruction in fact that's been predicted by intelligence agencies and analysts all over the world including the United States that this plan the national security strategy the plan to crush by force any potential challenge to u.s. domination is virtually demanding that potential adversaries create some kind of a deterrent and the only kind of a deterrent they have to a state with overwhelming power is either terror which is a deterrent or weapons of mass destruction or as in the case of North Korea massed artillery aimed at the soul and at American forces there which are a deterrent to attack on North Korea but you know when you when you announce your intention to rule the world by force and to crush any potential challenge you're virtually demanding that potential adversaries do something about it and Iran might move on to develop weapons of mass destruction which will then be used as a pretext for an attack however I personally don't think there's going to be an attack on Iran the reason is that Iran is not like Iraq Iraq was defenseless completely defenseless and that was known and that was a prerequisite for an invasion Iran is not the offenseless I mean it doesn't begin to compare with the United States and power but it's not defenseless in the sense that Iraq was and for that reason I suspect an attack is not likely on the other hand subversion is not at all unlikely and according to some American academic specialists who have written on the topic there have been effort there are underway efforts to stir up subversive activities and stimulating iran's a complicated country stimulating some nationalist elements like Azeri in the north to build up breakaway movements it's reported I can't verify it by academic specialists that a good part of the Israeli Air Force over 10% is permanently stationed in eastern Turkey presumably at American bases there and it's flying regular reconnaissance over at the Iranian border probably either for surveillance or intimidation whether this is happening or not I don't know it's reported from credible sources and I think something like that is considered is much more likely than a direct attack but and this is contrary to the wishes of the countries of the region and the countries of the world who have been trying correctly to support reformist tendencies in Iran these efforts undermine them and to step-by-step integrate durán back into the international system on healthy terms there are strong reformist tendencies they fight they have plenty of barriers but they should be supported not undermine so that what you described could be the planning we don't know you know we don't have we don't have access to internal plans but what is the information available suggests something like that as to Israel and a double standard I don't quite agree I as I mentioned I'd be just as strong just as strongly opposed to the so-called Islamic Republic's of which there are a number which are not states of their citizens but but are dedicated in principle to Islamic rule and some like Saudi Arabia are horrendous it's one of the reasons whether then strongly opposed to us strong us support for repressive and brutal states like Saudi Arabia for many years when Eisenhower and his staff we're talking about the campaign of hatred back in nineteen fifty-eight this was they were referring to us support for states like that oppressive states that have all sorts of horrible legislation including what you mentioned and should and are opposed to democracy and development in the US shouldn't be supporting it's part of the reason for opposition the US policies throughout the region so I don't agree that that's a double standard the first question is a complicated one what kind of a country is this well you know that's for it's people that decide the take say the existence of corporations that's a major part of our society we're a largely corporate run society now where did corporations come from other corporations we're not corporations were given the rights of persons about a century ago by courts and lawyers not by legislation that's a sharp blow against the classical liberal principles that the country was established not I mean Adam Smith or James Madison would have turned over in their grave at the idea that an abstract entity like a corporation is given rights of persons persons of flesh and blood like freedom of speech and freedom of search and seizure and so on these are legal these are collectivist legal fictions as they're sometimes described in the legal literature they're basically tyrannies controlled from top the bottom they there's the idea that they should have Rights of Persons from a classical liberal point of view the view of the founding fathers it's just outlandish they now have rights far beyond persons so the recent trade agreements so-called trade agreements not really trade agreements they grant corporations rights that go far beyond persons of flesh and blood General Motors for example can go to Mexico and demand national treatment meaning to be treated like a Mexican business but a Mexican of flesh and blood can't go to New York or San Francisco and demand national treatment when you get very far this is a complete reversal on a sharp attack against the liberal principles the capitalist principles on which the country was founded what about the political system the political system is really what political science is sometimes called polyarchy not a democracy that is a system of elite decision and public gratification that's what go back earlier in the discussion that's what people like Lippmann Bernays and others were talking about it has good constitutional sources if you look at the debate James Madison was the main framer of the Constitution his view explicit and the discussions of the Constitutional Convention is that power as he put it should be in the hands of the wealth of the nation the more capable set of men the people who have sympathy with the rights of property meaning property owners and he argued strongly against democracy he gave the model of England which is of course what they were thinking about he said in England if the population really had the vote the majority of the population would vote for a better distribution of the wealth of the society at that time that meant and in other words the they would vote for what nowadays we would call agrarian reform to give to keep break up the concentration of land and give it to people who needed it and Madison concluded that's intolerable we can't accept them so therefore we can't accept the system in which the population will in fact have a direct say in social and economic policy and affairs of state now the population should be fragmented and power should be in the hands of the wealthy who basically are concerned with property rights that's not the position of the population of the United States and over the centuries there have been many struggles about this it's a large part of American history is struggles about these issues what the country is founded on and what it should be should be the matter for the people to decide you pointed out the questioner correctly that it's the the population seems I think the word you use was disinterested I don't really believe that I think the population feels helpless I feel there's not much I can do about it in fact attitude studies show that the there's a measure called helplessness can we do anything about what's happening now that's been going up in recent years I think it reached its peak the last time it was studied about the year 2000 and people do feel helpless they feel that the government is not doing anything for them so for example in the last presidential elections 2000 right before the election so no Florida shenanigans and so on about 75% of the population didn't take the election very seriously regarded it as some kind of game involving rich contributors and party bosses and the public relations industry which crafts candidates to say things that maybe will pick up votes but that don't let you know where they stand on issues issue identification was extremely low in the most people couldn't tell where the candidates stood on most issues and it's not because they're stupid or incompetent that's because the election is crafted that way yeah you're supposed to vote on what are called qualities not issues part of the reason for that is that on major issues popular opinion in a lead opinion happened to be sharply divided and those issues just don't come up in elections and I think at some level the population much of the population is quite aware of this and is I don't think it's lack of interest I think it's a feeling of lack of ability to do much about it but that is exactly but if we want to improve the situation in the country and I think we should you know that's the opportunity for activists organizers people who want to empower people and enable them to do things and it certainly can be done we do have a legacy of freedom it hasn't been a gift it's the result of struggle it was one we can use that legacy of freedom if we like or we can abandon it but those are choices no I'm John ski Farmington Michigan thank you for the opportunity I think you answered the part of my question regarding Iran and I had a follow-up with Bush administration increasing the rhetoric and being the drama war against Iran I wanted to know your opinion on US policy on Iran and what can we run do to confront in one hand oppressive regime at home and in another hand the possible US invasion of Iran Thanks yeah that's under the the situation in Iran is extremely difficult within Iran the it's pretty clear that substantial majority of the population wants to pursue the reform measures which will undermine the power of the a clerical autocracy and the set up of the country who makes that heart legislation can be passed a reformist legislation but then it has to be ratified by the clerical authorities and of course they always turn it down so they veto all the reforms legislation and they've got force behind them they have military force paramilitary and military force so the population is facing a difficult internal situation now that situation we can help the reformist movements or we can hinder them we're hindering them by threatening invasion that simply gives credibility to a more authoritarian and harsh and brutal elements the country is under threat of attack that's you know that's what's going to happen we see it right here the way the Bush administration has used the threat of terror which is real to impose authoritarian measures and to control the population in ways which are unacceptable and the same is happening in Iran of course efforts from the outside to help the two through diplomacy through commercial relations through trade and so on to integrate Iran into the region in the world that can only that's the best thing we can do to help the the progressive reformist elements in ever had which do want to turn it into a more free and democratic society we can't solve the problems for them but we can improve the conditions under which they can deal with their own problems and it's not gonna be easy for them they're facing harsh internal constraints about an hour to go on in-depth with Noam Chomsky's Spokane Washington hello hello gentlemen first dr. Chomsky I would like to thank you so much for elucidating all the problems of political arenas around the world for me in contrary to a speech you came from one one deny I am a community center I'm an international first student and economics major and I'm a senior and so there are a lot of international first majors that I very much interested in in your opinions early on in the program a gentleman called from the military and and he stated on don't you feel that a country should protect its population and his borders as well as its economy yes given I I'm a little curious one in stating that yes you feel that a country's economy should be protected you are inherently stating that yes we should send the military to enforce the rules of a corporation and the corporation of course now and unfortunately in this country being seen as an empty actually having as you said more rights than an individual you are saying that it's okay all right yeah well in that case I was speaking not very clearly I understood the question to mean should we protect it does a country have a right to protect itself from attack okay so if someone attacks from abroad to say you know destroy American agriculture and Industry do we does the country have a right to defend itself yeah I think it does but your maybe I spoke badly but you're interpreting what I said as meaning do we have a right to send the military abroad to enforce the domination of us-based corporations no of course that's not defending the economy in the sense that I had in mind so I think I'm an agreement with your point if I understand that guess some more books some of the 98 books you've published in your life here's Noam Chomsky pirates and emperors old and new international terrorism in the real world new edition what year is this reason we put out the first one which was just pirates and emperors was 1986 right in the middle of the reagan-bush war on terror as they called it remember that the war on terror was read eclair Don September eleventh not declared first one was 20 years earlier and it was just reissued with new essays bringing it up to date since 1986 here's another one foreword by Edward Saeed faithful triangle updated edition the United States Israel and the Palestinians now that was written in 1983 right after the Israeli invasion of Lebanon and it was updated in 1999 with a number of essays articles about the intervening period there's hunger Noam Chomsky understanding power the indispensable Chomsky what year did this come out that was I was really surprised that I didn't know that that material existed it's mostly from transcripts of lengthy discussions an ATAR interchanges if I recall from about 10 years ago actually this particular version is 2002 what was published then yeah but I think most of the material in it is from the earlier period the two editors at Peter Mitchell and John shuffle did a fantastic job of I know how they did it of finding the discussion and transcripts material putting them together they also put on put on the internet there are no footnotes in the book they put the footnotes on the internet and they it's really their footnote they have elaborate sources backgrounds extensive material it's a terrific reference I use it tonight Norton Virginia go ahead please consider it a great honor to be able to speak with dr. Johnston I'm so impressed by what I've just heard that I have a difficult formulating my question what I wanted to ask about is in his capacity as a linguist does he think do you think dr. Chomsky that a lot of the repression abuse of power that we're seeing going on and terrorism included is a fear of Goddess energy and do you know this goddess or the female goddess energy got us into co se in regard to the Gaia hypothesis well first of all as a linguist I've actually nothing to say about this there's no professional special knowledge that bears on your question [Music] tell you the honest truth I don't really think say about it I be interested in knowing what you think not there since I had obviously thought about it go ahead and landing on there I appreciate mr. Chomsky yeah thank you for being on the show and doing your best to be a great American what what the founders were in Hayek's words and constitutional liberties what Hayek thought he was was an old Whig as opposed to the modified Whig that showed up in 1830s which was a part of the manufacturing of a new sense of what we were but in your book about rethinking Camelot I to be a patriot rather than a court dissident I think you have to look to the actual documents the proof of the senior Bush complicity in the CIA's assassination of President Kennedy and to suggest that there was no change when we went back to federal reserve notes from Kennedy's us notes as well as the 58,000 who subsequently died in the Roman colony of Indochina trying to preserve the interests of the 5% Catholics who own ninety-five percent of wealth is denying a thread in the tapestry of history that the Jews and the Gentiles had founded this country knew about that was embodied in Jefferson's letter to Samuel Khrushchev all identifying the real Antichrist is this engine for enslaving mankind which is exactly who the corporations that you apparently rail against now represent around the world I mean this is the oil industry is Roman Catholic Cheney and Rockefeller merely their hired help and the Bush family funded Hitler that's a put him on the front of Time Magazine's Man of the Year and you I understand your reticence to speak to the facts but when we know we can send up a human crying go after Bush for his complicity by the FBI documents Kitchell document of november 22nd 1963 which you can get new Hoover's document which Bush denies but which places him in the CIA a week later as well as the court case hunt versus Liberty Lobby that the jury determined the CIA in fact committed the crime I think a person of your stature has an obligation to the country particularly your age none of us got here alive to call a spade a spade and say what's true if we're going to be a righteous land and the land that all of our ancestors believe this country should be well I agree we should call a spade a spade and say what we think is true in the book most of what you talked about I don't know anything about so it won't comment on but the specific thing that you did raised my book rethinking Camelot I wrote it because there had just been the the State Department had just released extensive documentation about the early 1960s a period which I'm very much interested in in connection with Vietnam it supplemented the mass of information that was already available from the Pentagon Papers and many other sources when the Pentagon Papers came out that was an unusually rich source because that was not declassified material that it was material that was not intended to reach the public so it's kind of like capturing some country's archives so that was unusually rich material I would was involved in in at some extent and the wrote about it right away that's this book for reasons of state that was mentioned is mostly about the Pentagon Papers the new book every thinking Camelot was about this included the subsequent documentation in my view I'm telling calling a spade a spade the way I see it the documentation which is unusually rich demonstrates as close to conclusively as you can come in matters of history which is always uncertain but demonstrates very persuasively that the John F Kennedy was a hawk on Vietnam he wanted to get the troops out but so did everyone but only after victory he made that very clear and explicit there is no indication in the documentary record that I can find that he had any intention other than that and there is furthermore no indication of any significant change after the assassination the policy continued on course same people directing it as under the Kennedy as under Kennedy pretty much the same people pursuing the same programs as conditions changed their tactics changed but there's no reason that I know of the belief that he would have done any differently and the same on other issues um the assassination was a crime and an atrocity but the idea that there was any kind of high-level conspiracy behind it seems to me extremely unlikely on the basis of any evidence I can discover and I've looked pretty hard Mount Laurel New Jersey good afternoon to you professor Chomsky I agree with most of what you've said in the past and in this program as well I have three observations to make that I have collected over the last few months particularly after watching the media circus with regard the Iraq war and what happened unfortunately after the 9-1-1 incidents firstly my general feeling is that more and more Americans are being deluded into thinking that they're saviors of the world democracy you know it's a feeling it's a prevalent feeling which is propagated with the media as you said before it's just like how Britain used to say for India you know there's like we are the people we are giving the right kind of things to these people these poor people living in their misery and in the Superstition we are the ones who are like teaching in the art of survival in this new civilized world you know it's like that kind of an attitude the second thing is one would probably think that after the nine-one-one after the grievous misfortune which happened there would be some humility and some understanding and some feeling among the public to understand the causes of what why these things have happened and you know also try to understand the sheer feeling of indignity which is felt by people from different parts of the world but unfortunately the public is becoming more annoyed and deeply mistrustful of people from other races within their own country because of what happened to nine one one and the third thing is that as far as people like you are concerned you're one of the few people the voice of reason which appear from time to time in different media to undo the propaganda by these mainstream media but several times such voices like yours are hijacked by other people like radicals or rock stars or movie stars and things like that so it all seems to undermine the credibility of the cause that we are trying to portray before America this is what is right there should people really be thinking you know well those are good questions they can each take one hour's discussion the on the first Americans being deluded by the media we have just seen a spectacular example of that the which has been discussed around the world I should say on September the campaign began about the you know the from beat of war about invading Iraq and at the same time the gut there was a massive government media propaganda assault charging or at least insinuating that Iraq was an imminent threat to the security of the United States and even that that Saddam Hussein was involved in al-qaeda style terrorism that he was behind there may be involved in 9/11 and planning future atrocities that's been and that had an effect if check the polls very quickly majority of the population did come to believe that Iraq is a direct threat to us security the US was alone in the world in believing that Saddam Hussein was a threat I mean he's hated all over the place and rightly but not regarded as dangerous so the countries that he invaded Iran and quite you know despised him happy to see him drawn and quartered but they didn't fear him I mean they know perfectly well that Iraq was the weakest state in the been virtually disarmed its military expenditures were about a third of quoits which is 10% of its population in fact they had been moving to try to reintegrate Iraq into the general regional system though the despise Saddam it's only in the United States that people thought he was a threat to their security and that was government media propaganda the connection was with with terror was completely fabricated and it was so effective that in Bush's Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier speech he was able to say without fear of ridicule that the victory in Iraq was a victory in the war on terror I was quite the contrary if anything it increased the threat of terror by increasing recruitment for terrorist groups as predicted by the intelligence agencies again that's spectacular propaganda as can the connection with 9/11 is so such a fantasy that it's hard to discuss you won't find that Intelligence Agency or serious strategic analysts in the world because any credibility to that but over the months from the beginning of the propaganda campaign a large part of the population by now probably a majority actually came to believe it so yeah there's plenty of delusion your point about Britain and India is very pertinent I suspect you're Indian and it's it's pretty much I mean the u.s. is not inventing this it's following closely the model of other imperial powers so when a Britain crushed India India was one of the major commercial industrial centres of the world back in the 18th century after two centuries of British rule that had become an impoverished mostly agricultural society the it wasn't until after Britain was expelled that in the renewed its course of development and indeed after Britain was expelled that there were no more famine up through the whole British period there were massive famines but Britain did disregard itself and in fact many British still regard themselves as benefactors civilizer who were going to India to you know help the Nate the poor natives by some of the leading British intellectuals very you know some of the most honorable people in modern intellectual history people like John Stuart Mill wrote the most outrageous nonsense about British benevolence in India and how it had was there to save the barbarians and so on and so forth so you know the under the Continental powers if you take a look or even worse so yes this is an old story and the u.s. is following a very familiar but extremely ugly path and in this kind of self delusion as the as for the feeling among the public after 9/11 you know it's very hard to judge public sentiments but at least my impression is different from yours it seems to me that 9/11 was a kind of a wake-up call for a lot of people the United States is a very insular society that most people don't pay much attention to what goes on outside and in fact people don't know much about the outside world they don't geography history sold something out there but the impact of September 11th part of the impact I think was to make people feel we better find out something about the world and our role in it and the way people feel and so on and there was a notable increase very great increase in requests for talks and sales of books all the small publishers I had that were started republishing books that had been out of you know been out of print for years but just because the demand grew so much I mean I know myself the request for talks and discussions just skyrocketed after 9/11 and everyone else who's publicly available had the same experience I think it was a very healthy reaction they were also unhealthy reactions of the kind that you mentioned there there too life is a complicated affair but some of the reactions were healthy sensible and an opportunity to build on I think a lot of the massive protests against the Iraq war which was unprecedented is based on that as to the hijacking of voices well you know people can do what they want you just it's up to each individual you everyone else to decide what makes sense what doesn't make sense north wid Mira New York go ahead please I'd like to ask you regarding your history with Zionism do you see a difference between a Jewish homeland and a Jewish state yeah yeah so I mean one could debate the validity of having a Jewish homeland in Palestine that's the question but let's accept that for the moment the part of the Zionist movement that I belong to and my parents as well I should say back in the 30s and 40s did was committed to reestablishing to establishing a kind of Jewish homeland in Palestine it's debatable but yeah that was my position then and still is a Jewish state is a different matter that's a state which in fact the groups that I was part of were calling for by national settlement in Palestine a bi-national Palestine Jewish and Palestinian society based on it was a socialist movement so based on coopera there was big co-operative movement collectives and so on efforts to integrate the general populations into it how realistic that was or even how valid one can debate but it's quite different than the notion of a Jewish state once the state was established in 1948 a lot of these questions became and as I said before I think the state itself should have whatever rights any state can legitimately claim and as I mentioned I don't think states can claim many rights but maybe any but whatever they have in the international system this is one of them but to be a Jewish state or an Islamic state or a Christian state or a white state that's a different matter Madison Wisconsin go ahead please yes I wanted to follow up on a comment that professor Chomsky made with regard to trade agreements from what I understand foreign corporations have even more rights in the United States than American corporations do because the foreign corporations are entitled to sue the US government for financial losses supposedly caused by American laws say governing discrimination in the workplace or the environment well that's not just foreign corporations I mean the trade laws do grant corporations rights that human beings don't have included among them are measures it's a complicated matter but there are measures which in effect allow corporations to sue governments for alleged the you know loss of profits and so on and some such suits have been carried out by US corporations incidentally against Mexico against Canada and in principle other corporations in other countries could do that here too these in my view are completely illegitimate you can't sue Mexico I can't sue Mexico but metal-clad corporation was able to sue Mexico because they claimed that environmental laws passed by a Mexican province interfered with their right to put I think it was a waste disposal dump there or something and they actually won under after rules but that's a mutual that's not just foreign corporations corporations Eureka California yes professor Chomsky have a three quick questions for you they're simple to answer other than voting what can a person do there's one thing I'd like to know about the crude situation the other thing is other than the Constitution what document or one book would you suggest a person read and third are you ever going to get your own talk show on radio well the answer the last one no I've never heard a man talk sure I couldn't handle it and I'd never get it anyway on the second question I really can't mention one book that people should read it depends on your own interests and concerns I'm asked a lot to give people you know reading lists but until you know the only people who can decide what they ought to read or the people themselves they know their interests they know the concerns they know their degree of commitment I mean if you ask a question you know what should you read about this and that topic I may have a suggestion but what book should you read I can't say you want to know something about the history of the United States one book I'd suggest is a book by old close friends who was on this program just a year ago Howard Zinn his people's history of the United States which i think is just sold its millionth copy there's a terrific introduction to the history of the United States in a way in which it is not usually taught but should be so that's one suggestion as far as voting is concerned voting is fine thing I'm glad we have the right to vote but you have to have somebody to vote for you know there have to be issues and candidates and what are called sometimes secondary associations that means organizations of people who press their own interests and concerns then voting can become meaningful so let's say take the primary system in the United States and just ask how it works say New Hampshire primaries what happens is candidates come to town and they say here's what I stand for vote for me and then they go somewhere else that people are listening to them probably you don't believe what they're saying I have no special reason to but that's not the way a democracy got a function the way a democracy oughta function is the people in the town should say get together discuss and work out what they think ought to happen in the country and then they should invite people either they elect their own candidate pick their own candidates which is the best way or if others are running for office say okay come here and we'll tell you what we think you ought to do if you're elected if you don't want to do that then go away this is what we want that would be democratic more democratic but until things like that happen on a very large scale there isn't going to be a functioning democracy if you don't do i I tend to vote for local candidates and as it goes up the scale ident fold less and less because I think they're less and less responsive to the population and less and less and more responsive to external forces however it varies you know and then it's really a particular choice case-by-case el paso go ahead yes dr. Chomsky I've been a fan of yours for many years and regarding the last caller's questions books that should be read I've read a couple of interest to myself lately that I'd like to hear your comments on one of them is Ann Coulter's book called slander which talks a lot about the liberal media and I'd like to ask you what you think we in the public can do to get the media the mainstream media to respond and give more conservative views and more international views and we're currently being fed by the newspapers and the mainstream media broadcast my second question has to do with the book by John Peters from time immemorial and I find that a very well researched book and I was appalled to learn of the British involvement and the state of affairs that exists now in Israel and I was also appalled to learn of the delusions that have been passed down for apparently centuries regarding the history between the Israelis and the Arabs in what you call you know the Jewish homeland Thanks caller okay well the John Peters book I'm sorry to say is a hoax which was exposed and was withdrawn from publication after exposure and it's now come back I'm surprised to see when the book first came it looks well researched on the surface what's the point the the book oh the book claims that the Palestinians are recent immigrants who came in after the Jewish settlement and therefore they can sort of go home and there's no moral issue it has a lot of footnotes and what looked like a lot of sources it was immediately analyzed very carefully the best work on it was done by Norman Finkelstein you can read a detailed analysis of it in his excellent book image in reality and the israel-palestine conflict but he exposes very quickly it was also exposed in Israel by some of the leading scholars who pointed out this nonsense the book had a wonderful reception in the United States the publishers then made an editorial error and allowed it to appear in England as soon as it appeared in England it was demolished and by scholars by journalists by everyone it was then kind of withdrawn here people withdrew their support for it and it disappeared I'd suggest you look very carefully at the critical discussion of it before relying on what it says as Fran Coulter I didn't read her book but you know talk about the liberal media it just doesn't make any sense I mean for one thing you know the media have a if you want to say the media or liberal I can't disagree I mean so the journalists tend to support choy woman's choice yeah probably do they believe in civil rights yeah probably but that hasn't was nothing to do with the content of the media the if you want to I've never in my little OTT about the media but I've never talked about liberal conservative bias but I don't think it means anything you want to understand the media first of all take a look at their content okay I gave one example before the propaganda fantastic propaganda which managed to convince people of these incredible delusions about Iraq it's not that the media came out and said Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9/11 but they permitted distribution of those charges uncritically in such a way that the population actually became came to believe it and there's case after case of this before this I earlier in the program I mentioned that you can't find a map in the media of the the Clinton Barack offers of a settlement in Camp David which was so highly praised well you know I don't know if that's liberal bias or conservative bias but it's not a journalistic integrity if you want people to understand what this proposal was showing them that that's the way to decide what it was and that was withheld and there's case after case of this i think there's enormous documentation of the fact you can check it if you like that the shaping the choice of topics the shaping of information the you know the basic assumptions and so on fall within a fairly narrow spectrum which tend to be highly supportive of state and corporate power i don't think it's either liberal or conservative it's just the way things work when i'm some of my favorite newspapers are called very conservative like the news reporting on the wall street journal is as good as any i know maybe better and it's supposed to be a conservative Journal but the the question is what is the media product and then if you want to understand it you don't look at liberal and conservative whatever they mean you look at the institutional roots what kind of institutions are the media well you know turns out their major corporations tied in with even bigger ones their income comes from other businesses namely advertisers they're basically selling a product namely audiences to other businesses and I think if you look you'll find that the interests and concerns of the sellers and the buyers have a very powerful influence on the media product that has to be demonstrated not just asserted but that's my opinion and as I say I know there's a written a lot about it but I don't think has anything to do with liberal and conservative bias about 30-minutes Levin though I'm Chomsky Germans Bern New York go ahead please the internet as a source of news has any chance of really breaking the deadlock that you so well spoke of in your book manufacturing consent and continue to speak about the Internet has been a tremendous value in education and organization and in going around the framework of sort of doctrinal control that comes from the main institutions that's happened here most of the activism of the past years has been internet-based take say the world Social Forum which is completely without precedents a huge international movement aiming at more just a global justice and more just international economic and social political arrangements a hundred thousand people showed up in porto alegre brazil last year representing great numbers of people throughout the world almost entirely through internet interactions you can't find anything about it in the main media the opposition to the multilateral agreement on investments which was strong enough powerful enough to get the powerful state the main states to back off from it was internet organized other countries have done even war the overthrow of the Suharto dictatorship in Indonesia was substantially based on internet communication among students and others not a lot of people had internet access there but enough so that they could get around the dictatorial controls and help create a popular movement which overthrew the dictator in South Korea there was just as remarkable demonstration of democracy through the internet and their last election South Korea happens to be a very wired up country I think probably more than any in the world for capita and through the internet it was it became it was possible to develop what amounted to alternative media that broke the media monopoly helped organize and bring people together in support of the candidate who actually won South Korea can teach us some lessons and the way democracy should work this was a real achievement and it's something that is a model for others on the other hand we should also bear in mind that the Internet is a you know it's got many facets it's also a method of coercion and domination it's also a source of a lot of fantasy you can put up anything you like on the Internet good thing but it has its negative aspect you have to read what you find there with critical caution and skepticism Falls Church Virginia hi it's a real pleasure to talk to you Brian mr. Chomsky I've got three quick points that I'd like comment on one is he's familiar with the Bible Code and is there any truth to that to comment on House Republicans can take sayings like a rising tide lifts all boats and imply that tax cuts help the poor when if the tide if there if that's if you really think about the analogy you have rowboats that are owned buying the yachts and they're claiming that because that that but when they get richer that the rowboats are going to rise and as robo's represent minimum wage they've actually funk and the third is solution to his real Palestine a states carved between Egypt and Israel from the Gaza Strip to the inlet on the other side just equal amount of land from each side for me from Israel and Egypt buy out the land and provide a Palestinian state what do you think of that thank you well on the Bible code you know you've got to make your own judgment but I don't put any credence in it on the rising tide lifting all boats that's really vulgar propaganda that means exactly as you said it's just the opposite the tax cuts are targeted for the benefit of the rich overwhelmingly and the chances that it'll even stimulate the economy are very if you want to stimulate the economy you don't put money into the hands of the wealthiest part of the population you put money into the hands of the poorer parts of the population we'll spend it and that'll stimulate investment and so on it's not a stimulus to the economy it's a gift to the wealthy and to call it a the propaganda that's behind it is disgraceful on israel-palestine the idea of a one to one land swap it does make sense but if you take a look at the map think proposal that you made isn't gonna work there's no way of making a land swap on the egypt-israel border that would mean anything the it wouldn't do any good for Gaza and it and the main Palestinian population is in the West Bank that's where they live that's where they have a right to live at least you know they have other claims which they've mostly abandoned but at least the 22 percent of the mandatory Palestine that is in the West Bank should be effectively theirs maybe with some land swaps along the border but Israel did offer a little piece of the Negev cutting it out as a gesture in the Clinton Barack offers but that was meaningless if you looked at where it was it didn't mean a thing Phoenix go ahead please yes I really disagree with your comment about the United States sanctioning or determining Israeli policy it seems to me into most Americans that with the three billion dollars and heed that we give to Israel every year and the three billion in military dollars and then now recently with eleven billion dollar loan back Spencer our F greed too that Israel is basically got us by the short hairs right now with a pack and jinsa giving money to the congressman they can't turn around and vote against these things so all you have all these all this money that's going to Israel it turns around gets used by the military complex to buy weapons for Israel and the United States citizens being but losing control of their congressmen because if they vote against these things then they get put like like Jim Moran being ostracized for stating the truth then you have a situation where you have the Pentagon controlled by Wolfowitz and Pearl and dr. that crime who have millions of 800 million dollars missing in appropriations that Americans feel helpless in terms of how money is being given to Israel spent for the benefit of Israel and then you say that that we control Israel I think you got it entirely backwards I'd like your comment about that yeah well it's a topic I've written about a lot and I won't try to run through it but there has been a debate for some time as to the sources of us what's called us support for Israel I don't even like that phrase I think it's very harmful to Israel but us support for Israeli expansion and militarism that's what it is what are the sources of that well you know of one theory is what you describe it's the lobbies and the influence on Congress and so on my view is that the record doesn't support that what it shows I think and I've tried to give the evidence for this in print is that the u.s. relationship to Israel has very closely tracked the conception of Israel as a what's called a strategic asset for the United States I can't run through the record now but I think if you look through it you'll find that as Israel was regarded as part of the effectively the part of the US system for dominating Middle East oil resources which is the main concern in so far it was recognized as an asset for that connections with Israel increased so in 1958 for example the US intelligence for the first time described it called for a more support for Israel because on the grounds that as they put it a logical corollary of our opposition to Arab nationalism is support for Israel as one of the as a reliable base for u.s. power in the region alongside of Turkey and at that time you ran these are the so-called peripheral States that oppose Arab nationalism in 1967 us support for Israel shot up but that was not because of effects on Congress it was because Israel performed a major service to the United States it destroyed the center of Arab nationalism namely Nasser's Egypt which was regarded as a threat to the oil-producing monarchies and to US domination of the region okay Israel wiped it out aid Israel way up and I think the record continues like that by now Israel's become virtually an offshore US military base a lot of as you mentioned a lot of the money that goes to Israel comes right back to the United States and military equipment in the high-tech industry and by now there that just very closely enter integrated as highly militarized societies based on heavily on high-tech military industry by now Israel has a military forces which according to their own army the IDF the air and armored forces are larger and more advanced than those of any NATO power outside the United States though it's a tiny country but that's because it's a effectively an offshore military base for the United States and I think when the United States has not wanted Israel to do something and it's told them so they always back down the lobby goes away has little effect but it's it's arguable I mean there's evidence on both sides and I suggest you pursue it Boston you're next yes my question is in regard to the Green Party I understand norm as a supporter would that be true in general yeah supporter in principle I had my own view if you're asking how I thought people had a vote in the 2000 election is that I was supported what was called at the time you know tactical voting I mean in states like Massachusetts where the outcome was clear in advance I think it made sense to vote for the Green Party as a way of building up an alternative and ultimately important organization and the political life of the country in states that if I had been voting in Florida I would have voted against bush because I thought there was enough of a difference between the candidates to want it not to go to bush in the Republicans so it's a support but yes next Barstow California you're on the air Barstow go ahead dr. Chomsky I wanted to ask how you can possibly turn to the UN as some source of moral authority it seems to me Eck I don't see how it can be regarded as anything other than a totalitarian instrument of the same corporate elites that you claim there is interest you claim to oppose well the UN is first of all the UN remember can do nothing beyond what the great powers primarily the United States allow it to do so it operates within a framework set by great power interests nevertheless it does represent a wider range of interests and concerns than any particular country I don't say it's a moral authority and I've never called it that but the UN has can become and to some extent has been a important and effective instrument for doing many good things in the world it cannot do so beyond the limits of what the great powers will permit I have a stack of emails here and we're running out of time and I'm if you don't mind keeping the answers short I'll try to go through a bunch Bob Feldman thought you might be interested in asking MIT professor Chomsky one is it true that the twelfth largest recipient of US Air Force War research contracts in 1999 MIT also provides him with office space for his literary work I don't know if it's the twelfth largest but it's certainly a big military contractor so for example in the 1960s when I was very active against the war and involved in direct resistance facing jail in jail and so on I was actually a hundred percent funded by the Pentagon I in fact MIT altogether if I remember the figures was about 90 percent Pentagon funded or something like that and it's undoubtedly still a substantial less much less than that but a substantial military contractor also there's some book being questions so MIT administers laboratories which are full-time Pentagon laboratories but whether it's twelfth largest or not I can't tell you this is from San Francisco and I'm sorry about the pronunciation that's you mayor it looks like I'm curious as to what Professor Chomsky's reaction was to hearing that President Carter was awarded Nobel Peace Prize well I don't think that the recipients so the the Nobel Peace Prize is a very mixed story in the case of Carter what he was offered the prize for is what we should be asking about he was primarily offered the prize because of the Camp David peace agreements in nineteen seventy seventy eight which established a peace treaty between Egypt and Israel and that was regarded as a great diplomatic triumph and so on that's a gross misrepresentation of the facts and what in fact the peace treaty was based on an offer that Egypt made in 1971 in 1971 President Sadat of Egypt offered a full peace treated Israel mentioning nothing about the Palestinians nothing about the occupied territories full peace in return for Israeli evacuation of Egyptian territory Sinai Israel can recognize that as a genuine peace offered considered it turned it down because they wanted to expand into the Sinai the US had to make a choice at that point Egypt was in fact following the u.s. position official position the u.s. had to decide whether to persist in that or to shift it and support Israeli expansion Henry Kissinger called for what he called stalemate no negotiations just reliance on force the us back to Israel's rejection of the offer that led almost directly to the 1973 war which was very dangerous for Israel very destructive almost led to a nuclear war years of oppression violence and terror finally in 1977 and 78 the US and Israel basically accepted so that's original offer I don't regard that as a diplomatic triumph I think was a diplomatic catastrophe Matthew Conover hi I'm a bit of a fan of mr. Chomsky's work since picking necessary allusions five or six years ago since then I've read countless essays and interviews in finding American power and the new mandarins rather relevant to current events however mr. Chomsky makes it clear he doesn't like his personal life discussed because he disdains the cult of personality I completely understand this but it doesn't stop me from being curious about his life so I was excited to read The New Yorker profile a couple of months ago I'm just wondering if mr. Chomsky also read it and what his thoughts are about it are I wouldn't comment on it frankly but did you cooperate except to advise you not to take anything in it seriously unless you can verify it independently it's it's an attack on a political hated political enemy in an attempt to discredit them you can decide for yourself whether it's right or wrong but just check anything verifiable and attack on Union events did I understand later up did you talk to them I talked to anybody you know any journalist comes into my office I talk to them MacFarquhar was the woman who wrote the piece I believe but I say you that's for you to judge just check through anything in it that you can verify okay and see what you discover hello dr. Chomsky this is from Catherine B King you give us your severus criticism of the left as a general movement that also has manifest in today's ethical and political situation I think we may learn more about how to make things work from such a critique than from the current polemic with the right so should there be a critique of the left will you give us and I give her C criticism of the left well you know the left is so amorphous I don't know what to say I mean there are parts of the left that I disagree with radically there are parts of what's called the left that I support the I just know how to comment I mean their thing many of the positions taken by people who are considered on the left I think are completely wrong others completely right you have to go case by case Jerry Stinson of Greenwich Connecticut two or three weeks ago I emailed professor Chomsky on the importance of voting George W Bush out of office in November 2004 is courteous reply expressed agreement that this particular president should not be given an additional four years in office assuming then that professor Chomsky believes President Bush is worth mobilizing voters against I'd like to hear his reasons for believing so to put it very simply what's so bad about President Bush well there are President Bush stands for an international and a domestic policy both of which I think are extremely dangerous the domestic policy is what was discussed earlier to drive the country into a fiscal train wreck through the tax cuts benefiting the wealthy which will lead to the elimination of social programs like those that Ari Fletcher mentioned Medicare Medicaid Social Security probably schools others and turn the popular and return the population to the country to a period before the progressive legislation of the past century which has very much improved things I think it's perfect but it's been an improvement I think that's a disaster internationally the program is exactly what was stated in the national security strategy a call for us global domination through force with acceptance of the right to attack anyone who might potentially challenge us domination that's outlandish I mean that's a call for us to be submitted the Nuremberg trials Greenwich Connecticut you're on they're very ironic that was my letter you read if I could just ask the rest of the the other question and that is is this you Jerry Stenson yes okay I rest of us is there a candidate or undeclared Democrat or not who you believe offer a significant alternative to Bush and can win is that what you want that's it Thanks thank you well there are two questions there are significant alternative and can win like I think Dennis Kucinich offers a very significant alternative but whether you can ever remember an election in the United States unfortunately is a media campaign a media so in fact based on huge funding primarily corporate funding its public relations show and we ought to change that but that's the way it is on other candidates it's a complicated story I won't comment New York City dr. Tomsky the privilege to speak with you I was wondering if I could get your thoughts on the u.s. his most recent immigration policy where it is drastically reducing the numbers of highly skilled and professional educated workers from China India Pakistan and other developing countries ostensibly to reduce unemployment among qualified Americans and yet on the other hand they are freely granting Immigration and Citizenship to workers from Mexico Cuba who are for the most part minimum wage earners I was wondering if you thought there were any political as opposed to economic reasons for this well groups Cuba's a separate case I mean people the US has been trying to stimulate immigration from Cuba but that's for because it's been trying since 1959 to bring down the Cuban government Mexico again is a special case low-wage Mexican labor is you know maintains part of the lifestyle of Americans by producing extremely it's extremely cheap exploited labor which is working under inhuman conditions and the agricultural system that's a disgrace in itself as to keeping out more skilled workers well you know that's groups that have power are going try to protect themselves and skill professionals do have a wield considerable power they don't want to be a Vanowen competition whether what immigration policy should be like is a another question altogether I mean if we believed in free trade if anybody believes in free trade they would accept Adam Smith's principle that free trade is based on free distribution of Labor free movement of labor and not just free movement of capital is that a correct policy well probably not because there are a lot of other issues that conflict with it about you know maintaining national cultures and all sorts of other things so I think it's it's not easy to state generally what an immigration policy should be like but the reasons for the choices that you're pointing to I think are reasonably clear I know you said we should make up our own mind on the New Yorker article but there's a couple of paragraphs I want to read and ask you about it has to do with your wife who is with you today Carol Astor she's how many how many years have you been married since 1949 Carol shares her husband views and has been politically involved herself but she dislikes the activists existence even more than he does my life has certainly not turned out the way I expected she said to me the interesting question is if I were in the position of making the choice to marry now would I choose him she went on that's a funny question who knows I mean it's very different from what I expected just in terms of the fame and notoriety and whatever you call it the intrusion of public life the ridiculous clutching at him the noblesse oblige aspect sometimes he says I just have to take that call we've actually got it now so that the phone almost never rings except when it's rings at 3 a.m. from some party where kids are having an excess ear a or nose or who knows what well he's got into contacts very much out of context and selected in order to present a certain impression I mean some of the words may be accurate but that's the reporters goal is to present a certain picture you can ask my wife how she thinks about that assuming we have more time we get around El Cajon California you're on the air dr. Chomsky I'm wondering if you might comment on the failure to find the weapons of mass destruction that were supposedly held by Iraq and the implications that would have for the United States and in the world if no such weapons are found thank you well there's in out in the rest of the world it's a big issue in England that's leading to major attacks on the government the former foreign secretary Robin Cook just had a long sharp critique of the government for simply lying to the public the position of the British government was very simple and straightforward you know that Mr Blair said today that he's going to lay out the information which will show that they have found weapons of mass today okay I haven't seen that yeah but up till now they have not presented any meaningful evidence what they I mean frankly I'm surprised I mean I would be very surprised if you couldn't find some evidence that Iraq was producing biological and chemical weapons my suspicion is if you actually 40 miles from Washington last week someone found it was they found anthrax and other bacteria that had been left over from some program presumably terminated so they claimed and you're certainly going to find that somewhere or other but the failure to find the weapons of mass destruction that were claimed and the undermining of specific claims has been pretty remarkable you'll recall that Colin Powell's position and the official government position here was his words the single issue is will Iraq disarm if that was the single issue and you can't find weapons of mass destruction that means plenty of fabrication and in fact the intelligence community itself is up in arms about this we got one call laughed and we're finished at noon in Georgia go ahead please if you had any thoughts on the late John rolls theory of Justice thanks we've just got a minute yeah well he was at he's a extraordinarily important philosopher and a wonderful person that knew him too from endlessly important book it revitalized political philosophy in the 20th century your immediate future you're hearing Washington do something later today I got talk as usual this afternoon back to Boston more talk more next button a book middle of a book almost finishing a book right now when will it be out as soon as I find enough scattered moments here and there to put it in the piece of the final pieces of it you're saying the fall I hope you're seventy-four years old yep coming up to 75 plan to retire anytime soon from all of us formally every tax a couple of years ago but that's formal just keeping changes no I don't see any major changes in the future if you've just joining us we've had three hours with dr. Noam Chomsky he's based at Massachusetts Institute of Technology a native of Philadelphia a graduate of Philadelphia versity of Pennsylvania 1949 got his MA there in 51 and his PhD in 55 and has published 98 books in his life thank you very much for joining us thank you thanks to our audience have a good day

Channel: Manufacturing Intellect

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Published: Mon Sep 04 2017