Noam Chomsky - Propaganda and the Public Mind

Praise for Propaganda and the Public Mind

In Propaganda and the Public Mind, we have unique insight into Noam Chomskys decades of penetrating analyses...drawn together in one slender volume by a brilliant radio interviewer, David Barsamian. They make clear that the new electronic media and their corporate culture ignore national boundaries and in that sense exceed in power individual nations of the world whose borders they so easily penetrate.

Ben Bagdikian, author, The Media Monopoly

To anyone who wonders if ideas, information, and activism can make a profound difference in the twenty-first century, I say: Read this book. Propaganda and the Public Mind challenges us to think more independently and more deeply about the human consequences of power and privilege. It also minces no words about the grim results of illusion and inaction. These discussions between Noam Chomsky and David Barsamian will inspire readers to explore wider possibilities.... What we do with it is up to us.

Norman Solomon, author, The Habits of Highly Deceptive Media

Contents

Praise for Noam Chomsky

An exploder of received truths.

New York Times

Reading Chomsky is like standing in a wind tunnel. With relentless logic, Chomsky bids us to listen closely to what our leaders tell usand to discern what they are leaving out.... The questions Chomsky raises will eventually have to be answered. Agree with him or not, we lose out by not listening.

Business Week

One of the radical heroes of our age....A towering intellect....Powerful, always provocative.

-The Guardian

Chomskys work is neither theoretical, nor ideological: it is passionate and righteous. It has some of the qualities of Revelations, the Old Testament prophets and Blake.

Times Literary Supplement

Noam Chomsky is like a medic attempting to cure a national epidemic of selective amnesia.

Village Voice

Praise for David Barsamian

David Barsamian is the Studs Terkel of our generation.

Howard Zinn, author, A Peoples History of the United States

In conversation [with David Barsamian], Chomsky is more relaxed, tentative, and discursive than he is in his books or his public speaking engagements.

Vancouver Sun

Copyright 2001 by Noam Chomsky and David Barsamian. First published in 2001 by South End Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts

This edition published in 2015 by

Haymarket Books

P.O. Box 180165

Chicago, IL 60618

773-583-7884

www.haymarketbooks.org

info@haymarketbooks.org

ISBN: 978-1-60846-444-9

Trade distribution:

In the US, Consortium Book Sales and Distribution, www.cbsd.com

In Canada, Publishers Group Canada, www.pgcbooks.ca

In the UK, Turnaround Publisher Services, www.turnaround-uk.com

All other countries, Publishers Group Worldwide, www.pgw.com

This book was published with the generous support of Lannan Foundation

and Wallace Action Fund.

Cover design by Josh On. Cover image of a gun-wielding police officer kicking Jody Hutchison as police attempt to clear anti-World Trade Organization protesters from an area near the hotel in which President Clinton is staying in Seattle, Wash. on Wed., Dec. 1, 1999. (AP Photo/Dan Krauss)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data is available.

Introduction

I first wrote to Noam Chomsky around 1980. Much to my surprise, he responded. We did our first interview four years later. Weve done scores since, resulting in a series of books, as well as radio programs. The interview collections have sold in the hundreds of thousands, which is remarkable since they have had virtually no promotion and have not been reviewed, even in left journals. In working with Chomsky over the years, Ive been struck by his consistency, patience, and equanimity. There are no power plays or superior airs. His rich and wry sense of humor often goes unnoticed in the fusillade of facts. In terms of his intellectual chops, he is awesome in his ability to take a wide and disparate amount of information and cobble it into a coherent analysis.

Chomsky is indefatigable. He is, a rebel, as Bono of U2 calls him, without a pause. In addition to producing a steady stream of articles and books on politics and linguistics, he maintains a heavy speaking schedule. He is in enormous demand and is often booked years in advance. He draws huge audiences wherever he goes, though not because of a flashy speaking style. As he once told me, Im not a charismatic speaker, and if I had the capacity to be one I wouldnt. Im really not interested in persuading people. What I like to do is help people persuade themselves. And this he has done probably with more diligence over a longer period of time than any other intellectual alive.

To cite just one example of his solidarity, in 1998 I asked him to come to Boulder to speak at KGNUs twentieth anniversary celebration. Notwithstanding being fatigued from recent surgery, he not only came but waived his fee.

Chomsky is a very special person to many peoplenot just in the United States, but around the world. Frequently hes introduced as someone who speaks truth to power. Its almost a clich. But thats not really what hes about. Hes about speaking truth to us, speaking truth to people. As he reminded us in a classic essay thirty years ago, It is the responsibility of intellectuals to speak the truth and to expose lies.

Like the Sufi sages of West and South Asia, Noam Chomsky teaches by practice. His practice includes an egalitarian spirit, where the Nobel Prize winner will sit and wait outside his office until the student writing an article for the high school newspaper finishes. His practice includes alerting us to the depredations of language, terms like free trade and national interest. His practice is exemplified in the solidarity and service he extends to people from East Timor to Palestine to Colombia to East Harlem. You need a speaker, you need a signature, you need help, Noam Chomsky is there. His practice is to tell you what he thinks, but not what you should think. His practice is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. Rather than simply curse the darkness, his practice is to light a candle for us to see.

Although decidedly secular, he is for many of us our rabbi, our preacher, our rinpoche, our pundit, our imam, our sensei.

David Barsamian

Boulder, Colorado

Acknowledgments

KGNU, in Boulder, is the nourishing community radio station from whence much of my audio activism springs. Sandy Adler is the transcriber par excellence. Elaine Bernard provides invaluable support. David Peterson is the fact checker extraordinaire. Bev Stohl is a great help on numerous levels. Thanks to Martin Voelker, Lincoln Clarkes, Sheila Anderson, and Mark Achbar for their photographs. Anthony Arnove is a terrific editor. Noam Chomsky is a gem of compassion.

Interview excerpts appeared in The Nation, The Progressive, Z , and on Z Net, and have aired on KGNU and Making Contact. The first interview was recorded in Boulder during Chomskys 1998 visit. The second, third, and sixth were all recorded at his home in Lexington, Massachusetts. Interviews four and five were done by phone from KGNU, with the East Timor one broadcast live at the height of the post-referendum crisis. The last interview was recorded at Z Media Institute in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

Activist Victories

Boulder, Colorado, May 10, 1998

Your busy speaking schedule has taken you recently to Toronto, Winona State University in Winona, Minnesota; Fort Wayne, Indiana; London, England; and today Boulder, Colorado. Whats going on at these events? I know youve been getting huge crowds.

You can see that the tour is building up in significance and importance, finally reaching the peak in Boulder. You cant do better than this. [Laughs.] Its pretty much whats been going on for a number of years now. There are very large, enthusiastic, and interested audiences that participate actively. They ask serious questions and want to talk about important issues. Topics that I never would have thought of discussing twenty years ago are now perfectly accessible to anyone. I really never think twice about what Im going to say to a particular audience. London is a different scene, but Fort Wayne was organized by the Northeast Indiana Labor Council, a collection of a couple of dozen unions in the industrial heartland. I dont know the Winona area very well, but I imagine its mostly farming and small industry. In both cases, you couldnt ask for a more involved, energetic, and thoughtful audience. They want to think hard about whats happening in the world and what they can do about it.