Chronicles of Dissent: Interviews with David Barsamian

In order ro get a real flavour of this book i would invite the reader to check out the sample pages provided - ... The first thing that must be said is that the purpose of the interviews is to get Chomsky to expand on and develop some of the thinking that informs his work. Thus whereas his work is heavy with empirical detail, the interview format permits more reflective and general observations. The reader (assumed to be basically sympathetic to Chomsky's work) is here permited to se some of the ideas and theoretical arguments which underlie and arise from the work. Any book, of course, presupposes a certian readership - that is pretty much a truism - so there is nothing wrong with assuming a basically sympathetic readership in this case. I mention this, only because any of you out there utterly antipathetic to Chomsky and expecting the interviewer to (attempt to) refute the vernerable old chap will be doubtless disappointed. But of course, I'm being silly, because those of you utterly opposed to Chomsky and disamissive of his work won't of course be wasting your time reading this book - or this review. Those of you, by contrast, with a serious interest in Chomsky's work but looking for lots of empirical data would be best off looking at some of his other stuff first. Chomsky provides immense evidence for each and everyone of his propositions.

I found this book more-or-less by accident, not realizing just what I was getting into. I was in 2nd year university I believe, and found this name Chomsky came up on many of the topical searches I would look up at the university library, with evocative (provocative?!?) titles like "deterring Democracy" "the Washington Connection and Third World Fascism" etc... I was curious. I have always been a seeker of truth, and have always been skeptical of power and its abuses and the fact that many, if not most, of the people I knew shared this scepticism, yet media never talked about what to all of us was plainly obvious. I actually did not take any of Chomsky's books out (so many it seemed kind of overwhelming), but I found one in a bookstore, chronicles of dissent. Interviews. Seemed like a good introduction. Talked about the Gulf war which was just ended and which I was really keen on learning more about. This event really started to make me wonder what in the hell was wrong with the world. I bought it for myself as a Christmas gift. I read it in a few days. I was so fascinated that someone could have such insight, such a good memory for history, economics, such a way of looking at events and facts from different angles than are normally presented. Much of what he said summed up (much more articulately of course) what had been going through my head over the past few formative years. Why doesn't everyone know about and read this guy I wondered. You find out pretty quickly after discovering Chomsky that he certainly has his share of detractors (read some of the reviews of recent works ie 9/11 for example!) So I occasionally read his detractors as well, and I must say they are seldom as convincing as he is, and he stands on a much higher moral ground than most (all?) of them, a voice of sanity in a wilderness of deception, propaganda and ideology. They seem to mostly repeat US government propaganda and try to call Chomsky an apologist for genocide, which is one of the biggest jokes I can imagine. Chomsky is merciless in his defense of real freedom, and in his denunciation of tyranny. A common thread in all he says and writes is that we (the west) must judge ourselves with the same (even higher he argues) standards as we judge our enemies, but that in no instance is this ever done by the intelligentsia community, becoming basically apologists for state atrocities and violence. This seems so obvious to me, yet there are several lunatics out there who criticise (even lambaste) him for suggesting that our crimes are anywhere near as significant as "theirs" (whoever the "them" of the month happens to be) He can write a meticulously well documented book on the effects of American intervention in Vietnam (ie many many corpses), and the some wacko criticises him for not talking about all of communist atrocities in the world even though that is not the topic of his book! His point is that communist atrocities are very well documented (occasionally fabricated even

Here are a few of my favorite quotes taken directly from "Chronicles of Dissent":"Education is a form of indoctrination, therefore we typically find in any society that the educated classes are more indoctrinated. They're the ones who are subject to the constant flow of propaganda which is largely dictated to them because they're more important, so they have to be more controlled. Furthermore, the educated classes become the instruments of propaganda. Their function in the society is to promulgate and develop the ideological principles. As a result they inculcate them, if they don't they're usually weeded out and are no longer part of the privileged elite. It's not at all unusual to discover the basic principles of the ideological system in any society most deeply entrenched and least critically accepted by the educated classes.""One of the things that's extremely nice about the United States is the degree of freedom that it has. It is a free society, much more so than any other, and that very freedom has led to problems. If you can't control people by force, you have to figure out other ways to control them. Corresponding to American freedom, which is unusual, are very highly sophisticated measures of ensuring that that freedom doesn't work. A whole array of devices have been developed to ensure that dissident opinion just isn't heard, although it isn't suppressed either, given American freedoms. ""The framework of thought is consciously manipulated by an effective choice and reshaping of terminology so as to make it difficult to understand what's happening in the world. A very important function of ideological institutions-the media, the schools, and so on-is to prevent people from perceiving reality, because if they perceived it they might not like it and might act to change it. That would harm privileged people who control these things."Sound interesting? That's only a part of Chomsky's opinions about THOUGHT CONTROL IN THE GOOD OLD U.S.A. There's much, much more where all that came from. And that's not even mentioning Chomsky's thoroughly damning, DOCUMENTED (often with declassified internal documents), criticisms of U.S. FOREIGN POLICY. Chomsky's criticisms and `conspiracy theories' are anything but `extreme,' and, though they can and should be disagreed with to a certain extent, they SIMPLY CANNOT BE IGNORED by any conscientious person or anyone interested in a plausible theory of the `big picture' of world events. "Chronicles of Dissent" is a series of conversations between Chomsky and Radio host David Barsamian and provides an accessible though thoroughly wide-scoped overview of Chomsky's thought. And whether you're new to Chomsky or not, you should also buy "Chomsky for Beginners," it's a great capsulizing of Chomsky's major obsessions for easy reference.

The battle of a linguist to reach a pinnacle of intelligent thought. As Howard Zinn does in Histroy, Chomsky questions the status quo and hypocrisies of power with the study of language in "Chronicles of Dissent". Deservingly broken down into gradual systematic subjects and into a more common vernacular (at times at interviewer David Barsamian's expense). Four out of five radical professors recommend it.

Chronicles of Dissent is an excellent way for people to get familiar with the views of Noam Chomsky. In this collection of interviews, Chomsky is relaxed and brings his analysis down a notch to "make it plain" for the average person. Covering a wide array if issues (The Middle East, US Foreign Policy, The UN, and The Propaganda System) Chomsky strips away the myths of American Democracy. He explains why he calls the PBS series on Vietnam "cheap propaganda and vulgar nonsense." The interviewer, David Barsamian, hardly ever challenges Chomsky, but this forum allows him to take the ball and run with it. A pefect book for those unfamiliar with this great mind.