The Life and Times of Noam Chomsky

Dissident Heart

The Life and Times of Noam Chomsky: A Brief History of America's Leading Dissident

On this special holiday edition of Democracy Now!, we spend the hour in an extended conversation with one of the leading dissidents and scholars in the United States, and that is Noam Chomsky. He is a professor of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is the author of Hegemony or Survival: America’s Quest For Global Dominance, 9-11, Power and Terror and dozens of other books. Noam Chomsky has appeared on this program many times over the past 8 years speaking about US foreign policy, occupation, war and resistance. Today we wanted to bring you some of Noam Chomsky’s personal story

Dissident Heart · Posted: Wed Dec 01, 2004 12:35 pm Post subject: Noam Chomsky: A Life of Dissent

From Robert F. Barsky's Noam Chomsky: A Life of Dissent. This link will direct you to the Electronic Version of the book.

Enjoy!

Quote:
As his massive body of publications attests, Chomsky's restless intellect has led him to embrace many fields, including social activism, history, the history of ideas, linguistics, philosophy, politics, cognitive sciences, and psychology.

Due to the complexity of each of these domains, it would be inappropriate to take a solely chronological approach to the writing of his biography. Chomsky has pursued a range of distinct interests simultaneously, and has been drawn into controversy and intellectual debate on several fronts over the years.

These interests are most clearly understood when looked at thematically. I have therefore divided this book into sections that deal individually with a series of subjects that are intimately connected to Chomsky's growth and impact. For the most part, I've written about each separately and chronologically, but when the sections are read together, they should combine to provide an overall sense of Chomsky's vast reach as a thinker and activist.

Discrete chapters can, then, be read as individual and autonomous wholes that reflect vital aspects of a complex personality.

Chapter 1 covers Chomsky's youth and the milieu with which he came into contact through his reading, his studies, and his affiliations; chapter 2 describes his work as a university undergraduate and, more particularly, his relationship with Zellig Harris; chapter 3 explores the foundation and the impact of his Cartesian and rational approach to linguistic and political thinking; chapter 4 emphasizes his university career, achievements, and projects, and summarizes his thoughts concerning the role of the intellectual in contemporary society and the relationship of the individual to the institution; chapter 5 addresses his role as dissenting voice within the American political scene by considering the various struggles with which he has been involved and some of the new modes of thought, notably postmodernism, that have taken root around him.

The conclusion looks at the relations between Chomsky's current work and the contemporary sociopolitical scene to which it speaks. Chomsky's intellectual and political endeavors do, of course, tend to overlap and intersect, and a casual pattern of these contact points gradually emerges as this biography unfolds.

It also becomes apparent that Chomsky has consistently applied a characteristic rigor, sense of responsibility, and compassion to his pursuit of these diverse interests: this is the common element that unites them all.

Dissident Heart · Posted: Sat Dec 04, 2004 11:34 am Post subject: Striking Iran

Striking Iran

Posted by Noam Chomsky at 12:51 PM

My guess is that the US will not attack Iran, either directly or via Israeli mercenary pilots flying US aircraft (which would be called an Israeli attack).

We do know that in the past year the US has provided over 100 advanced jet bombers to Israel, which already had a larger and more advanced air force than any NATO power (apart from the US itself), very openly advertised as capable of attacking Iran, and equipped with “special weapons” (whatever that means; it’s not explained). The goal may be to provoke Iran into some action that can provide a pretext for attack, or—more likely in my opinion—as an effort to provoke the leadership into harsher internal repression, which will incite resistance, and help break up the country from within, a long-term project. But we don’t know—and I doubt that US planners know.

I also don’t think that the US/Israeli military-intelligence can make an informed guess about what the response would be, from Iran or the world generally. The historical record of such predictions is awful. And there’s little point speculating about it. Rather, as usual, trying to do something about it. We’re not passive observers, or at least need not be.

Dissident Heart · Posted: Wed Dec 15, 2004 1:29 pm Post subject: State Terror Vs. Resistance

State Terror v.s. Resistance
by Noam Chomsky

Of course, the sentiment will seem outlandish to those who take it for granted that we are entirely justified in grinding people under our jackboot, using violence to impose conditions in which the resources of a country are freely open to exploitation by the rich and powerful and their population suffers in endless and unbearable misery, with a huge human cost, far beyond even wars....

The country was conquered by a US invasion a century ago under the pretext of liberating it from Spain, in fact to turn it into a US colony. It was a bloody massacre complete with torture and every imaginable barbaric crime, one of the most vicious wars of the colonial era, leaving 100s of thousands of corpses.

They’ve been under direct or indirect US control since, and are still the basket case of Asia; and now in the press again because of the huge toll of the latest storm, just like Haiti a few months ago, or Nicaragua a few years before.

Haiti holds the prize for US intervention through the 20th century and also the prize for poorest country in the hemisphere. In Haiti a few months ago, a tropical storm killed thousands of people, while the eye of the terrible hurricane of which the fringe hit Haiti passed right over Havana, with very few casualties and quick reconstruction.

Nicaragua holds second prize for US intervention in the 20th century, and is the second poorest country in the hemisphere. Hurricane Mitch killed huge numbers of people trying to survive on a nearly barren volcano, while the wealthy agribusiness plantation a few miles away benefited from the rainfall and had a bumper crop. And the country was practically devastated, by what the outstanding economic team of the Jesuit journal correctly called “a neoliberal disaster." These storms slaughter enormous numbers of very poor people because they live so close to the edge of survival at best, and are driven to cut down forests and to move to marginal land to try to survive, hence subject to terrible catastrophes that would be a mere nuisance where there is some minimal development and a functioning society.

And all of this is, of course, a mere footnote to the general misery we have played a major role in imposing and maintaining. Something for us to be very proud of.

So can we lament piously when they resort to criminal acts to try to free themselves from the horrendous conditions we impose on them? Some doubtless think so, like Nazi and Stalinist apologists wringing their hands over the terror of the Partisans and the Hungarian resistance.

Edited by: Dissident Heart at: 12/15/04 1:29 pm

Unknown · Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2007 1:51 am Post subject: Unknown

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