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Noam Chomsky, "War Crimes and Imperial Fantasies"
Two hours of talking CAN be interesting.
Important
Chomsky himself should require no introduction. He's the father of modern linguistics, a widely-quoted and thoroughly published critic, historian, scholar, and all that, so what is a label with records from King Missle, Merzbow, and Kimya Dawson doing releasing a Chomsky disc? It's just doing what we all should do: putting its money where its heart is and trying to let Chomsky drop the science on a whole new audience. The record in question is actually a two disc set from Important Records that captures a two-hour interview with Chomsky in his MIT office from earlier this year. Unsurprisingly, the topic of conversation steers towards the US invasion of Iraq and the historical perspective that the US Military action sorely lacks in common discourse. Like most of Chomsky's work that I've read or other interviews I've heard, he presents the listener with a kind of fact-checking decathalon challenge in the way he casually spits out detailed accounts of this or that international situation, military coup, or assassination scheme. It can be intimidating to take in, and following up on his strings of references and commentaries about historical events that have either been largely overlooked or spun into something else by the mainstream media is a task that few of us seem up to. It helps to know that Chomsky is a genius of a man who has devoted his life to studying and analyzing these events and the way they are presented in the media, and that he knows more about language than most of us know about anything. So, to the extent that he has read and understands these situations, I feel safe trusting at least the general gist of what he's on about. In the two-part interview, he talks about quotes from Errol Morris' fascinating documentary about Robert McNamara, The Fog of War and about the notion that US military leaders would be brought up on war crimes trials if they had lost the war. Chomsky calls this "a truism" and with his casual, deadpan way of speaking he suddenly makes what seemed like one of the most relevatory ideas in Fog of War seem like an obvious fact we should all have been aware of and working from for decades: that the victors of war get to write the rules about what is or isn't appropriate leads to an unsettling analysis of the war in Iraq as it exists as part of a larger quest of Imperialism by the most powerful nation on the globe. Anyone with even a passing interest in politics, US foreign policy, media analysis, or the war in Iraq will certainly find a lot to think about from Chomsky's discussion. For a two-hour interview, it flies by and I found myself wanting even more detail and an even deeper look into the subjects when it was over. Prong once put the album covers of old Sony big band records in their liner notes with the cheeky slogan "If you like Prong, you may enjoy these other Sony records," but in fact as different as this release is from the rest of the material on Important, it should feel no less at home in the collections of Jack Dangers, Acid Mothers Temple, and Muslimgauze records. After all, the issues Chomsky discusses are universal and the logic he uses to make his arguments applies to anyone thinking about these things rationally. The record is both inspiring and devastating as it peels back the layers of media deception and government propaganda to reveal an even more complicated and devious US foreign policy agenda. This is a perfect introduction to Chomsky for those who are uninitiated, and a great and insightful analysis for anyone.
Chomsky himself should require no introduction. He's the father of modern linguistics, a widely-quoted and thoroughly published critic, historian, scholar, and all that, so what is a label with records from King Missle, Merzbow, and Kimya Dawson doing releasing a Chomsky disc? It's just doing what we all should do: putting its money where its heart is and trying to let Chomsky drop the science on a whole new audience. The record in question is actually a two disc set from Important Records that captures a two-hour interview with Chomsky in his MIT office from earlier this year. Unsurprisingly, the topic of conversation steers towards the US invasion of Iraq and the historical perspective that the US Military action sorely lacks in common discourse. Like most of Chomsky's work that I've read or other interviews I've heard, he presents the listener with a kind of fact-checking decathalon challenge in the way he casually spits out detailed accounts of this or that international situation, military coup, or assassination scheme. It can be intimidating to take in, and following up on his strings of references and commentaries about historical events that have either been largely overlooked or spun into something else by the mainstream media is a task that few of us seem up to. It helps to know that Chomsky is a genius of a man who has devoted his life to studying and analyzing these events and the way they are presented in the media, and that he knows more about language than most of us know about anything. So, to the extent that he has read and understands these situations, I feel safe trusting at least the general gist of what he's on about. In the two-part interview, he talks about quotes from Errol Morris' fascinating documentary about Robert McNamara, The Fog of War and about the notion that US military leaders would be brought up on war crimes trials if they had lost the war. Chomsky calls this "a truism" and with his casual, deadpan way of speaking he suddenly makes what seemed like one of the most relevatory ideas in Fog of War seem like an obvious fact we should all have been aware of and working from for decades: that the victors of war get to write the rules about what is or isn't appropriate leads to an unsettling analysis of the war in Iraq as it exists as part of a larger quest of Imperialism by the most powerful nation on the globe. Anyone with even a passing interest in politics, US foreign policy, media analysis, or the war in Iraq will certainly find a lot to think about from Chomsky's discussion. For a two-hour interview, it flies by and I found myself wanting even more detail and an even deeper look into the subjects when it was over. Prong once put the album covers of old Sony big band records in their liner notes with the cheeky slogan "If you like Prong, you may enjoy these other Sony records," but in fact as different as this release is from the rest of the material on Important, it should feel no less at home in the collections of Jack Dangers, Acid Mothers Temple, and Muslimgauze records. After all, the issues Chomsky discusses are universal and the logic he uses to make his arguments applies to anyone thinking about these things rationally. The record is both inspiring and devastating as it peels back the layers of media deception and government propaganda to reveal an even more complicated and devious US foreign policy agenda. This is a perfect introduction to Chomsky for those who are uninitiated, and a great and insightful analysis for anyone. samples:
