Chomsky 2-pack

Includes:

Manufacturing Consent

The media like to present themselves as objective, balanced, and free from any bias or agenda. Reality suggests something quite different. The media function as weapons of mass distraction. Much of what passes as news is, sometimes subtle, sometimes crude, propaganda. The media are large conglomerates that serve to mobilize support for the special interests that dominate state and corporate power. In democratic societies, populations are not controlled by force. Rather, they are subject to more refined forms of ideological manipulation. Emotionally potent oversimplifications and necessary illusions are created and repeated endlessly. Embedded ideas, such as Washington’s right to intervene anywhere in the world, go unexamined and unchallenged. Consent is manufactured. The public, reduced to being spectators, is marginalized.

The Right Turn

The U.S. is an imperial power. After World War II, it emerged as the global hegemon. The right turn accelerates under Reagan and continues today. Its salient features are a massive transfer of resources from the poor to the rich, an increase in state power and an aggressive interventionist foreign policy enabled by a huge military apparatus with bases all over the world. The empire’s activities are hidden under layers of deceit and subterfuge. A sophisticated propaganda system keeps the public basically unaware. No one has done more to expose actual U.S. domestic and foreign policy than Noam Chomsky.

Speaker

Noam Chomsky

Noam Chomsky, by any measure, has led a most extraordinary life. In one index, he is ranked as the eighth most cited person in history, right up there with Aristotle, Shakespeare, Marx, Plato, and Freud. His contributions to modern linguistics are legendary. In addition to his pioneering work in that field, he has been a leading voice for peace and social justice for many decades. Chris Hedges says he is “America’s greatest intellectual” who “makes the powerful, as well as their liberal apologists, deeply uncomfortable.” The New Statesman calls him “the conscience of the American people.” He is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy at MIT and Laureate Professor of Linguistics and Haury Chair in the Program in Environment and Social Justice at the University of Arizona. At 97, though having health setbacks, he continues to inform and inspire people all over the world. He is the author of scores of books, including Masters of Mankind, Consequences of Capitalism, Chronicles of Dissent, and Notes on Resistance. He is co-author with Edward Herman of Manufacturing Consent. His latest books are The Myth of American Idealism: How U.S. Foreign Policy Endangers the World and Surviving the 21st Century.