Friday, July 20, 2018

Understanding Power: The Indispensible Chomsky Paperback – February 1, 2002 by Noam Chomsky (Author), John Schoeffel (Editor), R. Mitchell (Editor) (The New Press)



Easy to understand, enlightened, lucid and well researched.

This Q & A format extracted from several discussions with NC is clearly taken from a select audience of sympathetic persons. But the questions are relevant and the replies provided, while not always those one might expect, are always well considered and backed by an extensive array of background information and footnotes.

The power elite and their indoctrinated minions will predictably not like most of what is being said. But NC clearly did not become a PhD on the faculty of MIT by saying stupid things. He is a genius at being able to state his case in simple terms so that the layman can understand the fundamentals. It’s not “fancy”; it just plain correct.

The relationship of language, propaganda, and the art of omission of inconvenient facts is discussed quite a lot parenthetically but is developed in much more detail. (That is in fact NCs formal qualification He needs no “qualifications” however to state his educated opinion.) Those topics are developed in more detail in other writings by NC.

The perceived roles of owners, investors, speculators, the (USA) government, the military, unions, and various other “classes” of workers are explored and described in great detail and with incite and clarity. And the relationship of the USA to the rest of the world is also made quite explicitly; although not in a very complimentary manner.

This perspective was a revelation to this reader and one which can be used to place events and actions into a context which is not the standard “party line”.

No comments:

Post a Comment