“To commemorate three decades of spoken word releases on Alternative Tentacles, the label has complied four budget-priced spoken word box sets for release this fall—two in September, two in October. The first set collects Noam Chomsky, the foremost political commentator of our time, on some of the major topics he has spoken about for the last few decades—state power, imperialism, free markets, transparency, and institutional secrecy.”
“So, for example, in many ways, Richard Nixon was the last Liberal President (laughs from the audience). (Maintaining a serious face) That’s literally true, if you look at his policies.”- Noam Chomsky
Q. Last question, what’s your favorite rock record?
Chomsky. (Mumbles) You’ve got me on that one.
“The United States hasn’t faced a threat probably since the War of 1812.” Noam Chomsky, 1994 from Demystifying Democracy, here is a link for the interview.
http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/1995—-.htm
What do y’all think of that statement? Naturally, in light of the tragedy on 911 it makes you question such a thing (as you should normally anyway), but I probably agree with Noam. I don’t know enought about my history to point to the War of 1812, but certainly the fact that we have a massive military budget for defense from possible threating forces is a joke. Now, like everyone else I don’t want to see another 911, of course. But, to me, that doesn’t constitute as a “threat” as in a threat to the preservation of our entire nation and/or government as it is for some other countries. The attack on 911 was murder on a grand scale and the perpetrators should be held accountable, but that doesn’t appear to be an objective of our goverment, sadly. So, I highly doubt we have to worry about another coutnry threating our overall security, but how do we prevent future, heinous, acts of terror? Well, we stop committing terror ourselves. What do other people think about Chomsky’s quote and my little rant?
Full Title: Anarchism In America
Director(s): Steven Fischler and Joel Sucher
Year: 1983
Grade: B
Comments:AIA is a good starting point for those that want to learn about Anarchsim, because (as displayed in the documentary) most people have little to no idea of what it really is. The doc does a good job of explaining to viewers that anarchism is a strong social, political, economic, and spiritual philosophy and/or movement built on individualist principles and the belief that society would be better off without the state. The filmmakers distinguish this from the narrow minded view that anarchists are just about chaos and throwing bombs, which unfortunately most folks believe. The film features various anarchsits including, Emma Goldman, returning to America after having been deported for years in rare video footage, veteran Murray Bookchin, tax resisting, “market” anarchist, Karl Hess, the Dead Kennedys (interview and performance), amongst other famous and unknown anarchists. The film also shows various implicit anarchists including American workers committed to the rugged individual ideals of America and they associate this with anarchism, or at least the filmmakers do as well as a sowing company in which the workers run the show a la Chomsky! Speaking of Noam, he is nowhere to be seen and other prominent anarchists and related groups/organizations like the trailblazing paper, Fifth Estate>. I suppose they can’t document everything, but still they focused too much on the implicit Americanism rather than the explicit characteristics; albeit a nice feature. In addition, we see footage of the Liberatarian Party and how this connects to the anti-government (or anti-state power) stance of anarchism, historical events such as the Spanish Civil War, Russian Revolution, and the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti. Lastly, my only other complaint is the fact that they didn’t include any anarchists that used violence or force as a political means, justified or not. Granted, this might reenforce the negative connotations of the philosophy that naive viewers have, but at the same time, it would be nice to provide a balanced picture, considering some anarchists are violent. Overall, it was worth a watch and I would recommend it, not for those who want an in depth history of anarchism, but rather for those who are curious or unaware of it and want to learn about the philosophy/movement, at least the American aspects up to the early 1980s.
The following site has a lot of information on this documentary as well the film itself, which can also be viewed on Youtube as seen below.
http://alexpeak.com/art/films/aia/
Here are some cool quotes from the movie, which also appear on the above site.
“Almost anyone, I suppose, can call himself or herself an anarchist, if he or she believed that the society could be managed without the state. And by the state—I don’t mean the absence of any institutions, the absence of any form of social organisation—the state really refers to a professional apparatus of people who are set aside to manage society, to preempt the control of society from the people. So that would include the military, judges, politicians, representatives who are paid for the express purpose of legislating, and then an executive body that is also set aside from society. So anarchists generally believe that, whether as groups or individuals, people should directly run society,” Murray Bookchin
“My understanding of anarchism has as part of its element a connection between ends and means. To me, if one is an anarchist, then, from my point of view, one also must be nonviolent, and if one is nonviolent, one must be an anarchist—I see the linkages very clear[ly]. A person who believes in nonviolence is a person who believes that the sort of society we want to achieve is a society without violence, without wars, and without injustice; and to use wars, violence, and injustice to achieve that society is to be counterproductive,” Ed Hedaman
“Well, it’s hard to tell on the basis of the Party’s rhetoric, after all they’re running for state office, but my experience is that most people who are in the Libertarian Party have pretty decent anarchist impulses, even if they do not say they are anarchists—most of them will say they are libertarians, at any rate. And one thing that is useful is that they have a fairly well-refined analysis of why they aren’t conservative. It took the New Left to do a proper analysis on American liberals, it seems to me, and I suspect that the libertarians are doing the best analysis of American conservatives. I think that they are quite good people, and that the Party contains within it probably more people of an anarchist tendency than any other organisation in the country,” Karl Hess
Here’s Part I
Chris
Check out Noam Chomsky’s latest book, Hopes and Prospects. He has another one coming out this month: New World of Indigenous Resistance: Voices from the Americas . I don’t know how he does it!
Chris
Ronald “Fucked Up Ronnie” Regan, a model terrorist
Check out this relatively new Chomsky Talk on international terrorism. Good points as usual.
http://www.chomsky.info/talks/20100323.htm
Chris
The Chomskyinator!
Chris
These days it’s just annoying when a person is referred to as an “intellectual.” Most are pseudo-smarties with predictable and usually still-born thoughts regurgitated from some other pseudo-smarty. But if we had to name just one guy worthy of the honorific, it would be Noam Chomsky. Ever since he re-invented linguistics and moved onto bigger social-justice concerns, he’s been a political agitator nonpareil—an itchy thorn in the hoof of all things imperial. Chomsky’s the kind of guy who blows your mind when you’re in high school, and then does it all over again when you’re in your mid-forties—and looking back you wonder what else you’d been reading all that time and who else you’d been listening to. VBS’s Kate Albright-Hannah tracked him down in Belfast, Ireland, and this is what came of it.
Kids Like You & Me (KLYAM) 