\nwho still has hopes for American idealism. Listening to him this morning on Democracy Now!<\/FONT><\/B><\/A>
\ndown some notes. <\/P>
\n
![](\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/images\/chomskyPHOTO.jpg\")
Chomsky, right, spoke about imperialism, Iraq, terrorism, pre-emptive war, the U.S.
\npress, war crimes, nuclear missiles, American military “ownership” of space, and the paradoxical
\nU.S. view of democracy in “old” and “new” Europe. All his comments made eminent sense and
\nled up to final remarks that struck me as the most significant in terms of U.S. democracy. (His
\ntalk begins about two minutes into the audio\/video clip.)<\/P>
\n
Chomsky pointed out that our “Dear Leader” and his entire regime has a supreme faith in PR
\nas “an instrument of deceit.” This is illustrated by many things, most recently by his push to
\ndismantle the Social Security system through privatization. As Chomsky said, the claim that the
\nSocial Security is facing an imminent crisis is “an exercise in fraud that is truly awesome,” not
\nunlike the original justification for invading Iraq.<\/P>
\n
“The con game about Social Security is a striking, stunning example really, of the power of
\npublic relations as an instrument of deceit,” he said. It shows our Dear Leader’s “sheer audacity
\nand contempt for the population.” More important, “the commitment to deceive is pursued with
\nreal fanaticism” by the current regime in all aspects of governance, from domestic rule to
\neconomic and foreign policy. In fact, U.S. administrations have pursued this commitment for
\ndecades, evidenced by secret conniving that at one point avoided global nuclear war only by
\nmiraculous luck.<\/P>
\n
The sole difference now in the commitment to deceive is the degree of fanaticism, which has
\nbeen taken to the extreme and which increases “the likelihood of terminal nuclear war,
\nenvironmental catastrophe and an enhanced threat of terrorism.” Worst of all, with its supreme
\n“faith in the powers of deceit” and in “the enormous power of public relations” — witness the use
\nof advertising to spread propaganda — the “state corporate system threatens the viability of
\nAmerican democracy.”<\/P>
\n
Chomsky spoke on Jan. 26 at a forum sponsored by the Lannan Foundation to celebrate the The sane rationality of Noam Chomsky’s words and tone of voice offers a tonic to anyone who still has hopes for American idealism. Listening to him this morning on Democracy Now!, which broadcast a talk he gave recently in Santa Fe, N.M., I jotted down some notes. Chomsky, right, spoke about imperialism, Iraq, terrorism, pre-emptive […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1014","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbvgEs-gm","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1014","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1014"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1014\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n25th anniversary of the International Relations Center. You can hear more of what he said at the
\nforum about Iraq and the Middle East
\npolitical scholar of Islam. Chomsky’s website links to the texts of
\n25 talks <\/FONT><\/B><\/A> he’s given elsewhere over the years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"