Customer Reviews

Propaganda and the Public Mind

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Noam Chomsky in "Propaganda and the Public Mind" tells his interviewer, David Barsamian, early in this fascinating, fact-filled book his objective as the man who has been frequently called "America's leading political dissident." Chomsky tells Barsamian that it is not his objective to persuade readers to follow him. Instead, he seeks to open up a path of inquiry wherein those readers investigate for themselves and draw their own conclusions.

One of the world's foremost linguists, Chomsky explains how language has been used to serve the interest of the individual presenting a message. This tendency has been enhanced manyfold with the inroads of technology, from radio on to television, to the current period of cable TV and a never ending procession of talking heads seeking to entertain more than intellectually enlighten. Chomsky illustrates how Newt Gingrich and his Contract with America public relations campaign sought to manipulate minds through the use of supercharged terminology in a manner that he contends would have left British political visionary George Orwell roaring with laughter.

A thorough reading of this work attunes one to how Chomsky approaches his research, and how those interested in researching important political topics might proceed on their own. On the subject of international politics, particularly military actions, Chomsky relies significantly on Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. He devotes strong emphasis to the East Timor tragedy and the appallingly insignificant attention it received from the mainstream media. Chomsky also laments how little attention was given to the assassination of Bishop Romero in El Salvador compared to any putatively comparable events occurring in nations of the former Soviet bloc or Cuba.

Chomsky leaves no doubt that he is his own person. Contrary to a criticism made of him that he is an ideologue first and always without a consciousness toward pragmatic political considerations, Chomsky makes the point that voting considerations need to be oriented toward a practical result. A decision can be made to support a particular candidate not because Chomsky holds a basic affinity toward him, but because a practical goal can be realized by supporting that individual.

Chomsky's encyclopedic mind and affinity for research are communicated impressively in this series of interviews with Barsmaniam. He communicates the need for the interested political participant to observe the entire picture after undertaking research.

David Barsamian is the cult superhero/guru of informative underground radio. He has also been doing cool interviews with prominant Leftist (read: critical) intellecutuals like Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn for a long time now. And thank god! Barsamian asks essential questions, and provides long-tenured intellectuals like Chomsky a venue for expressing their views in non-dissertation format. In other words, Barsamin gives us an accessible Chomsky, in plain, straight-forward, non-technical language. Who would have thought? If you are like me, and you always wanted to know what in the hell Chomsky is talking about (Try reading "The Culture of Terrorism"), this is your book. It even has a nice index with references, unlike some of his other books ("Profit Over People" has no footnotes for the first three chapters!!!). Lastly, this book also provides us with a sketch of Noam as human being. Apparently now that he is a grandfather, Chomsky has started spending time with young children and making appearances in public places, like baseball stadiums!!! Picture it: Chomsky consenting to sit for two hours without books, eat manufactured hotdogs and watch corporate-sponsered displays of wreckless, winner-take-all competition a la a Boston Red Sox game. A bit ironic, wouldn't you say? But as he says in the book, even hard-nosed intellectuals "need an annual breakout into the real world." Anyway, the book was enjoyable and engrossing. Definately worthy of being added to the canon.

Issues it covers: Activism and public outcry against the MIA, as well as a description of what the MIA means (note: you can find a better description of the MIA and WTO challenge in David Suzuki's new book, "Good News"); history of America's involvement in East Timor; discussion of the land mines, agent organge, dioxin, and napalm (see Sandra Steingraber's "Living Downstream" for important scientific look at what dioxin actually does to the human body - rest assured it is not good); the privitization of the Internet; critique of modern economic theory; an analysis of international debt peonage; as usual, discussion of America's dirty roll in Guatamala and other Latin American coutries; analysis of intellecutual property/patenting rights (better discussed in "Against the Grain," by Lappe); critique of the Health Care system; interesting biographical information (e.g., he taught Hebrew out of his house in the early days); penetrating discussion of Amartya Sen's book, "The Black Book of Communism" (if Communism is responsible for 100 million deaths, how many deaths has capitalism claim?? -- very original stuff here); interesting facts about Plan Colombia (slightly different version of what he says in "Rogue States"); critique of the UN and Nato; discussion of the Isreal/Palestine issue (his unstated speciality); a critique of media propaganda and Freedom of Information Act (What freedom? What information?); critique of privitization (in schools, in the health industry, etc.); very fascinating analysis of "socialized risk" and "externalized debt," that is making the public pay for things it didn't purchase, ask for, or need in the first place; analysis of the meaning of Seatle Riots; and facts on American aid to genocidal or human-rights-violating nations, among other things.

This 2 CD Set is incredibly helpful and informative.
Chomsky sheds light on the corrupt system we have now - one that the rich and powerful have rigged in their favor. Explains the role of Big Media and the abuse of their power. YOU deserve to hear what he has to say.

These CDs (regular CDs not a CDROMs) have a total of 112 minutes of great talk with questions from the audience that you would ask! (How do they pull the wool over our eyes - Chomsky explains!)

This is very digestible, the easiest to understand and most straightforward Noam Chomsky statements I have ever heard or read in any format. A very warm approach and very accessible, listen to Chomsky talk about the daring depravity of our times - quoting James Madison. He points out examples from various times in U.S. history, there is much to learn with his insight on these CDs.

Chomsky exposes the arrogance, hypocrisy and intentional acts of those that run our political system and how they use their power to benefit themselves while hurting the little guy.

You may identify with him ( he explains what he had to do to fit in at school ) or his children ( who, as he reveals, were too independent and couldn't fit in ). Chomsky is very modest about the "this and that" I think. He really has accomplished
so much with his books, this CD set makes it so easy to absorb and think about these issues: Media what it does and how, the rich and powerful and the strings they pull, government's role in serving the will of the power players.

Chomsky's research is incredible, the facts he brings forward are not highlighted by our current media system. A startling fact is that beyond the problem of what is called Corporate Welfare there is the rip off of the American taxpayers that the rich get away with.

Great examples about lying, how it is performed in society with examples of children's behavior, very well explained. Labor's struggle and very interesting facts about 1850's labor press - the average workers thoughts and plea for justice. If you work for a living you will find this to be so motivating! ( Thanks to Chomsky for making me aware of this - I MUST READ THESE NEWSPAPERS (early labor's newspapers) HE MENTIONS! - there is so much to learn from these CDs.

Chomsky reconnects us to a proud American past that rejected the sales pitch in 1850's: "gain wealth forgetting all but self". The struggle for our democratic rights is on going - these CDs will probable get you motivated to effect positive change.

Speaking a length to a sympathetic audience at Harvard, the real Noam lets his hair down and gives qualifications and background for many of his statements that we are used to hearing. Lot's of references as well. It's a relaxed conversational tone; if your car has a cd player this will put you in a great mood on your way to work.

Love him or hate him, Noam Chomsky serves a vital role to any thoughtful and/or politically minded individual in the United States today. By focusing on what you're NOT hearing from the major media sources and political powers, Chomsky engages his audiences by exhaustively cataloging his sources and letting them make their own decisions on what they need to do with the information.

This book represents some of the most accessible Chomsky that you can buy. Comprised of a series of interviews with Alternative Radio founder, David Barsamian, "Propaganda and the Public Mind" does exactly what you would expect it to do; exposing propaganda as a weapon used by the powerful, how it can be recognized, and showing the extraordinary impact normal people can have when they work towards the right sort of changes. Even while discussing grave issues, Noam manages to convey his faith that positive action is alive and well. As a lovely bonus to the interviews themselves, the resources section of the book will help you get as deeply into any of the subject matter as you dare.

I was thrilled by this book. If I were a doctor, I would prescribe an essay a day (which, unfortunately would only last a week for this book) as an antidote for the daily news.

This is one of the more substantial of the many books of interviews with Noam Chomsky that have been published over the last decade. To call the range of topics covered broad would be a serious understatement. What we have here is a comprehensive state-of-the-world type report by one of the world's leading dissident intellectuals, addressing himself, as always, to the "audiences that matter", viz., those of us who are capable of separating our existence as moral agents from our institutional roles. The United States is the most powerful state in the world, and its citizens therefore have a unique responsibility to dissent, and to act to rectify the injustices for which their government and their social system is responsible. From East Timor and the Balkans to reactionary social policies on the home front, the range of issues calling to be tackled by conscientious Americans is wide, and I know of no better place (if one must have a single source) to find out about these matters than Noam Chomsky's voluminous writings, talks and interviews, especially this timely book.

What differentiates this books from other's in Chomsky's canon is that it is a series of interviews, obviously, but in other ways it's an simplified guide to Chomsky's beliefs and journalistic pursuit of modern life. Chomsky is an amazing person and an excellent humanists and his insights will be sure to help you try to understand modern life better.

Trying to take a different tack from the other reviews... But this is an extremely difficult book to summarize. Some people will disagree strongly with some parts of it, and others will find it too obvious. The facts can be rather pesky. The book is very wide-ranging, and while at each moment it seems to be very clearly in focus, the overall impression is kind of confusing. That lack of overall structure is basically the reason I could only give the book four stars. It is definitely interesting and thought-provoking, and I'm sure you will gain new data from it, but the lack of an overall organizational scheme makes it hard to deal with. The two crucial notions of the title, "propaganda" and "the public mind", were never even addressed directly. The input data is powerful, but it called for a high level of editorial effort, even editorial genius, and I just don't see it. But a solid four stars anyway. Even after writing a much longer and relatively comprehensive review ..., I still have trouble saying what it was about. As I was reading it, as I felt myself to be in the company of Dr. Chomsky, all these things seemed so clear, but thinking back on it, it now seems kind of dreamlike. I felt like the following themes (from the longer review just cited) were important and recurring: 1. People tend to believe their own behavior is proper and even good. 2. Rich and powerful people often act to defend and increase their riches and powers. 3. Because of the first two points, rich and powerful people often injure other people and then say things like "It was REALLY self-defense." 4. Poor and weak people can say things like "My children were really hungry and I really needed to take that food" but most of the time no one listens. 5. Words matter. Look at the different uses of "really" above. 6. We (basically speaking for the US) are hypocritical when we criticize other governments for doing the same things we do when it suits us. 7. The winners think it is fine to rewrite the rules and the histories. 8. Dr. Chomsky thinks we should consider all sides of the 'truth'. It's almost a bad joke to even try to offer such a list, but I have to start somewhere. Can't pretend to see a clear conclusion, either. That's probably an accurate reflection of the complexity of the real world--and I'm convinced Dr. Chomsky does see many things more clearly than most of us.

Norm Chomsky offers insights into how this world works that the mainstream media wouldn't touch with a 300 foot pole. His talks (in this CD) range from the consolidation of the communications industy to techniques that the corporatations use for strike braking. A must buy for everybody on this earth.

I think I own all of the Chomsky lectures available on CD, and this is by far my favorite. Something about the topic or perhaps the audience he is speaking to results in this lecture being very easy to listen to. Noam starts his discussion off with some basics and cogently builds a tremendously infomative story of labor, public relations/propaganda, control of the masses, government in practice and theory, etc. Even though I've owned this CD for years, I am still learning from it. Truly bottled genius. This is Chomsky seeing the world clearly, and sharing his insight compellingly. If you happen to be new to Chomsky, this is a great place to start.