Would you like to inspect the original subtitles? These are the user uploaded subtitles that are being translated:
1
00:00:42,704 --> 00:00:44,528
Three, two, one, take two.
2
00:00:44,580 --> 00:00:47,499
Good morning.
Welcome to Erin Mills town centre.
3
00:00:47,540 --> 00:00:51,376
Home of the world's largest, permanent,
point-of-purchase video wall installation.
4
00:00:51,418 --> 00:00:56,077
My name is Kelvin Flook
and I'm your video host all day here at EMTV.
5
00:00:56,129 --> 00:00:59,246
I want to take this opportunity to extend
a special and warm welcome
6
00:00:59,298 --> 00:01:01,289
to the film crew from Necessary Illusions.
7
00:01:01,341 --> 00:01:04,594
We've got an excellent line-up
of television programming today,
8
00:01:04,635 --> 00:01:06,710
so... let's get on with it.
9
00:01:09,180 --> 00:01:12,714
So, how long have they been working
on this documentary?
10
00:01:12,766 --> 00:01:17,310
Gosh, they've been working on it
I don't know how long.
11
00:01:17,352 --> 00:01:20,271
Every country I show up, they're always there.
12
00:01:20,312 --> 00:01:23,106
They're in England, they're in Japan.
13
00:01:23,148 --> 00:01:24,649
All over the place.
14
00:01:24,690 --> 00:01:28,902
- Jesus.
- They must have 500 hours of tape.
15
00:01:28,943 --> 00:01:32,195
Bet they put together a really doozy
when they're done, huh?
16
00:01:32,237 --> 00:01:35,823
I can't imagine who's going to want
to hear somebody talk for an hour.
17
00:01:35,865 --> 00:01:38,158
But I guess they know what they're doing.
18
00:01:40,243 --> 00:01:41,744
So, where are you all from?
19
00:01:41,785 --> 00:01:43,693
- Florida.
- Florida?
20
00:01:43,745 --> 00:01:45,454
Yeah, Gulf Coast.
21
00:01:45,496 --> 00:01:47,153
You all talk like in chorus.
22
00:01:47,206 --> 00:01:51,782
We're making a film about Noam Chomsky.
Does anybody know who Noam Chomsky is?
23
00:01:51,834 --> 00:01:53,085
No!
24
00:02:47,204 --> 00:02:49,873
Good aternoon and welcome
to Wyoming Talks.
25
00:02:49,915 --> 00:02:53,667
My guest today is well-known intellectual
Noam Chomsky.
26
00:02:53,709 --> 00:02:56,336
Thank you for being on our programme today.
27
00:02:56,377 --> 00:02:57,837
Very glad to be here.
28
00:02:57,878 --> 00:03:01,495
I know probably the main purpose for your trip
to Wyoming
29
00:03:01,547 --> 00:03:05,415
is to discuss thought control
in a democratic society.
30
00:03:05,467 --> 00:03:10,512
Now, all right, say I'm just Jane USA.
31
00:03:10,554 --> 00:03:16,182
And I say, "Well, gee, this is a democratic
society, what do you mean - thought control?"
32
00:03:16,224 --> 00:03:19,393
"I make up my own mind.
I create my own destiny".
33
00:03:19,435 --> 00:03:21,061
What would you say to her?
34
00:03:21,102 --> 00:03:27,815
Well, I would suggest that Jane take
a close look at the way the media operate,
35
00:03:27,857 --> 00:03:30,692
the way the public relations industry operates.
36
00:03:30,734 --> 00:03:37,530
The extensive thinking that's been going on
for a long, long period,
37
00:03:37,572 --> 00:03:40,063
about the necessity for finding ways
38
00:03:40,115 --> 00:03:44,201
to marginalise and control the public
in a democratic society.
39
00:03:48,246 --> 00:03:51,863
But particularly to look at the evidence
that's been accumulated,
40
00:03:51,915 --> 00:03:55,167
about the way the major media,
41
00:03:55,209 --> 00:03:58,544
The agenda-setting media,
I mean, the national press,
42
00:03:58,586 --> 00:04:00,087
and the television and so on,
43
00:04:00,129 --> 00:04:04,673
the way that they shape and control
the kinds of opinions that appear.
44
00:04:04,715 --> 00:04:08,499
The kinds of information that comes through,
the sources to which they go.
45
00:04:08,551 --> 00:04:13,179
I think Jane will find some very surprising things
about the democratic system.
46
00:04:24,854 --> 00:04:27,939
I'd like to welcome all of you
to this lecture today.
47
00:04:27,981 --> 00:04:31,348
Several years ago,
Professor Chomsky was described
48
00:04:31,400 --> 00:04:34,193
in The New York Times Book Review
as follows:
49
00:04:35,444 --> 00:04:37,852
"Judged in terms of the power, range, novelty
50
00:04:37,904 --> 00:04:43,324
and influence of this thought, Noam Chomsky is
arguably the most important intellectual alive."
51
00:04:44,367 --> 00:04:46,024
Professor Noam Chomsky.
52
00:04:55,333 --> 00:04:59,825
I gather there are some people
behind that blackness there.
53
00:04:59,877 --> 00:05:04,922
But if I don't look you in the eye, it's because
I don't see you, all I see is the blackness.
54
00:05:06,048 --> 00:05:09,801
Perhaps I ought to begin
by reporting something that's never read.
55
00:05:09,842 --> 00:05:15,221
The line about "arguably the most important
intellectual in the world," and so on
56
00:05:15,263 --> 00:05:18,015
comes from a publisher's blurb
and you got to watch those.
57
00:05:18,056 --> 00:05:22,351
If you go back to the original,
you'll find that that sentence is actually there.
58
00:05:22,392 --> 00:05:24,133
This is in The New York Times.
59
00:05:24,185 --> 00:05:26,093
But the next sentence is,
60
00:05:26,145 --> 00:05:32,514
"Since that's the case, how can he write such
terrible things about American foreign policy?"
61
00:05:32,566 --> 00:05:34,359
They never quote that part.
62
00:05:34,401 --> 00:05:38,612
If it wasn't for that second sentence, I'd begin
to think that I'm doing something wrong.
63
00:05:38,653 --> 00:05:40,613
And I'm not joking about that.
64
00:05:40,655 --> 00:05:45,481
It's true that the Emperor doesn't have
any clothes but he doesn't like to be told it.
65
00:05:45,533 --> 00:05:51,568
The Emperor's lap dogs, like The New York
Times, will not enjoy the experience if you do.
66
00:05:52,538 --> 00:05:54,122
Good evening. I'm Bill Moyers.
67
00:05:54,164 --> 00:05:56,999
What's more dangerous:
The big stick of the big lie?
68
00:05:57,041 --> 00:05:59,668
Governments have used both
against their own people.
69
00:05:59,709 --> 00:06:02,909
Tonight I'll be talking with a man
who has been thinking about
70
00:06:02,962 --> 00:06:04,786
how we can see the developing lie.
71
00:06:04,838 --> 00:06:09,664
He says that propaganda is to democracy
what violence is to a dictatorship.
72
00:06:09,716 --> 00:06:14,375
But he hasn't lost faith in the power of
common people to speak up for the truth.
73
00:06:15,470 --> 00:06:21,015
You have said that we live
entangled in webs of endless deceit,
74
00:06:21,057 --> 00:06:27,009
that we live in a highly indoctrinated society,
where elementary truths are easily buried.
75
00:06:27,061 --> 00:06:28,719
Elementary truths such as...
76
00:06:28,771 --> 00:06:31,522
Such as the fact
that we invaded South Vietnam.
77
00:06:31,564 --> 00:06:36,109
Or that we're standing in the way of significant,
and have for years,
78
00:06:36,151 --> 00:06:38,986
of significant moves towards arms negotiation.
79
00:06:39,028 --> 00:06:44,531
Or the fact that the military system
is to a substantial extent,
80
00:06:44,573 --> 00:06:46,814
not totally, but to a substantial extent,
81
00:06:46,866 --> 00:06:51,494
a mechanism by which the general population
is compelled to provide a subsidy
82
00:06:51,536 --> 00:06:53,444
to high-technology industry.
83
00:06:53,496 --> 00:06:58,624
Since they're not going to do it if you ask them
to, you have to deceive them into doing it.
84
00:06:58,666 --> 00:07:00,959
There are many truths like that.
We don't face them.
85
00:07:01,001 --> 00:07:03,242
Do you believe in common sense?
86
00:07:03,294 --> 00:07:06,546
Absolutely.
I believe in Cartesian common sense.
87
00:07:06,588 --> 00:07:12,707
I think people have the capacities to see
through the deceit in which they're ensnared.
88
00:07:12,759 --> 00:07:14,385
But you got to make the effort.
89
00:07:14,426 --> 00:07:17,679
It seems a little incongruous
to hear a man from the ivory tower
90
00:07:17,720 --> 00:07:24,881
of Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
a scholar... a distinguished linguistics scholar,
91
00:07:24,934 --> 00:07:27,967
talk about common people
with such appreciation.
92
00:07:28,019 --> 00:07:34,190
I think scholarship, at least the field I work in,
has the opposite consequences.
93
00:07:34,231 --> 00:07:40,434
My own studies in language and human
cognition demonstrate to me, at least,
94
00:07:40,486 --> 00:07:44,269
what remarkable creativity
ordinary people have.
95
00:07:44,322 --> 00:07:51,160
The very fact that people talk to one another
just in a normal way, nothing particularly fancy,
96
00:07:51,201 --> 00:07:56,027
reflects deep-seated features
of human creativity,
97
00:07:56,080 --> 00:07:59,749
which separate human beings
from any other biological system we know.
98
00:07:59,790 --> 00:08:03,876
Tonight, scientists talk to the animals.
But are they talking back?
99
00:08:08,505 --> 00:08:12,424
The Journal with Barbara Frum
and Mary Lou Finlay.
100
00:08:12,466 --> 00:08:16,218
Communicating with animals
is a serious scientific pursuit.
101
00:08:16,260 --> 00:08:18,167
This is Nim Chimpsky.
102
00:08:18,219 --> 00:08:21,670
Nim, jokingly named ater
the great linguist Noam Chomsky,
103
00:08:21,722 --> 00:08:25,308
was the great hope of animal communication
in the 1970s.
104
00:08:25,349 --> 00:08:29,300
For four years Pettito and others coached him
in sign language,
105
00:08:29,352 --> 00:08:32,437
but in the end they decided it was a lost cause.
106
00:08:32,479 --> 00:08:35,148
Nim could ask for things, but not much more.
107
00:08:35,189 --> 00:08:39,140
I would have loved
to have a conversation with Nim
108
00:08:39,192 --> 00:08:41,652
and understand how he looked at the universe.
109
00:08:41,694 --> 00:08:46,603
He failed to communicate that information to
me, and we gave him every opportunity.
110
00:08:50,867 --> 00:08:54,484
Noam Chomsky,
theorist of language and political activist,
111
00:08:54,536 --> 00:08:56,579
has had an extraordinary career.
112
00:08:56,620 --> 00:09:00,488
I can think of none like it in recent American
history and few anywhere any time.
113
00:09:01,582 --> 00:09:05,283
He has literally transformed
the subject of linguistics.
114
00:09:05,335 --> 00:09:10,077
He also has become one of the most consistent
critics of power politics in all its protean guises.
115
00:09:10,963 --> 00:09:16,749
Scholar and propagandist, his two careers
apparently reinforce each other.
116
00:09:16,801 --> 00:09:19,886
In 1957, he published his Syntactic Structures,
117
00:09:19,928 --> 00:09:24,337
which began what has frequently been called
the Chomskyan Revolution in Linguistics.
118
00:09:27,683 --> 00:09:29,226
Like a latter-day Copernicus,
119
00:09:29,267 --> 00:09:33,103
Chomsky proposed a radically new way
of looking at the theory of grammar.
120
00:09:34,062 --> 00:09:37,596
Chomsky worked out the formal rules
of the universal grammar
121
00:09:37,648 --> 00:09:41,859
which had generated the specific rules
of actual or natural languages.
122
00:09:44,820 --> 00:09:50,740
The general approach I'm taking seems to me
rather simple minded and unsophisticated,
123
00:09:50,782 --> 00:09:53,450
but, nevertheless, correct.
124
00:10:00,038 --> 00:10:04,041
Later he came to argue that such systems
are innate features of human beings.
125
00:10:04,083 --> 00:10:07,116
They belong to the characteristics
of the species
126
00:10:07,168 --> 00:10:09,461
and have been, in effect, programmed
127
00:10:09,503 --> 00:10:13,287
into the genetic equipment of the mind
like the machine language in a computer.
128
00:10:13,339 --> 00:10:16,257
One needn't be interested in this question.
129
00:10:16,299 --> 00:10:18,624
Of course, I am interested in it.
130
00:10:18,676 --> 00:10:22,929
The interesting question from this point of view
is what is the nature of the initial state?
131
00:10:22,970 --> 00:10:25,722
That is, what is human nature in this respect?
132
00:10:25,764 --> 00:10:31,466
That in turn explains the...
133
00:10:31,518 --> 00:10:33,592
...astonishing.
134
00:10:35,229 --> 00:10:37,220
Try the next one.
135
00:10:37,272 --> 00:10:40,805
Fa-cki-li-ty
136
00:10:40,857 --> 00:10:42,317
- Facility.
- Facility.
137
00:10:42,358 --> 00:10:45,725
That in turn explains the
astonishing facility children have
138
00:10:45,777 --> 00:10:49,989
in learning the rules of natural language,
no matter how complicated, incredibly quickly,
139
00:10:50,030 --> 00:10:53,699
from what are imperfect
and oten degenerate samples.
140
00:10:53,741 --> 00:10:56,774
- Compli...
- Complicated.
141
00:10:56,827 --> 00:10:58,411
It's a complicated word.
142
00:10:58,453 --> 00:11:02,403
Do you know what "complicated" means?
It means it's complicated.
143
00:11:07,334 --> 00:11:09,710
If in fact our minds were a blank slate
144
00:11:09,752 --> 00:11:14,630
and experience wrote on them, we would be
very impoverished creatures indeed,
145
00:11:14,672 --> 00:11:17,549
so the obvious hypothesis is that our language
146
00:11:17,591 --> 00:11:21,635
is the result of the unfolding
of a genetically determined programme.
147
00:11:21,677 --> 00:11:24,303
Well, plainly there are different languages.
148
00:11:24,345 --> 00:11:28,640
In fact, the apparent variation of languages
is quite superficial.
149
00:11:28,681 --> 00:11:31,517
It's certain - as certain as anything else is -
150
00:11:31,558 --> 00:11:35,853
that humans are not genetically programmed
to learn one or another language.
151
00:11:35,895 --> 00:11:40,471
So, you bring up a Japanese baby in Boston,
and it'll speak Boston English.
152
00:11:40,523 --> 00:11:43,400
You bring up my child in Japan,
it'll speak Japanese.
153
00:11:44,275 --> 00:11:48,528
And that means that... From that it fol...
from that it simply follows by logic
154
00:11:48,570 --> 00:11:52,354
that the basic structure of the languages
must be essentially the same.
155
00:11:52,406 --> 00:11:59,400
Our task as scientists is to try to determine
exactly what those fundamental principles are
156
00:11:59,452 --> 00:12:04,080
that cause the knowledge of language to unfold
in the manner in which it does
157
00:12:04,122 --> 00:12:06,196
under particular circumstances.
158
00:12:06,248 --> 00:12:09,250
Incidentally,
I think there is no doubt the same must be true
159
00:12:09,292 --> 00:12:11,669
of other aspects of human intelligence,
160
00:12:11,710 --> 00:12:15,296
and systems of understanding
and interpretation,
161
00:12:15,338 --> 00:12:18,621
and moral and aesthetic judgement, and so on.
162
00:12:18,673 --> 00:12:22,885
The implications of these views
have washed over the fields of psychology,
163
00:12:22,926 --> 00:12:26,846
education, sociology, philosophy,
literary criticism, and logic.
164
00:12:29,889 --> 00:12:33,475
In the '50s and '60s
the bridge between your theoretical work
165
00:12:33,517 --> 00:12:36,936
and your political work seems to have been
the attack on behaviourism,
166
00:12:36,977 --> 00:12:40,761
but now behaviourism is no longer an issue,
or so it seems,
167
00:12:40,813 --> 00:12:44,858
so how does this leave the link
between your linguistics and your politics?
168
00:12:44,899 --> 00:12:49,152
Well, I've always regarded the link... I've never...
169
00:12:49,194 --> 00:12:51,946
really perceived much of a link,
to tell you the truth.
170
00:12:51,988 --> 00:12:58,409
Again, I would be very pleased to be able to
discover intellectually convincing connections
171
00:12:59,451 --> 00:13:02,901
between my own anarchist convictions
on the one hand,
172
00:13:02,953 --> 00:13:06,904
and what I think I can demonstrate,
or at least begin to see
173
00:13:06,956 --> 00:13:09,989
about the nature of human intelligence
on the other.
174
00:13:10,041 --> 00:13:16,244
But I simply can't find intellectually satisfying
connections between those two domains.
175
00:13:16,296 --> 00:13:19,798
I can discover some tenuous points of contact.
176
00:13:21,216 --> 00:13:23,707
FOUCAULT
177
00:14:00,909 --> 00:14:05,985
If it is correct, as I believe it is,
that a fundamental element of human nature
178
00:14:06,038 --> 00:14:14,335
is the need for creative work,
or creative inquiry for...
179
00:14:15,377 --> 00:14:20,120
...for free creation without the...
180
00:14:20,172 --> 00:14:23,539
...arbitrary, limiting effects of coercive
institutions,
181
00:14:23,591 --> 00:14:30,721
then of course it will follow that a decent society
should maximise the possibilities
182
00:14:30,763 --> 00:14:35,474
for this fundamental human characteristic
to be realised.
183
00:14:35,516 --> 00:14:40,978
Now, a federated, decentralised...
184
00:14:42,020 --> 00:14:48,191
...system of free associations incorporating
economic as well as social institutions
185
00:14:48,233 --> 00:14:51,600
would be what I refer to as
anarcho-syndicalism,
186
00:14:51,652 --> 00:14:56,530
and it seems to me that
it is the appropriate form of social organisation
187
00:14:56,572 --> 00:14:59,324
for an advanced technological society
188
00:14:59,365 --> 00:15:05,484
in which human beings do not have to be forced
into the position of tools, of cogs in a machine.
189
00:15:06,870 --> 00:15:09,831
Since the 1960s
Noam Chomsky has been the voice
190
00:15:09,872 --> 00:15:13,958
of a very characteristic brand
of rationalist libertarian socialism.
191
00:15:15,042 --> 00:15:17,794
He's attacked the abuses of power
wherever he saw them,
192
00:15:17,836 --> 00:15:22,214
he's made himself deeply unpopular
by his criticism of American policy,
193
00:15:22,256 --> 00:15:26,467
the subservience of the intelligentsia,
the degradation of Zionism,
194
00:15:26,509 --> 00:15:30,011
the distortions of media,
and self-delusions of prevailing ideologies.
195
00:15:38,475 --> 00:15:41,727
Under the liberal administration of the 1960s
196
00:15:41,769 --> 00:15:48,440
the club of academic intellectuals
designed and implemented the Vietnam war,
197
00:15:48,482 --> 00:15:53,902
and other similar, though smaller, actions.
198
00:15:53,944 --> 00:15:58,572
This particular community is a very relevant one
to consider at a place like MIT
199
00:15:58,614 --> 00:16:02,314
because of course you're all free
to enter into this community.
200
00:16:02,366 --> 00:16:04,993
In fact,
you're invited and encouraged to enter it.
201
00:16:05,035 --> 00:16:08,537
The community of technical intelligentsia,
202
00:16:08,579 --> 00:16:12,706
and weapons designers,
and counter-insurgency experts,
203
00:16:12,748 --> 00:16:15,239
and pragmatic planners of an American empire,
204
00:16:15,291 --> 00:16:21,410
is one that you have a great deal of inducement
to become associated with.
205
00:16:21,462 --> 00:16:23,672
The inducements, in fact, are very real.
206
00:16:23,714 --> 00:16:29,259
The rewards in power, and affluence,
and prestige, and authority...
207
00:16:32,303 --> 00:16:34,377
Jamie?
208
00:16:35,597 --> 00:16:37,671
This came with the mail.
209
00:16:39,266 --> 00:16:41,340
Be with you in a second.
210
00:16:50,357 --> 00:16:52,431
Oh, God, they've still got their cameras.
211
00:16:52,483 --> 00:16:54,068
OK?
212
00:16:59,446 --> 00:17:01,270
We'll start.
213
00:17:01,323 --> 00:17:04,033
In your essay Language and Freedom,
214
00:17:04,074 --> 00:17:08,202
you write, "Social action must be animated
by a vision of a future society".
215
00:17:08,244 --> 00:17:12,955
I was wondering what vision of a future society
animates you?
216
00:17:13,998 --> 00:17:17,698
I have my own ideas
as to what a future society should look like.
217
00:17:19,210 --> 00:17:22,629
I've written about them.
I mean, I think that we should...
218
00:17:23,754 --> 00:17:31,134
At the most general level, we should be
seeking out forms of authority and domination,
219
00:17:31,176 --> 00:17:33,501
and challenging their legitimacy.
220
00:17:34,387 --> 00:17:38,306
Sometimes they are legitimate -
that is, let's say they're needed for survival.
221
00:17:38,348 --> 00:17:44,883
So, for example, I wouldn't suggest
that during the Second World War...
222
00:17:44,935 --> 00:17:48,354
the forms of authority...
We had a totalitarian society, basically.
223
00:17:48,396 --> 00:17:51,898
I thought there was some justification for that
under wartime conditions.
224
00:17:51,940 --> 00:17:54,014
And there are other forms of...
225
00:17:54,066 --> 00:17:58,444
Relations between parents and children,
for example, involve forms of coercion
226
00:17:58,486 --> 00:18:00,560
which are sometimes justifiable.
227
00:18:00,613 --> 00:18:05,606
But any such... Any form of coercion and...
228
00:18:05,658 --> 00:18:09,827
control requires justification,
and most of them are completely unjustifiable.
229
00:18:09,869 --> 00:18:15,623
Now, at various stages of human civilisation
it's been possible to challenge some of them,
230
00:18:15,664 --> 00:18:17,082
but not others.
231
00:18:17,124 --> 00:18:20,491
Others are too deep-seated,
or you don't see them, or whatever,
232
00:18:20,543 --> 00:18:26,713
so at any particular point you try to
detect those forms of authority and domination
233
00:18:27,756 --> 00:18:32,050
which are subject to change, and which...
234
00:18:32,092 --> 00:18:33,718
do not have any legitimacy,
235
00:18:33,760 --> 00:18:36,470
in fact which oten
strike at fundamental human rights,
236
00:18:36,512 --> 00:18:40,296
and your understanding
of fundamental human nature and rights.
237
00:18:40,348 --> 00:18:42,589
Well, what are the major things, say today?
238
00:18:42,641 --> 00:18:45,351
There are some
that are being addressed in a way.
239
00:18:46,727 --> 00:18:51,053
The feminist movement is addressing some.
The civil rights movement is addressing others.
240
00:18:51,105 --> 00:18:53,732
The one major one
that is not being seriously addressed
241
00:18:53,773 --> 00:18:56,807
is the one that's really
at the core of the system of domination,
242
00:18:56,859 --> 00:18:59,976
and that's private control over resources.
243
00:19:00,028 --> 00:19:04,572
And that means an attack
on the fundamental structure of state capitalism.
244
00:19:04,614 --> 00:19:08,314
I think that's in order.
That's not something far off in the future.
245
00:19:08,867 --> 00:19:10,941
Your life work.
246
00:19:12,536 --> 00:19:15,246
The alphabet has only 26 letters.
247
00:19:15,872 --> 00:19:18,790
With these 26 magic symbols, however,
248
00:19:18,832 --> 00:19:21,209
millions of words are written every day.
249
00:19:23,085 --> 00:19:25,159
Nowhere else are people so addicted
250
00:19:25,211 --> 00:19:28,411
to information and entertainment
via the printed word.
251
00:19:29,506 --> 00:19:32,706
Every day the world comes thumping
on the American doorstep,
252
00:19:32,758 --> 00:19:35,083
and nothing that happens anywhere
253
00:19:35,135 --> 00:19:38,887
remains long a secret
from the American newspaper reader.
254
00:19:39,971 --> 00:19:42,973
It comes to us pretty casually, the daily paper,
255
00:19:43,015 --> 00:19:45,173
but behind its arrival on your doorstep
256
00:19:45,225 --> 00:19:47,716
is one ofjournalism's major stories.
257
00:19:47,768 --> 00:19:49,228
How it got there.
258
00:19:52,146 --> 00:20:00,277
There is a standard view about democratic
societies, and the role of the media within them.
259
00:20:00,318 --> 00:20:04,269
It's expressed for example
by Supreme Court Justice Powell
260
00:20:04,321 --> 00:20:07,823
when he spoke of the crucial role of the media
261
00:20:07,865 --> 00:20:11,618
in effecting the societal purpose
of the First Amendment,
262
00:20:11,659 --> 00:20:17,778
namely enabling the public to assert
meaningful control over the political process.
263
00:20:19,623 --> 00:20:22,990
That kind of formulation
expresses the understanding that
264
00:20:23,042 --> 00:20:29,963
democracy requires free access
to information, and ideas, and opinion,
265
00:20:30,005 --> 00:20:35,759
and the same conceptions hold
not only with regard to the media,
266
00:20:35,801 --> 00:20:41,971
but with regard to educational institutions,
publishing, the intellectual community generally.
267
00:20:44,890 --> 00:20:47,298
It is basic to the health of a democracy
268
00:20:47,350 --> 00:20:51,478
that no phase of government activity
escape the scrutiny of the press.
269
00:20:51,520 --> 00:20:57,273
Here reporters are assigned to stories
fateful not only to our nation, but to all nations.
270
00:20:57,315 --> 00:20:59,640
"Congress", says the First Amendment,
271
00:20:59,692 --> 00:21:02,402
"shall pass no law
abridging the freedom of the press".
272
00:21:02,444 --> 00:21:06,738
And the Chief Executive himself
throws open the doors of the White House
273
00:21:06,780 --> 00:21:10,647
to journalists representing papers
of all shades of political opinion.
274
00:21:15,994 --> 00:21:20,654
But is worth bearing in mind
that there is a contrary view,
275
00:21:20,706 --> 00:21:25,167
and in fact the contrary view is very widely held,
and deeply rooted
276
00:21:25,209 --> 00:21:27,283
in our own civilisation.
277
00:21:28,336 --> 00:21:32,089
It goes back to
the origins of modern democracy,
278
00:21:32,130 --> 00:21:35,299
to the 17th-century English revolution
279
00:21:35,341 --> 00:21:39,427
which was a complicated affair
like most popular revolutions.
280
00:21:39,469 --> 00:21:41,960
There was a struggle between Parliament
281
00:21:42,012 --> 00:21:45,963
representing largely
elements of the gentry and the merchants,
282
00:21:46,015 --> 00:21:49,048
and the Royalists
representing other elite groups,
283
00:21:49,100 --> 00:21:50,924
and they fought it out.
284
00:21:50,976 --> 00:21:52,801
But like many popular revolutions,
285
00:21:52,853 --> 00:21:57,231
there was also a lot of popular ferment going
that was opposed to all of them.
286
00:21:57,272 --> 00:22:00,775
There were popular movements
that were questioning everything -
287
00:22:00,816 --> 00:22:05,726
the relations between master and servant,
the right of authority altogether...
288
00:22:05,778 --> 00:22:08,071
All kinds of things were being questioned.
289
00:22:08,113 --> 00:22:12,574
There was a lot of radical publishing - the
printing presses had just come into existence -
290
00:22:12,616 --> 00:22:16,400
and this disturbed all the elites
on both sides of the Civil War.
291
00:22:16,452 --> 00:22:21,747
So as one historian pointed out at the time
in 1660...
292
00:22:21,789 --> 00:22:23,915
He criticised the radical democrats,
293
00:22:23,957 --> 00:22:26,876
the ones who were calling for
what we would call democracy, because...
294
00:22:37,758 --> 00:22:42,334
Now, underlying these doctrines
which were very widely held
295
00:22:42,386 --> 00:22:44,596
is a certain conception of democracy.
296
00:22:44,638 --> 00:22:46,962
It's a game for elites.
297
00:22:47,014 --> 00:22:49,307
It's not for the ignorant masses
298
00:22:49,349 --> 00:22:53,602
who have to be marginalised,
diverted and controlled
299
00:22:53,644 --> 00:22:55,718
of course, for their own good.
300
00:22:55,770 --> 00:23:00,846
The same principles were upheld
in the American colonies.
301
00:23:00,899 --> 00:23:05,558
The dictum of the founding fathers
of American democracy that:
302
00:23:05,610 --> 00:23:09,060
"People who own the country
ought to govern it",
303
00:23:09,112 --> 00:23:11,187
quoting John Jay.
304
00:23:11,239 --> 00:23:13,647
Fire!
305
00:23:20,537 --> 00:23:22,945
Now, in modern times for elites,
306
00:23:22,997 --> 00:23:28,073
this contrary view about the intellectual life,
and the media, and so on,
307
00:23:28,125 --> 00:23:33,671
this contrary view in fact is the standard one,
I think, apart from rhetorical flourishes.
308
00:23:36,423 --> 00:23:41,051
From Washington DC,
he is intellectual, author and linguist
309
00:23:41,092 --> 00:23:43,167
Professor Noam Chomsky.
310
00:23:43,219 --> 00:23:48,014
Manufacturing Consent -
what is that title meant to describe?
311
00:23:48,055 --> 00:23:55,467
Well, the title is actually borrowed from a book
by Walter Lippmann written back around 1921
312
00:23:55,519 --> 00:23:59,355
in which he described
what he called the manufacture of consent
313
00:23:59,396 --> 00:24:03,232
as a revolution in the practice of democracy.
314
00:24:03,274 --> 00:24:06,610
What it amounts to is a technique of control,
315
00:24:06,651 --> 00:24:09,935
and he said this was useful and necessary
316
00:24:09,987 --> 00:24:15,657
because the common interests, the general
concerns of all people, elude the public.
317
00:24:15,699 --> 00:24:18,159
The public just isn't up to dealing with them,
318
00:24:18,201 --> 00:24:22,068
and they have to be the domain
of what he called a specialized class.
319
00:24:23,663 --> 00:24:28,291
Notice that that's the opposite
of the standard view about democracy.
320
00:24:29,292 --> 00:24:35,212
There's a version of this expressed
by the highly respected moralist and theologian
321
00:24:35,254 --> 00:24:36,797
Reinhold Niebuhr
322
00:24:36,838 --> 00:24:41,414
who was very influential
on contemporary policy makers.
323
00:24:41,466 --> 00:24:45,553
His view was
that rationality belongs to the cool observer,
324
00:24:46,428 --> 00:24:52,380
but because of the stupidity of the average
man, he follows not reason but faith,
325
00:24:53,266 --> 00:24:58,686
and this naïve faith
requires necessary illusion
326
00:24:59,645 --> 00:25:02,814
and emotionally potent over-simplifications
327
00:25:02,856 --> 00:25:07,432
which are provided by the myth maker
to keep the ordinary person on course.
328
00:25:15,698 --> 00:25:18,366
It's not the case, as the naïve might think,
329
00:25:18,408 --> 00:25:21,525
that indoctrination
is inconsistent with democracy.
330
00:25:21,577 --> 00:25:24,777
Rather, as this whole line of thinkers observes,
331
00:25:24,829 --> 00:25:26,622
it's the essence of democracy.
332
00:25:28,331 --> 00:25:32,084
The point is that in a military state,
or a feudal state,
333
00:25:32,126 --> 00:25:34,794
or what we would nowadays
call a totalitarian state,
334
00:25:34,836 --> 00:25:37,244
it doesn't much matter what people think,
335
00:25:37,296 --> 00:25:41,872
because you've got a bludgeon over their head,
and you can control what they do.
336
00:25:43,425 --> 00:25:48,001
But when the state loses the bludgeon,
when you can't control people by force,
337
00:25:48,053 --> 00:25:50,721
and when the voice of the people can be heard,
338
00:25:50,763 --> 00:25:55,016
you have this problem -
it may make people so curious and so arrogant
339
00:25:55,058 --> 00:25:58,758
that they don't have the humility
to submit to a civil rule,
340
00:25:58,810 --> 00:26:01,896
and therefore you have to
control what people think.
341
00:26:03,772 --> 00:26:05,481
And the standard way to do this
342
00:26:05,523 --> 00:26:10,151
is to resort to what in more honest days
used to be called propaganda.
343
00:26:10,193 --> 00:26:11,694
Manufacture of consent.
344
00:26:12,736 --> 00:26:15,488
The creation of necessary illusions.
345
00:26:15,530 --> 00:26:18,323
Various ways of
either marginalising the general public,
346
00:26:18,365 --> 00:26:20,856
or reducing them to apathy in some fashion.
347
00:27:01,519 --> 00:27:03,427
The oldest of two boys,
348
00:27:03,479 --> 00:27:08,639
Avram Noam Chomsky was born in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1928.
349
00:27:09,733 --> 00:27:13,652
As a Jewish child,
the anti-Semitism of the time affected him.
350
00:27:14,737 --> 00:27:18,656
Both parents taught Hebrew,
and he became fascinated by literature,
351
00:27:18,698 --> 00:27:22,648
reading translations
of French and Russian classics.
352
00:27:22,700 --> 00:27:26,651
He also took an interest
in a grammar book written by his father
353
00:27:26,703 --> 00:27:28,527
on Hebrew of the Middle Ages.
354
00:27:29,580 --> 00:27:33,958
He recalls a childhood
absorbed in reading curled up on the sofa,
355
00:27:34,000 --> 00:27:37,752
oten borrowing up to 12 books at once
from the library.
356
00:27:37,794 --> 00:27:41,546
He is married to Carol,
and they have three children.
357
00:27:41,588 --> 00:27:44,788
I don't like to
impose on my wife and children a form of life
358
00:27:44,840 --> 00:27:47,300
that they certainly
haven't selected for themselves,
359
00:27:47,342 --> 00:27:50,761
namely one of public exposure,
exposure to the public media.
360
00:27:51,803 --> 00:27:55,472
That's their choice, and I don't believe
they themselves have selected this.
361
00:27:55,514 --> 00:27:59,558
I don't impose it on them,
and I would like to protect them from it, frankly.
362
00:27:59,600 --> 00:28:05,635
The second sort of perhaps principled point
is that I'm rather against the whole notion
363
00:28:05,688 --> 00:28:10,566
of developing public personalities...
364
00:28:11,983 --> 00:28:14,475
...who are treated as stars
of one kind or another,
365
00:28:14,527 --> 00:28:18,196
where aspects of their personal life
are supposed to have some significance.
366
00:28:18,238 --> 00:28:20,062
Take one in the reception room.
367
00:28:21,115 --> 00:28:25,524
You said you were just like us -
you went to school, got good grades.
368
00:28:25,576 --> 00:28:28,151
What made you start being critical, you know,
369
00:28:28,203 --> 00:28:30,110
and seeing the different...
370
00:28:30,162 --> 00:28:32,237
What started the change?
371
00:28:32,289 --> 00:28:36,156
Well, you know, there are all kinds
of personal factors in anybody's life.
372
00:28:36,208 --> 00:28:38,449
Don't forget I grew up in the Depression.
373
00:28:57,014 --> 00:29:01,673
My parents actually happened to have jobs,
which was kind of unusual.
374
00:29:01,725 --> 00:29:05,395
They were Hebrew school teachers,
so lower middle class.
375
00:29:05,436 --> 00:29:09,303
For them,
everything revolved around being Jewish.
376
00:29:09,356 --> 00:29:12,806
Hebrew, and Palestine in those days,
and so on.
377
00:29:13,734 --> 00:29:16,902
I grew up in that milieu, so I learned Hebrew,
went to Hebrew school,
378
00:29:16,944 --> 00:29:21,572
became a Hebrew school teacher,
went to Hebrew college, led youth groups,
379
00:29:21,614 --> 00:29:23,115
summer camp, Hebrew camps...
380
00:29:23,157 --> 00:29:24,532
The whole business.
381
00:29:25,867 --> 00:29:30,161
The branch of Zionist movement
that I was part of
382
00:29:30,203 --> 00:29:34,331
was all involved in socialist bi-nationalism,
and Arab-Jewish cooperation,
383
00:29:34,372 --> 00:29:36,582
and all sorts of nice stuff.
384
00:29:50,133 --> 00:29:53,552
What did they think of you
hopping on a train, going up to New York,
385
00:29:53,594 --> 00:29:57,972
and hanging out at anarchist book stores
on Fourth Avenue, and talking to...
386
00:29:58,013 --> 00:30:00,140
They didn't mind, because...
387
00:30:00,182 --> 00:30:03,465
I don't want to totally trust
my childhood memories, obviously,
388
00:30:03,517 --> 00:30:05,393
but the family was split up.
389
00:30:05,435 --> 00:30:08,635
Like a lot of Jewish families,
it went in all sorts of directions.
390
00:30:08,687 --> 00:30:11,397
There were sectors that were super-Orthodox.
391
00:30:11,439 --> 00:30:16,015
There were other sectors
that were very radical, and very assimilated,
392
00:30:16,067 --> 00:30:17,944
and working-class intellectuals,
393
00:30:17,985 --> 00:30:22,363
and that's the sector
that I naturally gravitated towards.
394
00:30:22,405 --> 00:30:25,115
It was a very lively intellectual culture.
395
00:30:25,157 --> 00:30:28,826
For one thing, it was a working-class culture,
had working-class values.
396
00:30:28,868 --> 00:30:33,527
Values of solidarity, socialist values, and so on.
397
00:30:33,579 --> 00:30:35,987
There was a sense
somehow things would get better.
398
00:30:36,039 --> 00:30:40,834
An institutional structure was around, a method
of fighting, of organising, of doing things
399
00:30:40,876 --> 00:30:42,616
which had some hope.
400
00:30:42,669 --> 00:30:48,620
And I also had the advantage of having gone
to an experimental progressive school,
401
00:30:48,673 --> 00:30:50,747
to a Deweyite school which was quite good,
402
00:30:50,799 --> 00:30:55,375
run by a university there, and you know,
there was no such thing as competition.
403
00:30:55,427 --> 00:30:57,752
There was no such thing
as being a good student.
404
00:30:59,555 --> 00:31:03,849
Literally, the concept of being a good student
didn't even arise until I got to high school.
405
00:31:03,891 --> 00:31:07,936
I went to the academic high school,
and suddenly discovered I'm a good student.
406
00:31:07,977 --> 00:31:12,063
I hated high school, because I had to do
all the things you have to do to get into college.
407
00:31:12,105 --> 00:31:16,149
But until then,
it was kind of a free, pretty open system,
408
00:31:16,191 --> 00:31:17,984
and lots of other things as well.
409
00:31:18,026 --> 00:31:19,652
Maybe I was just cantankerous.
410
00:31:20,694 --> 00:31:23,404
As a historian,
I have read with interest and amazement
411
00:31:23,446 --> 00:31:26,730
your long review article
of Gabriel Jackson's Spanish Civil War.
412
00:31:26,782 --> 00:31:30,618
It's a very respectable piece of history.
I appreciate how much work goes into it.
413
00:31:30,659 --> 00:31:32,369
You know when I did that work?
414
00:31:32,410 --> 00:31:36,027
I did that work in the early 1940s
when I was about 12 years old.
415
00:31:43,168 --> 00:31:48,046
The first article I wrote was right
ater the fall of Barcelona in the school paper,
416
00:31:48,088 --> 00:31:52,299
and it was a lament
about the rise of Fascism in 1939.
417
00:31:56,385 --> 00:31:59,887
I guess one of the people who was
the biggest influence in my life was an uncle
418
00:31:59,929 --> 00:32:05,714
who had never gone past fourth grade,
had a background in crime,
419
00:32:05,766 --> 00:32:08,143
and let-wing politics, and all sorts of things.
420
00:32:09,185 --> 00:32:11,343
But he was a hunchback,
421
00:32:11,395 --> 00:32:14,428
and as a result
he could get a newsstand in New York.
422
00:32:14,480 --> 00:32:18,483
They had some programme
for people with physical disabilities.
423
00:32:18,525 --> 00:32:22,736
Some of you are from New York, I guess.
Well, you know the 72nd Street kiosk?
424
00:32:22,778 --> 00:32:24,362
Yes!
425
00:32:24,404 --> 00:32:27,114
That's where I got my political education.
426
00:32:27,156 --> 00:32:31,732
At 72nd Street - where you come out of the
subway, everybody goes towards 72nd Street.
427
00:32:31,784 --> 00:32:35,401
There were two newsstands on that side
which were doing fine,
428
00:32:35,453 --> 00:32:36,829
and there's two on the back.
429
00:32:36,871 --> 00:32:39,831
Nobody comes out the back,
and that's where his newsstand...
430
00:32:43,208 --> 00:32:46,408
But it was a very lively place.
He was a very bright guy.
431
00:32:46,460 --> 00:32:49,379
It was the '30s. There were a lot of émigrés.
432
00:32:49,421 --> 00:32:53,090
A lot of people were hanging around there,
and in the evenings especially
433
00:32:53,132 --> 00:32:56,217
it was sort of a literary-political salon.
434
00:32:56,259 --> 00:32:59,542
There were, kind of, guys
hanging around arguing and talking, and...
435
00:32:59,594 --> 00:33:02,263
as a kid, like 11, 12 years old,
436
00:33:02,304 --> 00:33:05,306
the biggest excitement
was to work the newsstand.
437
00:33:09,434 --> 00:33:11,592
You write in Manufacturing Consent
438
00:33:11,644 --> 00:33:15,094
that it's the primary function of the mass media
in the United States
439
00:33:15,146 --> 00:33:18,065
to mobilise public support
for the special interests
440
00:33:18,107 --> 00:33:20,681
that dominate the government
and the private sector.
441
00:33:20,734 --> 00:33:22,724
What are those interests?
442
00:33:22,777 --> 00:33:25,654
Well, if you want to understand
the way any society works,
443
00:33:25,695 --> 00:33:27,071
ours or any other,
444
00:33:27,113 --> 00:33:30,782
the first place to look is who makes...
who is in a position
445
00:33:30,824 --> 00:33:34,274
to make the decisions
that determine the way the society functions.
446
00:33:34,326 --> 00:33:36,452
Societies differ, but in ours
447
00:33:36,494 --> 00:33:40,247
the major decisions
over what happens in the society -
448
00:33:40,288 --> 00:33:43,791
decisions over investment, and production,
and distribution and so on -
449
00:33:43,832 --> 00:33:47,919
are in the hands of
a relatively concentrated network
450
00:33:47,960 --> 00:33:52,130
of major corporations and conglomerates,
and investment firms, and so on.
451
00:33:52,171 --> 00:33:57,675
They are also the ones who staff the major
executive positions in the government,
452
00:33:57,717 --> 00:34:00,093
and they are the ones who own the media,
453
00:34:00,135 --> 00:34:03,836
and they are the ones who have to be
in a position to make the decisions.
454
00:34:03,888 --> 00:34:08,213
They have an overwhelmingly dominant role
in the way life happens,
455
00:34:08,266 --> 00:34:10,475
you know, what's done in the society.
456
00:34:10,517 --> 00:34:15,062
Within the economic system,
by law and in principle, they dominate.
457
00:34:15,104 --> 00:34:19,429
The control over resources,
and the need to satisfy their interests
458
00:34:19,482 --> 00:34:21,608
imposes very sharp constraints
459
00:34:21,650 --> 00:34:25,350
on the political system
and the ideological system.
460
00:34:28,154 --> 00:34:33,856
When we talk about manufacturing of consent,
whose consent is being manufactured?
461
00:34:33,908 --> 00:34:36,285
To start with, there are two different groups.
462
00:34:36,326 --> 00:34:40,329
We can get into more detail,
but at the first level of approximation,
463
00:34:40,371 --> 00:34:42,445
there's two targets for propaganda.
464
00:34:43,498 --> 00:34:46,041
One is what is sometimes called
the political class.
465
00:34:50,086 --> 00:34:52,754
There's maybe 20 per cent of the population
466
00:34:52,796 --> 00:34:56,329
which is relatively educated,
more or less articulate.
467
00:34:56,381 --> 00:34:59,550
They'll play some kind of role
in decision making.
468
00:34:59,592 --> 00:35:02,928
They're supposed to sort of participate
in social life,
469
00:35:02,969 --> 00:35:09,255
either as managers, or cultural managers,
like, say, teachers, and writers, and so on.
470
00:35:09,307 --> 00:35:11,298
They're supposed to vote.
471
00:35:11,350 --> 00:35:17,354
They're supposed to play some role in the way
economic and political and cultural life goes on.
472
00:35:17,396 --> 00:35:19,522
Now, their consent is crucial.
473
00:35:19,564 --> 00:35:23,066
That's one group that has to be
deeply indoctrinated.
474
00:35:23,108 --> 00:35:26,193
Then there's maybe 80 per cent
of the population
475
00:35:26,235 --> 00:35:29,154
whose main function is to follow orders,
476
00:35:29,195 --> 00:35:30,738
and not to think, you know.
477
00:35:30,780 --> 00:35:33,021
Not to pay attention to anything,
478
00:35:33,073 --> 00:35:36,440
and they're the ones who usually pay the costs.
479
00:35:36,492 --> 00:35:38,900
All right, Professor Chomsky, Noam,
480
00:35:40,453 --> 00:35:46,822
you outlined a model - filters propaganda
is sent through on its way to the public.
481
00:35:46,874 --> 00:35:48,948
Will you briefly outline those?
482
00:35:49,000 --> 00:35:52,419
It's basically an institutional
analysis of the major media,
483
00:35:52,461 --> 00:35:54,535
what we call a propaganda model.
484
00:35:54,587 --> 00:36:00,216
We're talking primarily about the national
media, those media that set a general agenda
485
00:36:00,258 --> 00:36:02,499
that others more or less adhere to,
486
00:36:02,551 --> 00:36:08,336
to the extent that they even pay much attention
to national or international affairs.
487
00:36:08,388 --> 00:36:11,672
Now, the elite media are the sort of
agenda-setting media.
488
00:36:11,724 --> 00:36:13,798
The New York Times, The Washington Post,
489
00:36:13,850 --> 00:36:16,425
the major television channels, and so on.
490
00:36:17,478 --> 00:36:19,552
They set the general framework.
491
00:36:20,396 --> 00:36:23,930
Local media more or less adapt
to their structure.
492
00:36:26,692 --> 00:36:27,776
World news.
493
00:36:29,486 --> 00:36:32,488
It's a sound bite,
that says there's a beach head...
494
00:36:32,530 --> 00:36:34,604
I think 628 is a good one.
495
00:36:36,741 --> 00:36:39,034
This is the operative sound bite for us.
496
00:36:40,702 --> 00:36:42,359
Got a minute for all the times.
497
00:36:43,245 --> 00:36:44,705
I love this sound bite.
498
00:36:44,746 --> 00:36:47,665
And they do this in all sorts of ways, by...
499
00:36:58,255 --> 00:37:00,882
Two and a half minutes to air.
500
00:37:02,800 --> 00:37:04,676
45 seconds.
501
00:37:14,641 --> 00:37:18,967
There is an unusual amount of attention today
on the five nations of Central America.
502
00:37:19,019 --> 00:37:21,646
This is democracy's diary.
503
00:37:21,688 --> 00:37:24,940
Here, for our instruction,
are triumphs and disasters,
504
00:37:24,982 --> 00:37:28,015
the pattern of life's changing fabric.
505
00:37:28,067 --> 00:37:32,862
Here is great journalism,
a revelation of the past, a guide to the present,
506
00:37:32,904 --> 00:37:34,644
and a clue to the future.
507
00:37:52,167 --> 00:37:56,910
The New York Times is certainly the most
important newspaper in the United States,
508
00:37:56,962 --> 00:38:00,631
and one could argue,
the most important newspaper in the world.
509
00:38:01,840 --> 00:38:07,677
The New York Times plays an enormous role
in shaping the perception of the current world
510
00:38:07,719 --> 00:38:11,419
on the part of
the politically active, educated classes.
511
00:38:11,471 --> 00:38:13,963
Also, The New York Times has a special role,
512
00:38:14,015 --> 00:38:17,715
and I believe its editors probably feel
that they bear a heavy burden
513
00:38:17,767 --> 00:38:22,229
in the sense that
The New York Times creates history.
514
00:38:22,270 --> 00:38:25,856
What happened years ago may
have a bearing on what happens tomorrow.
515
00:38:25,898 --> 00:38:29,765
Millions of clippings
are preserved in the Times'library,
516
00:38:29,817 --> 00:38:31,891
all indexed for instant use.
517
00:38:31,944 --> 00:38:35,279
A priceless archive of events,
and the men who make them.
518
00:38:36,488 --> 00:38:39,824
That is, history is what appears in
The New York Times archives.
519
00:38:39,866 --> 00:38:43,483
The place where people will go to find out
what happened is The New York Times.
520
00:38:43,535 --> 00:38:48,278
Therefore it's extremely important,
if history is to be shaped in an appropriate way,
521
00:38:48,330 --> 00:38:53,625
that certain things appear, certain things do not,
certain questions be asked, others be ignored,
522
00:38:53,667 --> 00:38:57,033
and that issues be framed
in a particular fashion.
523
00:38:57,086 --> 00:39:01,297
Now, in whose interests
is history being so shaped?
524
00:39:01,338 --> 00:39:04,507
Well, I think that's not very difficult to answer.
525
00:39:04,549 --> 00:39:08,083
The process by which
people make up their minds on this
526
00:39:08,135 --> 00:39:10,511
is a much more mysterious process
527
00:39:10,553 --> 00:39:14,504
than you would ever guess
from reading Manufacturing Consent.
528
00:39:14,556 --> 00:39:16,682
There is a saying about legislation,
529
00:39:16,724 --> 00:39:19,132
that legislation is like making sausage.
530
00:39:20,351 --> 00:39:25,261
The less you know about how it's done,
the better for your appetite.
531
00:39:25,313 --> 00:39:26,939
The same is true of this business.
532
00:39:26,981 --> 00:39:30,681
If you're in a conference
in which decisions are being made
533
00:39:30,733 --> 00:39:32,943
on what to put on page one, or what not,
534
00:39:32,985 --> 00:39:39,322
you would get, I think, the impression
that important decisions were being made
535
00:39:39,364 --> 00:39:41,522
in a flippant and frivolous way,
536
00:39:41,574 --> 00:39:45,702
but in fact, given the pressures of time
to try to get things out,
537
00:39:45,743 --> 00:39:47,818
you resort to a kind of a shorthand,
538
00:39:47,870 --> 00:39:51,820
and you have to fill that paper up every day.
539
00:39:52,706 --> 00:39:55,667
It's curious in a kind of a mirror image way that
540
00:39:55,708 --> 00:40:00,086
Professor Chomsky is in total accord
with Reed Irvine
541
00:40:00,128 --> 00:40:05,340
who at the right-wing end of the spectrum
says exactly what Chomsky does
542
00:40:05,382 --> 00:40:11,010
about the insinuating influence of the press,
of the big media
543
00:40:11,052 --> 00:40:16,889
as "agenda setters", to use
one of the great buzz words of the time,
544
00:40:16,931 --> 00:40:21,257
and, of course,
Reed Irvine sees this as a let-wing conspiracy,
545
00:40:21,309 --> 00:40:26,104
of foisting liberal ideas in both domestic
and foreign affairs on the American people.
546
00:40:26,146 --> 00:40:29,679
But in both cases,
I think that the premise really is an insult
547
00:40:29,731 --> 00:40:32,692
to the intelligence of the people
who consume news.
548
00:40:32,733 --> 00:40:39,269
Now, to eliminate confusion, all of this has
nothing to do with liberal or conservative bias.
549
00:40:39,321 --> 00:40:44,064
According to the propaganda model, both
liberal and conservative wings of the media,
550
00:40:44,116 --> 00:40:46,190
whatever those terms are supposed to mean,
551
00:40:46,243 --> 00:40:49,828
fall within the same framework of assumptions.
552
00:40:49,870 --> 00:40:56,072
In fact, if the system functions well, it ought
to have a liberal bias, or at least appear to,
553
00:40:56,124 --> 00:40:59,043
because if it appears to have a liberal bias,
554
00:40:59,085 --> 00:41:02,285
that will serve to bound thought
even more effectively.
555
00:41:02,337 --> 00:41:07,757
In other words, if the press is indeed adversarial
and liberal, and all these bad things,
556
00:41:07,799 --> 00:41:09,873
then how can I go beyond it?
557
00:41:09,925 --> 00:41:14,303
They're already so extreme in their opposition
to power that to go beyond it
558
00:41:14,345 --> 00:41:16,419
would be to take off from the planet,
559
00:41:16,471 --> 00:41:19,473
so therefore it must be that the presuppositions
560
00:41:19,515 --> 00:41:23,726
that are accepted in the liberal media
are sacrosanct.
561
00:41:23,768 --> 00:41:25,477
Can't go beyond them.
562
00:41:25,519 --> 00:41:29,303
And a well-functioning system
would in fact have a bias of that kind.
563
00:41:29,355 --> 00:41:34,900
The media would then serve to say, in effect:
Thus far and no further.
564
00:41:34,942 --> 00:41:38,027
We ask what would you expect of those media
565
00:41:38,069 --> 00:41:44,782
on just relatively uncontroversial,
guided-free market assumptions?
566
00:41:44,824 --> 00:41:48,107
And when you look at them,
you find a number of major factors
567
00:41:48,159 --> 00:41:50,828
entering into
determining what their products are.
568
00:41:50,869 --> 00:41:55,279
These are what we call the filters -
so one of them, for example, is ownership.
569
00:41:55,331 --> 00:41:57,707
Who owns them?
570
00:41:57,749 --> 00:42:01,251
The major agenda-setting media,
ater all, what are they?
571
00:42:01,293 --> 00:42:03,784
As institutions in the society, what are they?
572
00:42:03,837 --> 00:42:06,463
Well, in the first place
they are major corporations.
573
00:42:06,505 --> 00:42:08,663
In fact, huge corporations.
574
00:42:08,715 --> 00:42:13,458
Furthermore, they're integrated with, and
sometimes owned by, even larger corporations,
575
00:42:13,510 --> 00:42:17,763
conglomerates, so, for example,
by Westinghouse, GE and so on.
576
00:42:23,266 --> 00:42:29,187
What I wanted to know was
how specifically the elites control the media.
577
00:42:29,229 --> 00:42:32,429
That's like asking,
"How do the elites control General Motors"?
578
00:42:33,857 --> 00:42:35,931
Why isn't that a question?
579
00:42:35,983 --> 00:42:40,476
I mean, General Motors is an institution of the
elites. They don't have to control it. They own it.
580
00:42:40,528 --> 00:42:43,019
Except I guess, at a certain level I think...
581
00:42:45,698 --> 00:42:49,534
Like, I guess... I work with student press,
so I know, like, reporters and stuff...
582
00:42:49,576 --> 00:42:52,859
Elites don't control the student press,
but I'll tell you something -
583
00:42:52,911 --> 00:42:57,571
you try in the student press
to do anything that breaks out of conventions,
584
00:42:57,623 --> 00:43:01,542
and you're going to have the whole business
community around here down on your neck,
585
00:43:01,584 --> 00:43:04,669
and the university's going to get threatened,
and you know...
586
00:43:04,711 --> 00:43:07,546
Maybe nobody'll pay any attention to you.
That's possible.
587
00:43:07,588 --> 00:43:10,840
If you get to the point
where they don't stop paying attention to you,
588
00:43:10,882 --> 00:43:12,623
the pressures'll start coming.
589
00:43:12,675 --> 00:43:16,375
Because there are people with power,
there are people who own the country,
590
00:43:16,427 --> 00:43:19,096
and they're not going to
let the country get out of control.
591
00:43:19,137 --> 00:43:21,347
What do you think about that?
592
00:43:21,389 --> 00:43:29,394
This is the old cabal theory that somewhere
there's a room with a baize-covered desk,
593
00:43:29,436 --> 00:43:32,719
and there are a bunch of capitalists
sitting around pulling strings.
594
00:43:32,772 --> 00:43:36,222
These rooms don't exist.
I hate to tell Noam Chomsky this.
595
00:43:36,274 --> 00:43:40,026
- You don't share that view?
- It's the most absolute rubbish I've ever heard.
596
00:43:40,068 --> 00:43:41,892
It's the fashion in the universities.
597
00:43:41,944 --> 00:43:46,270
It's patent nonsense,
and I think it's nothing but a fashion.
598
00:43:46,322 --> 00:43:48,532
It's a way that...
599
00:43:49,283 --> 00:43:52,285
intellectuals have of... of feeling like a clergy.
600
00:43:52,326 --> 00:43:54,568
There has to be something wrong.
601
00:44:46,613 --> 00:44:48,687
So, what we have in the first place
602
00:44:48,740 --> 00:44:52,523
is major corporations
which are parts of even bigger conglomerates.
603
00:44:52,575 --> 00:44:58,361
Now, like any other corporation, they...
they have a product which they sell to a market.
604
00:44:59,538 --> 00:45:03,239
The market is advertisers,
that is, other businesses.
605
00:45:03,291 --> 00:45:06,825
What keeps the media functioning
is not the audience.
606
00:45:06,877 --> 00:45:11,286
They make money from their advertisers, and
remember, we're talking about the elite media,
607
00:45:11,338 --> 00:45:17,426
so they're trying to sell a good product,
a product which raises advertising rates.
608
00:45:17,467 --> 00:45:19,875
And ask your friends in the advertising industry.
609
00:45:19,927 --> 00:45:22,888
That means
that they want to adjust their audience
610
00:45:22,929 --> 00:45:25,056
to the more elite and affluent audience.
611
00:45:25,097 --> 00:45:26,838
That raises advertising rates.
612
00:45:26,890 --> 00:45:31,018
So what you have is institutions, corporations -
big corporations -
613
00:45:31,060 --> 00:45:35,521
that are selling relatively privileged audiences
to other businesses.
614
00:45:35,563 --> 00:45:39,096
Well, what point of view
would you expect to come out of this?
615
00:45:39,732 --> 00:45:42,766
Without any further assumptions,
what you'd predict is
616
00:45:42,818 --> 00:45:46,268
that what comes out is a picture of the world,
a perception of the world,
617
00:45:46,320 --> 00:45:49,937
that satisfies the needs,
and the interests, and the perceptions
618
00:45:49,989 --> 00:45:53,606
of the sellers, the buyers, and the product.
619
00:45:56,285 --> 00:45:59,485
Now, there are many other factors
that press in the same direction.
620
00:45:59,537 --> 00:46:03,457
If people try to enter the system
who don't have that point of view,
621
00:46:03,498 --> 00:46:06,292
they're likely to be excluded
somewhere along the way.
622
00:46:06,334 --> 00:46:10,962
Ater all, no institution is going to
happily design a mechanism to self-destruct.
623
00:46:11,003 --> 00:46:15,663
That's not the way institutions function,
so they all work to exclude, or marginalise,
624
00:46:15,715 --> 00:46:19,415
or eliminate dissenting voices,
or alternative perspectives and so on
625
00:46:19,467 --> 00:46:21,094
because they're dysfunctional.
626
00:46:21,135 --> 00:46:23,595
They're dysfunctional to the institution itself.
627
00:46:23,637 --> 00:46:27,963
Do you think you've escaped
the ideological indoctrination
628
00:46:28,015 --> 00:46:30,475
of the media and society that you grew up in?
629
00:46:30,517 --> 00:46:32,841
Have I? Oten not.
630
00:46:32,893 --> 00:46:34,478
I mean, when I look back,
631
00:46:34,519 --> 00:46:39,429
and think of the things that I haven't done
that I should have done, it's...
632
00:46:39,481 --> 00:46:41,555
it's very...
633
00:46:42,400 --> 00:46:43,817
it's...
634
00:46:43,859 --> 00:46:45,568
not a pleasant experience.
635
00:46:45,610 --> 00:46:48,695
So, what's the story
of young Noam in the school yard?
636
00:46:48,737 --> 00:46:49,936
Yeah, another...
637
00:46:49,988 --> 00:46:51,864
I mean, that was a personal thing for me.
638
00:46:51,906 --> 00:46:55,075
I don't know why it should interest anyone else,
but I do remember...
639
00:46:55,116 --> 00:46:58,535
- You drew certain conclusions.
- It had a big influence on me.
640
00:46:58,577 --> 00:47:01,371
I remember when I was about six, I guess,
641
00:47:01,412 --> 00:47:06,207
first grade, there was the standard fat kid
who everybody made fun of,
642
00:47:06,249 --> 00:47:10,877
and I remember in the school yard,
he was on a...
643
00:47:11,920 --> 00:47:15,787
you know, standing right outside
the school classroom,
644
00:47:15,839 --> 00:47:19,508
and a bunch of kids outside sort of taunting him,
and... you know, and so on,
645
00:47:19,550 --> 00:47:22,343
and one of the kids actually brought over
his older brother
646
00:47:22,385 --> 00:47:24,459
from third grade instead of first grade.
647
00:47:24,511 --> 00:47:25,887
Big kid.
648
00:47:25,929 --> 00:47:28,087
And he was going to beat him up or something,
649
00:47:28,139 --> 00:47:30,807
and I remember going up to stand next to him,
650
00:47:30,849 --> 00:47:33,966
feeling somebody ought to... help him,
651
00:47:34,018 --> 00:47:36,645
and I did for a while, and then I got scared,
652
00:47:36,686 --> 00:47:40,731
and I went away,
and I was very much ashamed of it aterwards,
653
00:47:40,772 --> 00:47:44,275
and sort of felt, you know...
"I'm not going to do that again."
654
00:47:46,359 --> 00:47:51,269
That's a feeling that's stuck with me -
you should stick with the underdog.
655
00:47:52,322 --> 00:47:55,355
And the shame remained.
I should have stayed there.
656
00:47:57,659 --> 00:48:01,912
You were already established, you were a
professor at MIT, you'd made a reputation,
657
00:48:01,953 --> 00:48:03,746
you had a terrific career ahead of you.
658
00:48:03,788 --> 00:48:07,488
You decided to become a political activist.
659
00:48:07,540 --> 00:48:12,085
Now, here is a classic case of somebody the
institution does not seem to have filtered out.
660
00:48:12,127 --> 00:48:14,451
I mean, you were a good boy up until then,
were you?
661
00:48:14,503 --> 00:48:16,713
Or you'd always been a slight rebel?
662
00:48:16,755 --> 00:48:19,548
Pretty much. I had been pretty much outside.
663
00:48:19,590 --> 00:48:23,635
You felt isolated and out of
sympathy with the currents of American life,
664
00:48:23,676 --> 00:48:24,958
but a lot of people do that.
665
00:48:25,010 --> 00:48:28,179
Suddenly, in 1964,
you decide, "I have to do something about this".
666
00:48:28,221 --> 00:48:29,555
What made you do that?
667
00:48:29,597 --> 00:48:33,099
That was a very conscious,
and a very uncomfortable, decision,
668
00:48:33,141 --> 00:48:35,684
because I knew
what the consequences would be.
669
00:48:35,726 --> 00:48:37,800
I was in a very favourable position.
670
00:48:37,852 --> 00:48:39,927
I had the kind of work I liked,
671
00:48:39,979 --> 00:48:42,189
we had a lively, exciting department,
672
00:48:42,230 --> 00:48:44,722
the field was going well, personal life was fine,
673
00:48:44,774 --> 00:48:47,150
I was living in a nice place, children growing up.
674
00:48:47,192 --> 00:48:49,861
Everything looked perfect,
and I knew I was giving it up,
675
00:48:49,902 --> 00:48:52,571
and at that time, remember,
it was not just giving talks.
676
00:48:52,612 --> 00:48:54,937
I became involved right away in resistance,
677
00:48:54,989 --> 00:48:58,658
and I expected to spend years in jail,
and came very close to it.
678
00:48:58,700 --> 00:49:01,660
In fact,
my wife went back to graduate school in part
679
00:49:01,702 --> 00:49:04,329
as we assumed
she would have to support the children.
680
00:49:04,370 --> 00:49:05,955
These were the expectations.
681
00:49:12,334 --> 00:49:15,503
And I recognised
that if I returned to these interests
682
00:49:15,545 --> 00:49:17,952
which were the dominant interests
of my own youth,
683
00:49:18,005 --> 00:49:20,298
life would become very uncomfortable.
684
00:49:20,340 --> 00:49:24,259
Because I know that in the United States
you don't get sent to psychiatric prison,
685
00:49:24,301 --> 00:49:26,761
and they don't send a death squad ater you
and so on,
686
00:49:26,802 --> 00:49:30,805
but there are definite penalties
for breaking the rules.
687
00:49:31,847 --> 00:49:33,557
So these were real decisions,
688
00:49:33,598 --> 00:49:39,634
and it simply seemed at that point
that it was just hopelessly immoral not to.
689
00:49:42,271 --> 00:49:45,065
I'm Noam Chomsky, I'm on the faculty at MIT,
690
00:49:45,106 --> 00:49:48,556
and I've been getting
more and more heavily involved
691
00:49:48,609 --> 00:49:51,069
in anti-war activities for the last few years.
692
00:50:03,744 --> 00:50:07,746
Beginning with writing articles,
and making speeches,
693
00:50:07,788 --> 00:50:10,081
speaking to congressmen
and that sort of thing,
694
00:50:10,123 --> 00:50:17,044
and gradually getting involved more and more
directly in resistance activities of various sorts.
695
00:50:17,086 --> 00:50:21,037
I've come to the feeling myself
that the most effective form of political action
696
00:50:21,089 --> 00:50:26,759
that is open to a responsible
and concerned citizen at the moment
697
00:50:26,801 --> 00:50:31,054
is action that really involves direct resistance,
698
00:50:31,096 --> 00:50:35,588
refusal to take part in
what I think are war crimes,
699
00:50:35,640 --> 00:50:39,935
to raise the domestic cost
of American aggression overseas
700
00:50:39,977 --> 00:50:45,845
through non-participation, and support
for those who are refusing to take part,
701
00:50:45,897 --> 00:50:48,732
in particular,
drat resistance throughout the country.
702
00:50:58,239 --> 00:51:03,315
I think that we can see quite clearly
some very, very serious defects and flaws
703
00:51:03,367 --> 00:51:06,328
in our society,
our level of culture, our institutions
704
00:51:06,369 --> 00:51:08,194
which are going to have to be corrected
705
00:51:08,246 --> 00:51:11,581
by operating outside of the framework
that is commonly accepted.
706
00:51:11,623 --> 00:51:15,490
I think we're going to have to
find new ways of political action.
707
00:51:41,768 --> 00:51:46,021
I rejoice in your disposition
to argue the Vietnam question,
708
00:51:46,063 --> 00:51:50,524
especially when I recognise
what an act of self-control this must involve.
709
00:51:50,566 --> 00:51:52,890
- It really does.
- You're doing very well.
710
00:51:52,942 --> 00:51:56,309
- You're doing very well.
- I lose my temper. Maybe not tonight.
711
00:51:56,361 --> 00:51:58,436
Maybe not tonight...
712
00:51:58,488 --> 00:52:01,198
because if you would
I'd smash you in the goddamn face.
713
00:52:03,575 --> 00:52:05,983
That's a good reason for not losing your temper.
714
00:52:06,035 --> 00:52:12,748
You say, "The war is simply an obscenity,
a depraved act by weak and miserable men."
715
00:52:12,789 --> 00:52:15,114
Including all of us.
716
00:52:15,166 --> 00:52:17,834
Including myself. That's the next sentence.
717
00:52:17,876 --> 00:52:20,002
Oh, sure, sure, sure.
718
00:52:20,044 --> 00:52:23,161
Because you count everybody
in the company of the guilty.
719
00:52:23,213 --> 00:52:26,747
- I think that's true in this case.
- It's a theological observation.
720
00:52:26,799 --> 00:52:28,050
No, I don't think so.
721
00:52:28,091 --> 00:52:32,094
If everybody's guilty of everything,
then nobody's guilty of anything.
722
00:52:32,136 --> 00:52:33,512
No, I don't believe that.
723
00:52:33,553 --> 00:52:37,056
I think the point that I'm trying to make,
and I think ought to be made,
724
00:52:37,097 --> 00:52:39,557
is that the real...
725
00:52:39,599 --> 00:52:42,851
at least to me -
I say this elsewhere in the book -
726
00:52:42,893 --> 00:52:49,429
what seems to me a very, in a sense, terrifying
aspect of our society and other societies
727
00:52:49,481 --> 00:52:55,485
is the equanimity and the detachment
with which sane, reasonable, sensible people
728
00:52:55,526 --> 00:52:57,267
can observe such events.
729
00:52:57,319 --> 00:53:02,281
I think that's more terrifying than
the occasional Hitler or LeMay that crops up.
730
00:53:02,323 --> 00:53:05,773
These people would not be able
to operate were it not for the...
731
00:53:05,825 --> 00:53:07,368
this apathy and equanimity,
732
00:53:07,409 --> 00:53:09,619
and therefore I think that it's in some sense
733
00:53:09,661 --> 00:53:17,041
the sane, and reasonable, and tolerant people
who share a very serious burden of guilt
734
00:53:17,083 --> 00:53:20,449
that they very easily
throw on the shoulders of others
735
00:53:20,502 --> 00:53:23,253
who seem more extreme and more violent.
736
00:53:26,255 --> 00:53:32,176
12 million pounds of confetti dropped into
New York City's so-called Canyon of Heroes.
737
00:53:32,218 --> 00:53:36,763
Americans were officially welcoming
the troops home from the Persian Gulf war.
738
00:53:36,804 --> 00:53:39,014
It worked out really great for us.
739
00:53:39,056 --> 00:53:46,686
It just goes to show that we're a mighty nation,
and we'll be there no matter what comes along.
740
00:53:46,728 --> 00:53:51,189
It's the strongest country in the world,
and you got to be glad to live here.
741
00:53:51,231 --> 00:53:55,400
So, tell me what you feel
about media coverage of the war.
742
00:53:55,442 --> 00:54:00,487
It was good. It got to be a bit much ater a while,
but I guess it was good to know everything.
743
00:54:00,529 --> 00:54:03,103
In Vietnam you didn't know a lot
that was going on,
744
00:54:03,155 --> 00:54:06,658
but here you're pretty much
up to the moment on everything,
745
00:54:06,699 --> 00:54:09,326
so... I guess it was good to be informed.
746
00:54:11,077 --> 00:54:15,122
For the first time,
because of technology, we have the ability
747
00:54:15,163 --> 00:54:18,864
to be live from many locations
around the globe,
748
00:54:18,916 --> 00:54:23,044
and because of the format -
an all-news network -
749
00:54:23,085 --> 00:54:27,745
we can spend whatever time is necessary
to bring the viewer
750
00:54:27,797 --> 00:54:32,206
the complete context
of that day's portion of the story.
751
00:54:35,552 --> 00:54:42,797
And by context, I mean the institutional memory
that is critical to understand why and how,
752
00:54:42,849 --> 00:54:47,894
and that's those who are analysts,
and do commentary,
753
00:54:47,936 --> 00:54:50,396
and those who can explain.
754
00:54:51,605 --> 00:54:53,679
Slug that last piece...
755
00:54:55,816 --> 00:55:00,142
...lTN-lsrael Post War.
756
00:55:00,194 --> 00:55:03,946
David Brinkley once said
that you step in front of the camera,
757
00:55:03,988 --> 00:55:06,657
and you get out of news business,
and into show business,
758
00:55:06,698 --> 00:55:11,941
but nonetheless
that should not in any way subtract or obscure
759
00:55:11,994 --> 00:55:14,996
the need for the basic standards
of good journalism.
760
00:55:15,037 --> 00:55:18,571
Hang tight. Let me
give you a lead for Salinger right now, OK?
761
00:55:19,457 --> 00:55:23,949
President Bush
and Prime Minister Major have...
762
00:55:25,002 --> 00:55:28,922
...closed, or have almost rejected...
763
00:55:28,963 --> 00:55:33,373
the Soviet peace talk...
peace efforts in Saudi Arabia.
764
00:55:33,425 --> 00:55:36,051
The door is being let open.
765
00:55:36,093 --> 00:55:39,794
Rick Salinger is standing by live in Riyad.
766
00:55:39,846 --> 00:55:42,254
- All but closed.
- Yeah. All but closed.
767
00:55:42,306 --> 00:55:43,682
Right.
768
00:55:43,723 --> 00:55:49,269
Accuracy, speed, a fair approach,
honesty and integrity within the reporter
769
00:55:49,310 --> 00:55:52,427
to try and bring the truth,
whatever the truth may be.
770
00:55:53,271 --> 00:55:55,231
Going to war is a serious business.
771
00:55:55,273 --> 00:56:00,516
In a totalitarian society, the dictator just says,
"We're going to war", and everybody marches.
772
00:56:00,568 --> 00:56:03,737
And with this weapon
of human brotherhood in our hands
773
00:56:03,778 --> 00:56:09,199
we are seeing the war for men's minds
not as a battle of truth against lies,
774
00:56:09,240 --> 00:56:13,535
but as a lasting alliance pledged in faith
with all those millions driving forward
775
00:56:13,577 --> 00:56:18,372
to create the true new order-
the world order of the people first,
776
00:56:18,413 --> 00:56:20,540
the people before all.
777
00:56:20,581 --> 00:56:26,043
In a democratic society, the theory
is, if the political leadership is committed to war
778
00:56:26,085 --> 00:56:30,130
they present reasons, and they've got
a very heavy burden of proof to meet.
779
00:56:30,171 --> 00:56:33,840
Because a war is a very catastrophic affair,
as it's been proved to be.
780
00:56:33,882 --> 00:56:36,592
Now, the role of the media at that point is to...
781
00:56:36,634 --> 00:56:40,053
is to present the relevant background.
782
00:56:40,095 --> 00:56:43,211
For example,
the possibilities of peaceful settlement,
783
00:56:43,263 --> 00:56:45,671
such as what they may be,
have to be presented,
784
00:56:45,723 --> 00:56:53,354
and then to offer a forum... in fact encourage
a forum of debate over this very dread decision
785
00:56:53,395 --> 00:56:56,814
to go to war, and in this case
kill hundreds of thousands of people,
786
00:56:56,856 --> 00:56:58,930
and leave two countries wrecked, and so on.
787
00:56:58,982 --> 00:57:00,890
That never happened.
788
00:57:00,942 --> 00:57:02,485
There was never...
789
00:57:02,526 --> 00:57:04,069
Well, you know, when I say never,
790
00:57:04,111 --> 00:57:10,230
I mean 99.9 per cent of the discussion
excluded the option of a peaceful settlement.
791
00:57:10,282 --> 00:57:12,908
To Washington's Office of War Information
792
00:57:12,950 --> 00:57:16,995
falls one of the most vital and constructive tasks
of this war.
793
00:57:17,036 --> 00:57:19,111
This is a people's war,
794
00:57:19,163 --> 00:57:23,739
and to win it, the people ought to
know as much about it as they can.
795
00:57:23,791 --> 00:57:28,252
This office will do its best to tell the truth,
and nothing but the truth,
796
00:57:28,294 --> 00:57:30,035
both at home and abroad.
797
00:57:30,087 --> 00:57:33,287
The first weapon
in this worldwide strategy of proof
798
00:57:33,339 --> 00:57:36,456
is the great machine of information
represented by the free press
799
00:57:36,508 --> 00:57:40,677
with its powers of moulding public thought,
and leading public action,
800
00:57:40,719 --> 00:57:43,971
with all its lifelines
for the exchange of new ideas
801
00:57:44,013 --> 00:57:47,046
between fighting nations
spread across the earth.
802
00:57:49,391 --> 00:57:53,061
Every time Bush would appear
and say, "There will be no negotiations",
803
00:57:53,102 --> 00:57:56,219
there would be a hundred editorials
the next day
804
00:57:56,271 --> 00:57:59,523
lauding him
for going the last mile for diplomacy.
805
00:57:59,565 --> 00:58:03,943
If he said, "You can't reward an aggressor",
instead of cracking up in ridicule
806
00:58:03,985 --> 00:58:08,071
the way people did in civilised sectors
of the world like the whole Third World,
807
00:58:08,112 --> 00:58:11,948
the media still...
"man of fantastic principle", you know.
808
00:58:11,990 --> 00:58:14,909
The invader of Panama, the only head of state
809
00:58:14,950 --> 00:58:18,203
who stands condemned
for aggression in the world,
810
00:58:18,244 --> 00:58:21,163
the guy who was head of the CIA
during the Timor aggression,
811
00:58:21,205 --> 00:58:24,457
he says, "Aggressors can't be rewarded",
the media just applaud it.
812
00:58:24,498 --> 00:58:29,710
The motion picture industry with
its worldwide organisation of newsreel crews,
813
00:58:29,752 --> 00:58:32,921
invaluable for bringing into vivid focus
814
00:58:32,962 --> 00:58:35,964
the background drama
and perspectives of the war.
815
00:58:36,590 --> 00:58:41,051
Mobilised too in this all-out struggle
for men's minds are the radio networks,
816
00:58:41,093 --> 00:58:45,554
with all their experience in the swift reporting
of great occasions and events.
817
00:58:47,431 --> 00:58:50,766
From every strategic centre
and frontline stronghold
818
00:58:50,808 --> 00:58:53,768
their reporters are sending back
the lessons of new tactics,
819
00:58:53,810 --> 00:58:55,884
new ways of war.
820
00:58:55,936 --> 00:59:00,429
The result was it's a media war.
There's tremendous fakery all along the line.
821
00:59:00,481 --> 00:59:03,108
The UN is finally living up to its mission.
822
00:59:03,650 --> 00:59:06,193
"A wondrous sea change",
The New York Times told us.
823
00:59:06,235 --> 00:59:08,528
The only wondrous sea change
was that for once
824
00:59:08,570 --> 00:59:12,656
the United States didn't veto a Security Council
Resolution against aggression.
825
00:59:14,407 --> 00:59:17,159
People don't want a war
unless you have to have one,
826
00:59:17,201 --> 00:59:19,358
and would've known
you don't have to have one.
827
00:59:19,410 --> 00:59:21,537
The media kept people from knowing that,
828
00:59:21,579 --> 00:59:25,081
and that means we went to war
very much in the manner of a totalitarian state,
829
00:59:25,123 --> 00:59:26,999
thanks to the media subservience.
830
00:59:27,041 --> 00:59:28,781
That's the big story.
831
00:59:35,463 --> 00:59:38,997
Now, remember I'm not talking about
a small radio station in Laramie.
832
00:59:39,049 --> 00:59:43,135
I'm talking about
the national agenda-setting media.
833
00:59:43,177 --> 00:59:45,751
If you run a radio news show in Laramie,
834
00:59:45,803 --> 00:59:50,181
chances are very strong that you pick up
what was in The Times that morning,
835
00:59:50,223 --> 00:59:51,766
and you decide that's the news.
836
00:59:51,807 --> 00:59:54,809
In fact, if you follow the AP wires,
you find it in the aternoon.
837
00:59:54,851 --> 00:59:58,551
They send across tomorrow's front page
of The New York Times.
838
00:59:58,604 --> 01:00:00,897
That's so that everybody knows
what the news is.
839
01:00:00,939 --> 01:00:05,483
The perceptions and perspectives
and so on are sort of transmitted down,
840
01:00:05,525 --> 01:00:10,320
not to the precise detail, but the general picture
is pretty much transmitted elsewhere.
841
01:00:12,446 --> 01:00:15,563
The foreign news comes here
to the Foreign News desk.
842
01:00:15,615 --> 01:00:17,689
The editor is Bob Hanley.
843
01:00:18,617 --> 01:00:22,662
Bob, I suppose you get far more foreign news
than you can possibly use in the paper.
844
01:00:22,703 --> 01:00:26,831
Yes, we do. We get a great deal more
than we can accommodate in a day.
845
01:00:26,873 --> 01:00:28,780
Your job is to weed it out, I suppose.
846
01:00:28,832 --> 01:00:31,866
This is the selection centre, as it were,
847
01:00:31,918 --> 01:00:34,586
and when I have selected it
848
01:00:34,628 --> 01:00:39,788
I pass it across the desk
to one or the other of the sub-editors.
849
01:00:39,840 --> 01:00:44,916
It comes back to me,
and on this chart I design the page.
850
01:00:44,968 --> 01:00:47,043
That is page one and page two.
851
01:00:47,095 --> 01:00:48,888
Fine, Bob. Thank you very much.
852
01:00:54,141 --> 01:00:56,976
- Why do you want to make a film about Media?
- Well...
853
01:00:57,018 --> 01:00:58,728
Such a nice, quiet town.
854
01:00:58,769 --> 01:01:00,645
It's a beautiful town.
855
01:01:00,687 --> 01:01:04,440
We're making a film about the mass media,
so we thought what a good place to come.
856
01:01:04,481 --> 01:01:06,107
Want to know where they got the name?
857
01:01:06,149 --> 01:01:08,640
Maybe you could start
by introducing yourself.
858
01:01:08,693 --> 01:01:10,569
Yes, I'm Bodhon Senkow.
859
01:01:10,611 --> 01:01:14,561
I'm the main street manager and executive
director of the Media Business Authority,
860
01:01:14,613 --> 01:01:17,699
and we are in Media, Delaware County,
861
01:01:17,740 --> 01:01:20,148
in the southeastern part of Pennsylvania.
862
01:01:20,200 --> 01:01:23,453
Media is called "Everybody's hometown".
863
01:01:23,494 --> 01:01:27,747
The motto was developed
as a way to promote the community.
864
01:01:27,789 --> 01:01:30,332
We're a very high
promotion-conscious community.
865
01:01:31,875 --> 01:01:35,461
When you walk through Media,
you'll be treated very well,
866
01:01:35,502 --> 01:01:40,078
and you find that people have taken the idea
of being everybody's hometown to heart.
867
01:01:40,130 --> 01:01:42,799
The local paper, The Talk of the Town...
868
01:01:42,841 --> 01:01:44,425
The Town Talk.
869
01:01:45,050 --> 01:01:47,177
- Do you read that?
- Yes, I read The Town Talk.
870
01:01:47,219 --> 01:01:51,002
What do you think the difference is between
The Wall Street Journal and The Talk?
871
01:01:51,054 --> 01:01:53,723
Well, I mean, The Town Talk
is completely local news,
872
01:01:53,765 --> 01:01:56,558
and it's fun, it's nice to read, it's interesting.
873
01:01:56,600 --> 01:02:00,769
You read about your neighbours, see what's
going on in the district, and things like that.
874
01:02:00,811 --> 01:02:04,595
We're in business to make bucks,
just like the big daily newspapers,
875
01:02:04,647 --> 01:02:07,138
and like the big radio stations,
and we do quite well,
876
01:02:07,190 --> 01:02:09,650
and rightfully so, cos we work very hard at it.
877
01:02:09,692 --> 01:02:13,226
I just wanna show you a copy of the paper here,
the way it is this week.
878
01:02:13,278 --> 01:02:16,030
It's plastic-wrapped on all four sides.
879
01:02:16,071 --> 01:02:20,074
Weatherproof,
and hung on everybody's front door.
880
01:02:20,116 --> 01:02:25,244
And many times you'll find this paper runs
well over 100 pages a week.
881
01:02:25,286 --> 01:02:27,496
You have to remember there are five editions.
882
01:02:27,537 --> 01:02:30,206
This happens to be
the Central Delaware County edition,
883
01:02:30,248 --> 01:02:33,041
which is the edition
that covers Media, Pennsylvania.
884
01:02:33,083 --> 01:02:36,200
What you see here
is the advertising and composition department.
885
01:02:36,252 --> 01:02:38,326
- Say hello, guys, will you?
- Hi.
886
01:02:39,379 --> 01:02:43,673
And what we're doing now is we're putting
red dots, green dots, and yellow dots
887
01:02:43,715 --> 01:02:47,384
up on the map wherever there is a store.
888
01:02:47,426 --> 01:02:50,428
The red dots are the stores
that don't advertise with us at all.
889
01:02:50,470 --> 01:02:53,388
The green dots are the ones
that advertise with us every week,
890
01:02:53,430 --> 01:02:57,099
and the yellow dots
are the ones that run sporadically.
891
01:02:57,141 --> 01:03:00,257
Now, we have computer print-outs
of every one of these stores,
892
01:03:00,310 --> 01:03:04,437
and what we do is we take the print-outs
of all the red dots which are the bad guys,
893
01:03:04,479 --> 01:03:08,972
and our idea is to turn these red dots into yellow
dots, and turn the yellow dots into green dots,
894
01:03:09,024 --> 01:03:12,276
and eventually make them all green dots,
so 100 per cent of the stores
895
01:03:12,318 --> 01:03:16,362
and 100 per cent of the merchants and service
people advertise in our paper every week.
896
01:03:16,404 --> 01:03:18,311
That way, we won't have any more red dots.
897
01:03:18,363 --> 01:03:20,855
I guess there'll always be a few,
but I have high hopes
898
01:03:20,907 --> 01:03:23,867
there'll be a lot more green ones
than red when we're finished.
899
01:03:23,909 --> 01:03:25,326
Hi, I'm Jim Morgan.
900
01:03:25,368 --> 01:03:28,537
I'm with the Corporate Relations Department
of The New York Times,
901
01:03:28,579 --> 01:03:32,279
and I'm here to take you on a tour
of The New York Times, so... let's begin.
902
01:03:35,708 --> 01:03:38,669
So, they're just taking audio in here, yeah.
903
01:03:38,710 --> 01:03:40,785
They're taking audio in here.
904
01:03:40,837 --> 01:03:44,704
Audio. No cameras, no still.
We went over this quite thoroughly.
905
01:03:44,756 --> 01:03:47,247
They don't even take a still camera in here.
906
01:03:49,134 --> 01:03:52,251
We're in the composing room.
This is where the pages are composed.
907
01:03:52,303 --> 01:03:54,044
This is the typographical area.
908
01:04:01,518 --> 01:04:07,021
This might seem big, but it is average.
In fact, below average.
909
01:04:07,063 --> 01:04:12,483
Our 60 per cent might include on some days
maybe...
910
01:04:12,525 --> 01:04:16,694
20 pages of classified advertising all to itself,
911
01:04:16,736 --> 01:04:20,687
where the rest of the newspaper
is weighted much heavier news to advertising,
912
01:04:20,739 --> 01:04:24,523
but the paper in its entirety every day,
large or small,
913
01:04:24,575 --> 01:04:27,066
is 60 ads, 40 news.
914
01:04:28,953 --> 01:04:31,705
Well, that completes our tour
of The New York Times,
915
01:04:31,746 --> 01:04:34,998
and I hope you found it informative, and...
916
01:04:36,041 --> 01:04:40,919
...I hope that you read The New York Times
every day of your life from now on.
917
01:04:44,755 --> 01:04:49,164
There are other media too
whose basic social role is quite different.
918
01:04:49,216 --> 01:04:51,041
It's diversion.
919
01:04:51,093 --> 01:04:57,211
There's the real mass media, the kinds
that are aimed at the guys who... Joe Six-pack.
920
01:04:57,263 --> 01:05:01,892
That kind. The purpose of those media
is just to dull people's brains.
921
01:05:01,933 --> 01:05:06,186
This is an over-simplification,
but for the 80 per cent or whatever they are,
922
01:05:06,228 --> 01:05:08,719
the main thing for them is to divert them,
923
01:05:08,771 --> 01:05:14,358
to get them to watch National Football League,
and to worry about the... you know...
924
01:05:14,400 --> 01:05:19,529
mother with child with six heads,
or whatever you pick up in the... you know...
925
01:05:19,570 --> 01:05:23,490
in the thing that you pick
up on the supermarket stands, and so on.
926
01:05:23,531 --> 01:05:28,660
Or, you know, look at astrology, or get involved
in fundamentalist stuff, or something.
927
01:05:28,701 --> 01:05:33,913
Just get them away, you know.
Get them away from things that matter.
928
01:05:33,955 --> 01:05:38,416
And for that,
it's important to reduce their capacity to think.
929
01:05:38,458 --> 01:05:42,377
The sports section is handled
in another special department.
930
01:05:42,419 --> 01:05:45,755
The sports reporter must be a specialist
in his knowledge of sports.
931
01:05:45,796 --> 01:05:51,258
He gets his story right at the sporting event,
and often sends it in to his paper play by play.
932
01:05:51,300 --> 01:05:53,009
Sports.
933
01:05:53,051 --> 01:05:57,544
That's another crucial example
of the indoctrination system in my view.
934
01:05:57,596 --> 01:06:02,255
For one thing, because it... you know,
it offers people something to pay attention to
935
01:06:02,307 --> 01:06:04,632
that's of no importance.
936
01:06:04,684 --> 01:06:07,801
That keeps them from worrying about...
937
01:06:09,479 --> 01:06:12,648
...keeps them from worrying
about things that matter to their lives
938
01:06:12,689 --> 01:06:15,316
they might have some idea
about doing something about.
939
01:06:15,358 --> 01:06:23,019
And in fact, it's striking to see the intelligence
that's used by ordinary people in sports.
940
01:06:23,071 --> 01:06:26,355
You listen to radio stations where people call in.
941
01:06:26,407 --> 01:06:28,784
They have the most exotic information
942
01:06:28,825 --> 01:06:31,535
and understanding
about all kinds of arcane issues,
943
01:06:31,577 --> 01:06:33,651
and the press undoubtedly does a lot with this.
944
01:06:33,704 --> 01:06:35,861
I remember in high school - I was pretty old -
945
01:06:35,913 --> 01:06:38,373
I suddenly asked myself at one point,
946
01:06:38,415 --> 01:06:42,199
"Why do I care
if my high school team wins the football game?"
947
01:06:42,251 --> 01:06:45,837
I mean, I don't know anybody on the team,
you know.
948
01:06:47,296 --> 01:06:50,413
It had nothing to do with me.
I mean, why am I cheering for my team?
949
01:06:50,465 --> 01:06:52,174
It doesn't make any sense.
950
01:06:53,217 --> 01:06:55,291
But the point is, it does make sense.
951
01:06:55,343 --> 01:06:59,210
It's a way of building up irrational attitudes
of submission to authority,
952
01:07:00,263 --> 01:07:05,225
and, you know, group cohesion behind...
you know, leadership elements.
953
01:07:05,267 --> 01:07:08,060
In fact, it's training in irrational jingoism.
954
01:07:08,102 --> 01:07:11,719
That's also a feature of competitive sports.
I think...
955
01:07:11,771 --> 01:07:16,399
If you look closely at these things,
I think, typically, they do have functions,
956
01:07:16,441 --> 01:07:20,193
and that's why
energy is devoted to supporting them,
957
01:07:20,235 --> 01:07:23,737
and creating a basis for them,
and advertisers are willing to pay for them.
958
01:07:27,657 --> 01:07:29,564
I'd like to ask you a question
959
01:07:29,616 --> 01:07:32,535
about the methodology
and study in the propaganda model,
960
01:07:32,577 --> 01:07:34,985
and how would one go about doing that?
961
01:07:35,037 --> 01:07:37,528
Well, there are a number of ways to proceed.
962
01:07:38,581 --> 01:07:43,793
One obvious way is to try to find
more or less paired examples.
963
01:07:44,835 --> 01:07:47,670
History doesn't offer true controlled
experiments,
964
01:07:47,712 --> 01:07:49,619
but it oten comes pretty close.
965
01:07:49,672 --> 01:07:55,134
So one can find atrocities or abuses of one sort
966
01:07:55,175 --> 01:07:59,668
that on the one hand are committed
by official enemies, and on the other hand
967
01:07:59,720 --> 01:08:04,682
are committed by friends and allies,
or by the favoured state itself.
968
01:08:04,723 --> 01:08:06,881
By the United States, in the US' case.
969
01:08:06,933 --> 01:08:10,185
The question is whether the media
accept the government framework,
970
01:08:10,227 --> 01:08:13,021
or whether they use the same agenda,
same set of questions,
971
01:08:13,062 --> 01:08:16,231
the same criteria for dealing with the two cases
972
01:08:16,273 --> 01:08:18,847
as any honest outside observer would do.
973
01:08:18,900 --> 01:08:21,057
If you think America's involvement
974
01:08:21,109 --> 01:08:24,143
in the war in Southeast Asia is over, think again.
975
01:08:24,195 --> 01:08:28,656
The Khmer Rouge are the
most genocidal people on the face of the earth.
976
01:08:28,698 --> 01:08:31,366
Peter Jennings
Reporting From The Killing Fields.
977
01:08:31,408 --> 01:08:33,232
Thursday.
978
01:08:33,284 --> 01:08:38,527
I mean, the great act of genocide
in the modern period is Pol Pot.
979
01:08:38,580 --> 01:08:42,280
1975 to... through 1978.
980
01:08:42,332 --> 01:08:45,751
That atrocity...
I think it would be hard to find any example
981
01:08:45,793 --> 01:08:51,463
of a comparable outrage and outpouring of fury,
and so on and so forth,
982
01:08:51,505 --> 01:08:53,162
so that's one atrocity.
983
01:08:53,214 --> 01:08:57,342
It just happens that in that case,
history did set up a controlled experiment.
984
01:08:57,384 --> 01:08:59,875
Ever heard of a place called East Timor?
985
01:08:59,927 --> 01:09:02,002
- I can't say that I have.
- Where?
986
01:09:02,054 --> 01:09:04,128
- East Timor.
- No.
987
01:09:04,180 --> 01:09:07,683
Well, it happens that right at that time
there was another atrocity.
988
01:09:07,724 --> 01:09:10,841
Very similar in character,
but differing in one respect -
989
01:09:10,893 --> 01:09:13,687
we were responsible for it, not Pol Pot.
990
01:09:13,728 --> 01:09:16,397
Hello. I'm Louise Penney,
and this is Radio Noon.
991
01:09:16,438 --> 01:09:20,441
If you've been listening to the programme
fairly regularly over the last few months,
992
01:09:20,483 --> 01:09:24,319
you'll know East Timor has come
into the conversation more than once,
993
01:09:24,360 --> 01:09:29,604
particularly when we were talking about foreign
aid, and also the war, and a new world order.
994
01:09:29,656 --> 01:09:33,325
People wondered why,
if the UN was serious about a new world order,
995
01:09:33,367 --> 01:09:35,826
no-one was doing anything to help East Timor.
996
01:09:35,868 --> 01:09:39,152
The area was invaded by Indonesia in 1975.
997
01:09:39,204 --> 01:09:42,956
There are reports of atrocities
against the Timorese people,
998
01:09:42,998 --> 01:09:45,833
and yet Canada and other nations
have consistently
999
01:09:45,875 --> 01:09:49,211
voted against UN Resolutions
to end the occupation.
1000
01:09:49,252 --> 01:09:51,962
Today, we're going to take a closer look
at East Timor,
1001
01:09:52,004 --> 01:09:56,257
what's happened to it, and why the international
community is doing nothing to help.
1002
01:09:57,216 --> 01:10:00,135
One of the people who have been most active
is Elaine Briére,
1003
01:10:00,176 --> 01:10:02,469
a photojournalist from British Columbia.
1004
01:10:02,511 --> 01:10:05,086
She's the founder of
the East Timor Alert Network,
1005
01:10:05,138 --> 01:10:07,212
and she joins me in the studio now.
1006
01:10:07,264 --> 01:10:08,922
- Hello.
- Hi.
1007
01:10:08,974 --> 01:10:11,048
One tragedy compounding a tragedy
1008
01:10:11,100 --> 01:10:14,353
is that a lot of people
don't know much about East Timor.
1009
01:10:15,270 --> 01:10:18,470
- Where is it?
- East Timor is just north of Australia.
1010
01:10:18,522 --> 01:10:22,983
About 420 km, and it's right between
the Indian and Pacific oceans.
1011
01:10:23,025 --> 01:10:29,311
Just south of East Timor is a deep-water sea
lane perfect for US submarines to pass through.
1012
01:10:29,363 --> 01:10:31,572
There's also huge oil reserves there.
1013
01:10:35,200 --> 01:10:37,660
One of the unique things
about East Timor is that
1014
01:10:37,702 --> 01:10:42,611
it's truly one of the last surviving
ancient civilisations in that part of the world.
1015
01:10:44,831 --> 01:10:48,751
The Timorese spoke
30 different languages and dialects
1016
01:10:48,792 --> 01:10:51,336
amongst a group of 700,000 people.
1017
01:10:53,295 --> 01:10:58,205
Today less than five per cent of the world's
people live like the East Timorese.
1018
01:10:58,257 --> 01:11:03,636
Basically self-reliant, they live really outside
of the global economic system.
1019
01:11:08,014 --> 01:11:14,018
Small societies like the East Timorese are much
more democratic and much more egalitarian,
1020
01:11:14,059 --> 01:11:17,093
and there's much more sharing
of power and wealth.
1021
01:11:19,772 --> 01:11:23,899
Before the Indonesians invaded,
most people lived in small rural villages.
1022
01:11:30,112 --> 01:11:32,739
The old people in the village
were like the university.
1023
01:11:32,780 --> 01:11:36,397
They passed on tribal wisdom
from generation to generation.
1024
01:11:37,450 --> 01:11:42,579
Children grew up
in a safe, stimulating, nurturing environment.
1025
01:11:56,546 --> 01:12:01,373
A year ater I let East Timor, I was appalled
when I heard Indonesia had invaded.
1026
01:12:01,425 --> 01:12:05,886
It didn't want a small, independent country
setting an example for the region.
1027
01:12:08,471 --> 01:12:11,181
East Timor was a Portuguese colony.
1028
01:12:11,223 --> 01:12:15,632
Indonesia had no claim to it,
and in fact stated that they had no claim to it.
1029
01:12:16,685 --> 01:12:21,178
During the period of colonisation,
there was a good deal of politicisation
1030
01:12:21,230 --> 01:12:23,304
that different groups developed.
1031
01:12:24,982 --> 01:12:28,151
A civil war broke out in August '75.
1032
01:12:43,203 --> 01:12:48,748
It ended up in a victory for Fretilin,
which was one of the groupings,
1033
01:12:48,790 --> 01:12:55,409
described as populist Catholic in character,
with some typical letist rhetoric.
1034
01:12:56,712 --> 01:12:59,714
Indonesia at once started intervening.
1035
01:12:59,756 --> 01:13:03,456
What's the situation?
When did those ships come in?
1036
01:13:03,508 --> 01:13:05,916
They start arriving since Monday.
1037
01:13:05,968 --> 01:13:09,387
Six, seven boats together,
very close to our border.
1038
01:13:09,429 --> 01:13:13,515
They're not there just for fun.
They're preparing a massive operation.
1039
01:13:14,557 --> 01:13:19,019
Something happened here
last night that moved us very deeply.
1040
01:13:19,060 --> 01:13:21,635
It was so far outside our experience
as Australians
1041
01:13:21,687 --> 01:13:25,523
that we'll find it very difficult
to convey to you, but we'll try.
1042
01:13:26,857 --> 01:13:31,736
Sitting on woven mats under a thatched roof
in a hut with no walls
1043
01:13:31,777 --> 01:13:36,822
we were the target of a barrage of questioning
from men who know they may die tomorrow,
1044
01:13:36,864 --> 01:13:40,909
and cannot understand
why the rest of the world does not care.
1045
01:13:40,950 --> 01:13:42,493
That's all they want -
1046
01:13:42,535 --> 01:13:45,818
for the United Nations to care about
what is happening here.
1047
01:13:46,788 --> 01:13:49,581
The emotion here last night was so strong
1048
01:13:49,623 --> 01:13:53,834
that we, all three of us, felt we should
be able to reach out into the warm night air
1049
01:13:53,876 --> 01:13:55,460
and touch it.
1050
01:13:55,502 --> 01:13:59,671
Greg Shackleton, at an unnamed village
which we will remember forever
1051
01:13:59,713 --> 01:14:01,787
in Portuguese Timor.
1052
01:14:16,433 --> 01:14:19,852
Ford and Kissinger visited Jakarta,
I think it was December 5th.
1053
01:14:19,893 --> 01:14:24,886
We know that they had requested that
Indonesia delay the invasion until ater they let
1054
01:14:24,938 --> 01:14:26,898
because it would be too embarrassing.
1055
01:14:27,982 --> 01:14:32,475
And within hours, I think, ater they let,
the invasion took place on December 7th.
1056
01:14:32,527 --> 01:14:39,823
What happened on December 7th in 1975,
is just one of the great evil deeds of history.
1057
01:14:39,865 --> 01:14:43,909
Early in the morning
bombs begin dropping on Dili.
1058
01:14:43,951 --> 01:14:46,411
The number of troops that invaded Dili that day
1059
01:14:46,453 --> 01:14:49,736
almost outnumbered
the entire population of the town.
1060
01:14:49,788 --> 01:14:54,198
And for two or three weeks,
they just killed people.
1061
01:15:17,807 --> 01:15:22,800
This Council must consider Indonesian
aggression against East Timor
1062
01:15:22,852 --> 01:15:25,312
as the main issue of the discussion.
1063
01:15:25,354 --> 01:15:30,149
When the Indonesians invaded,
the UN reacted as it always does,
1064
01:15:30,191 --> 01:15:33,860
calling for sanctions and condemnation
and so on.
1065
01:15:33,901 --> 01:15:36,904
Various watered-down resolutions
were passed,
1066
01:15:36,945 --> 01:15:41,156
but the US were very clearly
not going to allow anything to work.
1067
01:15:51,872 --> 01:15:55,958
So the Timorese were fleeing into the jungles
by the thousands.
1068
01:15:56,000 --> 01:16:01,076
By late 1977, '78
Indonesia set up receiving centres
1069
01:16:01,128 --> 01:16:04,964
for those Timorese
who came out of the jungle waving white flags.
1070
01:16:05,006 --> 01:16:07,164
Those the Indonesians thought more educated,
1071
01:16:07,216 --> 01:16:13,501
or suspected of belonging to Fretilin or other
opposition parties were immediately killed.
1072
01:16:13,553 --> 01:16:16,555
They took women aside,
and flew them off to Dili in helicopters
1073
01:16:16,597 --> 01:16:18,338
for use by the Indonesian soldiers.
1074
01:16:18,390 --> 01:16:20,965
They killed children and babies.
1075
01:16:22,393 --> 01:16:27,052
But in those days their main strategy
and their main weapon was starvation.
1076
01:16:30,440 --> 01:16:34,693
By 1978,
it was approaching really genocidal levels.
1077
01:16:34,734 --> 01:16:39,362
The church and other sources
estimated about 200,000 people killed.
1078
01:16:39,404 --> 01:16:43,407
The US backed it all the way.
The US provided 90 per cent of the arms.
1079
01:16:43,448 --> 01:16:47,826
Right ater the invasion,
arms shipments were stepped up.
1080
01:16:47,868 --> 01:16:51,652
When the Indonesians
actually began to run out of arms in 1978,
1081
01:16:51,704 --> 01:16:55,457
the Carter administration moved in
and increased arms sales,
1082
01:16:55,873 --> 01:16:58,000
and other western countries did the same.
1083
01:16:58,042 --> 01:17:00,366
Canada, England... Holland...
1084
01:17:00,418 --> 01:17:02,711
Everybody who could make a buck
was in there,
1085
01:17:02,753 --> 01:17:05,380
trying to make sure
they could kill more Timorese.
1086
01:17:06,422 --> 01:17:09,424
There is no western concern
for issues of aggression,
1087
01:17:09,466 --> 01:17:11,540
atrocities, human rights abuses and so on
1088
01:17:11,592 --> 01:17:13,667
if there's a profit to be made from them.
1089
01:17:13,719 --> 01:17:17,252
Nothing could show it more clearly
than this case.
1090
01:17:19,723 --> 01:17:21,881
It wasn't that nobody had heard of East Timor.
1091
01:17:21,933 --> 01:17:24,007
Remember there was plenty of coverage
1092
01:17:24,059 --> 01:17:26,728
in The New York Times and elsewhere
before the invasion.
1093
01:17:27,770 --> 01:17:31,470
The reason was there was concern
over the break-up of the Portuguese empire
1094
01:17:31,523 --> 01:17:33,065
and what that would mean.
1095
01:17:33,107 --> 01:17:37,652
There was fear it would lead to independence,
or Russian influence, or whatever.
1096
01:17:37,693 --> 01:17:40,612
Ater the Indonesians invaded,
the coverage dropped.
1097
01:17:40,654 --> 01:17:43,489
There was some,
but it was strictly from the point of view
1098
01:17:43,531 --> 01:17:45,939
of the State Department
and Indonesian generals.
1099
01:17:45,991 --> 01:17:48,065
Never a Timorese refugee.
1100
01:17:51,703 --> 01:17:55,747
As the atrocities reached their maximum peak
in 1978,
1101
01:17:55,789 --> 01:17:57,863
when it really was becoming genocidal,
1102
01:17:57,915 --> 01:18:00,876
coverage dropped to zero
in the United States and Canada,
1103
01:18:00,917 --> 01:18:02,992
the two countries I've looked at closely.
1104
01:18:03,044 --> 01:18:04,628
Literally dropped to zero.
1105
01:18:06,546 --> 01:18:13,217
All this was going on at exactly the same time
as the great protest of outrage over Cambodia.
1106
01:18:13,259 --> 01:18:16,094
The level of atrocities was comparable.
1107
01:18:16,136 --> 01:18:20,180
In relative terms
it was probably considerably higher in Timor.
1108
01:18:22,515 --> 01:18:27,977
It turns out that right in Cambodia in the
preceding years, 1970 through 1975,
1109
01:18:28,019 --> 01:18:31,553
there was also a comparable atrocity
for which we were responsible.
1110
01:18:36,483 --> 01:18:39,152
The major US attack against Cambodia
1111
01:18:39,193 --> 01:18:42,070
started with the bombings of the early 1970s.
1112
01:18:42,112 --> 01:18:44,864
They reached a peak in 1973,
1113
01:18:44,905 --> 01:18:47,115
and they continued up till 1975.
1114
01:18:47,157 --> 01:18:49,950
They were directed against inner Cambodia.
1115
01:18:49,992 --> 01:18:53,661
Very little is known about them,
because the media wanted it to be secret.
1116
01:18:53,703 --> 01:18:57,205
They knew it was going on. They just
didn't want to know what was happening.
1117
01:18:59,374 --> 01:19:03,543
The CIA estimates about 600,000 killed
during that five-year period,
1118
01:19:03,585 --> 01:19:07,879
which is mostly either US bombing,
or a US-sponsored war.
1119
01:19:07,921 --> 01:19:11,538
So that's pretty significant killing.
1120
01:19:11,590 --> 01:19:14,425
Also, the conditions
in which it let Cambodia were such
1121
01:19:14,467 --> 01:19:19,262
that high US officials predicted that about
a million people would die in the atermath
1122
01:19:19,304 --> 01:19:23,556
just from hunger and disease
because of the wreckage of the country.
1123
01:19:25,016 --> 01:19:28,351
Pretty good evidence
from US government and scholarly sources
1124
01:19:28,393 --> 01:19:32,802
that the intense bombardment
was a significant force - maybe a critical force -
1125
01:19:32,854 --> 01:19:37,514
in building up peasant support for the Khmer
Rouge who were a pretty marginal element.
1126
01:19:37,566 --> 01:19:39,640
Well, that's just the wrong story.
1127
01:19:40,610 --> 01:19:42,486
Ater 1975,
1128
01:19:42,528 --> 01:19:45,196
atrocities continued,
and that became the right story -
1129
01:19:45,238 --> 01:19:47,531
now they're being carried out by the bad guys.
1130
01:19:48,573 --> 01:19:50,398
Well, it was bad enough.
1131
01:19:50,450 --> 01:19:54,536
In fact, current estimates are... well, they vary.
1132
01:19:54,577 --> 01:19:57,913
The CIA claim 50,000 to 100,000 people killed,
1133
01:19:57,955 --> 01:20:02,208
and maybe another million or so
who died one way or another.
1134
01:20:04,126 --> 01:20:07,993
Michael Vickery is the one person
who's given a really close, detailed analysis.
1135
01:20:08,045 --> 01:20:11,964
His figure is maybe
750,000 deaths above the normal.
1136
01:20:12,006 --> 01:20:16,999
Others like Ben Kiernan suggest higher figures,
but so far without a detailed analysis.
1137
01:20:17,051 --> 01:20:18,552
Anyway, it was terrible.
1138
01:20:18,594 --> 01:20:19,928
No doubt about it.
1139
01:20:19,970 --> 01:20:23,055
Although the atrocities - the real atrocities -
were bad enough,
1140
01:20:23,097 --> 01:20:26,547
they weren't quite good enough
for the purposes needed.
1141
01:20:26,599 --> 01:20:29,768
Within a few weeks
ater the Khmer Rouge takeover,
1142
01:20:29,810 --> 01:20:32,561
The New York Times
was already accusing them of genocide.
1143
01:20:33,687 --> 01:20:37,857
At that point, maybe a couple of hundred
or a few thousand people had been killed.
1144
01:20:37,898 --> 01:20:42,474
And from then on,
it was a drum beat, a chorus of genocide.
1145
01:20:49,573 --> 01:20:55,942
The big bestseller on Cambodia and Pol Pot
is called Murder of a Gentle Land.
1146
01:20:55,994 --> 01:21:01,206
Up until April 17th, 1975,
it was a gentle land of peaceful, smiling people,
1147
01:21:01,247 --> 01:21:04,281
and ater that some horrible holocaust
took place.
1148
01:21:05,750 --> 01:21:10,243
Very quickly,
a figure of two million killed was hit upon.
1149
01:21:11,129 --> 01:21:13,923
In fact,
what was claimed was that the Khmer Rouge
1150
01:21:13,964 --> 01:21:16,372
boast of having murdered two million people.
1151
01:21:17,592 --> 01:21:18,968
Facts are very dramatic.
1152
01:21:19,009 --> 01:21:22,793
In the case of
atrocities committed by the official enemy,
1153
01:21:22,845 --> 01:21:28,474
extraordinary show of outrage,
exaggeration, no evidence required.
1154
01:21:28,516 --> 01:21:31,633
Faked photographs are fine, anything goes.
1155
01:21:31,685 --> 01:21:33,759
Also a vast amount of lying.
1156
01:21:34,645 --> 01:21:38,481
I mean, an amount of lying
that would have made Stalin cringe.
1157
01:21:39,940 --> 01:21:42,431
It was fraudulent,
and we know that it was fraudulent
1158
01:21:42,484 --> 01:21:45,444
by looking at the response
to comparable atrocities
1159
01:21:45,486 --> 01:21:47,695
for which the United States was responsible.
1160
01:21:50,531 --> 01:21:55,159
Early '70s Cambodia, and Timor too -
very closely paired examples.
1161
01:21:56,076 --> 01:21:58,567
Well, the media response was quite dramatic.
1162
01:22:36,937 --> 01:22:40,690
Back in 1980,
I taught a course at Tuts University.
1163
01:22:40,731 --> 01:22:43,983
Well, Chomsky came around to this class,
1164
01:22:44,025 --> 01:22:49,404
and he made a very powerful case
that the press underplayed the fact
1165
01:22:49,445 --> 01:22:55,199
that the Indonesian government annexed
this former Portuguese colony in 1975,
1166
01:22:55,241 --> 01:22:59,567
and that if you compare it for example with
Cambodia where there was acreage of things,
1167
01:22:59,619 --> 01:23:03,455
this was a communist atrocity, whereas
the other was not a communist atrocity.
1168
01:23:03,497 --> 01:23:06,749
Well, I got quite interested in this,
and I went to talk to
1169
01:23:06,790 --> 01:23:09,198
the then deputy foreign editor of The Times,
1170
01:23:09,250 --> 01:23:12,451
and I said, "You know,
we've had very poor coverage on this".
1171
01:23:12,503 --> 01:23:16,453
He said, "You're right. There are a dozen
atrocities around the world we don't cover.
1172
01:23:16,505 --> 01:23:19,539
This is one for various reasons", so I took it up.
1173
01:23:19,591 --> 01:23:21,801
I was working as a reporter and writer for
1174
01:23:21,842 --> 01:23:25,261
a small alternative radio programme
in upstate New York,
1175
01:23:25,303 --> 01:23:30,546
and we received audio tapes
of interviews with Timorese leaders,
1176
01:23:30,598 --> 01:23:34,684
and we were quite surprised
that given the level of American involvement
1177
01:23:34,726 --> 01:23:38,176
that there was not more coverage,
indeed practically any coverage,
1178
01:23:38,228 --> 01:23:42,481
of the large-scale Indonesian killing
in the mainstream American media.
1179
01:23:42,523 --> 01:23:47,651
We formed a small group of people
to try to monitor the situation
1180
01:23:47,693 --> 01:23:50,779
and see what we could do over time
to alert public opinion
1181
01:23:50,820 --> 01:23:53,030
to what was actually happening in East Timor.
1182
01:23:54,406 --> 01:23:58,815
There were literally about half a dozen people
who simply dedicated themselves
1183
01:23:58,867 --> 01:24:02,995
with great commitment to getting this story
to break through.
1184
01:24:03,037 --> 01:24:05,528
And they reached a couple of people
in Congress.
1185
01:24:05,580 --> 01:24:10,792
They got to me, for example. I was able
to testify at the UN and write some things.
1186
01:24:10,834 --> 01:24:13,044
They kept at it, kept at it, kept at it.
1187
01:24:13,085 --> 01:24:17,630
Whatever is known about the subject
mainly... essentially comes from their work.
1188
01:24:17,672 --> 01:24:19,048
There's not much else.
1189
01:24:19,089 --> 01:24:24,051
I wrote first an editorial
called An Unjust War in East Timor.
1190
01:24:24,093 --> 01:24:26,719
It had a map,
and it said exactly what had happened.
1191
01:24:26,761 --> 01:24:30,764
We then ran a dozen other editorials on it.
1192
01:24:30,806 --> 01:24:33,474
They were read,
entered in the Congressional Record,
1193
01:24:33,516 --> 01:24:38,477
several Congressmen took up the cause, and
something was done in Congress as a result.
1194
01:24:38,519 --> 01:24:42,053
The fact the editorial page
of The New York Times on Christmas Eve
1195
01:24:42,105 --> 01:24:45,941
published that editorial
put our work on a very different level,
1196
01:24:45,982 --> 01:24:53,613
and it gave a great deal of legitimacy
to something that we were trying to...
1197
01:24:53,654 --> 01:24:57,782
advance for a long time,
and that was the idea and the reality
1198
01:24:57,824 --> 01:25:01,243
that a major tragedy
was unfolding in East Timor.
1199
01:25:01,284 --> 01:25:05,777
If one takes literally various...
1200
01:25:05,829 --> 01:25:08,539
theories that Professor Chomsky puts out,
1201
01:25:08,581 --> 01:25:13,157
one would feel that there is a tacit conspiracy
1202
01:25:13,209 --> 01:25:16,576
between the establishment press
and the government in Washington
1203
01:25:16,628 --> 01:25:19,714
to focus on certain things,
and ignore certain things.
1204
01:25:19,755 --> 01:25:25,540
So that if we broke the rules that we would
instantly get a reaction, a sharp reaction
1205
01:25:25,592 --> 01:25:28,167
from the overlords in Washington
1206
01:25:28,219 --> 01:25:31,471
who would say, "Hey, what are you doing
speaking up on East Timor?
1207
01:25:31,513 --> 01:25:33,098
We're trying to keep that quiet".
1208
01:25:33,139 --> 01:25:34,473
We didn't hear a thing.
1209
01:25:34,515 --> 01:25:36,725
What we did hear, and this was quite
interesting,
1210
01:25:36,767 --> 01:25:39,685
is that there was a guy named Arnold Kohen,
1211
01:25:39,727 --> 01:25:43,594
and he became a one-person lobby.
1212
01:25:43,646 --> 01:25:47,263
I appreciate the nice things
that Karl Meyer said about me in his interview,
1213
01:25:47,315 --> 01:25:51,183
but I object to the notion that a one-man lobby
was formed, or anything like that.
1214
01:25:51,235 --> 01:25:53,309
I think that if there weren't a large network
1215
01:25:53,361 --> 01:25:56,113
composed of
the American Catholic Bishops' Conference,
1216
01:25:56,155 --> 01:25:59,688
composed of other church groups,
human rights groups,
1217
01:25:59,741 --> 01:26:02,201
composed of simply concerned citizens,
1218
01:26:02,242 --> 01:26:05,161
and others, and a network of concern
within the news media,
1219
01:26:05,203 --> 01:26:08,653
I think it would have been impossible
to do anything at all at any time,
1220
01:26:08,705 --> 01:26:13,114
and it would have been impossible to sustain
things for as long as they've been sustained.
1221
01:26:13,166 --> 01:26:18,378
Professor Chomsky and many people
who engage in this kind of press analysis
1222
01:26:18,420 --> 01:26:22,631
have one thing in common - most of them
have never worked for a newspaper,
1223
01:26:22,673 --> 01:26:26,258
many of them know very little
about how newspapers work.
1224
01:26:26,300 --> 01:26:30,167
When Chomsky came around, he had with him
1225
01:26:30,219 --> 01:26:33,920
a file of all the coverage
in The New York Times, The Washington Post,
1226
01:26:33,972 --> 01:26:35,963
and other papers of East Timor,
1227
01:26:36,015 --> 01:26:41,227
and he would go to the meticulous degree
that if, for example, The London Times
1228
01:26:41,269 --> 01:26:44,635
had a piece on East Timor,
and then it appeared in The New York Times,
1229
01:26:44,688 --> 01:26:46,147
that if a paragraph was cut out,
1230
01:26:46,189 --> 01:26:51,067
he'd compare, and he'd say,
"Look - this key paragraph right near the end
1231
01:26:51,109 --> 01:26:53,433
which is what tells the whole story
was let out
1232
01:26:53,485 --> 01:26:57,238
of The New York Times' version
of the London Times' thing."
1233
01:27:01,157 --> 01:27:04,941
There was a story in The London
Times which was pretty accurate.
1234
01:27:04,993 --> 01:27:08,777
The New York Times revised it radically.
They didn't just leave a paragraph out.
1235
01:27:08,829 --> 01:27:11,706
They revised it,
and gave it a totally different cast.
1236
01:27:26,299 --> 01:27:30,343
It was then picked up by Newsweek,
giving it The New York Times' cast.
1237
01:27:31,678 --> 01:27:33,752
It ended up being a whitewash,
1238
01:27:33,804 --> 01:27:36,264
whereas the original was an atrocity story.
1239
01:27:37,807 --> 01:27:40,684
So, I said to Chomsky at the time,
1240
01:27:40,725 --> 01:27:47,397
"Well, it may be that you're misinterpreting
ignorance, haste, deadline pressure, etcetera,
1241
01:27:47,438 --> 01:27:51,389
for some kind of determined effort
to suppress an element of the story."
1242
01:27:51,441 --> 01:27:54,975
He said, "Well, if it happened once,
or twice, or three times
1243
01:27:55,027 --> 01:27:58,310
I might agree with you,
but if it happens a dozen times,
1244
01:27:58,362 --> 01:28:00,937
Mr Meyer,
I think there's something else at work".
1245
01:28:00,989 --> 01:28:05,450
It's not a matter of happening one time,
two, five, a hundred. It happened all the time.
1246
01:28:05,492 --> 01:28:11,194
I said, "Professor Chomsky, having been
in this business, it happens a dozen times.
1247
01:28:11,246 --> 01:28:14,363
These are very imperfect institutions".
1248
01:28:14,415 --> 01:28:18,032
When they did give coverage,
it was from the point of view of...
1249
01:28:18,084 --> 01:28:20,210
it was a whitewash of the United States.
1250
01:28:20,252 --> 01:28:22,076
Now, you know, that's not an error.
1251
01:28:22,128 --> 01:28:24,453
That's systematic, consistent behaviour,
1252
01:28:24,505 --> 01:28:27,382
in this case without even any exception.
1253
01:28:27,424 --> 01:28:30,457
This is a much more subtle process...
1254
01:28:33,594 --> 01:28:35,419
...than you get...
1255
01:28:36,638 --> 01:28:39,807
...in the kind of sledgehammer rhetoric
1256
01:28:39,849 --> 01:28:46,468
of the people that make an A to B equation
between what the government does,
1257
01:28:46,520 --> 01:28:48,761
what people think, and what newspapers say.
1258
01:28:50,064 --> 01:28:52,138
That...
1259
01:28:52,190 --> 01:28:57,819
That sometimes what The Times does
can make an enormous difference.
1260
01:28:57,861 --> 01:29:01,863
At other times, it has no influence whatsoever.
1261
01:29:01,905 --> 01:29:03,698
So...
1262
01:29:03,740 --> 01:29:07,659
one of the greatest tragedies of our age
is still happening in East Timor.
1263
01:29:07,701 --> 01:29:10,578
The Indonesians have killed
up to a third of the population.
1264
01:29:10,619 --> 01:29:12,860
They're in concentration camps.
1265
01:29:12,913 --> 01:29:17,624
They conduct large-scale military campaigns
against the people who are resisting,
1266
01:29:17,666 --> 01:29:20,584
campaigns with names like Operation
Eradicate,
1267
01:29:20,626 --> 01:29:23,117
or Operation Clean Sweep.
1268
01:29:23,170 --> 01:29:27,547
Timorese women are subjected
to a forced birth control programme,
1269
01:29:27,589 --> 01:29:32,968
in addition to bringing in a constant stream
of Indonesian settlers to take over the land.
1270
01:29:34,886 --> 01:29:38,419
Whenever people are brave enough
to take to the streets in demonstrations
1271
01:29:38,471 --> 01:29:41,724
or show the least sign of resistance,
they just massacre them.
1272
01:29:42,766 --> 01:29:47,259
It's sort of like Indonesia, if we allow them
to continue to stay in East Timor -
1273
01:29:47,311 --> 01:29:50,813
the international community -
they will simply digest East Timor
1274
01:29:50,855 --> 01:29:55,233
and turn it into...
they're trying to turn it into cash crop.
1275
01:29:55,275 --> 01:30:00,434
I mean, this is way beyond just demonstrating
this subservience of the media to power.
1276
01:30:00,486 --> 01:30:04,979
I mean, they have real complicity in genocide
in this case.
1277
01:30:05,031 --> 01:30:10,274
The reason that the atrocities can go on
is because nobody knows about them.
1278
01:30:10,326 --> 01:30:14,496
If anyone knew about them,
there'd be protests and pressure to stop them.
1279
01:30:14,538 --> 01:30:19,166
So therefore, by suppressing the facts,
the media are making a major contribution
1280
01:30:19,207 --> 01:30:25,326
to some of... probably the worst act of genocide
since the Holocaust.
1281
01:30:25,378 --> 01:30:30,507
You say that what the media do is to
ignore certain kinds of atrocities
1282
01:30:30,548 --> 01:30:33,092
that are committed by us and our friends,
1283
01:30:33,133 --> 01:30:38,377
and to play up enormously atrocities
that are committed by them and our enemies.
1284
01:30:38,429 --> 01:30:41,931
And you posit that
there's a test of integrity and moral honesty
1285
01:30:41,973 --> 01:30:45,809
which is to have
a kind of equality of treatment of corpses.
1286
01:30:45,850 --> 01:30:50,312
I mean, every dead person should be in
principle equal to every other dead person.
1287
01:30:50,353 --> 01:30:54,189
- That's not what I say.
- I'm glad it's not, because it's not what you do.
1288
01:30:54,231 --> 01:30:57,900
Of course it's not what I do.
Nor would I say it. In fact, I say the opposite.
1289
01:30:57,942 --> 01:31:01,778
What I say is we should be
responsible for our own actions primarily.
1290
01:31:01,819 --> 01:31:05,238
Because your method is not only
to ignore the corpses created by them,
1291
01:31:05,280 --> 01:31:08,564
but also to ignore corpses
that are created by neither side,
1292
01:31:08,616 --> 01:31:10,992
that are irrelevant to your ideological agenda.
1293
01:31:11,034 --> 01:31:13,525
- That's totally untrue.
- Let me give you an example.
1294
01:31:13,577 --> 01:31:20,082
Um... one of your own causes that you take very
seriously is the cause of the Palestinians.
1295
01:31:20,123 --> 01:31:23,626
And a Palestinian corpse
weighs very heavily on your conscience,
1296
01:31:23,667 --> 01:31:25,742
and yet a Kurdish corpse does not.
1297
01:31:25,794 --> 01:31:30,537
That's not true at all. I've been involved
in Kurdish support groups for years.
1298
01:31:30,589 --> 01:31:32,882
That's... It's simply false.
1299
01:31:32,924 --> 01:31:34,300
Just ask the Kurdish...
1300
01:31:34,341 --> 01:31:36,218
Ask the people who are involved in...
1301
01:31:36,259 --> 01:31:39,678
You know, they come to me,
I sign their petitions, and so on and so forth.
1302
01:31:39,720 --> 01:31:43,420
If you look at the things we've written.
Let's take a look...
1303
01:31:43,473 --> 01:31:45,265
I'm not Amnesty International.
1304
01:31:45,307 --> 01:31:48,142
I can't do everything.
I'm a single human person.
1305
01:31:48,184 --> 01:31:54,303
But if you read... Take a look, say, at the book
that Edward Herman and I wrote on this topic.
1306
01:31:55,230 --> 01:31:58,764
In it we discuss three kinds of atrocities -
1307
01:31:58,816 --> 01:32:01,526
what we call benign bloodbaths,
1308
01:32:01,568 --> 01:32:03,309
which nobody cares about,
1309
01:32:03,361 --> 01:32:06,238
constructive bloodbaths,
which are the ones we like,
1310
01:32:06,280 --> 01:32:09,730
and nefarious bloodbaths,
which are the ones the bad guys do.
1311
01:32:09,782 --> 01:32:14,327
The principle that I think we ought to follow
is not the one that you stated.
1312
01:32:14,368 --> 01:32:16,745
You know, it's a very simple, ethical point.
1313
01:32:16,787 --> 01:32:21,331
You're responsible for
the predictable consequences of your actions.
1314
01:32:21,373 --> 01:32:25,626
You're not responsible for the predictable
consequences of somebody else's actions.
1315
01:32:25,668 --> 01:32:29,201
The most important thing for me and for you
1316
01:32:29,253 --> 01:32:32,214
is to think about
the consequences of your actions.
1317
01:32:32,255 --> 01:32:34,080
What can you affect?
1318
01:32:34,132 --> 01:32:38,385
These are the things to keep in mind.
These are not just academic exercises.
1319
01:32:38,426 --> 01:32:42,888
We're not analysing the media on Mars,
or in the 18th Century, or something like that.
1320
01:32:42,929 --> 01:32:48,767
We're dealing with real human beings who are
suffering, and dying, and being tortured,
1321
01:32:48,808 --> 01:32:53,384
and starving because of policies
that we are involved in.
1322
01:32:53,436 --> 01:32:58,481
We as citizens of democratic societies
are directly involved in and are responsible for,
1323
01:32:58,523 --> 01:33:04,110
and what the media are doing is ensuring
that we do not act on our responsibilities,
1324
01:33:04,152 --> 01:33:09,822
and that the interests of power are served,
not the needs of the suffering people,
1325
01:33:09,864 --> 01:33:13,116
and not even the needs of the American people
who would be horrified
1326
01:33:13,158 --> 01:33:16,775
if they realised
the blood that's dripping from their hands
1327
01:33:16,827 --> 01:33:22,664
because of the way they're allowing themselves
to be deluded and manipulated by the system.
1328
01:33:39,634 --> 01:33:41,594
What about the Third World?
1329
01:33:41,636 --> 01:33:45,503
Well, despite everything,
and it's pretty ugly and awful,
1330
01:33:45,555 --> 01:33:47,515
these struggles are not over.
1331
01:33:47,556 --> 01:33:52,633
The struggle for freedom and independence
never is completely over.
1332
01:33:58,814 --> 01:34:02,181
Their courage, in fact, is really remarkable.
1333
01:34:02,233 --> 01:34:03,348
Amazing.
1334
01:34:03,400 --> 01:34:07,945
I've personally had the privilege,
and it is a privilege, of witnessing it a few times,
1335
01:34:07,987 --> 01:34:10,989
in villages in Southeast Asia
and Central America,
1336
01:34:11,030 --> 01:34:13,605
and recently in the occupied West Bank,
1337
01:34:13,657 --> 01:34:15,732
and it is astonishing to see.
1338
01:34:19,078 --> 01:34:21,788
And it's always amazing -
at least to me it's amazing.
1339
01:34:21,829 --> 01:34:25,582
I can't understand it.
It's also very moving and inspiring.
1340
01:34:25,624 --> 01:34:27,500
In fact, it's kind of awe-inspiring.
1341
01:34:27,542 --> 01:34:30,419
Now, they rely very crucially
1342
01:34:30,460 --> 01:34:33,994
on a very slim margin for survival
1343
01:34:34,046 --> 01:34:38,924
that's provided by dissidence and turbulence
within the imperial societies,
1344
01:34:38,966 --> 01:34:43,427
and how large that margin is
is for us to determine.
1345
01:35:23,788 --> 01:35:25,497
In today's On The Spot assignment,
1346
01:35:25,539 --> 01:35:28,458
we're going to see
just what's behind the making of movies.
1347
01:35:29,125 --> 01:35:30,866
The director and the crew
1348
01:35:30,918 --> 01:35:32,658
are shooting a documentary film.
1349
01:35:32,711 --> 01:35:35,202
Let's take a closer look.
1350
01:35:35,254 --> 01:35:38,204
Bob, this word "documentary",
1351
01:35:38,256 --> 01:35:42,332
what would you say is the difference between
a documentary film and a feature movie?
1352
01:35:42,384 --> 01:35:44,458
Well, there are a good many differences.
1353
01:35:44,510 --> 01:35:48,836
One would be length. Generally speaking,
documentaries are shorter than feature films.
1354
01:35:48,888 --> 01:35:52,933
Also, documentaries have something to say
in the way of a message.
1355
01:35:52,974 --> 01:35:55,017
They are informational films.
1356
01:35:55,059 --> 01:36:00,135
Also, another term that's used interchangeably
with documentary is the word "actuality".
1357
01:36:00,187 --> 01:36:04,597
Bob, is this the thing you hold up
in front of the camera before each scene?
1358
01:36:04,649 --> 01:36:06,223
This is a clapperboard, yes.
1359
01:36:06,275 --> 01:36:09,475
This identifies on the visual camera
1360
01:36:09,527 --> 01:36:12,018
the scene number and the take number.
1361
01:36:12,070 --> 01:36:15,323
And also, as you heard, on the soundtrack,
1362
01:36:15,364 --> 01:36:18,700
the editor back at the studio
puts the two pieces of film together,
1363
01:36:18,742 --> 01:36:21,035
matches where the lips of the clapper meet,
1364
01:36:21,077 --> 01:36:22,619
and there you are in synch.
1365
01:36:22,661 --> 01:36:25,444
Before the break, you were mentioning
1366
01:36:25,496 --> 01:36:30,041
the media putting forth the information
that the power elite want.
1367
01:36:30,083 --> 01:36:34,909
I'm not sure if I understand.
How does the power elite do this?
1368
01:36:34,961 --> 01:36:37,588
Why do we stand for it?
Why does it work so well?
1369
01:36:37,629 --> 01:36:40,965
Well, I think...
I mean, there are really two questions here.
1370
01:36:41,007 --> 01:36:44,874
One - is this picture of the media true?
And there, you have to look at the evidence.
1371
01:36:44,926 --> 01:36:47,959
I've given one example,
and that shouldn't convince anybody.
1372
01:36:48,011 --> 01:36:50,930
One has to look at a lot of evidence
to see whether this is true.
1373
01:36:50,972 --> 01:36:53,380
I think anyone who investigates it will find out
1374
01:36:53,432 --> 01:36:56,350
that the evidence to support it
is simply overwhelming.
1375
01:36:56,392 --> 01:37:00,603
It's probably one of the best supported
conclusions in the social sciences.
1376
01:37:00,645 --> 01:37:02,521
The other question is, how does it work?
1377
01:37:02,563 --> 01:37:07,055
- Noam Chomsky?
- I'm the... I'm the media guy.
1378
01:37:07,108 --> 01:37:10,391
What would you like?
I got you an International Herald Tribune.
1379
01:37:10,443 --> 01:37:14,602
Anything in a Western language which doesn't
include Dutch. What have you got?
1380
01:37:14,654 --> 01:37:17,688
- Financial Times.
- Financial Times, absolutely.
1381
01:37:17,740 --> 01:37:20,367
That's the only paper that tells the truth.
1382
01:37:20,408 --> 01:37:23,275
You get the one
where they've been debating back and forth?
1383
01:37:23,327 --> 01:37:25,620
NRC Handelsblad.
1384
01:37:25,662 --> 01:37:27,319
Handelsblad?
1385
01:37:37,378 --> 01:37:40,328
- Train to?
- Ammerswurth.
1386
01:37:41,714 --> 01:37:45,925
Well, this evening's programme
is scheduled as a debate,
1387
01:37:45,967 --> 01:37:47,927
which puzzled me all the way through.
1388
01:37:47,969 --> 01:37:49,626
There are some problems.
1389
01:37:49,678 --> 01:37:53,431
One problem is that
no proposition has been set forth.
1390
01:37:53,472 --> 01:37:57,006
As I understand "debate",
people advocate or oppose something.
1391
01:37:57,058 --> 01:37:59,184
Rather more sensibly,
1392
01:37:59,226 --> 01:38:01,634
a topic has been proposed for discussion.
1393
01:38:01,686 --> 01:38:05,188
Er... the topic is manufacture of consent.
1394
01:38:06,147 --> 01:38:08,931
It's unusual
for a member of the government
1395
01:38:08,983 --> 01:38:10,723
to debate with a professor in public.
1396
01:38:10,776 --> 01:38:12,767
It hasn't happened in Holland before.
1397
01:38:12,819 --> 01:38:15,654
I don't think it oten happens elsewhere.
1398
01:38:19,865 --> 01:38:21,939
Mr Bolkestein, the floor is yours.
1399
01:38:21,991 --> 01:38:24,941
Now, we all know
1400
01:38:24,994 --> 01:38:28,829
that a theory can never be established
merely by examples.
1401
01:38:28,871 --> 01:38:30,945
It can only be established
1402
01:38:30,998 --> 01:38:34,333
by showing some internal, inherent logic.
1403
01:38:34,375 --> 01:38:36,949
Professor Chomsky has not done so.
1404
01:38:37,002 --> 01:38:38,576
Professor Chomsky?
1405
01:38:38,628 --> 01:38:43,454
He's right to say you can't just pick
examples. You have to do them rationally.
1406
01:38:43,506 --> 01:38:46,081
That's why we compared examples.
1407
01:38:46,133 --> 01:38:51,835
The truth is that things are not as simple
as Professor Chomsky maintains.
1408
01:38:52,929 --> 01:38:55,597
Another of Professor Chomsky's case studies
1409
01:38:55,639 --> 01:38:59,850
concerns the treatment that
Cambodia has received in the Western press.
1410
01:38:59,892 --> 01:39:03,426
Here, he goes badly off the rails.
1411
01:39:06,313 --> 01:39:08,106
We didn't discuss Cambodia.
1412
01:39:08,148 --> 01:39:10,858
We compared Cambodia with East Timor,
1413
01:39:10,899 --> 01:39:13,651
two very closely paired examples.
1414
01:39:13,693 --> 01:39:17,477
And we gave approximately
300 pages of detail covering this
1415
01:39:17,529 --> 01:39:19,520
in Political Economy of Human Rights,
1416
01:39:19,572 --> 01:39:24,200
including a reference to every article
we could discover about Cambodia.
1417
01:39:24,242 --> 01:39:28,370
Many Western intellectuals
do not like to face the facts
1418
01:39:28,411 --> 01:39:33,540
and balk at the conclusions
that any untutored person would draw.
1419
01:39:33,581 --> 01:39:36,698
Many people are very irritated
1420
01:39:36,750 --> 01:39:41,159
by the fact that we exposed
the extraordinary deceit over Cambodia
1421
01:39:41,212 --> 01:39:44,829
and paired it with the simultaneous suppression
1422
01:39:44,881 --> 01:39:48,550
of the US-supported,
ongoing atrocities in Timor.
1423
01:39:48,592 --> 01:39:50,134
People don't like that.
1424
01:39:50,176 --> 01:39:54,012
For one thing, we were challenging
the right to lie in defence of the state.
1425
01:39:54,054 --> 01:39:56,128
For another thing, we were exposing
1426
01:39:56,180 --> 01:40:00,923
the apologetics and support
for actual ongoing atrocities.
1427
01:40:00,975 --> 01:40:02,549
That doesn't make you popular.
1428
01:40:04,978 --> 01:40:08,595
Where did he learn
about the atrocities in East Timor
1429
01:40:08,647 --> 01:40:10,356
or in Central America,
1430
01:40:10,398 --> 01:40:14,693
if not in the same free press
which he so derides?
1431
01:40:14,734 --> 01:40:18,018
You can find out where I learned about them
by looking at my footnotes -
1432
01:40:18,070 --> 01:40:22,020
from Human Rights reports,
from church reports, from refugee studies,
1433
01:40:22,073 --> 01:40:24,397
and extensively, from the Australian press.
1434
01:40:24,449 --> 01:40:26,993
Nothing from the American press -
it was silenced.
1435
01:40:28,452 --> 01:40:32,319
Chairman, this is an attempt
at intellectual intimidation.
1436
01:40:32,371 --> 01:40:35,123
These are the ways of the bully.
1437
01:40:36,249 --> 01:40:40,168
Professor Chomsky uses
the oldest debating trick on record.
1438
01:40:40,210 --> 01:40:42,420
He erects a man of straw
1439
01:40:43,295 --> 01:40:46,214
and proceeds to hack away at him.
1440
01:40:48,173 --> 01:40:51,624
Professor Chomsky calls this
the "manufacture of consent".
1441
01:40:51,676 --> 01:40:55,011
I call it "the creation of consensus".
1442
01:40:55,053 --> 01:40:59,546
In Holland, we call it "Draagvlak",
which means "foundation".
1443
01:40:59,598 --> 01:41:02,516
Professor Chomsky thinks it is deceitful.
1444
01:41:02,558 --> 01:41:04,049
But it is not.
1445
01:41:04,101 --> 01:41:06,342
In a representative democracy,
1446
01:41:06,394 --> 01:41:10,605
it means winning people for one's point of view.
1447
01:41:10,647 --> 01:41:12,721
But I do not think
1448
01:41:12,773 --> 01:41:16,359
that Professor Chomsky believes
in representative democracy.
1449
01:41:16,401 --> 01:41:19,153
I think he believes in direct democracy.
1450
01:41:19,194 --> 01:41:21,519
With Rosa Luxemburg,
1451
01:41:21,571 --> 01:41:27,773
he longs for the creative, spontaneous,
self-correcting force of mass action.
1452
01:41:27,825 --> 01:41:31,359
That is the vision of the anarchist.
1453
01:41:31,411 --> 01:41:34,038
It is also a boy's dream.
1454
01:41:35,789 --> 01:41:39,208
Those who believe in democracy and freedom
1455
01:41:39,250 --> 01:41:43,377
have a serious task ahead of them.
1456
01:41:43,419 --> 01:41:45,994
What they should be doing, in my view,
1457
01:41:46,046 --> 01:41:51,341
is dedicating their efforts to helping
the despised common people
1458
01:41:51,383 --> 01:41:53,593
to struggle for their rights
1459
01:41:53,634 --> 01:41:58,930
and to realise the democratic goals
that constantly surface throughout history.
1460
01:41:58,971 --> 01:42:02,390
They should be serving not power and privilege
1461
01:42:02,432 --> 01:42:04,141
but rather their victims.
1462
01:42:05,017 --> 01:42:07,227
Freedom and democracy are, by now,
1463
01:42:07,269 --> 01:42:09,895
not merely values to be treasured.
1464
01:42:09,937 --> 01:42:14,232
They are quite possibly
the prerequisite to survival.
1465
01:42:14,273 --> 01:42:17,025
It's a conspiracy theory, pure and simple.
1466
01:42:17,067 --> 01:42:19,141
It is not borne out by the facts.
1467
01:42:19,193 --> 01:42:24,322
Mr Chairman, I have to go to Amsterdam.
If you'll excuse me, I'm leaving.
1468
01:42:29,659 --> 01:42:31,566
One thing is sure.
1469
01:42:33,119 --> 01:42:36,570
Their consent has not been manufactured
tonight.
1470
01:42:39,207 --> 01:42:44,200
There is nothing more remote from
what I'm discussing than a conspiracy theory.
1471
01:42:46,420 --> 01:42:51,079
If I give an analysis
of, say, the economic system,
1472
01:42:51,131 --> 01:42:55,760
and I point out that General Motors tries
to maximise profit and market share,
1473
01:42:55,801 --> 01:42:57,844
that's not a conspiracy theory.
1474
01:42:57,886 --> 01:43:00,012
That's an institutional analysis.
1475
01:43:00,054 --> 01:43:02,379
That has nothing to do with conspiracies.
1476
01:43:02,431 --> 01:43:05,850
And that's precisely the sense
in which we're talking about the media.
1477
01:43:05,891 --> 01:43:09,175
The phrase "conspiracy theory"
is one that's constantly brought up.
1478
01:43:09,227 --> 01:43:13,688
And I think its effect, simply,
is to discourage institutional analysis.
1479
01:43:16,607 --> 01:43:20,558
You think there's a connection
about what the government wants us to know
1480
01:43:20,610 --> 01:43:22,152
and what the media tell us?
1481
01:43:22,194 --> 01:43:23,935
It's not Communism,
1482
01:43:23,987 --> 01:43:26,061
but I think, to a certain point,
1483
01:43:26,113 --> 01:43:28,104
it is sensitised.
1484
01:43:28,156 --> 01:43:31,607
They don't always tell the truth,
the way it goes, huh?
1485
01:43:31,659 --> 01:43:32,910
You got that right.
1486
01:43:32,951 --> 01:43:37,163
Do you think the information you're getting
from this paper is biased in any way?
1487
01:43:37,204 --> 01:43:38,580
Oh, yeah.
1488
01:43:38,622 --> 01:43:42,406
I think, by and large, it's well done.
1489
01:43:42,458 --> 01:43:45,574
You get both sides of the stories.
1490
01:43:45,627 --> 01:43:50,338
You get the liberal side
and the conservative side, so to speak.
1491
01:43:50,380 --> 01:43:55,258
I don't think you get a very balanced picture
because they only have 20 seconds
1492
01:43:55,300 --> 01:43:59,000
for a news item, or whatever,
and they're going to pick out, a highlight.
1493
01:43:59,052 --> 01:44:03,430
Every network is going to cover the same
highlight. And that's all you're going to see.
1494
01:44:03,472 --> 01:44:06,099
You get what they want you to hear.
1495
01:44:07,558 --> 01:44:09,851
You think they're biased in some way, then?
1496
01:44:09,893 --> 01:44:10,925
Nah.
1497
01:44:11,728 --> 01:44:13,270
Here we go.
1498
01:44:13,312 --> 01:44:15,636
See you later.
1499
01:44:23,319 --> 01:44:26,519
Is it possible for the lights to get a little brighter
1500
01:44:26,571 --> 01:44:28,895
so I can see somebody out there?
1501
01:44:28,947 --> 01:44:31,731
Yeah, for the last hour and 41 minutes,
1502
01:44:31,783 --> 01:44:35,858
you've been whining about how the elite
and how the government have been...
1503
01:44:35,911 --> 01:44:39,163
using thought control
to keep radicals like yourself
1504
01:44:39,204 --> 01:44:41,414
out of the public limelight.
1505
01:44:41,456 --> 01:44:43,030
Now, you're here.
1506
01:44:43,082 --> 01:44:45,459
I don't see any CIA men waiting to drag you off.
1507
01:44:45,500 --> 01:44:50,243
You were in the paper. That's where everyone
here heard you were coming from, in the paper.
1508
01:44:50,295 --> 01:44:53,162
I'm sure they're going to publish your comments
in the paper.
1509
01:44:53,214 --> 01:44:56,800
In a lot of countries, you would have been shot
for what you have done today.
1510
01:44:56,841 --> 01:44:58,499
So, what are you whining about?
1511
01:44:58,551 --> 01:45:01,886
We are allowing you to speak.
I don't see any thought control.
1512
01:45:01,928 --> 01:45:06,421
First of all, I haven't said one word
about my being kept out of the limelight.
1513
01:45:06,473 --> 01:45:08,849
The way it works here is quite different.
1514
01:45:08,891 --> 01:45:12,008
I don't think you heard what I was saying.
The way it works here is,
1515
01:45:12,060 --> 01:45:17,512
that there is a system of shaping and control,
which gives a certain perception of the world.
1516
01:45:17,564 --> 01:45:21,233
I gave one example. I'll give you sources
where you can find thousands more.
1517
01:45:21,274 --> 01:45:25,027
And it has nothing to do with me.
It has to do with marginalising the public
1518
01:45:25,069 --> 01:45:27,393
and ensuring that they don't get in the way
1519
01:45:27,445 --> 01:45:31,448
of elites who are supposed to run things
without interference.
1520
01:45:31,490 --> 01:45:34,857
In a review of The Chomsky Reader,
1521
01:45:34,909 --> 01:45:37,942
it was written that,
"As he's been forced to the margins,
1522
01:45:37,994 --> 01:45:39,902
he's become strident and rigid."
1523
01:45:39,954 --> 01:45:43,654
Do you feel this categorisation
of your later writings is accurate
1524
01:45:43,706 --> 01:45:47,375
and that you've been a victim
of this sort of process you've been describing?
1525
01:45:47,417 --> 01:45:49,377
Well, the business about being forced...
1526
01:45:49,418 --> 01:45:52,504
Other people will have to judge
about the stridency. I won't...
1527
01:45:52,546 --> 01:45:55,579
I don't believe it.
But that's for other people to judge.
1528
01:45:55,631 --> 01:45:58,466
But the matter of being forced
to the margins is one of fact.
1529
01:45:58,508 --> 01:46:01,260
The fact is the opposite of what is claimed.
1530
01:46:01,301 --> 01:46:05,679
The fact is, it's much easier to gain access
to even the major media now
1531
01:46:05,721 --> 01:46:07,347
than it was 20 years ago.
1532
01:46:07,389 --> 01:46:10,016
You've dealt in such unpopular truths
1533
01:46:10,057 --> 01:46:13,310
and have been such a lonely figure
as a consequence of that.
1534
01:46:13,351 --> 01:46:16,937
Do you ever regret
either that you took the stand you took,
1535
01:46:16,979 --> 01:46:20,846
have written the things you have written,
or that we had listened to you earlier?
1536
01:46:21,690 --> 01:46:25,901
Er... I don't. I mean, there are particular things
which I would do differently.
1537
01:46:25,943 --> 01:46:28,153
Because you think about things differently.
1538
01:46:28,195 --> 01:46:32,197
- But, in general, I would say I do not regret it.
- Do you like being controversial?
1539
01:46:32,239 --> 01:46:34,230
No, it's a nuisance.
1540
01:46:34,282 --> 01:46:37,149
Because this medium pays little attention
to dissenters,
1541
01:46:37,201 --> 01:46:38,910
not just Noam Chomsky,
1542
01:46:38,952 --> 01:46:42,996
but most dissenters do not get
much of a hearing in this medium.
1543
01:46:43,038 --> 01:46:46,655
It's understandable. They wouldn't be
performing their societal function
1544
01:46:46,707 --> 01:46:49,657
if they allowed favoured truths to be challenged.
1545
01:46:52,669 --> 01:46:56,255
Now, notice that's not true
when I cross the border anywhere.
1546
01:46:56,297 --> 01:47:00,373
So I have easy access to the media
in just about every other country in the world.
1547
01:47:00,425 --> 01:47:04,094
That's for a number of reasons.
One is that I'm primarily talking about the US.
1548
01:47:04,136 --> 01:47:06,710
And it's much less threatening.
1549
01:47:07,888 --> 01:47:11,557
Your view there is that the militarisation
of the American economy
1550
01:47:11,599 --> 01:47:16,592
essentially has come about because there are
not other means of controlling the US people.
1551
01:47:16,644 --> 01:47:19,646
In a democratic society.
It may be paradoxical,
1552
01:47:19,688 --> 01:47:24,681
but the freer the society is,
the more it's necessary to resort to devices
1553
01:47:24,733 --> 01:47:26,192
like induced fear.
1554
01:47:32,280 --> 01:47:37,106
OK, I'll go along with that. Arguably, he is
the most important intellectual alive today.
1555
01:47:37,158 --> 01:47:42,036
And if my programme can give him
500,000 people listening
1556
01:47:42,078 --> 01:47:44,652
or three-quarters of a million people listening,
1557
01:47:44,705 --> 01:47:46,279
I'll be delighted.
1558
01:47:46,331 --> 01:47:48,541
OK, Professor, in your own time.
1559
01:47:50,417 --> 01:47:56,119
Wartime planners understood
that actual war aims should not be revealed.
1560
01:47:56,171 --> 01:48:01,508
A part of the reason why the media
in Canada and Belgium, etc are more open
1561
01:48:01,549 --> 01:48:04,468
is that it just doesn't matter that much
what people think.
1562
01:48:04,510 --> 01:48:08,971
It matters very much what the politically
articulate sectors of the population,
1563
01:48:09,013 --> 01:48:12,265
those narrow minorities,
think and do in the United States,
1564
01:48:12,307 --> 01:48:15,225
because of its overwhelming dominance
on the world scene.
1565
01:48:15,267 --> 01:48:17,894
But that's also a reason
for wanting to work here.
1566
01:48:17,935 --> 01:48:20,062
...what we might call the fith freedom -
1567
01:48:20,103 --> 01:48:22,595
the freedom to rob, exploit,
1568
01:48:22,647 --> 01:48:27,723
and dominate and to curb mischief
by any feasible means.
1569
01:48:29,985 --> 01:48:32,654
It's "conclude", not "include".
1570
01:48:32,695 --> 01:48:34,103
From the top.
1571
01:48:36,531 --> 01:48:41,107
The United States is ideologically
narrower in general than other countries.
1572
01:48:41,159 --> 01:48:45,735
Furthermore, the structure of the American
media is such as to pretty much eliminate
1573
01:48:45,787 --> 01:48:48,029
critical discussion.
1574
01:48:48,081 --> 01:48:52,000
Our guests are as far apart
on the Contra question
1575
01:48:52,042 --> 01:48:54,085
as American intellectuals can be.
1576
01:48:54,126 --> 01:48:56,962
If we had the slightest concern
with democracy,
1577
01:48:57,003 --> 01:49:00,037
which we do not, in our foreign affairs,
and never have,
1578
01:49:00,089 --> 01:49:03,424
we would turn to countries
where we have influence like El Salvador.
1579
01:49:03,466 --> 01:49:07,677
Now, in El Salvador,
they don't call the Archbishop bad names.
1580
01:49:07,719 --> 01:49:09,345
What they do is murder him.
1581
01:49:09,387 --> 01:49:12,670
They do not censor the press.
1582
01:49:12,722 --> 01:49:16,881
They wipe the press out. They sent the army in
to blow up the church radio station.
1583
01:49:16,934 --> 01:49:20,936
The editor of the independent paper was found
in a ditch, mutilated, and cut to pieces.
1584
01:49:20,978 --> 01:49:23,553
- Don't...
- May I continue? I did not interrupt you.
1585
01:49:23,605 --> 01:49:26,231
Don't you want to put a time value
on anything you say
1586
01:49:26,273 --> 01:49:28,431
or do you want to lie systematically on TV?
1587
01:49:28,483 --> 01:49:31,058
- I'm talking about 1980.
- You are a systematic liar.
1588
01:49:31,110 --> 01:49:35,154
- Did these things happen or not?
- Not in the context which you suggested.
1589
01:49:35,196 --> 01:49:39,907
You are a phoney, mister, and it's time
that the people read you correctly.
1590
01:49:39,949 --> 01:49:42,701
It's clear why you want to divert me
from the discussion.
1591
01:49:42,743 --> 01:49:45,067
No, it's not. We're getting tired of rubbish.
1592
01:49:45,119 --> 01:49:48,288
- But let's continue with...
- Except we can't. We're out of time.
1593
01:49:48,330 --> 01:49:50,738
Let me thank you,
John Silver and Noam Chomsky.
1594
01:49:50,790 --> 01:49:52,280
OK.
1595
01:49:55,626 --> 01:49:57,419
Last time you were here,
1596
01:49:57,461 --> 01:50:00,036
you spoke about how, when you go overseas,
1597
01:50:00,088 --> 01:50:02,839
you are given access to the mass media.
1598
01:50:02,881 --> 01:50:05,174
But here, that doesn't seem to be the case.
1599
01:50:05,216 --> 01:50:08,385
Has that changed at all?
Have you ever been invited
1600
01:50:08,427 --> 01:50:11,178
to appear on Nightline or Brinkley?
1601
01:50:11,220 --> 01:50:13,211
Yes, I have a couple of times
1602
01:50:13,263 --> 01:50:15,171
been invited to speak on Nightline.
1603
01:50:15,223 --> 01:50:19,226
I couldn't do it.
I had another talk and something or other.
1604
01:50:19,267 --> 01:50:22,050
To tell you the honest truth,
I don't really care very much.
1605
01:50:22,102 --> 01:50:24,344
FAIR, the media monitoring group,
1606
01:50:24,396 --> 01:50:27,314
published a very interesting study of Nightline.
1607
01:50:27,356 --> 01:50:31,307
It shows that their conception of a spectrum
of opinion is ridiculously narrow,
1608
01:50:31,359 --> 01:50:33,350
at least by European or world standards.
1609
01:50:53,207 --> 01:50:55,281
Let me tell you a personal experience.
1610
01:50:55,333 --> 01:50:57,293
I happened to be in Madison, Wisconsin,
1611
01:50:57,335 --> 01:50:59,711
on a listener-supported radio station,
1612
01:50:59,753 --> 01:51:01,827
a community radio station, a very good one.
1613
01:51:01,879 --> 01:51:05,799
It was an interview with the news director.
I'd been on the programme dozens of times,
1614
01:51:05,840 --> 01:51:07,300
usually by telephone.
1615
01:51:07,341 --> 01:51:11,636
And he's very good, he gets all sorts of people.
He started the interview by playing for me
1616
01:51:11,678 --> 01:51:15,514
a tape of an interview that he had just had
1617
01:51:15,555 --> 01:51:21,309
and had broadcast with a guy who's...
some mucky-muck in Nightline.
1618
01:51:21,351 --> 01:51:25,301
I think his name is Jeff Greenfield
or some such name.
1619
01:51:25,354 --> 01:51:27,428
Does that name mean anything?
1620
01:51:27,480 --> 01:51:30,847
I'm Jeff Greenfield from Nightline in New York.
1621
01:51:30,899 --> 01:51:34,318
We've got just a selection of guests
to analyse things.
1622
01:51:34,360 --> 01:51:37,445
Why is Noam Chomsky never on Nightline?
1623
01:51:37,487 --> 01:51:39,446
I couldn't begin to tell you.
1624
01:51:39,488 --> 01:51:42,157
He's one of the world's
leading intellectuals.
1625
01:51:42,198 --> 01:51:43,772
I have no idea.
1626
01:51:43,824 --> 01:51:45,784
I mean, I can make some guesses.
1627
01:51:45,826 --> 01:51:48,494
He may be
one of the leading intellectuals who...
1628
01:51:50,120 --> 01:51:51,694
...can't talk on television.
1629
01:51:51,746 --> 01:51:54,665
You know,
that's a standard that's very important. To us.
1630
01:51:54,707 --> 01:51:56,781
If you've got a 22-minute show,
1631
01:51:56,833 --> 01:51:59,210
and a guy takes five minutes to warm up...
1632
01:51:59,251 --> 01:52:01,492
Now, I don't know
whether Chomsky does or not.
1633
01:52:01,545 --> 01:52:03,087
...he's out.
1634
01:52:03,129 --> 01:52:07,132
One of the reasons
why Nightline has the usual suspects is,
1635
01:52:07,173 --> 01:52:09,300
one thing you have to do
when you book a show
1636
01:52:09,342 --> 01:52:12,677
is know that the person can make the point
within the framework of TV.
1637
01:52:12,719 --> 01:52:15,127
If people don't like that,
they should understand
1638
01:52:15,179 --> 01:52:18,431
it is as sensible to book somebody
who takes eight minutes to answer
1639
01:52:18,473 --> 01:52:20,964
as it is to book somebody
who doesn't speak English.
1640
01:52:21,016 --> 01:52:24,049
In the normal given flow,
that's another culture-bound thing.
1641
01:52:24,101 --> 01:52:26,812
We've got to have English speakers
and concision.
1642
01:52:26,853 --> 01:52:30,053
So Greenfield or whatever his name is
hit the nail on the head.
1643
01:52:30,106 --> 01:52:32,180
The US media are alone
1644
01:52:32,232 --> 01:52:35,932
in that you must meet the condition of concision.
1645
01:52:35,985 --> 01:52:38,768
You've got to say things
between two commercials
1646
01:52:38,820 --> 01:52:41,196
or in 600 words.
1647
01:52:41,238 --> 01:52:43,031
And that's a very important fact.
1648
01:52:43,073 --> 01:52:45,616
Because the beauty of concision,
1649
01:52:45,658 --> 01:52:48,743
you know, saying a couple of sentences
between two commercials...
1650
01:52:48,785 --> 01:52:52,485
The beauty of that is
that you can only repeat conventional thoughts.
1651
01:52:52,537 --> 01:52:54,945
I was reading Chomsky
20 years ago.
1652
01:52:54,997 --> 01:52:59,073
Didn't he co-author a book called Engineering
Consent or Manufacturing Consent?
1653
01:52:59,125 --> 01:53:02,211
I mean, some of that stuff, to me,
looks like it's from Neptune.
1654
01:53:02,252 --> 01:53:07,381
This is the first time the Neptune system
has been seen clearly by human eyes.
1655
01:53:07,422 --> 01:53:10,289
These pictures,
taken only hours ago by Voyager-2,
1656
01:53:10,341 --> 01:53:12,051
are its latest contribution.
1657
01:53:12,092 --> 01:53:16,752
You know, he's perfectly entitled
to say I'm seeing it through a prism, too.
1658
01:53:16,804 --> 01:53:22,099
But my view of his notions about the limits
of debate in this country is absolutely wacko.
1659
01:53:22,891 --> 01:53:26,675
Suppose I get up on Nightline, say.
And I'm given whatever it is, two minutes.
1660
01:53:26,727 --> 01:53:30,886
And I say Gaddafi is a terrorist,
Khomeini is a murderer, you know, etc, etc.
1661
01:53:30,938 --> 01:53:35,347
The Russians, you know, invaded Afghanistan.
All this sort of stuff.
1662
01:53:35,400 --> 01:53:38,026
I don't need any evidence. Everybody just nods.
1663
01:53:38,068 --> 01:53:42,894
On the other hand, suppose you say something
that just isn't regurgitating conventional pieties.
1664
01:53:42,946 --> 01:53:48,398
Suppose you say something that's the least bit
unexpected or controversial. You say:
1665
01:53:48,450 --> 01:53:51,400
The biggest international terror operations
that are known
1666
01:53:51,452 --> 01:53:53,443
are the ones that are run out of Washington.
1667
01:53:53,495 --> 01:53:54,871
Or suppose you say:
1668
01:53:54,913 --> 01:53:58,446
What happened in the 1980s is,
the US government was driven underground.
1669
01:53:58,499 --> 01:54:02,501
Suppose I say the United States is invading
South Vietnam, as it was?
1670
01:54:02,543 --> 01:54:07,036
The best political leaders
are the ones who are lazy and corrupt.
1671
01:54:07,088 --> 01:54:10,924
If the Nuremberg laws were applied,
1672
01:54:10,965 --> 01:54:15,375
then every post-War American President
would have been hanged.
1673
01:54:15,427 --> 01:54:19,721
The Bible is probably the most genocidal book
in our total canon.
1674
01:54:19,763 --> 01:54:22,848
Education is a system of imposed ignorance.
1675
01:54:22,890 --> 01:54:27,466
There's no more morality in world affairs
than there was in the time of Genghis Khan.
1676
01:54:27,518 --> 01:54:31,844
There are just different... You know, there are
just different factors to be concerned with.
1677
01:54:31,896 --> 01:54:33,355
Noam Chomsky, thank you.
1678
01:54:33,397 --> 01:54:38,025
Well, you know, people will quite reasonably
expect to know what you mean.
1679
01:54:38,067 --> 01:54:41,069
"Why did you say that?
I've never heard that before.
1680
01:54:41,111 --> 01:54:44,780
If you said that, you'd better have a reason,
better have some evidence.
1681
01:54:44,821 --> 01:54:49,033
In fact, you'd better have a lot of evidence
because that's a pretty startling comment".
1682
01:54:49,074 --> 01:54:52,024
You can't give evidence
if you're stuck with concision.
1683
01:54:52,076 --> 01:54:55,860
That's the genius of this structural constraint.
1684
01:54:55,912 --> 01:55:00,405
And in my view, if people like, say, Nightline,
MacNeil, Lehrer and so on were smarter,
1685
01:55:00,457 --> 01:55:02,250
if they were better propagandists,
1686
01:55:02,292 --> 01:55:05,627
they would let dissidents on,
let them on more, in fact.
1687
01:55:05,669 --> 01:55:08,869
The reason is that they would sound like
they were from Neptune.
1688
01:55:08,921 --> 01:55:11,871
Then our conversation
on the Middle East crisis
1689
01:55:11,923 --> 01:55:15,259
with the activist, writer and professor,
Noam Chomsky.
1690
01:55:15,300 --> 01:55:18,886
Again, there has been an offer on the table
which we rejected,
1691
01:55:18,928 --> 01:55:20,752
an Iraqi offer of last April...
1692
01:55:20,804 --> 01:55:22,263
OK, I have to...
1693
01:55:22,305 --> 01:55:25,724
...to eliminate their chemical
and other unconventional arsenals
1694
01:55:25,766 --> 01:55:28,226
if Israel were to simultaneously do the same.
1695
01:55:28,267 --> 01:55:31,186
- We have to end it there.
- That should be pursued as well.
1696
01:55:31,228 --> 01:55:37,180
Sorry to interrupt. I have to end it. That's the
end of our time. Professor Chomsky, thanks.
1697
01:55:37,232 --> 01:55:42,277
AT&T has supported
the MacNeil/Lehrer News Hour since 1983
1698
01:55:42,319 --> 01:55:45,519
because quality information
and quality communication
1699
01:55:45,571 --> 01:55:47,645
is our idea of a good connection.
1700
01:55:47,697 --> 01:55:50,616
AT&T - the right choice.
1701
01:55:50,658 --> 01:55:53,524
- Thank you.
- Could you just sit there for half a second?
1702
01:55:53,576 --> 01:55:57,496
It's just for a two-shot, that's all.
Then we can do anything else with that. OK.
1703
01:55:57,537 --> 01:56:00,706
Yeah, what about the mic? Is that a problem?
1704
01:56:00,748 --> 01:56:02,791
OK, right.
1705
01:56:02,832 --> 01:56:06,783
The idea of this one is it's just a shot
where I'm seen talking to you.
1706
01:56:06,835 --> 01:56:11,797
I'll ask you, though, not to speak to me or move
your lips, so I can be seen to ask a question.
1707
01:56:11,839 --> 01:56:15,883
The reason for the shot is simply this.
OK, just don't talk to me and I'll keep going.
1708
01:56:15,925 --> 01:56:20,219
The reason for the shot - I'll explain it
because I find that's the easiest way to do it -
1709
01:56:20,261 --> 01:56:22,721
is I need a shot where you're sitting and seeing
1710
01:56:22,763 --> 01:56:24,972
and listening while I'm asking you a question.
1711
01:56:25,014 --> 01:56:28,933
We can use the shot to introduce you, explain
who you are, where you fit into my piece.
1712
01:56:28,975 --> 01:56:33,186
But if you don't speak to me, I can also use...
Got it? OK, thanks for your time.
1713
01:56:33,228 --> 01:56:36,980
If there is a narrower range of opinion
in the United States
1714
01:56:37,022 --> 01:56:41,317
and it is harder to express
a variety of different opinions,
1715
01:56:41,358 --> 01:56:43,151
why do you live in the US?
1716
01:56:43,193 --> 01:56:45,976
Well, first of all, it's my country,
1717
01:56:46,028 --> 01:56:48,603
and secondly, it's in many ways -
as I said before -
1718
01:56:48,655 --> 01:56:50,448
it's the freest country in the world.
1719
01:56:50,490 --> 01:56:54,701
I think there's more possibilities for change here
than in any other country I know.
1720
01:56:54,742 --> 01:56:56,733
But again, comparatively speaking,
1721
01:56:56,786 --> 01:56:59,986
it's the country
where the state is probably most restrictive.
1722
01:57:00,038 --> 01:57:03,790
Isn't that what you should look at comparatively
rather than in absolute terms?
1723
01:57:03,832 --> 01:57:05,573
You don't give that impression.
1724
01:57:05,625 --> 01:57:08,627
Maybe I don't give the impression.
I say it oten enough.
1725
01:57:08,669 --> 01:57:10,712
What I've said over and over again,
1726
01:57:10,753 --> 01:57:13,589
I've said it tonight, I've written it a million times,
1727
01:57:13,630 --> 01:57:16,007
is that the United States is a very free society.
1728
01:57:16,049 --> 01:57:17,873
It's also a very rich society.
1729
01:57:17,925 --> 01:57:21,844
Of course, the United States is a scandal
from the point of view of its wealth.
1730
01:57:21,886 --> 01:57:25,169
Given the natural advantages
that the United States has,
1731
01:57:25,221 --> 01:57:29,297
in terms of resources
and lack of enemies and so on,
1732
01:57:29,349 --> 01:57:33,018
the United States should have a level
of health and welfare and so on
1733
01:57:33,060 --> 01:57:37,011
that's, you know, on an order of magnitude
beyond anybody else in the world.
1734
01:57:37,063 --> 01:57:42,764
We don't. The United States is last among
20 industrialised societies in infant mortality.
1735
01:57:42,817 --> 01:57:45,652
That's a scandal of American capitalism.
1736
01:57:45,694 --> 01:57:47,903
And it ends up being a very free society
1737
01:57:47,945 --> 01:57:50,895
which does a lot of rotten things
in the world, OK?
1738
01:57:50,947 --> 01:57:52,740
There's no contradiction there.
1739
01:57:52,782 --> 01:57:57,076
Greece was a free society
by the standards of Athens, you know.
1740
01:57:57,118 --> 01:58:00,235
It was also a vicious society
as regards its imperial behaviour.
1741
01:58:00,287 --> 01:58:03,737
There's virtually no correlation - maybe none -
1742
01:58:03,789 --> 01:58:07,917
between the internal freedom of a society
and its external behaviour.
1743
01:58:07,959 --> 01:58:11,127
You start your line of discussion
1744
01:58:11,169 --> 01:58:13,712
at a moment that is historically useful for you.
1745
01:58:13,754 --> 01:58:17,423
- But you picked the beginning.
- The grand fact of the post-war world
1746
01:58:17,465 --> 01:58:20,582
is that the Communist imperialists,
1747
01:58:20,634 --> 01:58:24,251
by the use of terrorism,
by the use of deprivation of freedom,
1748
01:58:24,303 --> 01:58:27,420
have contributed to the continuing bloodshed.
1749
01:58:27,472 --> 01:58:29,963
The sad thing about it is,
not only the bloodshed,
1750
01:58:30,015 --> 01:58:34,508
but the fact that they seem to dispossess you
of the power of rational observation.
1751
01:58:34,560 --> 01:58:36,603
I think that's about five per cent true.
1752
01:58:36,645 --> 01:58:39,271
Or maybe ten per cent true. It certainly is true...
1753
01:58:39,313 --> 01:58:42,180
- Why do you give that?
- May I complete a sentence?
1754
01:58:42,232 --> 01:58:46,724
It's perfectly true that there were areas
of the world, in particular, Eastern Europe,
1755
01:58:46,776 --> 01:58:49,184
where Stalinist imperialism...
1756
01:58:50,487 --> 01:58:54,188
very brutally took control
and still maintains control.
1757
01:58:54,240 --> 01:58:58,315
But there are also very vast areas of the world
where we were doing the same thing.
1758
01:58:58,368 --> 01:59:01,078
And there's quite an interplay in the Cold War.
1759
01:59:01,119 --> 01:59:04,736
What you just described is, I believe,
a mythology about the Cold War.
1760
01:59:04,789 --> 01:59:09,250
It may have been tenable ten years ago but
it's inconsistent with contemporary scholarship.
1761
01:59:09,292 --> 01:59:10,751
Ask a Czech.
1762
01:59:10,793 --> 01:59:12,867
Ask a Guatemalan, ask a Dominican.
1763
01:59:13,836 --> 01:59:19,173
Ask the president of the Dominican Republic,
ask a person from South Vietnam, ask a Thai.
1764
01:59:19,215 --> 01:59:23,374
Obviously, if you can't distinguish between
the nature of our venture in Guatemala
1765
01:59:23,426 --> 01:59:26,710
and the nature of the Soviet Union's in Prague,
we have difficulties.
1766
01:59:30,723 --> 01:59:35,518
Er... now, what about making the media
more responsive and democratic?
1767
01:59:35,559 --> 01:59:37,853
Well, there are very narrow limits for that.
1768
01:59:37,894 --> 01:59:41,678
It's kind of like asking, "How do we make
corporations more democratic?"
1769
01:59:41,730 --> 01:59:43,857
Well, the only way to do that is get rid of them.
1770
01:59:43,898 --> 01:59:46,681
I mean, if you have concentrated power...
1771
01:59:46,734 --> 01:59:49,402
I don't want to say you can do nothing.
1772
01:59:49,444 --> 01:59:53,363
Like the church can show up
at the stockholders' meeting
1773
01:59:53,405 --> 01:59:56,657
and start screaming
about not investing in South Africa.
1774
01:59:56,699 --> 02:00:00,482
And sometimes that has marginal effects.
I don't want to say it has no effect.
1775
02:00:00,535 --> 02:00:03,286
But you can't really affect the structure of power.
1776
02:00:03,328 --> 02:00:06,080
Because to do that would be a social revolution.
1777
02:00:06,122 --> 02:00:08,957
Unless you're ready for a social revolution,
1778
02:00:08,999 --> 02:00:11,125
that is, power is going to be somewhere else,
1779
02:00:11,167 --> 02:00:15,545
the media are going to have their present
structure and represent their present interests.
1780
02:00:15,586 --> 02:00:18,130
That's not to say
that one shouldn't try to do things.
1781
02:00:18,171 --> 02:00:21,121
It makes sense
to try to push the limits of a system.
1782
02:00:21,173 --> 02:00:25,416
It only takes one or two people
that think they have integrity as journalists
1783
02:00:25,468 --> 02:00:27,042
to give you some good press.
1784
02:00:27,094 --> 02:00:30,346
That's important. That goes back
to something that came up before.
1785
02:00:30,388 --> 02:00:34,881
There are contradictions.
You know, things are complex.
1786
02:00:34,933 --> 02:00:39,008
It's not monolithic. I mean, the mass media
themselves are complicated institutions
1787
02:00:39,061 --> 02:00:40,770
with internal contradictions.
1788
02:00:40,812 --> 02:00:44,648
So, on the one hand, there's the commitment
to indoctrination and control.
1789
02:00:44,689 --> 02:00:48,358
But on the other hand,
there's the sense of professional integrity.
1790
02:00:48,400 --> 02:00:51,027
She works alone,
as her own boss,
1791
02:00:51,069 --> 02:00:54,321
writing newspaper columns
and producing radio commentaries
1792
02:00:54,363 --> 02:00:57,073
for a hodgepodge of small clients
across the country.
1793
02:00:57,865 --> 02:01:00,575
This so-called leather-lunged Texan
1794
02:01:00,617 --> 02:01:04,036
has been firing questions at our chief executive
for almost 40 years.
1795
02:01:04,077 --> 02:01:06,569
Many a young man in this country
is disillusioned
1796
02:01:06,621 --> 02:01:08,278
by his government these days.
1797
02:01:08,330 --> 02:01:13,073
Well, this is a question which you very properly
bring to the attention of the nation.
1798
02:01:13,125 --> 02:01:15,669
It's not that we haven't held press conferences.
1799
02:01:15,710 --> 02:01:18,254
I was just waiting for Sarah to come back.
1800
02:01:18,295 --> 02:01:21,078
Mr President, that's very nice of you
and I appreciate it.
1801
02:01:21,131 --> 02:01:25,133
Sir, I want to call your attention to a real
problem we've got in this country today.
1802
02:01:25,175 --> 02:01:29,918
The unique, terrifying McClendon
questions reflect her desire to get information.
1803
02:01:29,970 --> 02:01:32,920
I want to ask your new man what he feels...
1804
02:01:32,972 --> 02:01:35,046
Here.
1805
02:01:36,349 --> 02:01:38,893
With enough know-how and persistence,
1806
02:01:38,934 --> 02:01:41,009
she usually gets her man.
1807
02:01:41,061 --> 02:01:44,428
What would you do
if you were in a situation
1808
02:01:44,480 --> 02:01:47,106
where you were trying to be an honest reporter
1809
02:01:47,148 --> 02:01:51,307
and you were worried sick about your country
and you saw how sick it was,
1810
02:01:51,359 --> 02:01:56,071
and you were facing this weak White House
and a weak Congress,
1811
02:01:56,113 --> 02:01:58,354
as a reporter, what would you do?
1812
02:01:58,406 --> 02:02:01,408
I think there are a lot of reporters
who do a good job.
1813
02:02:01,449 --> 02:02:04,451
I have a lot of friends in the press
who I think do a terrific job.
1814
02:02:04,493 --> 02:02:07,203
I know they are. They want to...
1815
02:02:07,245 --> 02:02:10,945
Well, first of all,
you have to understand what the system is.
1816
02:02:10,998 --> 02:02:14,865
And smart reporters do understand what it is.
1817
02:02:14,917 --> 02:02:17,950
You have to understand
what the pressures and commitments are,
1818
02:02:18,002 --> 02:02:20,785
what the barriers are
and what the openings are.
1819
02:02:20,838 --> 02:02:23,131
Right ater the Iran-Contra hearings,
1820
02:02:23,172 --> 02:02:27,967
a lot of good reporters understood, "Things are
going to be more open for a couple of months".
1821
02:02:28,009 --> 02:02:31,626
So they rammed through stories
they couldn't even talk about before.
1822
02:02:31,678 --> 02:02:34,169
- And ater Watergate.
- The same ater Watergate.
1823
02:02:34,222 --> 02:02:36,265
Then it closes up again.
1824
02:02:36,306 --> 02:02:39,673
Most people, I imagine,
simply internalise the values.
1825
02:02:39,725 --> 02:02:42,727
That's the easiest way
and the most successful way.
1826
02:02:42,769 --> 02:02:46,720
You just internalise the values and then
you regard yourself, in a way correctly,
1827
02:02:46,772 --> 02:02:48,346
as acting perfectly freely.
1828
02:02:48,398 --> 02:02:50,722
All right, let's get to the White House now
1829
02:02:50,774 --> 02:02:54,058
where I think veteran correspondent
Frank Sesno can tell us
1830
02:02:54,110 --> 02:02:56,320
a little bit about self-censorship.
1831
02:02:56,362 --> 02:02:59,895
That internal guidance system's
always going on, isn't it?
1832
02:02:59,947 --> 02:03:03,481
- Is there any formal censorship there?
- There's no self-censorship.
1833
02:03:03,533 --> 02:03:05,826
If somebody tells me something, I'll pass it on,
1834
02:03:05,868 --> 02:03:08,578
unless there's a particular,
compelling reason not to.
1835
02:03:08,620 --> 02:03:11,372
I can't deny that I'd like to have access
to the Oval Office
1836
02:03:11,413 --> 02:03:14,040
and all the same maps
the President's looking at.
1837
02:03:14,082 --> 02:03:17,584
But that's not possible, it's not realistic,
and probably not desirable.
1838
02:03:24,672 --> 02:03:26,747
Hello. How are you?
1839
02:03:26,799 --> 02:03:28,508
Go and sit down there, please.
1840
02:03:29,551 --> 02:03:31,594
Welcome to Holland.
1841
02:03:31,635 --> 02:03:34,262
I'll introduce you first with a few lines.
1842
02:03:34,304 --> 02:03:37,921
Professor Chomsky, Noam Chomsky.
1843
02:03:46,145 --> 02:03:49,095
Chomsky has been called
the Einstein of modern linguistics.
1844
02:03:49,147 --> 02:03:53,390
The New York Times has said he's arguably
the most important intellectual alive today.
1845
02:03:53,442 --> 02:03:55,985
But his presence here has sparked a protest.
1846
02:03:56,027 --> 02:03:58,518
This book has poisoned the world.
1847
02:03:58,570 --> 02:04:00,030
All lies are in there.
1848
02:04:00,071 --> 02:04:03,438
As the Vietnamese people,
we come here to burn the book.
1849
02:04:06,742 --> 02:04:11,318
He said that in Vietnam
there is no violation of human rights
1850
02:04:11,370 --> 02:04:13,997
and no crime in Cambodia - it's wrong.
1851
02:04:14,039 --> 02:04:16,447
Chomsky using his profession,
1852
02:04:16,499 --> 02:04:18,907
he using that to poison the world.
1853
02:04:18,959 --> 02:04:21,283
And we come here to protest that.
1854
02:04:21,336 --> 02:04:24,671
I don't mind the denunciations, frankly.
I mind the lies.
1855
02:04:24,713 --> 02:04:28,299
Intellectuals are very good at lying.
They're professionals at it.
1856
02:04:28,340 --> 02:04:30,383
Vilification is a wonderful technique.
1857
02:04:30,425 --> 02:04:31,968
There's no way of responding.
1858
02:04:32,009 --> 02:04:36,471
If somebody calls you an anti-Semite,
what can you say? "I'm not an anti-Semite"?
1859
02:04:36,512 --> 02:04:39,296
If somebody says,
"You're a racist, you're a Nazi",
1860
02:04:39,348 --> 02:04:40,974
you always lose.
1861
02:04:41,015 --> 02:04:43,475
I mean, the person who throws the mud
always wins,
1862
02:04:43,517 --> 02:04:45,727
because there's no way of responding.
1863
02:04:45,769 --> 02:04:48,177
Professor Chomsky seems to believe
1864
02:04:48,229 --> 02:04:54,097
that the people he criticises fall
into one of two classes - liars or dupes.
1865
02:04:55,567 --> 02:04:59,570
Consider what happens when I discuss
the case of Robert Faurisson.
1866
02:04:59,611 --> 02:05:02,280
Let me recall the facts.
1867
02:05:02,322 --> 02:05:06,449
- Let's not go into details.
- The details happen to be important.
1868
02:05:06,491 --> 02:05:08,701
Yes, but I have only one question for you.
1869
02:05:08,743 --> 02:05:11,286
- Do the facts matter or don't they?
- Of course.
1870
02:05:11,328 --> 02:05:13,996
Well, let me tell you what the facts are.
1871
02:05:15,205 --> 02:05:20,115
Faurisson says that the massacre of the Jews
in the Holocaust is a historic lie.
1872
02:05:20,167 --> 02:05:23,002
- Can we have the next question?
- No.
1873
02:05:23,044 --> 02:05:25,879
No, this is an important one.
It has a lot to do with the topic.
1874
02:05:25,921 --> 02:05:27,297
Get off!
1875
02:05:27,338 --> 02:05:29,746
Your views are very controversial.
1876
02:05:29,798 --> 02:05:32,884
Perhaps one of the things
that has been most controversial
1877
02:05:32,926 --> 02:05:37,303
and you've been most strongly criticised for
was your defence of a French intellectual
1878
02:05:37,345 --> 02:05:39,472
who was suspended from his university post
1879
02:05:39,513 --> 02:05:42,766
for contending that there were
no Nazi death camps in World War II.
1880
02:05:44,600 --> 02:05:47,310
My name is Robert Faurisson.
1881
02:05:47,352 --> 02:05:51,480
I am 60.
I am a university professor in Lyons, France.
1882
02:05:51,521 --> 02:05:56,264
Behind me,
you may see the courthouse of Paris,
1883
02:05:56,316 --> 02:05:58,224
Le Palais de Justice.
1884
02:05:59,193 --> 02:06:00,767
In this place,
1885
02:06:00,819 --> 02:06:06,031
I was convicted many times
at the beginning of the '80s.
1886
02:06:06,990 --> 02:06:12,494
I was charged by nine associations,
1887
02:06:12,536 --> 02:06:14,693
mostly Jewish associations,
1888
02:06:14,745 --> 02:06:16,319
for...
1889
02:06:18,915 --> 02:06:20,989
...inciting hatred,
1890
02:06:21,041 --> 02:06:22,865
racial hatred,
1891
02:06:22,918 --> 02:06:24,992
for racial defamation,
1892
02:06:25,044 --> 02:06:29,922
for damage by falsifying history.
1893
02:06:29,964 --> 02:06:34,707
Professor Chomsky and a number
of other intellectuals signed a petition
1894
02:06:34,759 --> 02:06:40,054
in which Faurisson is called
"a respected professor of literature
1895
02:06:40,096 --> 02:06:44,474
who merely tried to make his findings public".
1896
02:06:45,391 --> 02:06:54,731
Perhaps we can start with just the story of
Robert Faurisson and your involvement.
1897
02:06:54,772 --> 02:06:59,234
More than 500 people signed...
1898
02:07:00,735 --> 02:07:02,559
Maybe 600.
1899
02:07:03,320 --> 02:07:07,104
Mostly... universitaires.
1900
02:07:07,156 --> 02:07:08,438
Scholars.
1901
02:07:08,490 --> 02:07:12,190
And what happened to the other 499 of them?
1902
02:07:12,243 --> 02:07:14,994
How come we only hear
about Chomsky's signature?
1903
02:07:15,036 --> 02:07:19,998
Well, I think it's because Chomsky has,
in himself, a kind of political power.
1904
02:07:23,542 --> 02:07:25,251
I signed a petition
1905
02:07:25,293 --> 02:07:28,295
calling on the tribunal to defend his civil rights.
1906
02:07:28,337 --> 02:07:32,715
At that point, the French press,
which has no conception of freedom of speech,
1907
02:07:32,756 --> 02:07:36,540
concluded that
since I had called for his civil rights,
1908
02:07:36,592 --> 02:07:38,500
I was therefore defending his thesis.
1909
02:07:38,552 --> 02:07:40,845
Faurisson then published a book
1910
02:07:40,887 --> 02:07:45,932
in which he tried to prove
that the Nazi gas chambers never existed.
1911
02:07:45,974 --> 02:07:50,716
What we deny is that there was
1912
02:07:50,769 --> 02:07:53,437
an extermination programme
1913
02:07:53,479 --> 02:07:56,022
and an extermination, actually.
1914
02:07:56,064 --> 02:07:59,566
Especially in gas chambers or gas vans.
1915
02:07:59,608 --> 02:08:04,434
The book contains a preface
written by Professor Chomsky
1916
02:08:04,486 --> 02:08:06,696
in which he calls Faurisson
1917
02:08:06,738 --> 02:08:10,407
"a relatively apolitical sort of liberal".
1918
02:08:11,866 --> 02:08:16,411
A Communist is a man, a Jew is a man,
a Nazi is a man.
1919
02:08:16,453 --> 02:08:17,912
I am a man.
1920
02:08:17,954 --> 02:08:19,830
Are you a Nazi?
1921
02:08:19,872 --> 02:08:21,862
I am not a Nazi.
1922
02:08:21,915 --> 02:08:24,489
How would you describe yourself politically?
1923
02:08:26,251 --> 02:08:27,533
Nothing.
1924
02:08:27,585 --> 02:08:31,661
- The preface that you wrote...
- No, that's not the preface that I wrote.
1925
02:08:31,713 --> 02:08:35,299
Because I never wrote a preface
and you know that I never wrote a preface.
1926
02:08:36,383 --> 02:08:39,666
He's referring to a statement of mine
on civil liberties
1927
02:08:39,718 --> 02:08:43,721
which was added to a book
in which Faurisson...
1928
02:08:43,763 --> 02:08:45,222
Excuse me.
1929
02:08:45,264 --> 02:08:48,464
You're a linguist
and the language you use has meaning!
1930
02:08:48,516 --> 02:08:52,050
And when you describe Faurisson
as an "apolitical liberal",
1931
02:08:52,102 --> 02:08:58,022
or as someone whose views can be dignified
by the words "findings" or "conclusions",
1932
02:08:58,064 --> 02:09:01,483
that is a judgment
and that is a favourable judgment of his views.
1933
02:09:01,525 --> 02:09:02,775
On the contrary.
1934
02:09:02,817 --> 02:09:06,653
- May I continue with the facts?
- You can continue with the facts for hours.
1935
02:09:06,695 --> 02:09:09,447
But there are a few facts that... Yeah, OK.
1936
02:09:09,488 --> 02:09:11,281
Let's get to the so-called preface.
1937
02:09:11,323 --> 02:09:15,326
I was then asked
by the person who organised the petition
1938
02:09:15,367 --> 02:09:17,994
to write a statement on freedom of speech.
1939
02:09:18,036 --> 02:09:21,038
Just banal comments about freedom of speech,
1940
02:09:21,080 --> 02:09:25,906
pointing out the difference between defending
a person's right to express his views
1941
02:09:25,958 --> 02:09:27,917
and defending the views expressed.
1942
02:09:27,959 --> 02:09:31,045
So I did that. I wrote a rather banal statement
1943
02:09:31,086 --> 02:09:34,120
called "Some Elementary Remarks
on Freedom of Expression".
1944
02:09:34,172 --> 02:09:36,496
And I told them, "Do what you like with it".
1945
02:09:36,548 --> 02:09:39,384
So Pierre produced a book
1946
02:09:39,425 --> 02:09:44,137
in which all the arguments of Faurisson
were to be put in front of the court.
1947
02:09:44,178 --> 02:09:47,379
And we thought it wise
1948
02:09:47,431 --> 02:09:50,547
to use the text of Noam Chomsky
1949
02:09:50,599 --> 02:09:53,685
as a kind of warning, a forward,
1950
02:09:53,727 --> 02:09:57,344
to say that it was
a matter of freedom of expression,
1951
02:09:57,396 --> 02:09:59,720
freedom of thought, freedom of research.
1952
02:09:59,772 --> 02:10:03,358
Why did you try at the last moment
to get it back from the book?
1953
02:10:03,400 --> 02:10:05,140
That's the one thing I'm sorry about.
1954
02:10:05,193 --> 02:10:07,767
- But that's the real important thing.
- No, it's not.
1955
02:10:07,819 --> 02:10:09,529
You mean that I tried to retract it?
1956
02:10:09,571 --> 02:10:13,323
- With that, you said it was wrong of you to do it.
- No. Take a look at what I did.
1957
02:10:13,365 --> 02:10:17,440
I wrote a letter, which was then published,
in which I said,
1958
02:10:17,493 --> 02:10:19,150
"Look, things have reached a point
1959
02:10:19,202 --> 02:10:21,829
where the French intellectual community
1960
02:10:21,871 --> 02:10:24,987
simply is incapable of understanding the issues.
1961
02:10:25,039 --> 02:10:28,490
At this point,
it's just going to confuse matters even more
1962
02:10:28,542 --> 02:10:34,045
if my comments on freedom of speech are
attached to a book which I didn't know existed.
1963
02:10:34,087 --> 02:10:36,839
So, just to clarify things,
you'd better separate them".
1964
02:10:36,881 --> 02:10:39,424
Now, in retrospect, I shouldn't have done that.
1965
02:10:39,466 --> 02:10:42,999
I should have just said, "Fine. Let it appear,
because it ought to appear".
1966
02:10:43,051 --> 02:10:45,762
But apart from that,
1967
02:10:45,803 --> 02:10:48,295
I regard this as not only trivial,
1968
02:10:48,347 --> 02:10:52,214
but as compared with other positions I've taken
on freedom of speech, invisible.
1969
02:10:52,266 --> 02:10:56,217
I do not think the state ought to have the right
to determine historical truth
1970
02:10:56,269 --> 02:10:58,260
and to punish people who deviate from it.
1971
02:10:58,312 --> 02:11:01,345
I'm not willing to give the state that right,
even if they...
1972
02:11:01,397 --> 02:11:04,483
- Are you denying the gas chambers existed?
- Of course not.
1973
02:11:04,524 --> 02:11:06,932
I'm saying, if you believe in freedom of speech,
1974
02:11:06,984 --> 02:11:09,736
you believe in freedom of speech
for views you don't like.
1975
02:11:09,778 --> 02:11:14,187
Goebbels was in favour of freedom of speech
for views he liked, right? So was Stalin.
1976
02:11:14,239 --> 02:11:16,199
If you're in favour of freedom of speech,
1977
02:11:16,241 --> 02:11:20,368
that means you're in favour of freedom
of speech precisely for views you despise.
1978
02:11:20,410 --> 02:11:22,953
Otherwise you're not in favour
of freedom of speech.
1979
02:11:22,995 --> 02:11:27,238
There's two positions you can have on freedom
of speech. You can decide which you want.
1980
02:11:27,290 --> 02:11:31,292
With regard to my defence
of the utterly offensive,
1981
02:11:31,334 --> 02:11:34,169
the people who express utterly offensive views,
1982
02:11:34,211 --> 02:11:36,994
I haven't the slightest doubt
that every commissar says,
1983
02:11:37,046 --> 02:11:39,006
"You're defending that person's views".
1984
02:11:39,048 --> 02:11:41,591
No, I'm not.
I'm defending his right to express them.
1985
02:11:41,633 --> 02:11:43,259
The difference is crucial.
1986
02:11:43,300 --> 02:11:48,095
And the difference has been understood
outside of fascist circles since the 18th century.
1987
02:11:48,137 --> 02:11:52,432
Is there anything like objectivity,
scientific objectivity, reality?
1988
02:11:52,473 --> 02:11:56,309
- As a scientist, where do you stand on this?
- I'm not saying I defend the views.
1989
02:11:56,351 --> 02:11:59,801
If somebody publishes a scientific article
which I disagree with,
1990
02:11:59,853 --> 02:12:03,220
I do not say
the state ought to put him in jail, right?
1991
02:12:03,272 --> 02:12:06,191
- But you don't have to support him...
- I don't support him.
1992
02:12:06,233 --> 02:12:10,235
...and say, "I support him just for the sake
of anybody saying what they want".
1993
02:12:10,277 --> 02:12:12,351
Suppose this guy is taken to court
1994
02:12:12,403 --> 02:12:14,780
and charged with falsification?
1995
02:12:14,822 --> 02:12:17,449
- Then I'll defend him.
- But he wasn't taken to court.
1996
02:12:17,490 --> 02:12:20,659
- Oh, you're wrong.
- But when did you write the support?
1997
02:12:20,701 --> 02:12:22,525
When he was brought to court.
1998
02:12:22,577 --> 02:12:24,703
And, in fact, the only support that I gave him
1999
02:12:24,745 --> 02:12:27,997
was to say he has a right
of freedom of speech, period.
2000
02:12:28,039 --> 02:12:31,792
There is no doubt in my mind
that the example I gave about the story,
2001
02:12:31,833 --> 02:12:34,950
that the Holocaust did not exist,
is very, very typical.
2002
02:12:35,002 --> 02:12:37,379
I'll give you another example of this.
2003
02:12:37,420 --> 02:12:41,340
How much of the American press believes
that Faurisson has anything to say?
2004
02:12:41,381 --> 02:12:43,206
How much of the press in France...
2005
02:12:43,258 --> 02:12:47,010
What percentage would you say?
Is it higher than zero?
2006
02:12:47,052 --> 02:12:51,847
Is it higher than zero? Have you ever seen
anything in any newspaper or any journal
2007
02:12:51,888 --> 02:12:54,463
saying that this man
is anything other than a lunatic?
2008
02:12:54,515 --> 02:12:56,006
I'll try to answer.
2009
02:12:56,058 --> 02:12:58,977
- I just follow the case...
- That's a simple question.
2010
02:12:59,018 --> 02:13:01,228
I follow the case five or six years ago.
2011
02:13:01,270 --> 02:13:05,596
I happened to see
that Noam Chomsky was in for strong criticism
2012
02:13:05,648 --> 02:13:07,524
even from some of his supporters
2013
02:13:07,566 --> 02:13:13,153
for doing something which could be interpreted
only in terms of a campaign against Israel.
2014
02:13:13,194 --> 02:13:16,645
Going back years, I am absolutely certain
2015
02:13:16,697 --> 02:13:19,157
that I've taken far more extreme positions
2016
02:13:19,199 --> 02:13:22,565
on people who deny the Holocaust
than you have.
2017
02:13:22,618 --> 02:13:26,912
For example, you go back to my earliest articles
and you will find that I say that
2018
02:13:26,954 --> 02:13:30,540
even to enter into the arena of debate
2019
02:13:30,581 --> 02:13:34,334
on the question
of whether the Nazis carried out such atrocities
2020
02:13:34,375 --> 02:13:36,002
is already to lose one's humanity.
2021
02:13:36,043 --> 02:13:39,827
So I don't even think you ought to discuss
the issue, if you want my opinion.
2022
02:13:39,879 --> 02:13:42,287
But if anybody wants to refute Faurisson,
2023
02:13:42,339 --> 02:13:44,497
there's certainly no difficulty in doing so.
2024
02:14:00,018 --> 02:14:02,645
I'm not interested in...
2025
02:14:03,979 --> 02:14:05,803
...freedom of speech and all that.
2026
02:14:05,855 --> 02:14:08,805
I have to win. And that's the question.
2027
02:14:08,857 --> 02:14:10,848
And I shall win.
2028
02:14:10,900 --> 02:14:12,099
Cut.
2029
02:14:37,710 --> 02:14:40,034
I'm just an ordinary mum
2030
02:14:40,086 --> 02:14:42,546
who just thinks in terms of...
2031
02:14:42,588 --> 02:14:45,705
I don't want to some day
be holding my grandchildren
2032
02:14:45,757 --> 02:14:47,883
and watching something horrible happen
2033
02:14:47,925 --> 02:14:49,885
and feel like I didn't do anything.
2034
02:14:49,926 --> 02:14:53,710
And I mean, it's obvious what you're doing.
2035
02:14:53,762 --> 02:14:56,545
My question is, on a practical level,
2036
02:14:56,598 --> 02:15:01,090
where do you see the most practical place
to put your energy?
2037
02:15:01,142 --> 02:15:04,811
Tonight, I feel I'm overwhelmed.
I feel like it's too big, it's too much,
2038
02:15:04,853 --> 02:15:07,094
to even make a dent in.
2039
02:15:08,397 --> 02:15:12,442
The way things change is because
lots of people are working all the time.
2040
02:15:12,483 --> 02:15:17,111
You know, they're working in their communities,
in their workplace or wherever they are.
2041
02:15:17,153 --> 02:15:21,198
And they're building up the basis
for popular movements
2042
02:15:21,239 --> 02:15:22,813
which are going to make changes.
2043
02:15:22,865 --> 02:15:25,951
That's the way
everything has ever happened in history.
2044
02:15:25,992 --> 02:15:27,983
Whether it was the end of slavery,
2045
02:15:28,036 --> 02:15:31,621
whether it was the democratic revolutions,
2046
02:15:31,663 --> 02:15:35,415
or anything you want, you name it,
that's the way it worked.
2047
02:15:35,457 --> 02:15:38,657
You get a very false picture of this
from the history books.
2048
02:15:38,709 --> 02:15:41,420
In the history books, there's a couple of leaders.
2049
02:15:41,461 --> 02:15:43,869
You know, George Washington,
2050
02:15:43,921 --> 02:15:45,829
or Martin Luther King or whatever.
2051
02:15:45,881 --> 02:15:48,456
And I don't want to say
those people are unimportant.
2052
02:15:48,508 --> 02:15:52,125
Martin Luther King was important,
but he was not the Civil Rights Movement.
2053
02:15:52,177 --> 02:15:55,596
Martin Luther King can appear
in the history books
2054
02:15:55,637 --> 02:15:58,806
cos lots of people
whose names you will never know
2055
02:15:58,848 --> 02:16:02,350
and whose names are all forgotten
and who may have been killed and so on,
2056
02:16:02,392 --> 02:16:04,466
were working down in the South.
2057
02:16:05,894 --> 02:16:10,272
When you have active... activists,
2058
02:16:10,314 --> 02:16:14,890
and people concerned and people devoting
themselves and dedicating themselves
2059
02:16:14,942 --> 02:16:16,902
to social change or issues or whatever,
2060
02:16:16,944 --> 02:16:19,946
then people like me can appear.
2061
02:16:19,987 --> 02:16:24,032
We can appear to be prominent. But that's only
cos somebody else is doing the work.
2062
02:16:24,073 --> 02:16:28,201
My work,
whether it's giving hundreds of talks a year
2063
02:16:28,243 --> 02:16:31,912
or spending 20 hours a week
writing letters or writing books,
2064
02:16:31,954 --> 02:16:36,415
is not directed to intellectuals and politicians.
2065
02:16:36,457 --> 02:16:39,959
It's directed to what are called
"ordinary people".
2066
02:16:40,001 --> 02:16:44,796
What I expect from them is, in fact,
exactly what they are.
2067
02:16:44,837 --> 02:16:48,006
That they should try to understand the world
2068
02:16:48,048 --> 02:16:50,591
and act in accordance
with their decent impulses.
2069
02:16:50,633 --> 02:16:53,499
And that they should try to improve the world.
2070
02:16:53,552 --> 02:16:56,470
Many are willing to do that.
But they have to understand.
2071
02:16:56,512 --> 02:16:58,472
As far as I can see, in these things,
2072
02:16:58,513 --> 02:17:03,892
I feel that I'm simply helping people develop
courses of intellectual self-defence.
2073
02:17:03,934 --> 02:17:06,008
What did you mean by that?
2074
02:17:06,060 --> 02:17:08,551
What would such a course be?
2075
02:17:08,603 --> 02:17:11,553
I don't mean go to school,
because you'll not get it there.
2076
02:17:13,106 --> 02:17:18,183
It means you have to develop
an independent mind and work on it.
2077
02:17:18,235 --> 02:17:20,059
That's extremely hard to do alone.
2078
02:17:21,028 --> 02:17:24,229
The beauty of our system is
it isolates everybody.
2079
02:17:24,281 --> 02:17:27,283
Each person is sitting alone in front of the tube.
2080
02:17:27,324 --> 02:17:31,536
It's very hard to have ideas or thoughts
under those circumstances.
2081
02:17:31,577 --> 02:17:33,652
You can't fight the world alone.
2082
02:17:33,704 --> 02:17:36,195
Some people can, but it's pretty rare.
2083
02:17:36,247 --> 02:17:38,321
The way to do it is through organisation.
2084
02:17:38,373 --> 02:17:40,948
So courses of intellectual self-defence
2085
02:17:41,000 --> 02:17:46,702
will have to be in the context
of political and other organisation.
2086
02:17:48,881 --> 02:17:53,342
And it makes sense, I think,
to look at what the institutions are trying to do
2087
02:17:53,384 --> 02:17:55,093
and to take that almost as a key.
2088
02:17:55,135 --> 02:17:57,918
What they're trying to do
is what we're trying to combat.
2089
02:17:57,970 --> 02:18:02,348
If they're trying to keep people
isolated and separate, and so on,
2090
02:18:02,390 --> 02:18:05,100
then we'll try and do the opposite,
bring them together.
2091
02:18:05,142 --> 02:18:10,562
So, in your local community,
you want to have sources of alternative action,
2092
02:18:10,604 --> 02:18:14,137
people with parallel concerns,
maybe differently focused,
2093
02:18:14,189 --> 02:18:17,108
but, at the core, sort of similar values
2094
02:18:17,150 --> 02:18:22,028
and a similar interest in helping people defend
themselves against external power
2095
02:18:22,070 --> 02:18:23,946
and taking control of their lives
2096
02:18:23,988 --> 02:18:26,395
and reaching out your hand
to people who need it.
2097
02:18:26,448 --> 02:18:28,407
That's a common array of concerns.
2098
02:18:28,449 --> 02:18:30,492
You can learn about your own values
2099
02:18:30,534 --> 02:18:34,317
and you can figure out how to defend yourself
in conjunction with others.
2100
02:18:34,370 --> 02:18:39,790
Erm... are there one or two publications
that I, as an average person, a biologist,
2101
02:18:39,832 --> 02:18:44,074
can read to bypass this filter of our press?
2102
02:18:44,126 --> 02:18:47,962
Now, if you ask, "What media can I turn to
to get the right answers?"
2103
02:18:48,004 --> 02:18:50,214
First of all, I wouldn't tell you that,
2104
02:18:50,255 --> 02:18:52,215
because I don't think there's an answer.
2105
02:18:52,257 --> 02:18:55,425
The right answers are what you decide
are the right answers.
2106
02:18:55,467 --> 02:18:57,792
Maybe everything I'm telling you is wrong.
2107
02:18:57,844 --> 02:19:00,335
It could perfectly well be. I'm not God.
2108
02:19:00,387 --> 02:19:04,546
But that's something for you to figure out.
I can tell you what I think happens to be right.
2109
02:19:04,598 --> 02:19:07,600
But there isn't any reason
why you should pay any attention to it.
2110
02:19:07,934 --> 02:19:12,760
What impact do you feel alternative media is
currently having or could potentially have?
2111
02:19:12,812 --> 02:19:15,845
I'm actually a little more interested
in its potential.
2112
02:19:15,898 --> 02:19:17,690
And just to define my terms,
2113
02:19:17,732 --> 02:19:22,610
by alternative media, I'm referring to media
that are or could be citizen-controlled
2114
02:19:22,652 --> 02:19:24,945
as opposed to state or corporate-controlled.
2115
02:19:24,987 --> 02:19:27,562
That's what's kept people together.
2116
02:19:27,614 --> 02:19:30,783
To the extent that people are able
to do something constructive,
2117
02:19:30,824 --> 02:19:33,368
it's because they have some way of interacting.
2118
02:19:33,409 --> 02:19:35,984
I've always felt it would be a very positive thing
2119
02:19:36,036 --> 02:19:38,027
and it should be pushed as far as it can go.
2120
02:19:38,079 --> 02:19:40,372
I think it's going to have a very hard time.
2121
02:19:40,414 --> 02:19:45,543
There's just such a concentration
of resources and power that...
2122
02:19:46,835 --> 02:19:49,212
...alternative media,
2123
02:19:49,253 --> 02:19:53,579
while extremely important,
are going to have quite a battle.
2124
02:19:53,631 --> 02:19:57,050
It's true there are things
which are small successes.
2125
02:19:57,092 --> 02:20:01,303
But it's because people have just been willing
to put in an incredible effort.
2126
02:20:01,345 --> 02:20:03,305
Like, say, take Z Magazine.
2127
02:20:03,346 --> 02:20:06,348
I mean, that's a national magazine
2128
02:20:06,390 --> 02:20:08,933
which literally has a staff of two
2129
02:20:08,975 --> 02:20:10,966
and no resources.
2130
02:20:11,852 --> 02:20:15,552
Tell us a little about Z Magazine,
what it is and what makes it different.
2131
02:20:15,605 --> 02:20:17,231
Go ahead.
2132
02:20:17,272 --> 02:20:19,816
Go ahead? Thank you.
2133
02:20:19,857 --> 02:20:24,767
We just wanted to do a magazine
that would address all the sides of political life.
2134
02:20:24,819 --> 02:20:27,602
Economics, race, gender,
2135
02:20:27,654 --> 02:20:30,031
authority, political relations.
2136
02:20:30,073 --> 02:20:32,647
And we wanted to do it in a way
that would incorporate
2137
02:20:32,699 --> 02:20:36,202
attention to how to not only understand
what's going on,
2138
02:20:36,244 --> 02:20:38,568
but how to make things better, what to aim for,
2139
02:20:38,620 --> 02:20:43,415
and to provide, at the same time,
humour, culture.
2140
02:20:43,457 --> 02:20:48,366
A kind of magazine that people could relate to
and get a lot out of and participate in.
2141
02:20:48,418 --> 02:20:52,713
What we wanted to do, which we didn't think
was provided by the existing magazines,
2142
02:20:52,755 --> 02:20:56,288
was to give it a real activist slant.
2143
02:20:56,340 --> 02:21:02,011
So that it could be very useful
to the variety of movements in the country.
2144
02:21:02,053 --> 02:21:05,972
We just felt there wasn't a magazine
that reflected that, that inspired people,
2145
02:21:06,014 --> 02:21:09,933
and that gave people a strategy
and perhaps even a vision
2146
02:21:09,975 --> 02:21:12,018
of how things could be better.
2147
02:21:19,314 --> 02:21:22,066
South End Press
has sort of made it.
2148
02:21:22,108 --> 02:21:24,943
That is, they're surviving.
2149
02:21:24,985 --> 02:21:27,393
It's a small collective, again with no resources.
2150
02:21:27,445 --> 02:21:29,602
They've put out a lot of good books.
2151
02:21:29,655 --> 02:21:33,980
But for a South End book to get reviewed
is almost impossible.
2152
02:21:34,033 --> 02:21:36,784
Editorially and business-wise,
2153
02:21:36,826 --> 02:21:43,789
we make decisions based on a politics
that no corporate publisher can really advocate
2154
02:21:43,831 --> 02:21:46,833
because of their ties to corporate America.
2155
02:21:46,875 --> 02:21:52,576
We can solicit manuscripts based on
what we feel is the relevance for the movement.
2156
02:21:52,628 --> 02:21:54,838
And we can make our business decisions
2157
02:21:54,880 --> 02:21:58,497
based on whether we feel
people can afford our books,
2158
02:21:58,549 --> 02:22:02,500
whether we feel that
a book might not make that much money
2159
02:22:02,552 --> 02:22:04,178
but it needs to be out there,
2160
02:22:04,220 --> 02:22:06,711
and maybe there is 1,000 people
who would buy it.
2161
02:22:06,763 --> 02:22:11,256
And those are criteria
that we feel are very precious
2162
02:22:11,308 --> 02:22:13,465
in this day of corporate mergers.
2163
02:22:13,517 --> 02:22:20,345
And likewise, our structure about sharing work
and continuing our training process
2164
02:22:20,397 --> 02:22:22,357
as long as we're at the press.
2165
02:22:22,398 --> 02:22:25,317
There are losses there in terms of productivity,
2166
02:22:25,359 --> 02:22:27,350
but in terms of empowerment,
2167
02:22:27,402 --> 02:22:30,685
all of us are then able to say...
2168
02:22:31,488 --> 02:22:33,979
"My perspective is different from yours".
2169
02:22:34,031 --> 02:22:38,858
Then all of our intelligence gets used
in making those decisions,
2170
02:22:38,910 --> 02:22:42,276
and not just whoever happens
to have done it the longest,
2171
02:22:42,329 --> 02:22:46,081
whoever happens to have graduated
from the best schools
2172
02:22:46,123 --> 02:22:48,249
in order to be the best editor,
2173
02:22:48,291 --> 02:22:52,617
making all the decisions
and only using his or her intelligence.
2174
02:22:52,669 --> 02:22:55,452
Citizen-supported radio in the United States
2175
02:22:55,504 --> 02:22:59,090
has undergone a remarkable growth
in the last decade.
2176
02:22:59,132 --> 02:23:03,593
It's perhaps the fastest-growing
alternative media.
2177
02:23:03,635 --> 02:23:06,011
There are many reasons for this.
2178
02:23:06,053 --> 02:23:09,555
First and foremost
is that it's enormously economical.
2179
02:23:09,597 --> 02:23:15,049
It reaches communities that have not been
served by community radio before.
2180
02:23:16,060 --> 02:23:18,603
In Boulder,
we see with someone like Noam Chomsky,
2181
02:23:18,645 --> 02:23:22,095
who's been there, I believe,
three times in the last six years,
2182
02:23:22,147 --> 02:23:24,190
he has a tremendous audience.
2183
02:23:24,232 --> 02:23:26,692
And KGNU is partly responsible for that.
2184
02:23:26,734 --> 02:23:29,517
Because we play his tapes on a regular basis.
2185
02:23:29,569 --> 02:23:32,112
We play his lectures and his interviews.
2186
02:23:32,154 --> 02:23:35,823
So, when he does come to Boulder
and people hear what he has to say,
2187
02:23:35,865 --> 02:23:40,993
they're able to tune in, it's not something exotic
or esoteric he's talking about.
2188
02:23:41,035 --> 02:23:45,246
It's material that they're very familiar with.
He's noted this, incidentally.
2189
02:23:45,288 --> 02:23:48,404
If there's a listener-supported
radio station,
2190
02:23:48,457 --> 02:23:52,126
it means that people can get daily, every day,
2191
02:23:52,167 --> 02:23:54,659
a different way of looking at the world.
2192
02:23:54,711 --> 02:23:58,161
Not just what the corporate media
want you to see,
2193
02:23:58,213 --> 02:24:00,965
but a different picture,
a different understanding.
2194
02:24:01,007 --> 02:24:03,873
Not only can you hear it,
but you can participate in it.
2195
02:24:03,925 --> 02:24:05,718
You can add your own thoughts.
2196
02:24:05,760 --> 02:24:07,834
You can learn something, and so on.
2197
02:24:07,886 --> 02:24:12,045
Well, that's the way people become human.
2198
02:24:12,098 --> 02:24:18,102
That's the way you become human participants
in a social and political system.
2199
02:24:18,935 --> 02:24:21,687
Hello, I'm Ed Robinson
and this is non-corporate news.
2200
02:24:21,729 --> 02:24:25,263
What is non-corporate news
and why is it necessary?
2201
02:24:25,315 --> 02:24:28,682
I didn't want to just show another film
at a library or something.
2202
02:24:28,734 --> 02:24:32,601
I wanted to make my own statement.
I thought it'd be more fun to do.
2203
02:24:32,653 --> 02:24:34,978
Perhaps I'd get others involved in a project.
2204
02:24:35,030 --> 02:24:39,689
Besides showing a film,
we could make a film or a video.
2205
02:24:39,741 --> 02:24:45,995
The local cable station's hooked up to three
communities - Lynn, Swampscott and Salem.
2206
02:24:46,037 --> 02:24:47,913
So that's 30,000 people,
2207
02:24:47,955 --> 02:24:50,113
or 30,000 homes.
2208
02:24:50,165 --> 02:24:52,239
I'm not sure. But I'm sure...
2209
02:24:52,291 --> 02:24:56,867
a lot of people see it and it'll be the kind
of people who don't go out to see a film.
2210
02:24:56,919 --> 02:25:01,662
It'll go right into their houses.
So, if they're flipping through their channels,
2211
02:25:01,714 --> 02:25:05,467
they might be able to get
a completely new idea of the world.
2212
02:25:12,305 --> 02:25:15,474
So there's kind of networks
of co-operation developing.
2213
02:25:15,515 --> 02:25:17,590
I mean, like here, for example.
2214
02:25:17,642 --> 02:25:21,311
There's a collection of stuff
from a friend of mine in Los Angeles
2215
02:25:21,353 --> 02:25:26,064
who does careful monitoring
of the whole press in Los Angeles
2216
02:25:26,106 --> 02:25:28,399
and a lot of the British press, which he reads.
2217
02:25:28,441 --> 02:25:30,432
And he does selections.
2218
02:25:30,484 --> 02:25:35,279
So I don't have to read the movie reviews
and the local gossip and all this kind of stuff.
2219
02:25:35,320 --> 02:25:38,072
But I get the occasional nugget
that sneaks through
2220
02:25:38,114 --> 02:25:44,566
and that you find if you're carefully, intelligently
and critically reviewing a wide range of press.
2221
02:25:44,618 --> 02:25:48,069
There are a fair number of people who do this
and we exchange information.
2222
02:25:48,121 --> 02:25:49,914
We wrote this two-volume work.
2223
02:25:49,955 --> 02:25:52,738
We saw one another for a couple of weeks
2224
02:25:52,790 --> 02:25:54,615
when we were getting started.
2225
02:25:54,667 --> 02:25:58,711
But then we wrote two volumes,
essentially without seeing one another.
2226
02:25:58,753 --> 02:26:02,829
Just by phone, by mail,
2227
02:26:02,881 --> 02:26:05,174
and exchanging manuscripts.
2228
02:26:05,216 --> 02:26:09,760
But this takes a lot of communication by mail.
2229
02:26:09,802 --> 02:26:13,388
My Chomsky file is a couple of feet thick.
2230
02:26:13,429 --> 02:26:16,431
The end result is that
you do have access to resources
2231
02:26:16,473 --> 02:26:21,633
in a way which I doubt that
any national intelligence agency can duplicate,
2232
02:26:21,685 --> 02:26:23,061
let alone scholarship.
2233
02:26:23,103 --> 02:26:27,647
So there are ways of compensating
for the absence of resources.
2234
02:26:27,689 --> 02:26:29,399
People can do things.
2235
02:26:29,440 --> 02:26:33,360
For example,
I found out about the arms flow to Iran
2236
02:26:33,401 --> 02:26:35,476
by reading transcripts of the BBC
2237
02:26:35,528 --> 02:26:41,063
and by reading an interview somewhere
with an Israeli ambassador in one city
2238
02:26:41,115 --> 02:26:43,742
and reading something else in the Israeli press.
2239
02:26:43,783 --> 02:26:45,576
OK, the information is there.
2240
02:26:45,618 --> 02:26:47,744
But it's there to a fanatic.
2241
02:26:47,786 --> 02:26:52,529
You know, somebody who wants to spend
a substantial part of their time and energy
2242
02:26:52,581 --> 02:26:57,126
exploring it and comparing today's lies
with yesterday's leaks, and so on.
2243
02:26:57,167 --> 02:26:58,793
That's a research job.
2244
02:26:58,835 --> 02:27:03,797
And it just simply doesn't make any sense
to ask the general population
2245
02:27:03,838 --> 02:27:07,257
to dedicate themselves to this task
on every issue.
2246
02:27:08,341 --> 02:27:10,218
I'm not given to false modesty.
2247
02:27:10,259 --> 02:27:13,793
There are things that I can do.
I know that I can do them reasonably well,
2248
02:27:13,845 --> 02:27:15,638
including...
2249
02:27:17,306 --> 02:27:19,380
...analysis and, you know...
2250
02:27:21,142 --> 02:27:22,518
...study, research.
2251
02:27:22,559 --> 02:27:26,885
I know how to do that. I think I've a reasonable
understanding of the way the world works,
2252
02:27:26,937 --> 02:27:28,928
as much as anyone can.
2253
02:27:28,980 --> 02:27:31,190
And that turns out to be a very useful resource
2254
02:27:31,232 --> 02:27:35,183
for people who are doing active organising...
2255
02:27:37,194 --> 02:27:39,977
...trying to engage themselves
2256
02:27:40,030 --> 02:27:42,813
in a way which will make it
a little bit of a better world.
2257
02:27:42,865 --> 02:27:46,034
And if you can help in those things,
or participate in them,
2258
02:27:46,075 --> 02:27:48,150
well, that's rewarding.
2259
02:27:48,202 --> 02:27:51,037
I wonder if you can envision a time
2260
02:27:51,079 --> 02:27:56,697
when people like myself,
and again, the naïve people of this world
2261
02:27:56,749 --> 02:27:59,418
can again take pride in the United States?
2262
02:27:59,459 --> 02:28:03,128
And is that even a healthy wish now?
2263
02:28:03,170 --> 02:28:07,121
Because it's maybe this hunger
for pride in our country
2264
02:28:07,173 --> 02:28:09,383
that makes us more easily manipulated
2265
02:28:09,424 --> 02:28:11,217
by the powers that you talk about.
2266
02:28:11,259 --> 02:28:15,752
Er... I think you first of all have to ask
what you mean by your country.
2267
02:28:15,804 --> 02:28:19,139
Now, if you mean by "the country"
the government,
2268
02:28:19,181 --> 02:28:23,048
I don't think you can be proud of it
and I don't think you could ever be proud of it.
2269
02:28:23,100 --> 02:28:25,341
Or be proud of any government.
2270
02:28:25,393 --> 02:28:27,020
It's not our government.
2271
02:28:27,061 --> 02:28:29,386
And you shouldn't be.
2272
02:28:29,438 --> 02:28:31,345
States are violent institutions.
2273
02:28:31,398 --> 02:28:35,265
The government of any country, including ours,
2274
02:28:35,317 --> 02:28:38,434
represents a domestic power structure
and it's usually violent.
2275
02:28:38,486 --> 02:28:42,978
States are violent to the extent
that they're powerful. That's roughly accurate.
2276
02:28:43,030 --> 02:28:46,064
You look at American history,
it's nothing to write home about.
2277
02:28:46,116 --> 02:28:51,025
Why are we here? We're here because some
ten million native Americans were wiped out.
2278
02:28:51,077 --> 02:28:52,704
That's not very pretty.
2279
02:28:53,537 --> 02:28:57,540
Until the 1960s,
it was still cowboys and Indians.
2280
02:28:57,582 --> 02:29:00,865
In the 1970s, for the first time, really,
2281
02:29:00,917 --> 02:29:04,962
it became possible, even for scholarship,
to try to deal with the facts as they were.
2282
02:29:05,004 --> 02:29:09,548
For example, to deal with the fact that
the Native American population was far higher
2283
02:29:09,590 --> 02:29:11,133
than had been claimed.
2284
02:29:11,174 --> 02:29:14,541
Millions higher, maybe as many as ten million
higher than was claimed.
2285
02:29:14,593 --> 02:29:16,636
That they had an advanced civilisation,
2286
02:29:16,678 --> 02:29:20,180
and that there was something akin to genocide
that took place.
2287
02:29:20,222 --> 02:29:23,725
Now, we went through 200 years of our history
without facing that fact.
2288
02:29:23,766 --> 02:29:25,809
One of the effects of the 1960s
2289
02:29:25,851 --> 02:29:30,396
is it's possible to at least begin
to come to think about the facts.
2290
02:29:30,437 --> 02:29:32,397
Well, that's an advance.
2291
02:29:32,439 --> 02:29:35,389
Do you think
that this activism 20 years ago
2292
02:29:35,441 --> 02:29:38,557
has made a difference
in how our society operates now?
2293
02:29:38,610 --> 02:29:43,186
It has not changed the institutions
in the way they function.
2294
02:29:44,447 --> 02:29:47,616
But it has led
to very significant cultural changes.
2295
02:29:47,657 --> 02:29:49,867
Remember, these movements of the '60s
2296
02:29:49,909 --> 02:29:53,578
expanded in the '70s
and expanded further in the '80s.
2297
02:29:53,620 --> 02:29:57,153
They reached into other parts of the society
and different issues.
2298
02:29:57,205 --> 02:30:03,574
A lot of things that seemed outrageous
in the '60s are taken for granted today.
2299
02:30:03,626 --> 02:30:06,827
So, for example, take the feminist movement,
2300
02:30:06,879 --> 02:30:09,714
which barely began to exist in the '60s.
2301
02:30:09,756 --> 02:30:12,539
Now it's part of general consciousness
and awareness.
2302
02:30:12,591 --> 02:30:16,719
The ecological movements began in the '70s.
2303
02:30:16,760 --> 02:30:21,753
The Third World solidarity movements
were very limited in the '60s.
2304
02:30:21,805 --> 02:30:23,296
It was really Vietnam.
2305
02:30:23,348 --> 02:30:27,351
And in the '60s also,
it was a student movement, as you say.
2306
02:30:27,392 --> 02:30:31,312
Now it's not. Now it's mainstream America.
2307
02:30:33,605 --> 02:30:36,638
If there is more dissidence now
than you can remember,
2308
02:30:36,690 --> 02:30:41,152
why do you go on to write
that the people feel isolated?
2309
02:30:41,193 --> 02:30:45,144
Because I think
much of the general population recognises
2310
02:30:45,196 --> 02:30:51,701
that the organised institutions do not reflect
their concerns and interests and needs.
2311
02:30:51,742 --> 02:30:55,526
They do not feel that they participate
meaningfully in the political system.
2312
02:30:55,578 --> 02:31:00,290
They do not feel that the media are telling them
the truth or even reflect their concerns.
2313
02:31:01,457 --> 02:31:06,033
They go outside
of the organised institutions to act.
2314
02:31:06,085 --> 02:31:10,494
We see more of our elected leaders and know
less of what they do. This medium does that.
2315
02:31:10,547 --> 02:31:12,173
It's very striking.
2316
02:31:12,214 --> 02:31:15,383
The Presidential elections are
almost removed from the point
2317
02:31:15,425 --> 02:31:18,844
where the public takes them seriously
as involving a matter of choice.
2318
02:31:18,886 --> 02:31:21,752
What do you think about what goes on
in the White House?
2319
02:31:21,804 --> 02:31:23,545
It's kept too private, I think.
2320
02:31:23,597 --> 02:31:26,005
Yeah, they should come out
and talk to the people.
2321
02:31:26,057 --> 02:31:28,267
- Yeah.
- Who should talk to the people?
2322
02:31:28,309 --> 02:31:30,185
George Bush!
2323
02:31:30,227 --> 02:31:33,677
Well, it means that
the political system increasingly...
2324
02:31:33,729 --> 02:31:36,814
increasingly functions without public input.
2325
02:31:36,856 --> 02:31:39,264
It means, to an increasing extent,
2326
02:31:39,316 --> 02:31:42,902
not only do people not ratify decisions
presented to them,
2327
02:31:42,943 --> 02:31:45,403
but they don't take the trouble of ratifying them.
2328
02:31:45,445 --> 02:31:50,688
They assume that the decisions are going on
independently of what they do in the poll booth.
2329
02:31:50,740 --> 02:31:52,648
Ratification would be what?
2330
02:31:52,700 --> 02:31:57,495
Ratification would mean there are
two positions presented to me, the voter.
2331
02:31:57,537 --> 02:32:00,872
I go into the polling booth
and I push one or another button,
2332
02:32:00,914 --> 02:32:03,207
depending on which of those positions I want.
2333
02:32:03,249 --> 02:32:05,375
That's a very limited form of democracy.
2334
02:32:05,417 --> 02:32:10,379
Really meaningful democracy would mean that
I play a role in forming those decisions,
2335
02:32:10,420 --> 02:32:12,661
in creating those positions.
2336
02:32:12,714 --> 02:32:15,465
That would be real democracy.
We're very far from that.
2337
02:32:15,507 --> 02:32:18,540
We're even departing from a point
where there is ratification.
2338
02:32:18,593 --> 02:32:21,053
When you have stage-managed elections,
2339
02:32:21,094 --> 02:32:25,722
with the public relations industry determining
what words come out of people's mouth,
2340
02:32:25,764 --> 02:32:30,892
candidates deciding what to say on the basis of
tests that determine what the effect will be
2341
02:32:30,934 --> 02:32:32,758
across the population,
2342
02:32:32,810 --> 02:32:36,761
somehow people don't see how profoundly
contemptuous that is of democracy.
2343
02:32:42,650 --> 02:32:46,945
The solemn moment is near.
But first, the swearing-in of Dan Quayle.
2344
02:32:52,240 --> 02:32:55,159
Please move to your seats.
2345
02:32:55,201 --> 02:32:57,410
For the first time in this century,
2346
02:32:57,452 --> 02:33:01,695
for the first time in perhaps all history,
2347
02:33:01,747 --> 02:33:06,125
Man does not have to invent a system
by which to live.
2348
02:33:06,166 --> 02:33:11,462
We don't have to talk late into the night
about which form of government is better.
2349
02:33:11,503 --> 02:33:14,422
We don't have to wrest justice...
2350
02:33:15,339 --> 02:33:17,049
...from the kings.
2351
02:33:17,090 --> 02:33:20,593
We only have to summon it
from within ourselves.
2352
02:33:20,634 --> 02:33:25,096
This is a time when the future seems a door
you can walk right through
2353
02:33:25,137 --> 02:33:27,295
into a room called Tomorrow.
2354
02:33:27,347 --> 02:33:31,350
Great nations of the world
are moving toward democracy
2355
02:33:31,392 --> 02:33:33,299
through the door to freedom.
2356
02:33:33,351 --> 02:33:38,511
The people of the world agitate
for free expression and free thought
2357
02:33:38,563 --> 02:33:43,108
through the door to the moral
and intellectual satisfactions
2358
02:33:43,150 --> 02:33:45,901
that only liberty allows.
2359
02:33:47,194 --> 02:33:52,646
We know how to secure a more just
and prosperous life for men on Earth.
2360
02:33:52,698 --> 02:33:54,689
Through free markets,
2361
02:33:54,741 --> 02:33:57,315
free speech, free elections,
2362
02:33:57,368 --> 02:34:02,360
and the exercise of free will
unhampered by the state.
2363
02:34:03,330 --> 02:34:05,456
I've spoken of 1,000 points of light,
2364
02:34:05,498 --> 02:34:08,750
of all the community organisations
2365
02:34:08,792 --> 02:34:12,492
that are spread like stars throughout the nation
doing good.
2366
02:34:13,462 --> 02:34:17,246
To the world, too,
we offer new engagement
2367
02:34:17,298 --> 02:34:19,372
and a renewed vow.
2368
02:34:20,466 --> 02:34:24,219
We will stay strong to protect the peace.
2369
02:34:25,678 --> 02:34:27,471
The offered hand...
2370
02:34:28,680 --> 02:34:30,640
...is a reluctant fist.
2371
02:34:31,682 --> 02:34:34,966
America is never wholly herself
2372
02:34:35,018 --> 02:34:39,980
unless she is engaged in high moral principle.
2373
02:34:40,021 --> 02:34:43,055
We, as a people, have such a purpose today.
2374
02:34:44,149 --> 02:34:45,890
It is...
2375
02:34:45,942 --> 02:34:48,517
to make kinder the face of the nation
2376
02:34:48,569 --> 02:34:51,487
and gentler the face of the world.
2377
02:34:56,199 --> 02:34:58,492
Referring back to your earlier comment
2378
02:34:58,534 --> 02:35:01,786
about escaping from
or doing away with capitalism,
2379
02:35:01,828 --> 02:35:05,987
I was wondering what scheme,
workable scheme, you would put in its place.
2380
02:35:06,039 --> 02:35:07,999
Me?
2381
02:35:08,040 --> 02:35:10,448
Well, what I would...
2382
02:35:10,500 --> 02:35:14,993
What would you suggest to others who might be
in a position to set it up and get it going?
2383
02:35:15,045 --> 02:35:20,882
Well, I mean, I think that what used to be called,
centuries ago, wage slavery is intolerable.
2384
02:35:20,924 --> 02:35:25,000
I don't think people ought to be forced
to rent themselves in order to survive.
2385
02:35:25,052 --> 02:35:31,004
I think that the economic institutions
ought to be run democratically
2386
02:35:31,056 --> 02:35:35,100
by their participants, by the communities
in which they exist, and so on,
2387
02:35:35,142 --> 02:35:39,009
and I think basically
through various kinds of free association.
2388
02:35:42,147 --> 02:35:46,149
Historically, have there been
any sustained examples
2389
02:35:46,191 --> 02:35:48,568
on any substantial scale
2390
02:35:48,609 --> 02:35:53,071
of societies which approximated
to the anarchist ideal?
2391
02:35:53,988 --> 02:35:56,823
There are small societies,
2392
02:35:56,865 --> 02:35:58,522
small in number,
2393
02:35:58,574 --> 02:36:01,941
that have, I think, done so quite well.
2394
02:36:01,993 --> 02:36:06,621
And there are a few examples
of large-scale libertarian revolutions
2395
02:36:06,663 --> 02:36:09,290
which were largely anarchist in their structure.
2396
02:36:09,332 --> 02:36:13,334
As to the first, small societies,
extending over a long period,
2397
02:36:13,376 --> 02:36:17,702
I myself think the most dramatic example
was perhaps the Israeli Kibbutzim,
2398
02:36:17,754 --> 02:36:21,006
which, for a long period -
it may or may not be true today -
2399
02:36:21,048 --> 02:36:23,591
really were constructed on anarchist principles.
2400
02:36:23,633 --> 02:36:26,041
That is, of direct worker control,
2401
02:36:26,093 --> 02:36:30,387
integration of agriculture, industry, service,
personal life,
2402
02:36:30,429 --> 02:36:34,807
on an egalitarian basis with direct and
quite active participation in self-management,
2403
02:36:34,849 --> 02:36:38,216
and were, I should think,
extraordinarily successful.
2404
02:36:38,268 --> 02:36:42,427
A good example
of a really large-scale anarchist revolution,
2405
02:36:42,479 --> 02:36:45,898
or largely anarchist revolution,
the best example to my knowledge,
2406
02:36:45,940 --> 02:36:48,514
is the Spanish Revolution in 1936.
2407
02:36:48,566 --> 02:36:51,819
In fact, you can't tell
what would have happened.
2408
02:36:51,860 --> 02:36:54,643
That anarchist revolution
was simply destroyed by force.
2409
02:36:54,696 --> 02:36:58,698
But during the period in which it was alive,
I think it was an inspiring testimony
2410
02:36:58,740 --> 02:37:02,274
to the ability of poor working people
2411
02:37:02,326 --> 02:37:07,861
to organise and manage their affairs extremely
successfully, without coercion or control.
2412
02:37:07,913 --> 02:37:12,155
How far does the success of libertarian
socialism or anarchism as a way of life
2413
02:37:12,207 --> 02:37:15,043
really depend on a fundamental change
2414
02:37:15,084 --> 02:37:20,619
in the nature of man,
both in his motivation, his altruism,
2415
02:37:20,671 --> 02:37:23,507
and also in his knowledge and sophistication?
2416
02:37:23,548 --> 02:37:25,289
I think it not only depends on it
2417
02:37:25,341 --> 02:37:30,136
but, in fact, the whole purpose of libertarian
socialism is that it will contribute to it.
2418
02:37:30,178 --> 02:37:34,472
It will contribute to a spiritual transformation.
2419
02:37:34,514 --> 02:37:37,683
Precisely that kind of great transformation
2420
02:37:37,725 --> 02:37:40,925
in the way humans conceive of themselves
2421
02:37:40,977 --> 02:37:45,021
and their ability to act, to decide,
2422
02:37:45,063 --> 02:37:46,804
to create, to produce, to enquire.
2423
02:37:46,856 --> 02:37:49,858
Precisely that spiritual transformation that...
2424
02:37:49,899 --> 02:37:52,901
social thinkers from the Let-Marxist tradition,
2425
02:37:52,943 --> 02:37:57,853
from Luxemburg, say, on over through
anarcho-syndicalists, have emphasised.
2426
02:37:57,905 --> 02:38:01,908
So, on the one hand,
it requires that spiritual transformation.
2427
02:38:01,949 --> 02:38:06,994
But also, its purpose is to create institutions
which will contribute to that transformation.
2428
02:38:11,998 --> 02:38:16,157
You've written that,
in looking at contributions of gited thinkers,
2429
02:38:16,209 --> 02:38:19,461
one must make sure
to understand their contributions,
2430
02:38:19,503 --> 02:38:22,046
but also to eliminate the errors in them.
2431
02:38:23,297 --> 02:38:27,508
And, of your ideas, what would you guess
would be discarded
2432
02:38:27,550 --> 02:38:29,259
and what would be assimilated
2433
02:38:29,301 --> 02:38:30,927
by future thinkers?
2434
02:38:30,969 --> 02:38:34,586
Well, I would assume
virtually everything would be discarded.
2435
02:38:34,638 --> 02:38:36,347
For example...
2436
02:38:36,389 --> 02:38:38,630
Here, we have to distinguish.
2437
02:38:38,682 --> 02:38:41,257
The work that I do in my professional area...
2438
02:38:41,309 --> 02:38:45,437
If I still believed what I believed ten years ago,
I'd assume the field is dead.
2439
02:38:45,479 --> 02:38:48,929
So I assume,
next time you read a student's paper,
2440
02:38:48,981 --> 02:38:53,442
you're going to see something that has to be
changed and you continue to make progress.
2441
02:38:53,484 --> 02:38:56,027
In dealing with social and political issues,
2442
02:38:56,069 --> 02:39:00,645
in my view, what is at all understood
is pretty straightforward.
2443
02:39:00,697 --> 02:39:05,106
There may be deep and complicated things.
But, if so, they're not understood.
2444
02:39:07,243 --> 02:39:12,664
The basic... To the extent that we understand
society at all, it's pretty straightforward.
2445
02:39:12,705 --> 02:39:17,115
And I don't think those simple understandings
are likely to undergo much change.
2446
02:39:17,167 --> 02:39:19,241
The point is that you have to work.
2447
02:39:19,293 --> 02:39:23,212
That's why
the propaganda system is so successful.
2448
02:39:23,254 --> 02:39:27,382
Very few people are going to have
the time or the energy or the commitment
2449
02:39:27,424 --> 02:39:30,759
to carry out the constant battle that's required
2450
02:39:30,801 --> 02:39:33,584
to get outside of, you know...
2451
02:39:33,636 --> 02:39:35,294
MacNeil/Lehrer
2452
02:39:35,346 --> 02:39:38,056
or Dan Rather, somebody like that.
2453
02:39:38,097 --> 02:39:42,048
The easy thing to do... You come home
from work, you're tired, have had a busy day.
2454
02:39:42,100 --> 02:39:45,519
You're not going to spend the evening
carrying out a research project.
2455
02:39:45,561 --> 02:39:48,136
So you turn on the tube
and say it's probably right.
2456
02:39:48,188 --> 02:39:51,638
You look at the headlines in the paper
and then you watch the sports.
2457
02:39:51,690 --> 02:39:56,183
And that's basically the way
the system of indoctrination works.
2458
02:39:56,235 --> 02:39:59,768
Sure, the other stuff is there,
but you're going to have to work to find it.
2459
02:40:01,321 --> 02:40:03,615
Modern industrial civilisation
2460
02:40:03,656 --> 02:40:08,649
has developed within a certain system
of convenient myths.
2461
02:40:08,701 --> 02:40:12,621
The driving force
of modern industrial civilisation
2462
02:40:12,662 --> 02:40:15,373
has been individual material gain,
2463
02:40:15,414 --> 02:40:19,167
which is accepted as legitimate,
even praiseworthy,
2464
02:40:19,209 --> 02:40:26,172
on the grounds that private vices yield
public benefits in the classic formulation.
2465
02:40:26,213 --> 02:40:29,997
Now, it's long been understood very well
2466
02:40:30,049 --> 02:40:33,051
that a society that is based on this principle
2467
02:40:33,093 --> 02:40:35,501
will destroy itself in time.
2468
02:40:35,553 --> 02:40:37,544
It can only persist
2469
02:40:37,596 --> 02:40:40,963
with whatever suffering and injustice it entails,
2470
02:40:41,015 --> 02:40:43,683
as long as it's possible to pretend
2471
02:40:43,725 --> 02:40:48,635
that the destructive forces that humans create
are limited,
2472
02:40:48,687 --> 02:40:54,065
that the world is an infinite resource
and that the world is an infinite garbage can.
2473
02:40:55,441 --> 02:40:57,516
At this stage of history,
2474
02:40:57,568 --> 02:41:01,018
either one of two things is possible.
2475
02:41:01,070 --> 02:41:05,948
Either the general population
will take control of its own destiny
2476
02:41:05,990 --> 02:41:10,118
and will concern itself with community interests,
2477
02:41:10,160 --> 02:41:15,747
guided by values of solidarity and sympathy
and concern for others.
2478
02:41:15,788 --> 02:41:20,865
Or, alternatively, there will be no destiny
for anyone to control.
2479
02:41:20,917 --> 02:41:25,211
As long as some specialised class is
in a position of authority,
2480
02:41:25,253 --> 02:41:29,714
it is going to set policy
in the special interests that it serves.
2481
02:41:29,756 --> 02:41:33,915
But the conditions of survival, let alone justice,
2482
02:41:33,967 --> 02:41:39,012
require rational social planning
in the interests of the community as a whole.
2483
02:41:39,054 --> 02:41:41,431
By now, that means the global community.
2484
02:41:42,890 --> 02:41:47,018
The question is whether privileged elites
should dominate mass communication
2485
02:41:47,060 --> 02:41:50,927
and should use this power
as they tell us they must -
2486
02:41:50,979 --> 02:41:53,522
namely, to impose necessary illusions,
2487
02:41:53,564 --> 02:41:56,316
to manipulate and deceive the "stupid majority",
2488
02:41:56,357 --> 02:41:58,817
and remove them from the public arena.
2489
02:41:58,859 --> 02:42:00,433
The question, in brief,
2490
02:42:00,485 --> 02:42:04,436
is whether democracy and freedom
are values to be preserved
2491
02:42:04,488 --> 02:42:06,145
or threats to be avoided.
2492
02:42:06,197 --> 02:42:10,117
In this possibly terminal phase
of human existence,
2493
02:42:10,158 --> 02:42:13,744
democracy and freedom
are more than values to be treasured.
2494
02:42:13,786 --> 02:42:16,194
They may well be essential to survival.
2495
02:42:16,246 --> 02:42:17,705
Thank you.
2496
02:42:21,541 --> 02:42:24,960
He's up there thinking for himself.
2497
02:42:25,002 --> 02:42:31,287
And he's deciphering this tremendously
overweighted body of information,
2498
02:42:31,339 --> 02:42:34,539
which he puts into an order
2499
02:42:34,592 --> 02:42:37,083
and gives you the feeling
2500
02:42:37,135 --> 02:42:40,471
that you can do the same thing,
that the whole thing is decipherable.
2501
02:42:40,512 --> 02:42:43,431
And he also gives you the sense
that there is a source,
2502
02:42:43,473 --> 02:42:45,547
there is a centre to the...
2503
02:42:47,100 --> 02:42:48,810
...to a dissenting population,
2504
02:42:48,851 --> 02:42:51,061
although we feel that there's no centre.
2505
02:42:52,771 --> 02:42:56,898
And I think that is what reactivated in me...
2506
02:42:58,983 --> 02:43:02,569
...a desire to get back...
2507
02:43:02,611 --> 02:43:08,479
get reacquainted with the political scene
ater 30 years of alienation from it.
2508
02:43:10,324 --> 02:43:13,159
You do hundreds of interviews and lectures.
2509
02:43:13,201 --> 02:43:16,537
And you're dealing with massacres
in East Timor
2510
02:43:16,578 --> 02:43:19,497
and invasions of Panama, etc.
2511
02:43:19,539 --> 02:43:21,530
Pretty horrific stuff, death squads.
2512
02:43:21,582 --> 02:43:24,782
What keeps you going?
Don't you get burned out on this material?
2513
02:43:28,503 --> 02:43:32,631
It's mainly a matter of whether you can look
yourself in the mirror, I think.
2514
02:43:33,923 --> 02:43:36,050
Got to go,
2515
02:43:36,091 --> 02:43:40,386
- get these people into town.
- Maybe you could say, "All aboard", for us?
2516
02:43:43,180 --> 02:43:44,555
All aboard!
2517
02:43:48,516 --> 02:43:49,601
Bye-bye!
2518
02:43:49,642 --> 02:43:51,466
Bye!
2519
02:44:20,705 --> 02:44:22,498
No, couldn't see it!
2520
02:44:22,539 --> 02:44:25,114
Just hit the microphone.
2521
02:44:25,166 --> 02:44:27,918
Thank you. Goodbye, Canada.
Goodbye, Canada.
2522
02:44:27,960 --> 02:44:28,992
Bye!
2523
02:44:32,921 --> 02:44:35,590
I think I've gone past the hour
that you agreed to.
2524
02:44:35,632 --> 02:44:38,383
In your introduction,
you said that he's from Harvard.
2525
02:44:38,425 --> 02:44:39,999
Oh, I heard that.
2526
02:44:40,051 --> 02:44:42,720
Oh, yes, that is true. We'll bleep it.
2527
02:44:42,761 --> 02:44:46,347
Sorry about making you answer that
in such a short time!
2528
02:44:46,389 --> 02:44:48,599
It worked. Did we hit it in two minutes?
2529
02:44:48,640 --> 02:44:53,550
Well, we did pretty well, actually.
That means less sports and that's fine with me.
2530
02:44:56,020 --> 02:45:00,513
The people don't know what's going on.
If the people knew what you say here today,
2531
02:45:00,565 --> 02:45:02,108
they'd happily change.
2532
02:45:02,150 --> 02:45:03,400
Thank you.
2533
02:45:04,526 --> 02:45:08,060
On that optimistic note, Professor Chomsky,
thank you very much indeed.
2534
02:45:08,862 --> 02:45:11,354
So, how did it go?
2535
02:45:11,406 --> 02:45:14,856
I thought it was sort of technical-sounding.
2536
02:45:14,908 --> 02:45:16,159
But...
2537
02:45:17,118 --> 02:45:19,442
There wasn't much of a rhythm.
2538
02:45:19,495 --> 02:45:23,080
Did you ever think of running for President?
2539
02:45:23,122 --> 02:45:26,739
If I ran for President, the first thing I'd do
is tell people not to vote for me.
2540
02:45:32,253 --> 02:45:34,380
This guy's got to go home, he really does.
2541
02:45:34,421 --> 02:45:38,372
And people still believe
the politics of the world changes.
2542
02:45:38,424 --> 02:45:40,332
- Why don't you let him go home?
- Thanks.
238595
Can't find what you're looking for?
Get subtitles in any language from opensubtitles.com, and translate them here.