{"id":234787,"date":"2023-05-08T12:00:27","date_gmt":"2023-05-08T11:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=234787"},"modified":"2023-05-05T06:12:23","modified_gmt":"2023-05-05T05:12:23","slug":"souls-for-sale-the-times-interviews-noam-chomsky","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2023\/05\/souls-for-sale-the-times-interviews-noam-chomsky\/","title":{"rendered":"Souls for Sale \u2013 The Times Interviews Noam Chomsky"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_234788\" style=\"width: 410px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/Corporate-conformity-robot-society-capitalism.png\" ><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-234788\" class=\"wp-image-234788\" src=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/Corporate-conformity-robot-society-capitalism.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"227\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/Corporate-conformity-robot-society-capitalism.png 611w, https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/Corporate-conformity-robot-society-capitalism-300x170.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-234788\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Capitalist Corporate Conformity<\/p><\/div>\n<p><em>4 May 2023 &#8211; <\/em>In a society built on lies, the search for truth is a game.<\/p>\n<p>Consider the debate surrounding alleged \u2018threats\u2019 to the BBC\u2019s \u2018independence\u2019, even as the BBC itself <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/entertainment-arts-65423465\" >reports<\/a> of its outgoing chairman:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\"><p>\u2018As for Mr Sharp\u2019s departure, I understand conversations between the BBC and the government have been had in recent days. You\u2019d expect that.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018The BBC chairman is a political appointment.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>If that doesn\u2019t justify Twitter labelling every BBC journalist \u2018UK state-affiliated media\u2019, we don\u2019t know what does.<\/p>\n<p>Or consider how, cap in hand, the Guardian now presents itself as a Media Lens-style operation, declaring at the end of its articles:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\"><p>\u2018As a reader-funded news organisation, we rely on your generosity. Please give what you can, so millions can benefit from quality reporting on the events shaping our world.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>We wonder how many readers funding this heroic mission are aware that, last year, Guardian editor Kath Viner <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/business\/2022\/07\/20\/guardian-editor-handed-inflation-busting-150000-pay-rise\/\" >received<\/a> a 42 per cent pay rise of \u00a3150,000, taking her salary to \u00a3509,850. Brazen <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/medialens\/status\/1651933879211630600\" >claims<\/a> that the Guardian is \u2018free from commercial influence\u2019 appear in the pages of a newspaper overflowing with corporate adverts on which it is deeply dependent. Last year, print and advertising generated revenues of \u00a371.5m and \u00a373.7m respectively. The Guardian is owned by the Scott Trust, which runs\u00a0a\u00a0\u00a31.3bn investment fund.<\/p>\n<p>Even if we try to imagine corporate journalists rising above this nonsense, it\u2019s impossible to conceive of them examining deeper issues of media bias.<\/p>\n<p>Recall the context in which news and commentary appear: the tsunami of 24\/7 corporate advertising that is subject to no discussion whatever regarding its bias. Unless we accept that these adverts should be balanced by a counter-tsunami of anti-corporate advertising, there is no question of media impartiality for this reason alone.<\/p>\n<p>But this is still just scratching the surface. In our corporate society, the greatest triumph of the corporate monoculture is not the filtered content of the daily newspaper or nightly newscast; it is <em>us<\/em>, our conception of who we are, of what it means to be human. We may mock the Sun and lament the Mail, but look in the mirror \u2013 <em>we<\/em> are the ultimate product of propaganda.<\/p>\n<p>Erich Fromm wrote of man\u2019s conception of him and herself in capitalist society:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\"><p>\u2018His body, his mind and his soul are his capital, and his task in life is to invest it favourably to make a profit of himself.\u2019 (Erich Fromm, \u2018The Sane Society\u2019, Routledge, 1991, p.138)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The significance cannot be overstated: if millions of corporate men and women fundamentally perceive themselves as products to be sold on the job market, the question of non-conformity, of challenging corporate society, does not even arise. The idea is not just irrelevant, it is a threat to conformity facilitating \u2018success\u2019. The result is deeply dehumanising:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\"><p>\u2018The alienated personality who is for sale must lose a good deal of the sense of dignity which is so characteristic of man even in most primitive cultures. He must lose almost all sense of self, of himself as a unique and induplicable entity.\u2019 (Fromm, p.138)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>In this case, it is not that we are <em>somewhat biased<\/em> on some specific issue in the way of a newspaper report; the very idea that we should seek and act on truth, that we are moral agents, becomes ridiculous, laughable. And this, indeed, is the basic theme of much tabloid and other media \u2018humour\u2019 targeting left and green activists.<\/p>\n<p>In a society of this kind, Fromm wrote, truth is not a concern:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\"><p>\u2018All that matters is that nothing is too serious, that one exchanges views, and that one is ready to accept any opinion or conviction (if there is such a thing) as being as good as the other.\u2019 (p.152)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>When Fromm says \u2018nothing is too serious\u2019, he means that we are <em>fundamentally indifferent<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Can we point to evidence? Last week, it was <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/science-environment-65403381\" >reported<\/a> that the highest April temperature ever recorded in Spain \u2013 the kind of record that might, historically, have been broken by a fraction of a degree \u2013 had been blown away by a rise of 5C.<\/p>\n<p>This latest sign of impending climate catastrophe was reported briefly and then forgotten. It received a tiny fraction of the merited attention and concern \u2013 not just from the press but also from the public. It was just one more example of how \u2018modern man exhibits an amazing lack of realism for all that matters. For the meaning of life and death, for happiness and suffering, for feeling and serious thought\u2019. (Fromm, p.166)<\/p>\n<p>Needless to say, corporate journalism is the natural home of Corporate Man because its real task is to defend the status quo.<\/p>\n<p>While working as the ostensibly leftist senior political editor at the New Statesman, Mehdi Hasan \u2013 who now presents the Mehdi Hasan Show on Peacock and MSNBC \u2013 <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/order-order.com\/2013\/10\/04\/dear-mr-dacre\/\" >wrote<\/a> the following comments in a letter to Lord Dacre, the owner of the Daily Mail:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\"><p>\u2018Although I am on the left of the political spectrum, and disagree with the Mail\u2019s editorial line on a range of issues, I have always admired the paper\u2019s passion, rigour, boldness and, of course, news values. I believe the Mail has a vitally important role to play in the national debate, and I admire your relentless focus on the need for integrity and morality in public life, and your outspoken defence of faith, and Christian culture, in the face of attacks from militant atheists and secularists. I also believe\u2026 that I could be a fresh and passionate, not to mention polemical and contrarian, voice on the comment and feature pages of your award-winning newspaper.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Hasan added:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\"><p>\u2018I could therefore write pieces for the Mail critical of Labour and the left, from \u201cinside\u201d Labour and the left (as the senior political editor at the New Statesman).\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>One could hardly imagine a better example of Fromm\u2019s \u2018alienated personality who is for sale\u2019 (p.138), with Hasan hawking the features, advantages and benefits of his insider left credentials for attacking the left.<\/p>\n<p>Another prime example of this personality type treating truth as a game is senior Guardian columnist Jonathan Freedland. Political analyst Norman Finkelstein, whose mother survived the Warsaw Ghetto, the Majdanek concentration camp and two slave labour camps, and whose father was a survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto and the Auschwitz concentration camp, <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.opendemocracy.net\/en\/opendemocracyuk\/american-jewish-scholar-behind-labour-s-antisemitism-scanda\/\" >commented<\/a> on Freedland:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\"><p>\u2018\u2026 when my book, The Holocaust Industry, came out in 2000, Freedland wrote that I was \u201ccloser to the people who created the Holocaust than to those who suffered in it\u201d. Although he appears to be, oh, so politically correct now, he didn\u2019t find it inappropriate to suggest that I resembled the Nazis who gassed my family.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Finkelstein made a key point:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\"><p>\u2018We appeared on a television program together. Before the program, he approached me to shake my hand. When I refused, he reacted in stunned silence. Why wouldn\u2019t I shake his hand? He couldn\u2019t comprehend it. It tells you something about these dull-witted creeps. The smears, the slanders \u2013 for them, it\u2019s all in a day\u2019s work. Why should anyone get agitated? Later, on the program, it was pointed out that the Guardian, where he worked, had serialised The Holocaust Industry across two issues. He was asked by the presenter, if my book was the equivalent of Mein Kampf, would he resign from the paper? Of course not. Didn\u2019t the presenter get that it\u2019s all a game?\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>It\u2019s all a game to be played for profit \u2013 nothing is to be \u2018taken too seriously\u2019 by corporate humans who exhibit \u2018an amazing lack of realism\u2019 for everything that matters.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u2018Plainly a War Crime\u2019 \u2013 Chorley Interviews Chomsky<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Matt Chorley, formerly of the Taunton Times, hosts a radio show on Rupert Murdoch\u2019s Times Radio. On 26 April, Chorley <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MattChorley\/status\/1651248619637428233\" >tweeted<\/a> a clip of his impersonation of \u2018Zippy\u2019, a puppet in the UK children\u2019s programme, Rainbow, which ran for two decades from 1972-1992. The clip also featured Tim Shipman, the Sunday Times\u2019 chief political commentator, responding with his own impersonation of \u2018George\u2019, a pink hippopotamus from the same show.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, there is nothing wrong with having a bit of fun. But in his recent <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=RiA9PtTLi-Q\" >interview<\/a> with Noam Chomsky, the level of Chorley\u2019s journalism did not rise much higher. Like Hasan and Freedland, and most of corporate journalism, Chorley is an individual pursuing Fromm\u2019s \u2018marketing orientation\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>We learn a lot when the likes of Chorley encounter Chomsky and other dissidents whose souls are not for sale; not because the Chorleys have much to say, but because we are witness, not just to a clash of ideas and values, but of ways of being. It is a clash between sincerity and fakery, clarity and obfuscation, engagement and indifference, compassion and egotism.<\/p>\n<p>Typically, these clashes involve a corporate interviewer who is focused, not on asking genuine questions, but on throwing traps in Chomsky\u2019s path. The aim is not to find out what he thinks but to catch him out in some way, to demonstrate that he is deluded, or treasonous. Indeed, after the interview, Chorley <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/archive.ph\/qxrle#selection-837.171-837.230\" >described<\/a> his purpose in talking to Chomsky:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\"><p>\u2018See how the long-term Russia enthusiast explains Ukraine.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This clarifies an otherwise mystifying comment by Chorley in the interview, suggesting that Chomsky\u2019s \u2018anti-West position\u2019:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\"><p>\u2018\u2026 led you to an alliance with Vladimir Putin, who was a new type of Russian leader. And it was all hunky-dory, up until the point he invades Ukraine, and now you\u2019re essentially trying to justify it by the back door \u2013 he\u2019s <em>let you down<\/em>, Vladimir Putin.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Anyone who knows anything about Chomsky knows that he has <em>never<\/em> been a \u2018long-term enthusiast\u2019 for Russian Bolshevism, Russian Communism, Stalinism, Soviet state tyranny in general, and certainly not for Putin. The problem, we would guess, is that Chorley doesn\u2019t know what anarcho-syndicalism is, or what Chomsky means when he <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/chomsky.info\/19760725\/\" >says<\/a> he\u2019s a \u2018derivative fellow traveller\u2019 of anarchism. And so, the whole interview was based on a bogus conception of Chomsky\u2019s politics.<\/p>\n<p>Chorley began amiably enough, asking harmless questions about Chomsky\u2019s job role and his thoughts on the concept of a \u2018public intellectual\u2019; whether he placed himself in that category. Knowing exactly the type of person he was dealing with \u2013 Chorley works for Murdoch, after all \u2013 Chomsky immediately held up a mirror to Chorley\u2019s worldview, noting that both he and Chorley were fortunate to be able to enter the public domain and have some small impact on public discourse. It is a privileged position that comes with real moral responsibility. This already highlighted the gulf separating Chomsky from the moral indifference of corporate journalism.<\/p>\n<p>Chorley asked if Chomsky thought we are living in more \u2018dangerous and disconcerting times\u2019 than previous generations. Chomsky replied that our time is \u2018far more dangerous\u2019, citing how the famous Doomsday Clock is now measured, not in minutes to midnight, but in seconds to midnight (currently, 90 seconds). Escalating threats include the risk of nuclear war, but above all environmental catastrophe:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\"><p>\u2018We\u2019re racing towards a precipice of environmental destruction. We\u2019ve got a couple of decades in which we could mitigate or control it, but we\u2019re racing in the opposite direction \u2013 nothing could be more dangerous than that. That means reaching irreversible tipping points, at which stage, just steady decline to the destruction of human life on Earth. We\u2019ve never faced that before. Actually, we\u2019ve been facing it in a way since August 6<sup>th<\/sup>, 1945, but never at this level of danger.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Typically for this kind of disengaged journalism, Chorley responded to this awful assertion as if he hadn\u2019t truly heard what had been said, responding: \u2018It\u2019s interesting that; I was going to ask you\u2026\u2019. \u2018It\u2019s interesting\u2019 was not a serious response to the gravity of what Chomsky had said. Chorley blandly recognised that politicians didn\u2019t seem very interested in responding to the climate crisis. As for the rest of us, he said, \u2018we spend our time talking about trivial things\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>Suppose Chomsky had said a school was on fire and hundreds of children were being burned alive. How would we react to someone responding that the news was \u2018interesting\u2019, before noting that the authorities seemed uninterested in doing much about it, while the public seemed to be more concerned with trivia?<\/p>\n<p>A past master, of course, at squeezing taboo thoughts through this kind of blather, Chomsky mentioned some non-trivial crises that <em>are<\/em> discussed: the Ukraine war, the Yemen war, \u2018the total destruction of Iraq, going on still; these are all very serious issues\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>He noted, further, that, last year, fossil fuel production had increased \u2013 the US is expanding new oil fields, opening up federal lands for exploration and exploitation for decades ahead. With his usual dark humour, Chomsky added:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\"><p>\u2018The fossil fuel companies are euphoric with the prospects for increased public support for their enterprise of destroying life on Earth. So, it doesn\u2019t look good.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Chorley then raised the issue of Ukraine:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\"><p>\u2018Certainly, in the UK, the left \u2013 actually under people like Jeremy Corbyn \u2013 argued that it wasn\u2019t Russia that was the enemy, it was the US that was destabilising the world. But then Russia invades a sovereign, democratic country right on its border, starting a conflict which has claimed tens of thousands of innocent lives. Does that not make clear who the real threat to the world is? It\u2019s not the US, as the leftists have argued for a long time; it\u2019s Vladimir Putin\u2019s Russia.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>After Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, and as many more examples as one might care to mention, these were childish comments. Chomsky responded:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\"><p>\u2018Well, the invasion of Ukraine is plainly a war crime. You can\u2019t put it in the same category as greater war crimes, but it\u2019s a major one.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Which crimes did Chomsky have in mind? He noted that the UN and Pentagon estimate that about 8,000 civilians have been killed in Ukraine:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\"><p>\u2018That\u2019s a lot of people, what the United States and Britain do overnight.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Of course, the 8,000 figure is \u2018presumably an underestimate\u2019, Chomsky added, before offering a series of thought experiments:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\"><p>\u2018Let\u2019s say it\u2019s twice as much \u2013 that would put it at the level of the [1982] US-backed, Israeli invasion of Lebanon, which killed about 20,000 people. Let\u2019s say it\u2019s off by a factor of ten\u2026 that would put it in the category of Reagan\u2019s terrorist atrocities in El Salvador, roughly on the order of 80,000. Of course, Iraq is just another dimension.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018So, it\u2019s serious, a terrible crime. But you can understand why the Global South does not take very seriously the eloquent protestations of Western countries about this \u201cunique episode in history\u201d. They\u2019ve been victims of far more. Maybe the Russians will go on to our level\u2026 Maybe they could even go to the point of commemorating their worst atrocities, like Mariupol.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Chomsky commented that one of the worst US crimes in Iraq was the destruction of Iraq\u2019s beautiful third city, Fallujah. He noted that the US Navy has recently named its latest warship, the USS Fallujah, \u2018in honour of the Marine assault which carried out one of the worst atrocities in Iraq. Well, maybe the Russians will get to that point, too, someday.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>Chorley commented:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\"><p>\u2018It\u2019s interesting though, Noam Chomsky; we hear the same thing from the left here in the UK\u2026\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Chomsky interrupted:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\"><p>\u2018It\u2019s nothing to do with the left\u2026\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>These, indeed, are simply facts \u2013 the approximate death tolls are well-known, highly credible. The killers are known. There is no ideological bias in these observations. There <em>is<\/em> ideological bias in the notion that these facts are somehow \u2018leftist\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>Chorley went on:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\"><p>\u2018This is trying to create equivalence, an anti-West position\u2026 You\u2019ve literally just drawn equivalence with the number of deaths in various places\u2026 That doesn\u2019t make what Vladimir Putin\u2019s done alright, does it?\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Notice that, having heard Chomsky cite the far greater death tolls from Western crimes, Chorley was astonished that Chomsky might be suggesting the West was <em>on a par<\/em> with Putin. It was inconceivable to him that the West might be <em>worse<\/em>. Notice, also, that Chorley suggested Chomsky was using these comparisons to <em>justify<\/em> Russia\u2019s invasion seconds after he had strongly condemned the invasion as \u2018plainly a war crime\u2019, \u2018a terrible crime\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>Chomsky countered:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\"><p>\u2018Of course not. I said it\u2019s a major crime, but there\u2019s no equivalence \u2013 that\u2019s following the party line. I gave figures. No equivalence. Maybe the casualty toll is ten times as high as estimated. Well, that would make it like Reagan\u2019s crimes in El Salvador. That\u2019s not equivalent.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This was followed by a telling silence from Chorley, who perhaps at last realised that Chomsky had been agreeing that it was wrong to talk of \u2018equivalence\u2019, but not for the reasons Chorley had in mind.<\/p>\n<p>The \u2018moral equivalence\u2019 angle of attack \u2013 clearly intended to be the key focus of this interview \u2013 is a standard feature of corporate interviews with Chomsky and other dissidents. The intention is to present critics of Western policy as warped apologists for Western enemies. In a 2004, BBC interview, a clearly astonished Jeremy Paxman <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.medialens.org\/2004\/jeremy-paxman-interviews-noam-chomsky-part-2\/\" >commented<\/a> to Chomsky:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\"><p>\u2018You seem to be suggesting, or implying \u2013 perhaps I\u2019m being unfair to you \u2013 but you seem to be implying there is some equivalence between democratically elected heads of state like George Bush, or Prime Ministers like Tony Blair, and regimes in places like Iraq.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Interviewing former UN Assistant-Secretary General, Denis Halliday, in a BBC radio interview in 2001, an exasperated Michael Buerk <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.medialens.org\/2004\/jeremy-paxman-interviews-noam-chomsky-part-2\/\" >said<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\"><p>\u2018You can\u2019t\u2026 you can\u2019t <em>possibly<\/em> draw a moral equivalence between Saddam Hussein and George Bush Senior, can you?\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Inevitably \u2013 again ignoring what Chomsky had repeatedly just said \u2013 Chorley moved on to the argument tirelessly <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/GeorgeMonbiot\/status\/1643899616188825600\" >advanced<\/a> by the likes of the Guardian\u2019s George Monbiot:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\"><p>\u2018But\u2026 I suppose, some people listening to this will think you\u2019re seeking to <em>excuse<\/em> what Vladimir Putin\u2019s done.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The argument makes sense \u2013 if a journalist cannot discuss \u2018our\u2019 crimes \u2013 cannot even conceive that \u2018our\u2019 crimes might be worse than \u2018their\u2019 crimes \u2013 but cannot refute the undeniable facts indicating that such is indeed the case, then a Get Out Of Jail Free card is to suggest that the person making these points is secretly on the side of The Bad Guys and therefore not to be taken seriously. Moving from facts to motives usefully directs public attention away from the facts. Chomsky responded:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\"><p>\u2018No, that is a <em>fabrication<\/em> of the right wing; I am not seeking to excuse anything. I said it\u2019s a terrible war crime; that\u2019s not excusing anything. I\u2019m talking about the extreme hypocrisy of claims about how this is the worst thing that ever happened, when it\u2019s a fraction of what we do all the time. That\u2019s why the Global South is watching with ridicule as pompous Western commentators try to lecture them: \u201cWhy don\u2019t you join us in opposing this terrible crime?\u201d \u2026 They laugh in ridicule: \u201cThat\u2019s what you\u2019ve been doing to us forever!\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>But \u2018why can\u2019t Ukraine join Nato?\u2019, asked Chorley. Chomsky replied:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\"><p>\u2018What would happen if Mexico decided to join a Chinese-run international military alliance, sending heavy weapons to Mexico aimed at the United States?\u2026 What would happen to Mexico? It\u2019d be blown away. You know that.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Chorley again fell back on the \u2018equivalence\u2019 theme:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\"><p>\u2018But you\u2019re then drawing comparisons between Nato and China and Russia; you see an equivalence between\u2026\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Again, Chomsky rejected the claim:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\"><p>\u2018No, I don\u2019t; Nato is a much more aggressive alliance. Nato has invaded Yugoslavia, invaded Libya, invaded Ukraine \u2013 backed up the invasion of Ukraine \u2013 backed up the invasion of Afghanistan. It\u2019s an aggressive military alliance. Everybody outside the West can see it. In the West, we\u2019re not allowed to think it because we\u2019re deeply controlled by adherence to the party line. But everybody else can see it.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Yet again, Chorley hammered the implied theme that Chomsky was some kind of camouflaged supporter of Putin:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\"><p>\u2018It sounds to me like you <em>are<\/em> justifying the Russian invasion of Ukraine.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Chorley then asked about Jeremy Corbyn. He later made much of this part of the interview on Twitter, disingenuously <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MattChorley\/status\/1650834490430824448\" >suggesting<\/a> that the interviewee who ran rings around him on every issue was deluded enough to believe that Corbyn had won the 2017 general election.<\/p>\n<p>In fact, when Chomsky said that Corbyn had \u2018won a major victory\u2019 in 2017, he meant in generating a massive \u2018swing\u2019 in Labour\u2019s favour despite awesome internal and external Establishment pressures. In 2017, the Independent <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/news\/uk\/politics\/jeremy-corbyn-election-result-vote-share-increased-1945-clement-attlee-a7781706.html\" >reported<\/a> that Corbyn had \u2018increased Labour\u2019s share of the vote by more than any other of the party\u2019s election leaders since 1945\u2019 with \u2018the biggest swing since\u2026 shortly after the Second World War\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>In a final, remarkable question indicating just how disengaged and indifferent he had been throughout the interview, Chorley asked:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\"><p>\u2018Finally, then, let\u2019s round this off; let\u2019s try and be a bit more optimistic\u2026 Will the next century be better than the last?\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Again, it was as if Chorley hadn\u2019t heard what Chomsky had said. Heroically, Chomsky retained his patience for a few seconds longer:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\"><p>\u2018There won\u2019t be organised human life a century from now, unless we reverse the course the leadership is now taking towards racing over the precipice on climate destruction.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>By way of a final little joke, Chomsky added:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\"><p>\u2018You read the latest IPCC report, I\u2019m sure.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>__________________________________________<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/media-lens-logo.jpeg\" ><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-121823\" src=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/media-lens-logo-150x150.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/media-lens-logo-150x150.jpeg 150w, https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/media-lens-logo.jpeg 225w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px\" \/><\/a>Media Lens <em>is a UK-based media watchdog group headed by David Edwards and David Cromwell. In 2007,<\/em> Media Lens <em>was awarded the <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/gandhifoundation.org\/2007\/12\/02\/2007-peace-award-media-lens\/\" >Gandhi Foundation International Peace Prize<\/a>.\u00a0We have written three co-authored books<\/em>:\u00a0<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.medialens.org\/index.php\/bookshop\/8-bookshop\/bookshop\/146-guardians-of-power.html\" >Guardians of Power-The Myth of the Liberal Media <\/a><em>(Pluto Press, 2006),<\/em> <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.medialens.org\/index.php\/bookshop\/newspeak.html\" >Newspeak-In the 21st Century<\/a> <em>(Pluto Press, 2009), and<\/em><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.plutobooks.com\/9780745338118\/propaganda-blitz\/\" > Propaganda Blitz<\/a> <em>(Pluto Press, 2018)<\/em>. <em>Contacts: David Edwards: <a href=\"mailto:editor@medialens.org\">editor@medialens.org<\/a> &#8211; David Cromwell: <a href=\"mailto:editor@medialens.org\">editor@medialens.org<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/Noam-Chomsky.jpg\" ><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-218967\" src=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/Noam-Chomsky-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a>Avram Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, logician, social critic, and political activist. Sometimes described as &#8220;the father of modern linguistics,&#8221; Chomsky is also a major figure in analytic philosophy, and one of the founders of the field of cognitive science. He has spent more than half a century at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he is Institute Professor Emeritus, and is the author of over 100 books on topics such as linguistics, war, politics, mass media,<\/em> <em>US foreign policy, social issues, Latin American and European history, and more.<\/em> <em>His latest books are <\/em><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/0805079122\/ref=nosim\/?tag=nationbooks08-20\" >Failed States, The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy<\/a><em> and <\/em><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/0805076883\/ref=nosim\/?tag=nationbooks08-20\" >Hegemony or Survival<\/a><em>, both in the <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.americanempireproject.com\/\" >American Empire Project<\/a> series at Metropolitan Books.<\/em> \u00a0<em><a href=\"mailto:noamchomsky@email.arizona.edu\">noamchomsky@\u200bemail.arizona.edu<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.medialens.org\/2023\/souls-for-sale-the-times-interviews-noam-chomsky\/\" >Go to Original \u2013 medialens.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>4 May 2023 &#8211; In a society built on lies, the search for truth is a game.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":200995,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[1894,2314,2881,1855,234,2462,1203,2571,1365,2110],"class_list":["post-234787","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-media","tag-bbc","tag-corporate-media","tag-journalistic-ethics","tag-mainstream-media-msm","tag-media","tag-military-industrial-media-complex","tag-noam-chomsky","tag-official-lies-and-narratives","tag-war-journalism","tag-yellow-journalism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234787","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234787"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234787\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":234791,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234787\/revisions\/234791"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/200995"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}