Occupy - Noam Chomsky

 OCCUPY - NOAM CHOMSKY

When Piers Morgan recently interviewed Noam Chomsky, to everyone's surprise Morgan actually allowed Chomsky to talk without interrupting him constantly or trying to challenge Chomsky's answers. It's unclear what drove Morgan's change of interviewing technique but it would have been a pretty unedifying sight had he tried to get one over on Chomsky or tried to come out intellectually triumphant over a 91-year old man. In the end, however, because he was allowed to talk rather than to try and reduce ideas into 30-second soundbites, Chomsky wiped the floor with Morgan, practically turning Morgan's worldview upside down and leaving him with a somewhat glazed look in his eye like some computer having blown a fuse and left on a 'does not compute, does not compute' loop.

Actually, it may not have been Morgan's intention (for only he would truly know) but rather than trying to claim the crown for being the first ever interviewer to bring Chomsky down on an ideological or intellectual level, Morgan came across as being the person trying to bag the 'prize' of being responsible for the last ever interview with Chomsky before he croaks it. In that sense, it was still unedifying though unwittingly in approaching a Chomsky interview from this angle it was what allowed Chomsky to so demolish the questions. By accident rather than design we sometimes have much to thank Morgan for, it would seem. Then again, on second thoughts - fuck him.

Occupy is another one of those books composed of interviews with Noam Chomsky and transcripts of speeches he has delivered, this time in regard to the Occupy movement. It's presumed that everyone is aware of what the Occupy movement was and if anyone isn't then it's yet more evidence of how well managed the mainstream narrative is, and how well developed are the mechanisms of propaganda. What may not be so well known is what became of Occupy? What happened to it? Where did everyone go?

Social movements swell and ebb like waves crashing upon or even gently lapping at the shore, and the Occupy movement was an example of both. It was always a very broad church under whose roof gathered a very disparate number of people of various political temperaments. The common denominator was an awareness of the inequality in the world where the wealthiest 1 percent influence and near-control the lives of the other 99 percent. Not that this statistic was any great revelation at all, it was just that Occupy managed to push it onto the agenda and bring it to the fore so as to become almost a standard framework of discussion. People already knew it but for the first time in years rather than an Ayn Rand-type ideology being the prevalent spirit of the age as promoted by politics, business and mainstream media, Occupy simply said that another world was possible.

Similar to the Sixties mantra of 'All we are saying is 'give peace a chance'', Occupy said that it was okay to care for one another. Subsequently, rather than the wealth of the world being mainlined straight to just one percent of the population, Occupy called for a change and that a more egalitarian society be built where the wealth of the world is more evenly distributed. It was never exactly a radical request that was being made but more a natural one, more a normal way of life already being lived by most people yet usurped and kept at a distance from the levers of power by the one percent and all those who worked to aid and abet them in keeping things just as they are.

So what happened? Well, the tactic of 'occupation' as a means of throwing a spanner in the works was easily quashed by the police merely wading in with truncheons and pepper spray and evicting the occupiers from the space they had taken over be it on Wall Street, in Zuccotti Park or indeed outside of St Paul's Cathedral. As a tactic, on the physical level it failed but on a metaphysical level it succeeded in sending out a message to not only the one percent to let them be aware that the pitchforks are coming but to the 99 percent to let them know they are not alone. That to those even with the smallest of niggling doubts about whether it's fair that children starve while the rich live lives of luxury beyond the dreams of Solomon - that they weren't wrong in having that doubt.

Ultimately, those actively involved with Occupy fell back into the woodwork and went back to whence they came but importantly though no longer holding a presence on the streets they would still hold a presence in their communities and in their work places and this was where, according to Chomsky, the real work for change is made: in the building of communities and in the creation of change from the bottom up rather than from the top down.

To the well-known Karl Marx quote where the great bearded one said 'the task is not just to understand the world, but to change it', Chomsky adds that 'if you want to change the world in a constructive direction, you better try to understand it first. And understanding it doesn't mean just listening to a talk or reading a book, although that's helpful sometimes. It means learning. And you learn through participation. You learn from others.'

It's important, then, to understand how the world got to where it is today in regard to the terrible inequality and the 99 percent equation. According to Chomsky, it mostly started in the 1970s and the falling rate of profit in manufacturing, causing major changes in the economy. Manufacturing shifted to overseas, which became very profitable once again though not so for the work force. The economy shifted from productive enterprise to financial manipulation leading to a concentration of wealth increasingly in the hands of the financial sector. Subsequently, this concentration of wealth led to concentration of political power that yielded legislation such as tax changes, rules of corporate governance and deregulation that simply increased and accelerated the cycle.

And so there you have it. In a nutshell. As advised by one of the foremost intellectuals in the world today: it's corporate business and financial institutions that rule this fucked world with the profit motive being the main driving force. There is no real party political solution to it either, as all political Parties are committed to maintaining the machine as the machine is their paymaster. In America in particular where election campaigns are absolutely dependent on corporate funding, with the better the funding the better the chance of electoral success.

So where does that leave you? Where does that leave me? Where does that leave us? Well, have you ever wondered why there are so many dickheads around spouting constant Right-wing rhetoric to the point of high comedy? Droning on like an audio version of Daily Mail and Telegraph newspaper editorials? Colonised to the point of obsession with such notions as anything to the left of Right-wing conservatism being 'woke'? This is where the ideas of Antonio Gramsci come into play where Gramsci talks about cultural hegemony being established by systems of power.

'I like Gramsci,' Chomsky says at one point in the book 'He's an important person'. And I concur. If voting for a change in how the world is run isn't an option, if those protesting are simply moved out of the way for being a nuisance, and if revolution isn't on the horizon, then all that is left (beyond mass rioting on an unprecedented scale) is a battle for hearts and minds. You can see this happening now in the form of so-called 'culture wars' though it's far more pervasive than just issues of gender and race, it's all to do with acceptance of the depicted normality and how palatable that normality can be made and how unpalatable can any alternative be made?

The world is up for grabs now even more so than ever. Though we're made to feel powerless when it comes to anything beyond what brand we choose to buy in a shop, nowadays more than ever people have the power to redeem the work of the one percent and all those in their employ, and to wrestle the world from them.

People have the power. Power to the people.

John Serpico

Chomsky And Globalisation - Jeremy Fox

 CHOMSKY AND GLOBALISATION - JEREMY FOX

I eat Noam Chomsky books for breakfast. I chew them up and then spit them out. I gorge on them. This one, however - Chomsky And Globalisation - written by Jeremy Fox is but a snack, a nibble, a morsel and because of this it's not enough and after reading it I'm still hungry.

Chomsky is known as the 'Einstein of modern linguistics' and was once arguably the most important intellectual alive although whether that accolade still holds today is debatable due entirely to how old he is now. He is still to this day regularly interviewed, however, popping up more recently on YouTube zoom-talks where his views are sought on various geo-political and environmental issues.

For most, Chomsky's major work has been around the manufacturing of consent, American hegemony and globalisation; the driving force behind it being what Bakunin once called an 'instinct for freedom' and an objection on principle to unjustified claims of authority over people. 'Any form of authority requires justification' Chomsky once wrote 'And any time you find a form of authority illegitimate, you ought to challenge it.' Which, once you start looking is practically all authority.

Jeremy Fox's book is about globalisation and the way it's presented and the way it's perceived as opposed to the reality of it as explained by Chomsky. Economic globalisation in all its supposed grandeur is meant to be the path to universal prosperity and the solution to the Third World's economic problems. It is, however, nothing of the kind and is instead the arbiter of social, political and economic decline for the many and vast profit and consolidation of power for the few. It's the legitimization of inequality being normal, natural and even desirable. As Fox puts it: '70 per cent of global economic activity is nowadays speculation and in the windowless bunkers in which fortunes are made, nothing is actually produced. Nothing, that is, except wealth.'

And to whom and to where does this wealth go? Who actually profits? According to the established wisdom as declared by all those in positions of security and advantage we all ultimately benefit. And of course, the system isn't rigged and of course it's only right and proper that the winners should end up enormously rich. And as for the losers? Well, they end up on the breadline but that's their own fault for being losers.

It's the philosophy and language of Donald Trump. Remember him? Except that Trump was just being open about it because it's also the philosophy and language of every cut-throat, Ayn Rand-influenced, middle-of-the-road, so-called reasonable, sensible, neo-liberal advocate of the democratic free-enterprise system that ever crawled over the bodies both physically and theoretically of every dead child refugee washed-up upon the shore, portrayed in your daily newspaper tabloid as a threat to the national standard of living.

The thing about Jeremy Fox's book is that, as I said, it's not enough. It's important to state where problems lie, of course, and it's important to recognise them but beyond that things start to get a little vague specifically in regard to the question of what is to be done about the problem? According to Fox we have two choices: We either acquiesce in global injustice and tyranny or we join in the struggle for justice, democracy and freedom. 

So what to do? When all political Parties support free enterprise, globalisation, the private ownership of property and the profit motive then who do you turn to? Where do you go? What to do?

What to do...?

John Serpico

9 -11 - Noam Chomsky

 9-11 - NOAM CHOMSKY

Remember 9/11? It's a bit after the fact now but what was all that about then? Actually, it's a bit like in twenty years time us peering out upon the smouldering wreckage of civilization from our candle-lit caves on the Mendips and asking 'Covid-19? What was all that about then?' And just as now with Covid-19 you can seek the opinion of an expert such as a virologist who's spent their whole adult life studying viruses or you can ask some bloke who once watched a video on YouTube. Or you can ask someone like Michael Gove who's told us before that we're all a bit fed up of experts and their opinions so as an elected representative of the general public here's his opinion instead. It's a democratic society, however, and apparently there's still such a thing as free choice so I know where I'd go. But as I can't find the link right now to Michael Gove being interviewed by Piers Morgan on GMTV let's have a read of Noam Chomsky instead, shall we?

I remember watching on the news the live footage of the first fire on the morning of 9/11 and the unconfirmed reports of it having been caused by an aeroplane flying into the tower. The assumption was that it was some mad accident but when the second plane flew into the second tower incomprehension took hold. Was this a series of incredible accidents or was America under attack? Nowadays there has only to be an explosion at a waste recycling plant on the outskirts of Bristol and an announcement is made to say 'the incident is not thought to be terrorist related' because the immediate assumption is that it might be. That's how far we've come since 9/11. An immediate knock-on effect of that day.

I remember going to the Anarchist Bookfair in London that year and a meeting being held, hosted by Chumbawamba's Alice Nutter, to discuss the meaning of 9/11. The conclusion was that 'my enemy's enemy is not my friend', which seems kind of obvious now but at the time it genuinely needed to be thrashed out. All of this was at the time we should not forget of mass worldwide protests against corporate globalization. For the first time in decades the term 'capitalism' and more specifically 'anti-capitalism' was back on the agenda. In London there had been the J18 riot in the heart of The City, followed by Seattle. The G8 were being hounded and everywhere they met there were huge riots. The stakes were ever-rising and in Genoa the first death was recorded with the murder of Carlo Guiliani by the Italian Carabinieri.

On the morning of 9/11 itself, a protest was being held in London Docklands against the DSEI World Arms Trade Fair and on being informed of the attacks upon America and the Twin Towers, the protesters packed-up and went home. The decision to do so was a signifier of what was to follow - a near complete collapse of the burgeoning anti-capitalist/anti-neoliberalism movement.

In the book 9-11 (which is to all intent and purpose another collection of interviews with Noam Chomsky culled from various sources) Chomsky is asked: 'What consequences do you foresee for the Seattle movement? Do you think it will suffer as a result of 9/11, or is it possible that it will gain momentum?' to which Chomsky replies 'It is certainly a setback for the worldwide protests against corporate globalization which - again - did not begin in Seattle. Such terrorist atrocities are a gift to the harshest and most repressive elements on all sides, and are sure to be exploited to accelerate the agenda of militarization, regimentation, reversal of social democratic programs, transfer of wealth to narrow sectors, and undermining democracy in any meaningful form. But that will not happen without resistance, and I doubt that it will succeed, except in the short term.'

Chomsky, however, was wrong. The fall-out from 9/11 dealt a near death blow to the 'Seattle movement' as the interviewer calls it. When protest finally started to pick up again almost ten years later the focus had shifted almost exclusively upon environmental issues and identity politics, seeded by the Occupy Movement leading subsequently to Extinction Rebellion. 

According to Chomsky, one of the most noticeable and startling things regarding 9/11 was the way in which the mainstream media and the intellectual classes in general lined up in support of power and mobilized whole populations for the same cause. Dissenting voices were stifled or even when broadcast were accused of 'siding with the terrorists'. Tony Blair made his famous speech about the kaleidoscope having been shaken whilst in America the presiding chant drowning out everything else was 'USA! USA!'

According to Chomsky, the major explanation for the attacks upon the Twin Towers put forward by the media was that the perpetrators acted out of hatred for the values cherished in the West such as freedom, tolerance, prosperity, religious pluralism and universal suffrage. As well as being at variance with everything that was known this also further stacked up the uncritical support for power.

From the mouths of the likes of Osama bin Laden himself, it was indeed a Holy War that was being fought but not against globalization or cultural hegemony but against corrupt, repressive and 'un-Islamist' regions of the Middle East and their supporters.

'Bin Laden himself has probably never even heard of 'globalization,' says Chomsky 'Those who have interviewed him in depth, like Robert Fisk, report that he knows virtually nothing of the world and doesn't care to. We can choose to ignore all the facts and wallow in self-indulgent fantasies if we like, but at considerable risk to ourselves, among others.'

The attacks on 9/11 were unquestionably acts of terrorism but so too terrorism is - according to official definitions and as evidenced by the innumerable examples Chomsky is able to give - official doctrine and not just that of the USA. Terrorism most definitely is not, as is often claimed, 'the weapon of the weak'.

It's interesting when Chomsky is asked 'Should we call what is happening now a war?' to which he replies (and let it not be forgotten that Chomsky is a professor of linguistics): 'There is no precise definition of 'war'. People speak of the 'war on poverty', the 'drug war', etc. What is taking shape is not a conflict among states.' This is very true. There is, however, a perception of the meaning of the word 'war' that cannot be denied, just as there are also very real wars that are never named as such and thus forever denied or even acknowledged.

At one point Chomsky is asked 'Can we talk of the clash between two civilizations?' meaning between the West and Islam to which Chomsky replies 'Of course not, you silly arse'. Or not in so many words but words to that effect: 'This is fashionable talk,' he says 'but it makes little sense' before reeling off a precise explanation as to why, before finishing off with a quote from Mahatma Gandhi: 'Western civilization? That might be a good idea?'

Chomsky's main focus of attention these days seems to be upon environmental concerns, declaring that if mankind doesn't do something quickly about global warming then we are heading for destruction.

The world turns.

The sun rises and the sun sets.

Al Qaeda is no longer on the agenda. The ISIS death cult has apparently been smashed with only rogue elements these days making intermittent appearances. Trump has blown hot and cold with his only real legacy (apart from Covid deaths) being entrenched division on both sides of the political spectrum with a lumpen, grey mass in between wanting only a return to 'normal', whatever that means? Where the world goes from here is anyone's guess and is, of course, the eternal question. 

It should be remembered that before 9/11 occurred the global anti-capitalist movement of which this book gives mention was developing into a major force to be reckoned with, growing steadily into a many-headed Hydra that was proving ever more difficult to bring to heel. It took something as massive as 9/11 to knock it off course and though dealt a near-fatal body blow it still didn't altogether slay the dragon. In the scheme of things it's important to apply unforgiving pressure upon the leaders and their representatives of the industrial nations wherever they might meet but so too it's important to be a catalyst for revolution within your own life and within your own sphere of existence. To quote Gandhi again: 'Be the change that you wish to see in the world.'

John Serpico

Rethinking Camelot - Noam Chomsky

RETHINKING CAMELOT – NOAM CHOMSKY

The world is indeed a wonderful place as Louis Armstrong once advised, though made horrible by people, particularly those with a hard-on for power. Of course, that's not how Noam Chomsky would ever describe it but that's the gist of it. According to the economist philosopher Adam Smith, every age of human history reveals the workings of 'the vile maxim of the masters of mankind: All for ourselves, and nothing for other people', which according to Chomsky still stands to this day.

To this Chomsky also adds that throughout history the rabble (meaning you and me) have sought more freedom and justice, and have often won improved conditions of life. The 'men of best quality', however, have been less than delighted with these developments. There has been broad agreement among them that the rabble should not be permitted to interfere in the management of public affairs and should instead be mere spectators, not participants, as modern democratic theory holds. Kept in line with 'necessary illusions' and 'emotionally potent oversimplifications'. And if this fails there is always State violence and State control to fall back on in the form of truncheons and other assorted armoury. This is the Western model designed to protect Western values so as to protect the Western economy designed to favour the rich and the powerful.

As historians recognise, the Cold war began in 1917 not 1945, and in its earlier years Russia was never regarded as a military threat though it was always viewed as a virus that had to be contained if not destroyed. Arguably, Russia's expansionist plans were always a Western construct based on such suggestions as the Russians not having entirely proven they were without such expansionist ambitions. Which leads us directly (or in a roundabout way, at least) to the Vietnam War and Rethinking Camelot by Noam Chomsky.

'What were you doing when Kennedy died?' as the question goes but for Chomsky this is irrelevant. Instead, what is of more concern to him is Kennedy's legacy and how it's been manipulated to suggest that Kennedy was a dove rather than the actual hawk that he was – and which Chomsky sets out to prove.

On taking office in 1961, Kennedy immediately escalated US military support for its client regime in South Vietnam and then soon after escalated it further before then also authorising the use of napalm. The reason given for such concern over Vietnam was that if it fell under the Communist control of Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Cong, it wouldn't be too long before the whole of Southeast Asia went the same way and this was just a stake too high to afford to lose.

Chomsky points out, however, that it was actually Ho Chi Minh's ultra-nationalism that made him unacceptable, not his services to the 'Kremlin conspiracy' or 'Soviet expansion' – which means everything you have been told about the Vietnam War is a lie. Equally, JFK's deification by liberals, based on his supposed intention before being assassinated of withdrawing from Vietnam without victory is also wrong.

As might be expected, Chomsky is meticulous with his study and when he says there is 'no hint of any intention by JFK to withdraw without victory – quite the contrary', then you'd better believe it. Thousands of of government documents and reports have now been released for the period covering the Vietnam War and Chomsky seems to have trawled through them all.

There are, of course, insights aplenty regarding the political so-called 'planning' of the war, not least the incomprehension as to how the Viet Cong were able to draw their fellow countrymen onto their side but the Americans were not. The Viet Cong 'have an amazing ability to maintain morale' and are able 'continuously to rebuild their units and to make good their losses', exhibiting 'the recuperative powers of the phoenix'. This is 'one of the mysteries of this guerilla war', JFK's specialist on political warfare lamented, adding that 'we still find no plausible explanation for it'.

With this kind of absolute perplexity going on, America's war in Vietnam was doomed to failure, really. So much so that as Chomsky points out, it would be comical if the consequences for the victims were not so disastrous.

Interestingly and rather encouragingly, Chomsky also pulls out some choice insights regarding the effect of the war at home in the USA. Apparently, in considering further troop deployments to Vietnam, the government's chief advisors wanted to ensure that 'sufficient forces would still be available for civil disorder control', fearing that an escalation of the war might lead to 'increased defiance of the draft and growing unrest in the cities', running the risk of 'provoking a domestic crisis of unprecedented proportions'.

Rethinking Camelot is yet another valuable book in Noam Chomsky's canon, shedding a light upon a period in America's history that has always previously been obscured by propaganda and diversionary tangents. It's an illuminating exercise that cannot fail to leave the reader wondering how such a war as the one in Vietnam was ever allowed to happen and how any similar war must never be allowed to happen again. I wonder if Trump has ever read Chomsky? Indeed, I wonder if very many people at all have actually read him?

John Serpico

What We Say Goes - Noam Chomsky

WHAT WE SAY GOES – NOAM CHOMSKY

Does anybody still read Chomsky nowadays, or are we all meant to have moved on? Have the neo-conservatives finally wiped the board of everything and now totally own common sense values as once highlighted by Gramsci as being of necessity if social change is ever to occur?

What We Say Goes is another one of those books comprised of interviews with Noam Chomsky conducted by David Barsamian, this time published by Penguin rather than AK Books. It's from 2006 which means a fair bit of it is now out of date due to the world having moved on – arguably for the worse. We now, of course, have a shitbag, fucking scumbag, lying, narcissistic fucking bastard in the White House. ISIS have superseded Al-Queda, Brexit has happened, and climate destruction is fully on the agenda.

So what has Chomsky got to say this time round? Well, right from the start I'm reprimanded and put to rights for heaping abuse upon an American President. “If you want to contribute to the success of the ultra-right, then you should make fun of George Bush's accent and engage in other forms of ridicule,” he says “But that rhetoric is destructive and childish. And the same holds true of everyone else's rhetoric. What's important is the content.”

I appreciate this and I acknowledge it. Rhetoric is what nowadays makes the world go round. 90% of the news these days is rhetoric. The Daily Mail front page headlines being an obvious example. Those headlines and accompanying articles aren't news – it's rhetoric. Social media – rhetoric. Trump's midnight tweets that gets everyone hot under the collar – just rhetoric. Calling Trump a shitbag, fucking scumbag, lying, narcissistic fucking bastard – just rhetoric.

I should know better, I know, but I'm only human of flesh and blood am I. What's their excuse, I wonder? All those who are better educated and more privileged than me? Those who are paid to know better? Are they just being extremely clever, I wonder, and simply using rhetoric to disguise the content? Is Trump really an intellectual? He'd probably say so. Is Paul Dacre an intellectual? Nigel Farage? Boris Johnson?

Well, Chomsky has something to say about this as well: “People are called intellectuals because they're privileged. It's not because they're smart or they know a lot. There are plenty of people who know more and are smarter but aren't intellectuals because they don't have the privilege. The people called intellectuals are privileged. They have resources and opportunities.”

Privilege, of course, means power and you're either subordinate to it or not but according to Chomsky, in the West there's really no excuse and anyone displaying subordination to power is essentially displaying cowardice. “Why do we want to get behind the President if he's carrying out murderous, violent criminal acts?” Indeed, the great are only great because we are on our knees, as Irish republican James Larkin once said. Let us rise.

There's very little to disagree with when it comes to Noam Chomsky. Rather than the senile old pervert who wets himself all the time, Chomsky is like your ideal granddad sitting in the corner of the room at Christmas time, a pointy party hat on his head and sipping from a glass of Old Malt but declining to join in the party games. He's the wisest old bird in the family with an encyclopedic knowledge of everything and when asked a question he'll tell you straight. Everybody loves him and it's to him everyone will turn to for advice.

When 9/11 happened, everyone wanted to know what Chomsky had to say about it. The same for when Trump was elected. In his typical fashion, Chomsky responded very calmly and methodically, not resorting to knee-jerk reaction but using only the facts that were at hand.

“The Afghan war was a major war crime,” Chomsky tell David Barsamian, and this is as good a litmus test as any to gauge whether you agree with Chomsky or not. If you agree with this statement then it suggests you might just have a mind of your own and there is hope for you and the world yet. If you take umbrage and profoundly so then there's nothing for you here and we can bid you farewell as you skip merrily into your future of – as Orwell put it – a boot stamping on a human face - forever.

John Serpico

Noam Chomsky - Keeping The Rabble In Line

KEEPING THE RABBLE IN LINE –

NOAM CHOMSKY

By denouncing their practises, methods and tactics, Noam Chomsky may have blotted his copy book with some of our black-clad brethren in Antifa but does that mean in return his whole canon should now be dismissed? Of course not. Chomsky's now in his nineties and though he may still be as sharp as a needle when compared to most, at his age we can forgive him for a few lapses in judgement because after all – he's earned it. So yes, Chomsky's still worth reading if only for food for thought and that's something he's always been a good provider of.

Keeping The Rabble In Line is another one of those books published by AK Press composed of interviews with Chomsky by writer and broadcaster David Barsamian. The first thing to consider about it is the title. Who exactly is the rabble and why is it important to keep them in line? Well, the rabble is me and you, basically. It's the general population, the general public, or as writer and political commentator Walter Lippmann put it, the “ignorant and meddlesome outsiders”.

According to Chomsky, any holders of concentrated power, and that includes corporations of course, do not want any external constraints on their capacity to make decisions and act freely, so to these ends they want the general public to be mere spectators, not participants. Democracy acts simply as a way of legitimizing the power held by those whom it benefits most, which means in elections it's typically representatives of dominant sectors who stand and their actions on being elected serve only to maintain the status quo.

Democracy and casting a vote every few years maintains the illusion that concentrated power and authority can be controlled through the ballot box but as the old anarchist maxim says: 'Whoever you vote for, government wins' – and it's true. It's a very simple truth.

That's not to say liberal democracy and voting is entirely ineffectual because it does at least give the general population the opportunity to choose their prison guards and that in itself counts for something. At the end of the day, however, they're still prison guards. What would you rather have: A racist, sexist, bullying leader or representative who hates you (in either business or government) or a benign leader who is anti-racist, anti-sexist who tells you they love and care for you? It's the good cop bad cop scenario but at the end of the day they're still both cops.

As Chomsky explains, it's possible that there could one day be a colour-free society and that the glass ceiling for women is removed but this wouldn't actually change the political economy at all. For this reason you often find the business sector quite happy to support efforts to overcome racism and sexism because they know that these things don't matter much. Some white male privilege might be lost but that's not all that important in the scheme of things. On the other hand, basic changes in the core institutions would be bitterly resisted, that's if they ever even became thinkable.

So if the general public is the rabble, then who are the holders of concentrated power? Well, though they're definable it's no easy task as their faces and names keep changing. Chomsky refers to them as the 'ruling elite' though that term's been criticised for conferring too much dignity upon them. Interestingly, he shies away from using the word 'class' as in 'ruling class' due to its various associations. As he explains: 'As soon as you say the word 'class', everybody falls down dead. There's some Marxist raving again.' Or nowadays some Right-wing zealot raving.

Alternatively, Chomsky suggests they can be referred to as 'the masters' who in the words of economist and philosopher Adam Smith follow their own 'vile maxim', namely 'all for ourselves and nothing for other people.' Or at best, crumbs from the table for other people, I would say. Again, it's a very simple truth.

At one point in Keeping The Rabble In Line, Chomsky discusses Ghandi and questions whether non-violence should be an absolute principle? Apparently in 1938 Ghandi suggested that German Jews ought to commit collective suicide so as to arouse the world and the German people to Hitler's violence. Chomsky emphasises that what Ghandi was suggesting was a tactical proposal, not a principled one but at the same time finds it somewhat grotesque. What Ghandi should have been emphasizing, Chomsky says, is for the world to do something to prevent the Jews from being massacred:

'Powerless people who are being led to slaughter can't do anything. Therefore it's up to others to do something for them. To give them advice on how they should be slaughtered is not very uplifting, to put it mildly. You can say the same about other things all the time.'

And indeed you can. Just name your poison. But before you go chasing rabbits and liaising with hookah-smoking caterpillars, just make sure you're not going off on some crazy wild goose chase which is going to involve you in extremely detailed microanalysis and discussions of things that don't matter. Conspiracy theories, in other words.

'If it's too hard to deal with real problems, there are a lot of ways to avoid doing so. One of them is to go off on wild goose chases that don't matter. Another is to get involved in academic cults that are very divorced from any reality and that provide a defense against dealing with the world as it actually is.' And this, of course, can mean anything from the assassination of JFK, the destruction of the Twin Towers on 9/11, to the question of how modern day linguistics provide a new paradigm for discourse about international affairs that will supplant the post-structuralist text.... For example.

In amongst such food for thought as provided by Chomsky you're going to find the odd fly in the soup and the odd bite that's unappetizing (such as when he states that 'Europe is an extremely racist place' compared to America) but that's only to be expected. Overall, Keeping The Rabble In Line is a good, four-square meal and Noam Chomsky is a very, very good cook and at the end of the day, dining out with him makes a pleasant and nourishing change from McDonalds. And again, that's a very simple truth.

John Serpico

Class Warfare - Noam Chomsky

CLASS WARFARE - NOAM CHOMSKY

You can't really beat a good clenched-fist salute, can you? Power to the people and all that. Che Guevara? Power to the people! Wolfie Smith? Power to the people! Noam Chomsky? Power to the people! Jeremy Corbyn? Er...

The thing about Noam Chomsky is that for the past forty years or more he's been the holder of the crown for the world's foremost heavy-weight political thinker and whenever anyone steps up to challenge or criticise him they're fully aware of this. Or they should be. For this reason any critic or challenger is almost always going to be viewed as trying to make a name for themselves on the back of defeating Chomsky in an argument or even as a contender for the title.

In a lot of instances it's patently obvious that the challenge being made to Chomsky's political analysis is purely for the kudos in throwing a hat into the ring, so as to somehow prove the challenger or the critic is not intimidated by Chomsky and that they are, in fact, Chomsky's equal if not intellectual better. Apart from this there's nothing really to be gained from having a go at Chomsky. There's certainly nothing to be gained politically, which means the challenge or the critique is only being made as a bid to shoot Chomsky down.

Whenever Chomsky is in a position to be able to offer a reply (particularly in live situations) he will very calmly draw a pen from his pocket, tap it on the table, and in his typical mild manner, very politely tear the challenger or the critic apart like a Samurai warrior drawing his sword and cutting down a would-be assassin. More often than not, the challenger/critic is left hapless and exposed by Chomsky as the intellectual pygmy they always turn out to be. See Chomsky's interview on YouTube with BBC journalist Andrew Marr as a perfect example.

In Class Warfare, Chomsky touches upon this subject and admits that it worries him: 'There's a real invisibility of left intellectuals who might get involved.' he says to David Barsamian "I'm not talking about people who want to come by and say, okay, I'm your leader. Follow me. I'll run your affairs. There's always plenty of those people around. But the kind of people who are just always doing things, like whether it was workers' education or being in the streets or being around where there's something they can contribute, helping organizing - that's always been part of the vocation of intellectuals from Russell and Dewey on to people who are doing important things. There's a visible gap there today, for all kinds of reasons.'

Another problem he highlights in the book is the 'personalization' involved in the public talks he gives and the gap between the huge audiences that attend the talks and the follow-up, as in the far lower numbers actually physically getting involved with things politically.

This is evident with events such as the annual Anarchist Bookfair in London where thousands of people pass through the doors of whatever venue it's being held at but when it's all kicking off the following week or whenever, they're nowhere to be seen. All those thousands of people never seem to make an appearance on the street. You see some, of course, and you subsequently get to know them but for the vast number, you never catch sight of them again - until the next bookfair.

Not that Chomsky is infallible at all, as evidenced only recently with the social media kerfuffle following Chomsky's remarks about Antifa being a "major gift to the Right, including the militant Right, who are exuberant." Such a comment would be par for the course from most other quarters but because it came from Chomsky it was immediately controversial. Just search the Internet for the arguments it caused. As a caveat, however, Chomsky does always say "Don't believe anything I say. Go out and find out yourself."

For all that, Class Warfare as the title for this book is a bit of a misnomer as it hardly touches the subject at all. In fact, the only time Chomsky actually mentions 'class warfare' is when describing corporate propaganda: 'The U.S. has a much more class-conscious business community, for all kinds of historical reasons. It didn't develop out of feudalism and aristocracy. So there weren't the conflicting factors you had in other places - the highly class conscious business community, very Marxist in character, vulgar Marxist, fighting a bitter class war, and very aware of it. You read international publications and it's like reading Maoist pamphlets half the time. They don't spend billions of dollars a year on propaganda for the fun of it. They do it with a purpose. For a long time the purpose was to resist and contain human rights and democracy and the whole welfare state framework, the social contract, that developed over the years. They wanted to contain it and limit it. Now they feel, in the current period, that they can really roll it back. They'd go right back to satanic mills, murdering poor people, basically the social structure of the early nineteenth century. That's the situation we're in right now. These huge propaganda offensives are a major part of it.'

Apart from this, it's business as usual with Chomsky being questioned about the manufacturing of consent, American government policies, Indonesia, and the Middle East. One of the most interesting parts is when he talks about an address he'd made at an anarchist conference in Australia where he'd spoken about how he'd like to strengthen the federal government: 'The reason is, we live in this world, not some other world. And in this world there happens to be huge concentrations of private power which are as close to tyranny and as close to totalitarian as anything humans have devised, and they have extraordinary power. They are unaccountable to the public. There's only one way of defending rights that have been attained or extending their scope in the face of these private powers, and that's to maintain the one form of illegitimate power that happens to be somewhat responsive to the public and which the public can indeed influence. So you end up supporting centralised state power even though you oppose it.'

The relevance of this in the wake of Brexit and the backing of Corbyn by a lot of anarchists in the last General Election is glaring.

The best bit in the book, however, is probably what appears to be almost an aside that Chomsky makes, when he says: 'The question that comes up over and over again, and I don't really have an answer is: 'It's terrible, awful, getting worse. What do we do? Tell me the answer.' The trouble is, there has not in history ever been any answer other than: Get to work on it.'

And that's as good advice - if not better - as any that could be given.

John Serpico