Chomsky. Transcript. Conversation with History. UCBerkeley. 22Mar2002.

1.     Welcome to Conversation with History. I'm Harry Kreisler of the Institution of Studies. My next guest is Noam Chomsky. Noam, welcome to Berkeley. Where were you born and raised?

2.     I was born in Philadephia. 1928. Stayed there until I went through undergraduate school, University of Pennsylvania. Then, went on to Harvard for a couple of years as a research fellowship. Graduate school. When I was done with that, I went over to MIT and have been in Boston ever since, around Boston since about 1950.

3.     Your parents both were Hebrew grammarians and taught in Hebrew school.

4.     My father was a professionally [professional] Hebrew scholar and his main work was Hebrew Grammar. My mother was a Hebrew teacher. My father sort of ran the Hebrew school system in the city of Philadelphia. My mother taught in it. He taught in Hebrew college later. There was a university of Jewish study. Dropsie College which he taught in. But there were all part of what amount to Hebrew ghetto. Jewish ghetto in Philadelphia. Not physical ghetto scatterd around the city, but cultural ghetto.

5.     Was Hebrew the language spoken at home?

6.     No, Second. Well, it was in the background. So, for example, by the time I was, you know, eight or nine, I would, say, in Friday evening, my father and I would read Hebrew Literature together, that sort of thing.

7.     And looking back, how do you think your parents shaped your perspectives on the world?

8.     That's always a very hard question, (Laughter of Kriesler) because it is a combination of influence and resistance, which is difficult to sort it out. I mean, undoubtedly, the background was shaped the kinds of interests and tendencies and directions that I pursued. But, it was independent. I mean, I think more direct influences actually came from other parts of the family.

9.     Please, go ahead.

10. My parents were immigrants. And they happend to end up in Philadelphia. But my mother from New York. And my father from Baltimore. When he came over in 1913, for whatever reason, his family went to Baltimore. My mother's family, from another part of settlement, went to New York [City]. There were two different families. There was Baltimore family, there was New York [City] family. We were in the middle, Philadelphia. So we went out the back, close by. The families were totally different. Baltimore family were ultra-orthodox. In fact, my father told me that they became more orthodox when they got here than when they were in Shte-tl [town] in Ukraine, where they came from. And generally, there was tendency among some sector of immigrants to intensity the cultural tradition as a, probably, way of identifying themselves in a strange environment, I suppose. So that was that family. The other part of the family, my mother. My mother was mainly Jewish working class. Very radical, very, Jewish element had disappeared. There were part of the, this was the 1930s, so this is the ferment radical activism that was going in the 30s, all sort of ways. And all of them, one who did influence me a great deal, an uncle, uncle by marriage, who was an extremely interesting person. He came into the family when I was seven or eight, became great influence. Married my aunt. He grew up in New York, also from immigrant family. But he grew up in a poor area of New York. In fact, he himself never went past 4th grade. This criminal background, all sorts of, you know, what's going on underclass ghettos in New York. He happend to be, he happend to have physical deformity. So he was able to get a newsstand under compensation program that was run in 1930s for people with disabilities. He had a news stand on 72nd Street in New York nearby little apartment. I spent a lot of time there. That newsstand became a intellectual center for emigrates from Europe, lots of German and other immigrants were coming. He was a very educated person. Like I said, never went past fourth grade, but maybe one of the most educated person I have ever met. Self-educated. Without going through the whole story, he ended up being lay analyst on the Riverside Drive apartment, New York. Newsstand itself was a very lively intellectual center. Professors of this and that, arguing all night. And working in the newsstand was a lot of fun.

11. So newspapers and events of the world mixed up with ideas. It's almost like a coffee-house without coffee.

12. Newspaper was kind of an artifact. So, for example, I went on, for years, thinking there was a newspaper called (NewsAndMirror). The reason is, as people came out of subway station and reached the newsstand, they said "NewsAndMirro". What I heard that way, I gave them two tabloids, (News) and (the Mirror). (Laughter of Kreisler) As soon as they picked up the Mirror, the first thing they opened to was sports page. This was eight year old picture of the world. But, you know, there were newspapers there, but they were kind of background of the discussions that were going on. I went through him and through other influences. Kind of got myself involved in the ongoing 30s Radicalism. It was very much part of Hebrew-based, Zionist-oriented, this was  Palestianian, pre-Israel, Palestenian-oriented life. That was a good part of my life. Became, uh, Hebrew teacher myself. Zionist youth leader, combining with the radical activism in various ways. That's the way I got into.

13. One of the formative influences, as I understand it, in this period for you, is reading George Orwell. And also, in terms of events, in the addition to Depression and Spanish Civil War. Tell us about the way.

14. It came the other way. Orwell's great book, in my opinion, his greatest book, Homage to Catalonia. I think it was first published 1937. But it was supressed. A couple of hundred copies published both in England and Britain. It was essentially suppressed. The reason it was suppresed was it was very anti-Communist. In those days, it didn't sell. During Second World War, it was totally suppressed. Because you couldn't be, Uncle Joe, didn't know what he was doing. I think his book finally reached public, this is from memory, so maybe dates are wrong. It was around 1947 and 48 with an introduction by Ranold Trolling (?). And it was presented as Cold War document at that time. Orwell, who had died already, would have hated it. That's when I found Homage to Catalonia. But I'd been interested in Spanish Civil War long before it.

15. You actually wrote, Your first essay was, as a ten year old, on Spanish Civil War. What did you say then and what do you think now about how that event to that response influenced you?

16. Article. Like you said, I was ten years old. I'm sure I would not want to read it today. (Laughter of Kreisler) I remember what it was about because I remember what struck me at the time. This was right after the fall of Barcelona. The Fascist forces conquered Barcelona. That was essentially the end of Spanish Civil War. And the article was about the spread of Fascism around Europe. So it started off by talking about Munich and Barcenola and spread of Nazi power, Fascist power, which was extremely frightning. Just to add a little world of personal background. We happend to be, for the most of my childhood, the only Jewish family in a mostly Irish-German Catholic neighborhood. Sort of a lower-middle class neighborhood, which was very anti-Semitic and quite pro-Nazi. For all kinds of. Obvious, Irish, they hated the British. Not surprisingly, the Germans were. I can remember a beer party when Paris fell down. And the sense of, the threat of this black clouds spreading over Europe was very frightening. Pick up my mother's attitude, particularly, terrified by it. Also in my personal life because I saw in the streets. Interesting, for some reason, which I do not understand to this day. My brother and I never talked to our parents about it. I don't think they knew we were living in anti-Semitic neighborhood. But, on the streets, you go out play ball on the streets with the kid, try to walk to the bus or something, it was constant threat. It was the kind of thing you didn't talk to your parents about.  To their deaths, they didn't know. But there was this combination of knowing this cloud was spreading over the world. And picking up particularly my mother's attitude, very upset about it. My father, too. More constrained. And knowing from uncles and aunts, some of the background. And living in the streets in my own daily life made it very real. Anyhow, by late 30s, I became quite interested in Spanish Anarchism and Spanish Civil War, where this was fought out at the time. It was right before World World Two broke out. But kind of microcosm of what was going on in Spain. By the time I was old enough to get on a train by myself, like around ten or eleven, we would go to New York for weekends. Stay with my aunts and uncle and hang around Anarchist bookstores around Union Square, 4th Avenue. You know, they're old book stores from emigrates. Really intersting people. To my mind, they looked like 90s, they were in their 40s, or something. Who were very interested in young people. They wanted young people to come along. They spent a lot of attention, talking to these people, real education. Out of that, when I wrote that article, it was with that background. It was long before I heard of Orwell.

17. These experiences you described, you were saying, it led you Linguistics. It also led you to your view on Politics and of the world. And, you know, you're a Libertarian and [an] Anarchist. When one hears that, the way issues are framed in this country, we know why there are often so many misperceptions because of the things you have written. Helps us understand what that means. It doesn't mean you favor chaos or no Goverment, necessarily.

18. Well, remember the United States is sort of ["]out of the world["] on this topic. Britain is, to a limited extent, but the United State ["]is on marge["] (margin). So here, the term, Libertarian, means the opposite of what it always meant in History. Libertarian throughout, modern European History. Socialist Anarchist. Socialist Movement. Worker's Movement, Socialist Movement sort of broke into two branches roughly. One Statist, one anti-Statist. The Statist branch led to Bolshevism, Lenin and Trotsky, and so on. The anti-Statist branch, which included Marxists, left-Marxists, Rosa Luxembourg and others, it kind of merged more or less into amalgam with big strain of Anarchism into what was Libertarian Socalism. So, Libertarian, in Europe, always meant Socialist. Here, it means ultra, Ayn Rand or Cato Institute, something like that. But that's a special US usage, having to do with a lot of things quite special ways of United States develop and this is part of it. They have meant, always meant to me, Socialist, Social, anti-State branch of Socialism, which meant highly organised society, completely organised, nothing to do with chaos. But, based on Democracy all the way through. That means Democratic (control of (communities of workplaces)). Federal structures built on systems of voluntary association, spreading internationally. That's the traditional Anarchism. At least, you know, anybody can have the word if they like. But it's mainstream tradition of Anarchism. Coming back to the United States, it has very strong roots in American working-class movements. So if you go back to, let's say, 1850s. The beginnings of Industrial Revolution. Right around the area where I live, Eastern Mass., textile plants, and so on. People working in those plants were, in part, young women, coming off the farms. They were called factory girls. Women, young farmers, working the textile plant. Some of them were Irish. Immigrants in Boston. That group of people. They had an extremely rich and interesting culture. Kind of like my uncle, never went past fourth grade. Very educated. Reading modern Literature. They didn't bother with European Radicalism. That had no effect on them. But, general literary culture they were much part of. They developed their own conceptions of how the world ought to be organised. They owned newspapers. In fact, the period of the freest press in the United States was probably around 1850s. In the 1850s, the scale of the popular press, meaning run by factory girls in Lowell, and so on, was scale of commercial perss, even greater. These were independent newspapers, a lot of interesting scholarship on them. You can read them now. Just spontaneously, without any background, never heard of Marx, Bakunin or anyone else. They developed the same ideas. They thought, from their point of view, what they called wage slavery, renting yourself to an owner was not very differnt from chattel slavery. They were fighting the Civil War about. You have to recall, in mid-19th centuries, that was the common view in the United States. For example, it was the position of Republican Party, Abraham Lincoln's position. It was not an odd view. There isn't much difference between selling yourself and renting yourself. So the idea of renting yourself, meaning working for wages, was degrading. It was just an attack on personal integrity. They despised the industrial system that was developing, that was destroying their culture, destroying their independence, their individuality, constraining them to be subordinate to masters, losing. There was a tradition of what was called Republicanism in the United States. "We're free people." "The first free people in the world." This was destroying and undermining that freedom. This was core of labor movement all over. And included in the assumption taken for granted that those who work in the mill should run them. In fact, one of their main slogan was quoted, they condemned what they called "the new spirit of the age", Gain wealth for getting all but oneself. That idea, that you should, the new spirit, only interested in gaining wealth, forgetting about your relations to other people. They regarded it as violation as fundamental human nature and degrading idea. That grew into, that was a strong, rich American culture, which was crushed by violence. United States has a very violent labor History, much more so than Europe. And this was, it was wiped out over a long period with very extreme violence. By the time it picked up again in the 1930s, that's when I came, sort of, personally, came to the tail end of it. After Second World War, it was just crushed. So by now, it was forgotten, but it's very real. I don't think it's really forgotten. I think it's just below the surface

19. Surface, yeah.

20. Of people's consciousness.

21. And this is a continuing problem and actually it's something emerges in your scientific work also, namely, extent to which and Histories and traditions are forgotten and actually to find a new position often means going back and finding those older traditions.

22. Things like this, they are forgotten in the intellectual culture. My feeling is they are alive in the popular culture. In people's sentiments and attitudes and understanding, so on. I mean, I know when I talk to working-class audiences today and I talk about these ideas, it seems very natural to them. It's true nobody talks about them, but when you bring it up. The idea that you have to rent yourself to somebody. You follow their orders. They own and you work there and you built it, but you don't own it. It's highly unnatural notion. You don't have to study any complicated theories to see it's just an attack on human dignity.

23. So, coming out of this tradition, being influenced by it, and continuing to believe in it. What is your notion of legitimate power? Under what circumstances is power legitimate?

24. Well, the core of the Anarchist tradition, as I understand it, is that power is always illegitimate unless it proves itself to be legitimate. So, the burden of proof is always on those that claim that authoritarian, hierarchic election is legitimate. If they can't prove it, then should be dismantled. Can you ever prove it? It's a heavy burden of proof to bear, but I think sometimes you can bear it. Take a homely (wrong word) example. I'm walking down the street with my four-year old granddaughter. And she starts to run into the street, I grab her arm and pull her back. That's an exercise of power and authority. But I think I can give a justification for it. Obvious what the justification would be. And there are other cases when you can justify it. But the question that always should be asked on the front of our minds is, "Why should I accept it?" It's the responsibility of those who exercise the power to show somehow it's legitimate. It's not the responbility of anyone else to show that it's illegitimate. It's illegitimate by assumption. If it's a relation of authority among human beings, which is some above others. And that's illegitimate by assumption. Unless you can give a strong argument to show that it's right, you've lost. It's kind of like use of violence, say, international affairs. There's a heavy burden to proof to anyone who calls for violence. Maybe, sometimes it can be justfied. I'm not commited pacifist. So, yes, I think it can be sometimes justified. In fact, article I wrote fourth grade, I thought that West should be using force to try to stop Fascism. And I still think so. Now, I know a lot more about it. Now I know that West was actually supporting Facism. Supporting Franco, supporting Mussolini, and so on. Even Hitler. Didn't know that at the time. But I thought and I think now that the use of force to stop that plague would have been legitimate and finally was legitimate. But an argument has to be given for it.

25. Is there a less of a burden of proof when you're looking at meager power entitities, looking at the powerless, basically. Is the burden of proof less for them?

26. The same. Take, say, people living under military occupation, or under racist regimes, and so on. I mean, they were right to resist. In fact, everyone in the world, except the United States and Israel, believe in their right to resist. If you look at the UN resolutions.

27. Talking about Palestain, now.

28. Palestain and South Africa. If you look at major UN resolution on terrorism. One in 1987 denouncing the plague of international terrorism, calling everyone to stop it. It passed with two negative votes, United States and Israel. The reason was exactly this. They explained it. It said, "Nothing in this resolution will prejudice the right of people to struggle for independence against colonist and racist regimes and foreign military occupation." Referred to South Africa and Israel. So therefore, the United States objected because it opposed, because it does not grant the right of people to resist against coloinal and racist regimes or military occupation. When US votes against these resolutions, they're out of History, so you don't read about it. But, it's there, war against terrorism, it's new, it's old, US is alone, it's opposing it. Now, I believe that the world is right on this and the US is wrong. There is a right to resist racist and colonist regimes and foreign military occupation. Then comes your question, "Is there a right to use violence to do that?" Well, no, I think the burden of proof is on those who say there is a right to use violence. And that's a hard burden to meet in Moral, and even tactically. Frankly, I think it can very rarely be met.

29. I'm curious. I think I read interviews where you have tried to separate your approach in Science and your appoach to Politics. I'm curious as to whether. I'll ask the question again. Is there, how, let me ask you this, how is your approach to this world as a scientist affect the influences the way you approach Politics?

30. I sort of, I think studying Sciences is a good way to get into fields like History. The reason is you learn what an argument means, you learn what evidence is, you learn what makes sense to postulate and when, what's going to be convincing, you sort of internalise the modes of rational inquiry, which happen to be much more advanced in Science than in anywhere else. On the other hand, applying Relativity Theory to History, you won't ["]catch["] anywhere. It's a mode of thinking. And I tried, at least, with what success, others have to judge, to use the mode of thinking that you would use in Sciences to Human Affairs. I think it's good idea to do so. As to other connections, there may be some, but they're very remote. If you think about core notions of Anarchism, which is why I say deeply rooted and popular traditions everywhere. For good reasons, I think. It's based on certain conception, if you try to take it apart, it's based on some kind of conception of what was called Instinct for Freedom. People have instinctive drive for freedom from domination and control. You can't prove it, but it's probably true. The core of I've been interested in Language was also interested in the kind of human freedom. Cognitive capacity to create indefinitely and it has roots in our nature. Now, Historically, people have drawn connection between this. So, if you look at 18th century, Enlightenment, Romantic period. These connections are explicitly drawn. If you read Rouseau, Wilhelm von Humboldt, and others. Connection between human freedom in Social and Political realm and human freedom in the creative cognitive capacity, particularly Language. They did try to establish connection. If you ask this can be established at the level of Science, the answer is, No. It's sort of parallel intuition which doesn't link up empirically, but maybe could someday if we know enough.

31. You said someone, I think in this book on power, "You can lie or distort the story of French Revolution as long as you like it and nothing would (will) happen. Propose a false theory in Chemistry, and it will be refuted tomorrow."

32. That's the kind of thing I mean. Nature's tough. Can't fiddle with Mother Nature, she's a hard mistress. So you're forced to be honest in Natural Science. Soft field, you are not forced to be honest. Nobody's going to undermine, I mean, there are standards, of course. On the other hand, they're very weak. What you propose is Ideologically acceptable, that is, supportive of power systems, you can get away with a huge amount. In fact, the difference between conditions that are imposed on dissident opinion and on main-stream opinion are radically different. I give you concrete example if you like.

33. Yeah, do.

34. If I write about terrorism as I've written about terrorism. And I think you can show that, without much difficulty, terrorism ["]pretty much["] corresponds to power. I don't think it's very surprising. That the more powerful States are involved in more terrorism, by and large. And the United States is the most powerful, so it's involved in massive terrorism by their own definition of terrorism. If I want to establish that, I'm required to give a huge amount of evidence. And I think that's a good thing. I don't object to that. I think anyone who makes that claim should be held to very high standards. So, extensive documentation from internal secret records, historical records, and so on. And if you ever find a common misplace, somebody ought to critise you for it. So I think those standards are fine. Let's suppose you ["]play["] the ["]main-stream game["]. For example, Yale University Press came out with a volume called The Age of Terror. Contributors are leading historians, many of them at Yale. Top people in their field. If you read the book, The Age of Terror, first thing you notice is there is no footnote. There isn't a single reference. They're just ["]off the top of your head["] statements. Some of the statements are tenable, some are untenable. But there are no criteria, there are no intellectual criteria imposed. The reviews of the book are very favorable and laudatory, and maybe it's right, maybe it's wro. I think a lot of it's wrong, monstorably (monstrously) wrong. But it doesn't really matter. You can say anything you want because you're supporting power, and nobody expects you to justify anything. For example, if I was, say, unimaginable circumstance, say, Nightline. If I was asked to say, Do you think Qaddafi is a terrorist? I can say, Yeah, Qaddafi is a terrorist. I don't need any evidence. Suppose I say, George Bush is a terrorist. Then I would be expected to provide evidence. "Why would you say that?"

35. If you aren't cut off right there.

36. In fact, the structure of the news production system is, you can't produce evidence. In fact, there's even a name for it. I learned it from a producer of Nightline, Jeff Greenfield. It's called concision. He was asked, in an interview somewhere, why they didn't have me on Nightline. His answer was. Two answers. First is, He talks turkish [nonsense, ridiculous statements], nobody understands it. The other answer was, He lacks concision. Which is correct, I agree with him. The kinds of things that I would say on Nightline, you can't say in one sentence because they depart from standard ["]religion["]. If you want to repeat the ["]religion["], you can get away with it between two commercials. If you want to say something that questions the ["]religion["], you're expected to give evidence. And that [which] you can't do between two commercials, so therefore you lack concision, so therefore you can't talk. That's a terrific technique for propaganda. To impose concision is a way of virtually guaranteeing party line gets repeated over and over again and nothing else is heard.

37. And this is why so much of your work in the area of Politics has really been focused on what you call Manufacture of Consent, framing of the issue, the way topics are put off (?), the table for discussion. And what your work suggests is that, in focusing on that, and understaind that, there's a hope for really understanding the problems we confront.

38. I should say that the term, Manufacture of Consent, is not mine. It's, I took it from Walter Lipmann, the leading public intellectual and leading media figure of the 20th century, who thought it was a great idea. He said, "We should manufacture consent. That's the way Democracy should work. There should be a small group of powerful people and the rest of the population should be spectators, and you should force them to consent by controlling, regimenting their minds." That's the leading idea of Democratic theorists and the public relations industry, and so on. So, I'm not making it up. In fact, I'm just borrowing their conception and telling other people what they think. And, yeah, it's very important. And, yes, there's hope. I think ordinary common sense suffices, no special training, like my uncle to unravel this and see what's really happening. I don't think it's hard to discover the US is the leading terrorist State. In fact, it's obvious.

39. And when one reads your arguments, really what you're laying out is really simple. If I can paraphse, If you're suddenly calling Iraq a rogue State in the 90s, what you were calling in the 80s, and they were doing the same thing, and that time you were helping them do it. And this is your critique of US Foreign Policy.

40. If George Bush tells us like he did last week, if Tony Blair tells us, in this case, "We can't let Sadam Hussein survive. Most evil man in History. Even used chemical weapon against his own people". I agree that far. It gives hypocricy a bad name to stop there. You have to add [that], Yes, he used the chemical weapons against his own people with the support of daddy Bush [George HW Bush], who continued to support him right past that, knowing what he was doing, helped him develop weapons of mass destruction, welcomed him as a friend and ally, gave him lavish aids after all these crimes. Unless you add that, like I said, giving hypocricy a bad name. While nobody does that. You can read the commentary on learned opinion, leading figures, they just stop. He used chemical weapons against his own people. This is not difficult to understand. I think you can explain this to children at school. And it takes major efforts for educated classes to prevent people from knowing these things. That takes dedication. It would be a lot easier to tell the truth. This is one example. It's a characteristic example. So, say, take late 1990s, in the last few years, there was a huge chorus of self-adulation in the West. How we are entering the new age of History, which englitened State, humanitarian ideals to the world for the first time in History, follow principle and values, and the proof of it is we're bombing Serbia. At the very same moment, the same people were actively supporting terrorist atrocities, which went way beyond anything charged to Milosevic in Kosovo did. In fact, I just happend to come back from (the site of (one of them)), South Eastern Turkey, where massive atrocities were going on.

41. Where Turkish Government is commiting atrocities against the Turkish people.

42. Yes, that's true. But the way I would put it is US Government is committing atrocities by providing....

43. By providing aid....

44. By providing the virtually eighty percent of the arms with increasing flow as the atrocities increased. Providing support, blocking criticism. Press is helping by not reporting it. In fact, even more amazingly, Turkey is praised here as a model for opposing terrorism, namely, by carrying out some of the worst terrorist atrocities in the late 1990s with our assistance. That's an impressively [impressive] contribution of educated culture. It takes effort to do this sort of thing. It's not hard to explain. In fact, I explained it in two minutes. I can give documentation if you want.

45. If we were in Council of Foreign Relations, which we're not, Turkey has to fit into large, strategic view of the world, in which they are modernising secular Islamic State, It's the State that has the Islam within its population. What would be your answer?

46. Therefore we should help them drive ((two to three million) of people) out of their homes, destroy thousands of villages? That's the question?

47. No, I won't go there.

48. In fact, I think we are harming Turkey by doing this. We are suporting the most reactionary strain in Turkey. Like I said, I was just there. I was there talking about these things. Popular support for opposing the military-run regime is overwhelming. We're supporting military-run regime. We're preventing modernisation and development. In fact, that's happening throughout much of the world. But even if it were true that we were helping modernisation, that, in no sense, justifies participation in some of the worst acts of terror, or worse, I don't know it's worse, parallel, praising them as a model for countering terror by carrying out massive terror. You can generalise this. Take, say, go somewhere else. Indonesia. When the US was trying to, Indonesia was following an indepent path in the 1950s and early 60s, US was strongly oppossed. Actually tried to beak up Indonesia in 1958. Finally military coup took place in 1965 with the assistance of United States in 1965. The coup massacred a couple of, maybe a million people, nobody knows. Mostly landless peasants. It was greeted here with complete unconstrained euphoria. It was described accurately. So, New York Times, staggering bloodbath. Time Magazine, you know, boiling bloodbath. It was praised. It was praised what they called the Indonesian moderates, namely the ones who carried out the massacre were turning the country into US client state. Well, for, up from til then, 65 from 98. The Indonesian leader, one of, (kind of like Sadam Hussein, one of the worst criminals in modern age), was lavishly praised and supported as a wonderful person. Clinton administration called him, "Our kind of guy" because he was serving US interests, well carrying out huge massacres and compiling one of the worst records of atrocities in the world. What happend to that in History? Well, you know, it's History. It's not something you teach people in a high school as you should in a free country. That's the task of intellectuals. Make, be careful to be sure that nobody understands what's going on. That's our major task.

49. You actually believe that there are two kinds of individuals, uh, intellectuals, one, the kinds that serve state power or power and rewarded. And the other, somebody, those who stand outside, who basically ["]call a spade a spade["].

50. We all agree with that when we're talking about enemies. So when we are talking about Soviet Union, we all agree there's a difference between commissars and dissidents. The commissars are the guys who are inside, propagating State propaganda. And the dissidents are a very small group on the fringe who are trying to ["]call a spade a spade["]. And we honor the dissidents and we condemn the commissars. When we turn around at home, it's the opposite. We honor the commissars and we condemn the dissidents. Furthermore, this goes right back through History. Go back to Classical Greece and Bible. Who drank the hemlock in Classical Greece? Was it a commissar or dissident? (Laughter of Kriesler) When you go to, say the Bible. If you read biblical record. Prophets just mean intellectuals. There were people giving geo-Political analysis, Moral lessons, that sort of thing. We call them intellectuals today. There were, the people we honor as prophets and the people we condemn as false prophets. But if you look at the biblical record, at the time, it was the other way around. (The flatteres of (the court of King Ahab)) were the ones who were honored. Ones we call prophets were driven to a desert and imprisoned. That's the way it's been through History. And understandably, power does not like to be undermined.

51. There's an important point here that I want to bring out, which is, if you're comparing, acting against Serbia at a time when we're not doing anything in East Timor or Indonesia, a number of other places.

52. It's not that we're not doing anything. We're doing something about it. We're intensifying the atrocities.

53. I guess, the really interesting is, the part of self-deception that is created by the media. We forget what we are doing in one place, say it would be very easy to do something about it, namely, stopping the military aid whereas, in other areas, for example, Serbia, if you start bombing, you know, "What are the consequences of innocent people?"

54. That's another question. These independanable of we should have done in Kosovo. Maybe, "Yeah, // on its own." But what it does show is, whatever we did, it's not humanitarian. You just take a look at everything that was going on, you see that. So what should we have done in Kassova? Here we take a look at the record. The record is interesting and it was suppressed by intellectuals. So there's a massive literature about it. If you look through that literature, you'll notice that something was systematically omitted, namely the actual records of what was happening. And we have voluminous record[s] from the State Department, from British Defense System, from NATO, from UN. As far as I'm aware, there's only one book in print that reviews that record, mine. And of course, the book is condemned because it reviews the record. What record shows is unequivocal. Right up to shortly before the bombing, the British, with the most hawkish  element in the co-alition internally, now released and it was internal, regarded  guerillas as the main source of atrocities. This was after Racak Massacre.

55. This would be the Albanian guerillas.

56. They said they were the main sources of atrocity. What they were trying to do was to illicit disporpotionate Serbian response, which they did, which they would bring to the West. Now, I don't personally believe that. But that's the British. We know that, right up until the bombing, nothing much changed. It is an ugly place. I mean, you know, these are not nice guys. Serbian occupiers doing vicious things. Not on the level of what we were doing in other places but bad enough. But nothing changed up to bombing. When the bombing was undertaken, it was on the expectation that it would illicit atrocities. Not surprisingly, you start bombing people, they react. And it did. You look at the Milosevic's trial, it's for crimes committed after the bombing. One exception, but.

57. Bombing being by NATO.

58. By NATO. After the bombing with the invasion threat exactly as anticipated. Atrocities amounted, they started exploding population. Now they are being. Those were crimes, undoubtedly. These guys are major criminals. But the crimes happened to be provoked by NATO bombing. Now what you read is, We had to bomb and return the Albenians to their homes. Except they were driven out of their homes after the bombing. Some displaced before, but the huge expulsion and everything was after the bombing. Before that, West didn't, you know, saw it as a kind of a, guerillas kind of illicit atrocities and responses are reponses. That's the description. If you don't tell the. You may then decide it was the right thing or wrong thing. But unless at least you look at the facts, you're not even in the ["]real world["]. For example, it's a fact, which we should look at. We can ask, "Was there an alternative?". Bad place, no doubt. "Was there an alternative to violence?" "Were there diplomatical alternatives?" You can see. I wrote at the time. It loooks like there [were] diplomatical alternatives. Serbia had a position, NATO had a position. If you actually take a look at the result after 78 days of bombing, it's compromised between those two positions. NATO gave up their most extreme demands, Serbs gave up their most extreme demands and there was kind of a compromise. Could there have been reached without bombing and atrocities? Well, you know, good case can be made that it was. But remember, the burden of proof is on those who say you have to bomb. They tried to put the burden of proof on others. They can't. It's the ones who use violence that have the burden of proof.

59. Not everyone is Noam Chomsky and can't produce the extraordinary opus of works on these issues. (Coward.) What is your advice for people who have the same concerns, who identify with the traditions you come out of, who want to be active in opposing these policies. What is it that they need to be doing that would be productive?

60. The same thing as the factory girls in Lowell textile plants one hundred and fifty years ago. They joined with others. To do these things alone is extremely hard. Especially when you're working fifty hours a day, a week to put food on the able. Join with others, you can do a lot of things. It's got a big multiplier effect. That's why unions have always been the lead of a development of Social and Economic progress. They bring together poor people, working people, able to learn from one another to have their own source of information and act collectively. That's how everything has changed. Civil Rights Movement, Feminist Movement, Solidarity Movement, Worker's Movement. The reason we don't live in a dungeon is because people have joined together to change things. And there's nothing differnt now from before. In fact, just the last 40 years, I've seen remarkable progress in this respect.

61. In that sense, in addition to ending the war in Vietnam, Protest Movement of the 60s really did changed our consciousness.

62. Totally changed our country.

63. It changed the behaviour of the Governments. What they had to do to get what they wanted.

64. I mean, this is a good time to talk about it. This March 2002 happens to be the 40th anniversary of the public announcement of Kennedy administration that they were sending US pilots to bomb South Vietnam. That's US bombing of South Vietnam. That was initiation of chemical warfare to destroy food crops, driving huge numbers of people to concentration camps. Nobody was there except the US and the South Vietnamese. That was US war against South Vietnam publicly announced. Not a people protested. The war went on for years before protest developed. By the time it did, not just Anti-War Movement, Civil Rights Movement, other rising movements, it changed popular consciousness. The country has become gotten a lot more civilised. No American president can possibly dream of what they did today. And the same is true in many other areas. Go back to 62 [1962], There was no Feminist Movement, there was very limited Human Rights Movements, extremely limited. There was no Environmental Movement, meaning rights to our grandchildren. There were no Third World Solidarity Movement. There was no Anti-Pot-High Movement. There was no Anti-Sweatshop Movement. I mean, all of the things we kind of take for granted just weren't there. Was it a gift from an angel? No, they got there by struggle, common struggle, dedicated themselves with others because you can't do it alone. And changed the, made it much more civilised country. There's a long way to go. That's not the first time it happened. And it will continue.

65. And I gather it's your belief that when we focus on heroes in the movements, that's a mistake. It's really the unsung heroes. Unsung seamstress, whatever, actually make a difference.

66. They were the ones who did this. Take Civil Rights Movements. The first one you think of is Martin Luther King. King was an important figure. He would have been the first to tell you, I'm sure, he was just riding the wave of activism. People who are doing the work. In the lead with Civil Rights Movement. Young sync workers, freedom writers, people out there in the streets every day, getting beaten, sometimes killed. Working constantly. And they created the situations, circumstances which Martin Luther King could come in and be a leader. His role was very important. I'm not denegrating it. It's very important. I've done that. But the people who are really important are the ones whose names are forgotten. That's true of every movement that ever existed.

67. If students were watching this tape, how would you advise them to prepare for the future. If they identify with the goals that you're putting on the table.

68. Be honest, critical. Accept elementary Moral principles. For example, the principle that, if something is wrong for others, it's wrong for us, things like that. Understand the importance of fundamental Anarchist principle, namely, illegitimacy of, prior illegitimacy of power and violence unless you can justify it, which is not easy. Their burden of proof, not yours. That's true whether it's a personal relations between, you know, in a family, international affairs. And beyond that, try to join with others who share your interest to learn more. To act responsibly to improve many serious problems of the world, which can be done.

69. There's important element of courage in these kind of work, is it not? And what is involved in that courage?

70. Well, you know, in a country like the United States, the level of courage that's involved is extremely low. I mean, if you are a poor black organiser in slums, it takes courage because you can get killed. If you are relatively well-off, educated white person, the level of courage is miniscule. Just see what other people face elsewhere. Okay, like I said, I just came back from Turkey. People in the southeast living in a dungeon, millions of them. I mean, they show real courage when they wear Curdish colors, speak openly, Turkish is their language, they can end up in Turkish prison or worse and that's not fun. Let's even go to Istanbul, sort of more Western. I actually went there for a Political trial. Government was publishing on trail a publisher who had published a couple of sentences of mine on repression of the Curds. In Istanbul, the writers, leading writers, journalist, artists, intellectuals, others, they are constantly carrying out civil disobedience. Like when I was there, they purposely co-published the book of banned writings. Writings of people in jail, banned, co-published it, went to a prosecutor, I went with them, demanding to be prosecuted. That's no joke. Some of them have been in jail, some of them will go back to jail. They face repression. They're not making a big fuss about it. They're just doing it in normal behaviour. They're not waving the flag. Look how courageous I am, that's just life. As compared to what they face every day, what we face is so pathetically small, we shouldn't even be talking about it. Yes, unpleasant things can happen. But not in comparison with what goes on in the world.

71. Coming out of Science and the level of complexity in that field, you can comprehend in your field, Linguistics. I'm curious as to whether this accounts for what I think I detect as a moderate, almost conservative the view on your part how much things can change, you know, in the short term. I don't know if it's a fair comment on you. But, but is that the case? By seeing so much, you understand that very little can sometimes be accomplished but that may be very important?

72. Very important. What's more, I don't think we should give up long-term visions. I agree with the factory girls in Lowell in 1850. I think wage slavery is an fundamental attack on human rights. I think those who work in the plants should own them. I think we should struggle against what was then the new spirit of the age. Gain wealth for everybody but yourself. That's degrading, destructive and, long term, I don't know how long. It should be dismantled. But right now, there are serious problems to deal with. Like, 30 million Americans who don't have enough to eat or people elsewhere in the world are far worse off. And who are in fact are under our boot. We are grinding them into dust. Those are short term things that can be dealt with. There's nothing wrong with gaining small gains. Like the gains I was talking about before from the 60s til today. They are extremely important for human lives. Doesn't mean there are mountain bigs to climb. There are. But you do what is within your range. The same in the Sciences. You might like to solve the problems of what causes human action or something. But the problem you work on are the ones right on the edge of your understanding. There's this famous joke about a drunk under a lamp post. Somebody comes up, "What are you looking for?" "I'm looking for a pencil that I dropped." "Where did you drop it?" "I dropped it across the street?" "Why are you looking here?" "This is where the light is." That's the way Sciences work. Maybe the problems you'd like to solve is across the street. But you have to work where the light is. You try to move a little further, maybe ultimately you'll get across the street. The same is true in Human Affairs. I mean, I think it's same is true in personal relations. Problems with your kids, that's the way you have to deal with.

73. One final question. I understand your unwillingness to focus on heroes to be made into hero. If an activist is watching this interview, what lesson might they draw from your life about what they can do in their life [lives] with regard to the issues they're concerned to them(?)?

74. Last night, for example, I gave a talk in Berkeley to big amount of people about the US and the Middle East, Israel, Palestine, Turkey, these things. Who's reponsible for that talk? Not me. I flew in from Boston, came over, and gave a talk. People responsible for that are people working on it. People working day after day to create the organisational structure, support system. They go back and work with the press over there. Maybe their names won't enter some record. But they are the ones who are leading everything. I come in. It's previledge to join them for an hour. That's easy. Get up and give a talk. It's no big deal. Working on it day after day all the time, that's hard. And that's important and that's what changes the world. Not somebody coming in and giving a talk.

75. Noam, thank you very much for joining us today fascinating discussion, at least, some aspects of your life and your work. Thank you.

76. Thank you.

77. And thank you very much for joining us for this Conversation with History.