Noam Chomsky on WikiLeaks, Obama's Targeted Assassinations and Latin America's Break From US

DemocracyNow.org - As the United States carries out another deadly drone strike in Yemen, Noam Chomsky compares the counterterrorism policies of the George W. Bush and Obama administrations. "If the Bush administration didn't like somebody, they'd kidnap them and send them to torture chambers," Chomsky says. "If the Obama administration decides they don't like somebody, they murder them." Chomsky also praises the whistleblowing activities of WikiLeaks, as well as the ongoing Latin American shift away from Washington's long-running political and economic dominance.
See many other Democracy Now! interviews with Noam Chomsky in our playlist: bit.ly/JdNHZS
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[@coreycox2345]

Thank you, Noam Chomsky, for changing my view of the world with your many videos.

[@DeweyZinnChomskyFisk]

a new Chomsky-DN! interview!!!! on my birthday! this is the best gift so far

[@guccione2]

There are very few people left in this world that have the courage to speak the truth. Thank you Noam for the hard work you do to get to the truth of the matter and then say it. You are a fantastic person, thank you.

[@mzambo666]

Thanks for the interview DN!!!

[@maiqueashworth]

Very refreshing listening to truth spoken clearly

[@livevegan]

Thanks for the interview DN :)

[@Notecrusher]

It doesn't get any better than Amy Goodman interviewing Noam Chomsky.

[@matthewkopp2391]

Thank God for Chomsky.

[@LiquidYogi]

You can find the citations in his books. Mostly it's mainstream sources, other times it's from local journalists on the ground in the place where the thing is happening. His sources are really well done, and he's conservative with what he uses.

[@Streunekater]

OMG. And I gave up my course of studies in computer sciences (here in German: Informatics) because I couldn't get a grasp on the "Chomsky Hierarchy"... Thinking: "What this guy »scienced about« has nothing to do with the real world..." OK, now I'll try to understand what his science stuff means, now that I understood how important his "real life" and politics "stuff" was... This man is a great thinker and yet uses his heart. Thanks, Mr. Chomsky. Utmost regards and humble greetings from Germany.

[@GlassesAndCoffeeMugs]

"Assange should get the presidential medal of honor" Absolutely love how blunt he is lol

[@TruthUnderFire]

Damned straight.

[@KyleGarciaBernal]

great video!

[@DeweyZinnChomskyFisk]

thanks DN! !!!!

[@DeweyZinnChomskyFisk]

thank you DN! !!!!!!!!!

[@bodryn]

We have a neighbor who is 91 and is as sharp as a tack.

[@DeweyZinnChomskyFisk]

They didn’t debate each other alone in a room together; there was an audience… I read what you wrote the first time; you don’t need to repeat it over and over again… Just because you listen to Chomsky and hopefully read him as well, doesn’t mean you should consider yourself superior and view everyone else as “fools.”

[@DeweyZinnChomskyFisk]

I haven't read Singer but, in my college class, one of his books is on the list i can choose from to write a book critique; thanks for the suggestion

[@gwachberg]

i love to hear noam chomsky, even if he is interviewed in a jazzy bird house ...

[@zerosum318]

I agree. There's a piano player and birds in the background. WTF?

[@contacter]

Chomsky is a hero of the Revolution.

[@ares1815]

just wanted to complain about it too

[@conifergreen2]

Omar Khadr was not "defending his village". He is a Canadian citizen. His "village" is Toronto. He was not defending Canada. He was overseas building IED`s. He killed an American medic.

[@bozolazic]

I repeated it only once. - Just because I think Dershowitz is a dishonest fool doesn't mean I think that I am superior to everybody else and that everybody else is a fool.

[@GiantSandles]

I assume the music was there in real life anyway, lol

[@fracktuis2716]

Plus Peter Singer.

[@DeweyZinnChomskyFisk]

i guess you've never watched him debate Dershowitz then

[@not2tees]

Morality as if it mattered, that's Chomsky.

[@andyx1205]

Please do not idol worship Chomsky, he himself would dislike it since he's an anarchist. It's not up to people like Chomsky to save America, intellectuals like him can serve a meaningful purpose to educate the people and expose the system. Yet, at the end of the day, it's up to the people themselves to bring about the change they seek. Chomsky and others like him can play a meaningful role, the bourgeois intelligentsia often play important roles in revolutions, but it's up to the people.

[@jasonborotra4208]

The dude is like 84 years old and is constantly moving around giving speeches, so this is pretty good. When I'm his age I hope I'll still be alive, have all my brain still working and be able to travel everywhere like that.

[@urbanverificationist]

FYI: I've read philosophers from Plato to Quine. A couple of my favorite historians are the more popular Barbara W. Tuchman and the more philosophical Hayden White. I've read social historians like Friedrich Engles and Foucault and labor historians like Paul Buhle among others.

[@urbanverificationist]

As for Aristotle, his influence has been negligible. Most western societies have, until recently, believed that the differences between peoples were "in the blood," that the differences between men and women were ingrained in nature, and that the moral world they inhabited was given by God. Such beliefs didn't leave much room for change. Behaviorism and the notion that "human nature" is malleable are relatively new ideas as are the social sciences.

[@genericfacelessuser]

Yeah, apparently someone skipped the interview portion(s) of their journalism class(es). Elementary mistakes made by "pros" is why we're griping.

[@urbanverificationist]

Causality in the case of male/female relations is indeterminable.

[@azizukman]

It's nice that the polite pianist stopped when the reporter was talking but a shame he/she starting up again soon as Mr Chomsky talked. Mmm... Was the audio edited so that utubers wouldn't bother listening to the professor.

[@urbanverificationist]

I know that. I specifically mentioned political franchise which includes everything. Upper class women had "pin money," an income and property prior to marriage and not subject to their husband's management. Still, an official separation of marital property was passed even though some women argued the only salient point of the new marriage law was to put women (rather than their husbands) in prison for not paying their own debts.

[@Streunekater]

Maybe you're right. But I'd rather listen to an interview with him for 10h with birds and trucks in the background than 10mins of an interview with any current politician of any country withOUT any annoying BG noises :)

[@bozolazic]

The more I read MagicKirin comments the more I realize he works next to MIT, not at MIT. - The proverb says that 'the answer to a fool is silence'.Observation, however, indicates that almost any other answer will have the same effect in the long run.

[@PhilmanX]

Where the hell do you get that from? He was never a U.S. citizen from what all the info out there says.

[@gloiven]

i wish the interviewer would stop using the past tense towards noam. he is still alive and she is a fan, that's clear, but she needs to correct her language.

[@DeweyZinnChomskyFisk]

rockin' my DN! bumper sticker

[@TruthUnderFire]

Are you seriously going to complain about the audio? LOL. A lot of times these interviews are unscheduled. They happen when they happen. If it were planned out ahead of time maybe they didn't get there in time for sound check. But you CAN understand what he's saying. That's what matters.

[@DeweyZinnChomskyFisk]

And you're basing this on....?

[@urbanverificationist]

What's ignored in the usual bemoaning that women were once, at least nominally, regarded as men's "property," is that women were fully complicit in promoting their own dependence on men and even damned men for not being good providers. The law went so far as to provide women the means to sue their own husbands for lack of support and legislation to this effect continues today. While I deeply respect Chomsky, I'm less a believer in progress than good fortune as what we have now can be taken away

[@DeweyZinnChomskyFisk]

if chomsky lived by that rule then we wouldn't even be here

[@DeweyZinnChomskyFisk]

you've read all the philosophers except the most important and reasonable one, Dewey

[@urbanverificationist]

Dewey's most cherished, philosophic principle was Fallibilism. I will honor it with my own skepticism concerning the fashionable ideas and pop ideology of my day. Let us agree here to disagree. Whatever I can freely assert, you can freely deny and I will never deny you your right to be wrong.. Take Care,

[@evenkeel87]

I would really like to know where Chomsky finds his information (I mean that sincerely, not skeptically). Like that case of the 15 year-old in Afghanistan: where the hell did he find that? Wikileaks?

[@urbanverificationist]

Dewey's assessments of philosophy are, as Chomsky would say, uncontroversial. One could say the same of law. And not much has changed. I find many modern beliefs about the nature of male/female relations, let alone traditional ones, unconvincing. I am more distant from Aristotle than I am from Gloria Steinem. Although, in the end, I would say that old Aristotle, for all his timely prejudices, remains a far brighter star than Steinem will ever hope to be.

[@TiffanyMadison]

Terrible audio. Who decided to interview him with birds and a piano in the background?

[@Streunekater]

Yes! God Dman The Birds! :D Hehe... (OKOK, I understand you as I tried to live out in nature and the birds woke me up at 4:30 every day :D )

[@urbanverificationist]

Also, our concepts of Natural Rights are relatively new. To presume men and women in the past felt "oppressed" because they did not possess our notions of democracy and entitlement would be like expecting the practice of voting to become universal in the instant is was conceived and then calling men unfair because it did not. People may also complain that men did not allow women their education but none expected women to build the schools. Institutions and inclusion take time to develop.

[@urbanverificationist]

Male dominance is a function of how we evolved as a species, sexual selection, and finally, cultural expectation. Men are, as the feminist/anthropologist Margaret Mead said, "The impetus of culture." This is to say that men have been the architects, engineers, and builders of our physical world.

[@walterd02]

Can someone tell me this Dewey's full name, I'd like to look into him

[@Crushchin]

Good ol Normy! Man can that dude drone!

[@urbanverificationist]

Leading question there. With racism, the prejudices of one people against another are not held by the other people. With sexism, there is no such thing as a sexual prejudice that is unique to one gender. (At least as far as I know.)

[@bozolazic]

Dershowitz is not Noam's audience. Dershowitz is a fool.And you know what they say about fools. - The proverb says that 'the answer to a fool is silence'.Observation, however, indicates that almost any other answer will have the same effect in the long run.

[@urbanverificationist]

Feminism has constructed the problem of domination as a drama of female vulnerability victimized by male aggression. Even the more sophisticated feminist thinkers frequently shy away from the analysis of submission, for fear that in admitting woman’s participation in the relationship of domination, the onus of responsibility will appear to shift from men to women, and the moral victory from women to men.

[@Streunekater]

If the content is passionate enough to make an abundance of people passionately talking about what he said, he is passionate enough! If you sum up to takl as passionate and moving in your life as he did in his life, I'll make a deeeeeeeeeep bough for you.

[@bozolazic]

That's the answer Noam would have given and has given him/her. I guess he/she didn't learn much from Noam.(;

[@DeweyZinnChomskyFisk]

there was

[@urbanverificationist]

I realize that to some women no right is more precious than the right to think of their gender as an oppressed class, as if their politics and culture were untouched by the system of domination, as if women did not participate in their own submission. To reduce domination to a simple relation of doer and done-to is to substitute moral outrage for analysis. The faults of philosophy are many but I prefer its disciple to the fashionable ideas and pop ideology that count for public knowledge.

[@MagicKirin]

He would have denounced his religion just like he renounces everything great about this country.

[@DeweyZinnChomskyFisk]

i remember there was information about Israeli aggression toward Iran, Lebanon, Palestine, etc. Not sure of the specifics though John Dewey and Robert Fisk (journalist). Dewey is the Chomsky of the first half of the twentieth century. chomsky is inspired by dewey a lot

[@HAL_NlNETH0USAND]

John Dewey

[@pierrefrederick3763]

I wouldn't be so sure. Harper has been showing his colors since he took power yet people still elected him.

[@bozolazic]

Jealous?!

[@genericfacelessuser]

I like Noam and all, but sometimes I wish he would SPEAK UP! lol

[@menoyuno8430]

even the birds are louder lol

[@bozolazic]

Noam Chomsky 2012! - If I were to run for president, I would say: Don't vote for me. ---Noam Chomsky - Nobody 2012! (;

[@ror312gallery19]

its a jazz guitarist,,,,actually it adds something to the interview,reality maybe.

[@urbanverificationist]

Slavery is another subject. Women's lagging political enfranchisement was not in any way commensurate to the position of slaves and attempts to equate the two is hyperbole. Women were not less sexist than men throughout history and fully complicit is the traditional moral order of things. These and other facts make the notion that women were a subjugated "class" impalpable. Our argument is purely academic

[@bozolazic]

I'm sorry if I insulted you, but I stand by my observation.

[@richardstockton8680]

His next words were unfortunately hard to hear over the sound of heavily armed wrong blowing him the fuck away. Of course, the bad people who shot him down were only hurting themselves, right? I've had enough of goddamn hippies imagining that a system of organized cannibalism will *someday* come crashing down in the face of "unarmed truth." When the sheriff's deputies come to foreclose on your house, I urge you to strike at the bank with "unconditional love" and see how far you get.

[@urbanverificationist]

I would add that coercion and oppression are linked to new institutions and patterns as well. Nonetheless, the statement doesn't explain those institutions and patterns. It's been argued that violence and coercion go hand in hand with civilization. Certainly, some groups gain the upper hand over others. However, if women are an oppressed class, they are the only oppressed class that can proudly say they have born and raised their own oppressors. That complicates claims of their subjugation.

[@whatwayzup]

I click on these videos just to hear people say his name.

[@DeweyZinnChomskyFisk]

"At the worst, this has reduced philosophy to a show of elaborate terminology, a hair-splitting logic, and a fictitious devotion to the mere external forms of comprehensive and minute demonstration.Even at the best, it has tended to produce an overdeveloped attachment to system for its own sake, and an over-pretentious claim to certainty." -John Dewey why are you so passionate about being an apologist for forms of subjegation? ....

[@MagicKirin]

First no difference than killing with a drone or a missle it's progress. Second waterboarding is not torture but I would like see Chomsky waterboarded

[@bozolazic]

Isn't Dershowitz that fictional writer?

[@DeweyZinnChomskyFisk]

Saying "our argument is purely academic" serves a purpose: it justifies using 'philosophy' in a way that is entirely abstracted from reality and real-world situations. the rationalistic logic that you employ has been used by philosophers to justify existing institutions and forms of indoctrination. 'Philosophy' has been reduced to "a show of elaborate terminology, a hair-splitting logic, and a fictitious devotion to the mere external forms of comprehensive and minute demonstration" (Dewey).

[@havour907]

What a hilariously terrible place to interview a softly spoken person. Sounds like piano practice in the background.

[@duddersrules]

Bitch please he is perfectly audible.

[@DeweyZinnChomskyFisk]

suppression of women is based upon deep-rooted traditions and institutions. Aristotle also used the existence of a situation--slavery--as the justification for why that institution is natural and should exist, thus reversing the cause and the effect

[@dudkun]

Rape charges conveniently surfacing after he leaked the documents. Why come on videos and flame in caps when you've hardly looked into any of these things?

[@domain387]

She didn't. You must not be talking about this interview and are on the wrong page.

[@urbanverificationist]

As for the level of women's subjugation, I've heard all manner of horror stories usually pertaining to how women "are treated" in society's other than our own and how women "were treated" in the past rather than the present. In all these stories, there is certain amount of local, modern conceit. Ethnocentrism to be sure as regards other societies. But also the presumption that because we think the past ought to have been different that it could have been different.

[@bozolazic]

MagicKirin must be a janitor or a groundskeeper at MIT. If he had a higher position he wouldn't have the time to be on the KZbin comment section. Just an observation.(;

[@MagicKirin]

Only that he has a cusy job at MIT despite being held in contempt by the student and the faculty. Morally and intellectually not a chance

[@DeweyZinnChomskyFisk]

i recommend you read Dewey, and not just read one word on Wiki "Philosophy has arrogated to itself the office of demonstrating the existence of a transcendent, absolute or inner reality and of revealing to man the nature and features of this ultimate and higher reality. It has therefore claimed that it was in possession of a higher organ of knowledge than is employed by positive science and ordinary practical experience, and that it is marked by a superior dignity and important..." Dewey

[@DeweyZinnChomskyFisk]

are you trying to insult me (and yourself)?

[@d5486]

one thing about smart people... they still havent figured out a way to make the stupid listen... .. to make them smarter...

[@spukus]

The guitar is annoying as hell

[@skwiddjergensen]

This dude is a mumbling blah blah talking head. Now let's go watch a "Peanuts" cartoon down at the library. Come on Charlie Brown!

[@kkjood100]

Not every country is bad. Come to europe bro..

[@DeweyZinnChomskyFisk]

he does not "support islamic terrorism"....

[@DavidWicked]

Duh anyone with a brain in their head knows assange is an American hero. Even if he is Australian.

[@bozolazic]

Yes, but his audience isn't always packed with fools. - Haven't you ever told somebody a truth and they look at you as though you have just dropped from the moon?

[@MagicKirin]

Go to Frontpagemagazine May 15 2006 since you refuse to google it, here is one source. Until you read it shut up!

[@urbanverificationist]

Why the rudeness? Do a little thought experiment. Suppose women 400 years ago were as egalitarian as women today. Would that world have been radically different? I believe so. Other's might say men would have held them down regardless. It's the difference between seeing women's inequality simply in terms of how men perceive women rather than in terms of how women perceive themselves.

[@nickst0ne]

HOLY SHIT !!! I can't follow anything he says due to the level of the music and the birds ! What a waste !

[@urbanverificationist]

By "purely academic" I mean much ado about nothing and certainly irrelevant to the pragmatic goals of the women's movement which I support. No one is denying the facts of sexism and sexual discrimination whether against women or men for that matter. That these facts in themselves constitute an intentionally concerted effort on the part of men to oppression women is another matter.