NOAM CHOMSKY'S BLOG

Believe it or not, ZNet has set up Noam Chomsky with a blog. He also seems to update it regularly with short (compared to his essays and books), digestible posts aimed at non-intellectuals like you and me. Here's an excerpt from today's entry:

Globalization

In contemporary ideology of the past 20-25 years, the term "globalization" has been used to refer to a specific form of international economic integration, a mixture of liberalization and protectionism, designed in the interests of the designers (not surprisingly), that is investors, financial institutions, etc., and the few powerful states linked to them. Naturally, many people--probably the large majority of those who know anything about it--are opposed to this form of international integration, and favor globalization oriented to the needs of people, not concentrations of private power. They have quite concrete proposals, but these are silenced by the corporate media; the case of NAFTA was quite dramatic in this respect, and reviewed in print, but next to unmentionable within the doctrinal systems. When the term "globalization" is used in this well-crafted propagandistic sense, those who oppose "globalization" can be dismissed as primitives who want to return to the stone age, don't understand elementary economics, and other standard jeering and hysterics.

Click here for the rest (actually I've excerpted about half of it; I did say his posts were short).

Here's a good example of what Chomsky's talking about. I remember CNN covering the famous anti-globalization protests of 1999 in Seattle. Some generic anchorwoman didn't seem to understand what all the outrage was about and asked their political analyst Bill Schneider what they were protesting. Even though I don't understand everything about what's wrong with globalization, I have a pretty good idea, and I was curious about what Schneider had to say. When I heard his incredibly brief answer, my jaw dropped: "They're against trade," he said, practically spitting venom. This was pretty F'ed up. It's one thing to disagree with someone's position, but it's entirely another to rhetorically twist that position into absurdity, that is, to lie. And I know Schneider was lying because he, more than most people, ought to know better. His own CNN bio lists him as having "a doctorate in political science from Harvard University, where he later taught in the Department of Government." If I'm able to comprehend the anti-globalization's point of view, then it ought to be a slam-dunk for someone with Schneider's credentials.

The really funny thing is that conservatives like to call CNN liberal. But then, liberals do tend to support the establishment.

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