Noam Chomsky –
Distorted Reality America’s War On
Terror?
Picture: C
Sound: C Extras: C+ Main Program: B
Noam Chomsky, inarguably one of the smartest men in the
world and a living legend in the humanities.
He helps found linguistics and is the epitome of the intellectual, i.e.,
an educated man who can think for himself and happens to be exceptionally well
spoken. Distorted Morality
(2002) offers Chomsky’s take on world events after the confusion over the
attacks of September 11th, 2001.
In an hour-long program taped at a major university, Chomsky argues that
the problem with fighting a so-called war on terror is that everyone
(especially the media) have suddenly forgotten the concept of state-sponsored
terrorism.
Chomsky begins to address terrorism as the
overgeneralization the media has oversimplistically made it out to be. He peels away every unquestioned assumption
slowly until the end of his lecture, particularly using examples of terrorism
from 1985 and giving the benefit of the doubt to the U.S. government. He does not even bring up the Iran-Contra
Affair, surprisingly, sticking instead to the Middle East, past and
present. He also discusses how the media
self-censures it reports, how the items rarely surface, and then only in marginalized
ways. He does not say the U.S. “asked
for it”, as Right-Wing reactionaries would like to scream, but that governments
have their own deadly activities that are just as terroristic as those launched
by guerillas and less-powerful entities.
The twist with 9/11, which Chomsky does not go into, is that it looks
like some nation-states were supporting Al Queda and had been doing so for
years, not counting the way the U.S. used Bin Laden to do the Soviet Union in.
As brilliant a man as Chomsky is, there is one point were
I strongly differ. I was surprised how
he misread the famous axiom that “terrorism is a strategy of the weak”. He disagreed, saying it is of the strong,
backing his examples of state-sponsored terror from the most powerful nations in
the world. This from a man who actually
agrees that Iraq DID have “weapons of mass destruction”, even if not to the
degree the George W. Bush administration claims. The fact is, terrorism is still from the weak, even the weak side
of the powerful. It is what they do
indirectly as a substitute for not doing things upfront. You can cause fear, but that is a limited
deterrent, so the phrase still stands, no matter the sponsor. On this, I would personally debate Chomsky
anytime, though he is certainly better read than I am on current political
facts. Oh, the sacrifices of the film
fan.
The full screen image is in color and videotaped, both on
the average side, but this is just a lecture, so that is expected. The speech is clearly recorded for the most part,
but WARNING: the Epitaph logo is SO
loud, you NEED to make sure you have your volume LOW when you start playing
this DVD. Extras include a Chomsky
biography, bibliography, list of awards and honors, and a great section of
extras questions answered, which you can choose from.
This also makes a fine companion to Power & Terror,
another recent release featuring Chomsky’s thoughts on world events. Even if you do not agree with everything he
says (who can you name that you do, unless you are an idiot), programs like Distorted
Morality challenge the audience to think for itself and not be intimidated
by fear or brainwashed by idiocy. Now,
more than ever, people need to think for themselves, especially in a time when
we are being told to shut-up, give-up, and forget about having a better
life. The individual power to say no to
all this means saying yes to better times ahead. You do not even need to be a Political Science genius, just
yourself uninhibited.
- Nicholas Sheffo
