[lit-ideas] Reality Check and a movie review
- From: Paul Stone <pas@xxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 02 Mar 2006 14:02:10 -0500
I want to say I think my earlier comments about the domestic spying were,
what's the word, unrealistic, and I want to apologize for being again
maybe a little alarmist. This is America. It's still America. It hasn't
changed. I get carried away sometimes. My apologies.
You? Alarmist? Ged da hell oudda heah!
<mind-breaking non seguetur>
While we're talking about the bogeyman and anti-americanism... I watched a
very interesting film the other day about Noam Chomsky called [I
think] "Rebel without a Pause". As usual, I watched with amazement as he
is so uncompromisingly straight-forward.
Whether I agree with him or not, I just love listening to his incredibly
down-to-earth clear thinking. At one point someone asked him about
McCarthyism. His response was something like "you know what, I lived
through that and those of us who were really the most serious threats just
laughed at Joe. We just ignored him. In the end, we began to cheer for Joe
because after a while, he began to get the raw end of the stick." I can't
imagine a more constant, truth-merchant than Chomsky. I disagree with his
politics greatly, but I just admire the hell out him for really being a
real rebel, even before there WERE rebels. As another professor in the
movie says, he took great personal sacrifices and put a VERY successful
career on the line as he took up his activism. That alone is a remarkably
brave thing to do. To continue to point such things out under constant
threats over the span of 50 years is incredible.
One of the pervading themes of the clips that they chose to show in the
movie was one of how commercial television has succeeded -- and I must
stress Chomsky's main point, "in a very deliberate and planned out way" --
in brainwashing the American public. He talks about fear being fed and
manufactured, in a way that doesn't sound sophomoronic like Michael Moore's
minutes-long skit a la SouthPark in "Bowling for Columbine". What Moore
attempts to do with his parody, Chomsky eloquently says in plain English.
At one point, someone asks him about whether he's fears that his message is
not heard because it's too complicated. He says "my ideas, when stated
simply like this, should not give trouble to anyone with even an elementary
school education. A child could understand this." It's too bad they don't
get a chance to listen.
I think the most surprising thing is Chomsky's revelation that NPR is
actually one of the most rigid, unflinchingly, party-line news sources in
the country. Ironically, it is that bastion of all that is 'good' which
censors and bans the most of anything which doesn't agree with their
thoughts and messages.
Another thing that struck me about this movie was his wife, Carol. She is
obviously a great woman beside a great man. At the end of the film, there
is a shot of him and his wife walking down the hallway to his dressing room
at the college he was talking at. They are arm in arm, a little bit frail,
betraying their age, but still both hearty activists, she just by virtue of
being his manager and soulmate. She is trying to slow him down a bit, but
he's an unfettered force.
It's rather a pity that a guy like Noam Chomsky gets old and eventually
dies. He'll be missed just because he's so damned persistent. Can anyone
THINK of a guy who will begin to fill his shoes? I can't think of someone
saying such objectionable things in such an unobjectionable manner.
Yes, of course there are those of you who will say "good riddance" to that
pest. But we need more pests. We need more Chomskys to stand up and say to
the government "I don't care if you tap my phone".
paul
##########
Paul Stone
pas@xxxxxxxx
Kingsville, ON, Canada
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