Radical media, politics and culture.
September 5, 2003 - 8:45am -- jim
Analysis & Polemic
Mainstream Media

"On Corporate Journalism"

Noam Chomsky

Telephone interview by Bernie Dwyer for Cuba Debate with Professor Noam Chomsky of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 28th August 2003. The agreed theme of the interview was ‘Corporate Journalism’ but,
like all good interviews, the topic spread to take in many other themes --
always with the rigorous political analysis that we are used to from
Professor Chomsky.

[Bernie Dwyer]  A couple of new popular books have recently been published such as Weapons of Mass Deception and Stupid White Men. Do you see them as a viable alternative to the corporate media?

[Noam Chomsky]  No, they are not trying to be an alternative to the corporate media. They are just books among the many books written about the way the corporate media function and there is by now, in the United States, more than any other Western country that I know, a rather significant popular movement concerned with the corporate media, which is virtually all the media within the United States, and the way they function as a kind of propaganda system.

September 3, 2003 - 3:28pm -- jim
Analysis & Polemic
News

jim submits "Prompted by a discussion on lbo-talk about Tom Delay, the 'Christian Zionist,' and American public opinion polls appearing to demonstrate support for the 'cretinous' Alabama Ten Commandments judge recently all over the American news, C. G. Estabrook offers some statistics and categorical clarity."


"American Apocalyptics"

C. G. Estabrook

It's surprisingly difficult to get good statistics about Americans'
theological views, in part because, as the Census Bureau explains at its
site,


"The Bureau of the Census collected information in the Census of Religious
Bodies from 1906-1936. This information was obtained from religious
organizations. Public Law 94-521 prohibits us from asking a question on
religious affiliation on a mandatory basis; therefore, the Bureau of the
Census is not the source for information on religion."

The Statistical Abstract of the United States has some information, but
not much beyond denominational membership. The standard reference work is
David Barrett's massive two-volume World Christian Encyclopedia (Oxford
UP, 2001); an excellent web-site, Adherents, draws together
information from a variety of studies.
September 3, 2003 - 9:43am -- jim
Analysis & Polemic
News

Anonymous Comrade submits :

"Jihad Unspun"

Noam Chomsky, August 16, 2003

September 2002 was marked by three events of considerable importance,
closely related. The United States, the most powerful state in history,
announced a new national security strategy asserting that it will maintain
global hegemony permanently. Any challenge will be blocked by force, the
dimension in which the US reigns supreme. At the same time, the war drums
began to beat to mobilise the population for an invasion of Iraq . And the
campaign opened for the mid-term congressional elections, which would
determine whether the administration would be able to carry forward its
radical international and domestic agenda.

September 1, 2003 - 3:24pm -- jim
Analysis & Polemic
News

"Unless The White House Abandons Its Fantasies, Civil War Will Consume The Iraqi Nation"

Robert Fisk, 08/30/03


In Iraq, they go for the jugular: two weeks ago, the UN's
top man, yesterday one of the most influential Shia Muslim clerics.
As they used to say in the Lebanese war, if enough people want you dead,
you'll die.


So who wanted Ayatollah Mohamed Bakr al-Hakim dead? Or, more to the
point, who would not care if he died?

September 1, 2003 - 11:41am -- jim
Analysis & Polemic
News

"Dreams and Delusions"

Edward Said, Al Ahram, August 30, 2003

During the last days of July, Representative Tom Delay (Republican) of Texas, the House majority leader described routinely as one of the three or four most powerful men in Washington, delivered himself of his opinions regarding the roadmap and the future of peace in the Middle East. What he had to say was meant as an announcement for a trip he subsequently took to Israel and several Arab countries where, it is reported, he articulated the same message. In no uncertain terms Delay declared himself opposed to the Bush administration's support for the roadmap, especially the provision in it for a Palestinian state. "It would be a terrorist state," he said emphatically, using the word "terrorist" -- as has become habitual in official American discourse -- without regard for circumstance, definition or concrete characteristics. He went on to add that he came by his ideas concerning Israel by virtue of what he described as his convictions as a "Christian Zionist", a phrase synonymous not only with support for everything Israel does, but also for the Jewish state's theological right to go on doing what it does regardless whether or not a few million "terrorist" Palestinians get hurt in the process.

September 1, 2003 - 11:24am -- jim
Analysis & Polemic
Theory

Anonymous Kumquat submits:

"Chomsky and Foucault on Human Nature"

A Discussion Moderated by Fons Elders

Excerpts from a 1971 discussion between Noam Chomsky and Michel Foucault,
from "Human Nature: Justice Versus Power," in Reflexive Water: The Basic Concerns of Mankind edited by Fons Elders (Souvenir Press, 1974).

ELDERS: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the third debate of the International Philosophers' Project. Tonight's debaters are Mr. Michel Foucault, of the College de France, and Mr. Noam Chomsky, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Both philosophers have points in common and points of difference. Perhaps the best way to compare both philosophers would be to see them as through a mountain working at opposite sides of the same mountain with different tools, without even knowing if they are working in each other's direction.

August 31, 2003 - 11:11am -- jim
Analysis & Polemic
Theory

Anonymous Comrade submits:

"Notes on Summits and Counter-Summits:

The Illusion of a Center"

Capitalism is a social relationship and not a citadel for the powerful. It is starting from this banality that one can confront the question of summits and counter-summits. Representing capitalist and state domination as a kind of general headquarters (it’s a question of the G8, the WTO or some other such organization) is useful to those who would like to oppose that managing center with another center: the political structures of the so-called movement, or better, their spokespeople. In short, it is useful to who propose merely a change in management personnel. Besides being reformist in essence and purpose, this logic becomes collaborationist and authoritarian in method, as it leads to centralization of the opposition.

August 30, 2003 - 9:08pm -- jim
Analysis & Polemic
Mainstream Media

Anonymous Comrade submits:

"A George Will Follies Review"

John Chuckman

I used to read George Will occasionally just to see how strange words bent to political purpose could become. No political commentator in America is better able to use large words to say something at times indescribably odd. I don't ask you to take this from me on faith. I offer examples, although none is recent since my tolerance for this sort of stuff has worn thin.

August 30, 2003 - 6:53pm -- jim
Analysis & Polemic
Rants

Anonymous Comrade submits:

"How To Start A War In Iraq"

William Rivers Pitt

truthout Perspective
, Friday 29 August 2003


"Well, I guess they had it coming."

"We've all got it coming, kid." -- Unforgiven

1. Lose an election and win a lawsuit. Move into the White House. Surround
yourself with
(http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/042103I.shtml) ideological extremists from
the far-right
wing of the Republican Party. Put them get to work
(http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/09.18C.iraq.plann ed.htm) planning 'regime
change' in
Iraq, something they themselves have been planning for years.

August 30, 2003 - 4:43pm -- nolympics
Analysis & Polemic
Prisons & Prisoners

hydrarchist submits "

What
is The New School of Convict Criminology?



"That's
the reality, and to hell with what the class-room
bred, degree toting, grant-hustling 'experts' say
from their well-funded, air-conditioned offices far
removed from the grubby realities of the prisoners'
lives."

Rideau
and Wikberg, 1992: 59



Dr Jeffery Ian Ross and Stephen C. Richards •
FedCURE Newsletter. Winter: 6, 14.

[Introduction,
"What is the New School of Convict Criminology?"]

The
correctional system in the United States, and most
other countries, is unquestionably flawed. Efforts
to reform jails, prisons, and other correctional facilities
have largely failed and the number of individuals
incarcerated is at its highest historic level. There
is also something wrong when criminology/criminal
justice research is dominated by government funding,
conducted by academics or consultants who have had
minimal contact with the criminal justice system,
or by former employees of the law enforcement establishment
(ex- police, correctional, probation, or parole officers).
These individuals appear content to conduct research
from the safety and comfort of their offices, often
in an effort to simply increase the revenue of their
firms, improve their status inside their companies,
enhance their chances of tenure and promotion, or
improve the working conditions in correctional institutions.
Much of this "managerial research" routinely
disregards the harm perpetrated by criminal justice
processing of on individuals arrested, charged, and
convicted of crimes (Clear, 1994; Cullen, 1995).

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