Two years ago this summer i read a book that changed the entire way i see the world. I had been researching various topics law, politics, the media and become more and more convinced that something was seriously wrong. Politicians, i was shocked to discover, werent actually doing what the people wanted. And the media, my research found, didnt really care much about that, preferring to focus on such things as posters and polls.

Then, one night, i watched the film manufacturing consent: noam chomsky and the media i think it had come up in my netflix queue. Its undoubtedly the best documentary ive seen, weaving together all sorts of clever tricks to enlighten and entertain. I didnt understand all of what it was saying at the time, but i understood enough to realize that something was severely amiss. The core of the film is a case study of indonesias brutal invasion of the country of east timor. The us personally gave the green light to the invasion and provided the weapons, which allowed indonesia to massacre the population in an occupation that, per capita, ranks with the holocaust. Noam chomsky has dozens of books but i was fortunate to choose to read understanding power. Edited by peter mitchell and john schoeffel, two public defenders in new york, the book is a collection of transcripts of group discussions with chomsky.

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Chomsky lays out the facts in a conversational style, telling stories and explaining things in response to questions from the groups, covering an incredibly wide range of topics. And on every single one, what he tells you is completely shocking, at odds with everything you know, turning the way you see things upside down. Mitchell and schoeffel know youre unlikely to believe these things, so theyve carefully footnoted and documented every claim, providing blockquote excerpts from the original sources to establish them. Each story, individually, can be dismissed as some weird oddity, like what id learned about the media focusing more on posters than on policy.

But seeing them all together, you cant help but begin to tease out the larger picture, to ask yourself whats behind all these disparate things, and what that means for the way we see the world. Im not the only one to feel this way norman finkelstein noted that when he went through a similar experience, it was a totally crushing experience for me. And there were quite a number of weeks where i just was in bed, totally devastated.

I remember vividly clutching at the door to my room, trying to hold on to something while the world spun around. Every time i saw a newspaper or magazine or person on tv, i questioned what i thought knew about them, wondered how they fit into this new picture. Questions that had puzzled me for years suddenly began making sense in this new world. One terrifying side effect of learning the world isnt the way you think is that it leaves you all alone. And when you try to describe your new worldview to people, it either comes out sounding unsurprising yeah, sure, everyone knows the medias got problems or like pure lunacy and people slowly back away. Ever since then, ive realized that i need to spend my life working to fix the shocking brokenness id discovered. And the best way to do that, i concluded, was to try to share what id discovered with others.

I couldnt just tell them it straight out, i knew, so i had to provide the hard evidence. Ive learned a bunch more but, despite my best efforts, havent found any problems with this frightening new world view. After all this time, im finally ready to talk about what happened with some distance and i hope im now able to begin work on my book in earnest. understanding power on amazon the understanding power web site manufacturing consent dvd on amazon manufacturing consent torrent companion book you should follow me on twitter here. of course you can publish this my reaction to noam chomsky was very different. Consider chomskys claim in what uncle sam really wants that free trade is fine for economics departments and newpaper editorials, but nobody in the corporate world or the government takes the doctrines seriously. Your allergic reaction to chomsky is a classic, although i cant help but wonder if things would have been different had you picked a more scholarly or at least footnoted work instead of what uncle sam really wants which isnt really written by chomsky its sort of a hodge podge of transcribed comments mixed together by others and isnt very good. But the point i understand chomsky to be making here is the same as the one dean baker makes in his latest and quite good book the conservative nanny state namely, that corporations and governments push for constraints on the free market all the time, while pretending otherwise.

The wording may be a little hyperbolic, but perhaps you can cut him some slack considering theyre off the cuff remarks. Tragedies like the indonesia massacre have happened many times throughout history. All nations withdrew their people leaving the hutus murder close to a million tutsis. The holocaust, cambodia, sudan, vietnam, indonesia heres a list of the last century genocides: the crime of genocide, punished by international un laws voted in 1948, is the gravest and the greatest crime against humanity.

Not to pick nits, but a simple front page article would not have saved thousands of lives. Darfur is constantly in the news and has been the subject of presidential speeches and congressional resolutions. There is a semi popular movement to raise money for darfur by selling the livestrong type bracelets. The greatest crime is that we are more aware of modern genocides and yet still do nothing. Why have they suddenly fallen silent on darfur? posted by anonymous on may 16, 2006 what makes you think people would read the book? an application of the theory indicates that it would remain obscure and essentially of no effect: . When i was a teenager, a friend gave me a copy of his latest book, after the cataclysm. I was mostly puzzled, struggling to make sense of its convoluted exposition, but feeling much the same sense of disorientation at what appeared to be a parallel reality that required jettisoning a lot of what i thought i knew.

Ive said a lot of really stupid things in my lifetime, but im happy to say accounts of genocide by the khmer rouge are systematically exaggerated and only serve the interests of the american power structure aint one of them. While i think i understand your reaction, it still raises some obvious red flags. Its one thing to have read a book that changed your life, fine, a lot of us have.

But when you say your mind was rocked by explosions and that you literally had to lie down, that tells me youre responding to these ideas on far more than an intellectual level. While a few books of nonfiction have greatly impressed me and even brought me to tears, ive never come close to what youre describing. This is how id expect an especially sensitive person to talk while in the throes of the raptures of poetry, or in the midst of a visionary religious experience. I mean, did you really clutch the door to your room, trying to hold onto something while the world spun around? to be fair, you seem to be aware this may come off as a bit odd. But to be honest, i think youre having a great time with all this despite complaints of isolation after all, you know something important that most other people seem incapable of recognizing. Posted by mike sierra on may 17, 2006 yeah, well, i also doubt youve said, as preparation for an invasion, now, i think things have gotten so bad inside iraq, from the standpoint of the iraqi people, my belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators.

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To try to short circuit a classic flame war: nobody in politics is always right, especially in attempting to figure out whats going on amidst a mass of disinformation propaganda, with a horde of fanatical flamers dogging them for every misstep. Chomsky is extremely unusual since he has a very analytical mind, and then attempts to apply it to the real world. Im not sure on what other level youre thinking, but ive had similar though less intense reactions to other books, even on topics like math that would seem to be purely intellectual.

I havent read understanding power yet though its on my list , but ive had similar experiences reading other great books, including on intelligence on your recommendation , fountainhead/atlas shrugged, engines of creation, the age of spiritual machines, etc. Posted by ofer nave on may 17, 2006 ill repeat the question i asked earlier: when you say you remember vividly clutching at the door to your room, trying to hold on to something while the world spun around when contemplating chomskys ideas, are you really being accurate? im inclined to think not, and that youre being a bit dramatic to emphasize your point. But if so, it suggests a high degree of disorientation, a condition in which i doubt much measured, critical reasoning is possible. I understand the sort of expansive intellectual experience one gets from reading about mathematics, and the occasional feeling of having to put a book down to allow more time to absorb its insights, but this sounds more like an upheaval. In particular, what norman finkelstein describes sounds alarmingly like a nervous collapse: in bed for weeks, he says, his world literally sic caved in. Mind you, this is not an author who revels in gruesome accounts of war and genocide that might especially trigger such a reaction chomskys prose is highly analytical and dry as a bone.

Btw, re your email note: i thought the quote i offered was clearly a composite intended to represent what i might parrot after reading that book, but at any rate, its as accurate a single sentence summary as can be. Posted by mike sierra on may 18, 2006 the archives of aaronsw.com appear to be broken. Posted by vlorbik on may 18, 2006 i read manufacturing consent, and saw the documentary, several years ago, and while my experience was not so emotionally charged, i can attest that it is an eye opening and paradigm breaking experience. I think, though, that youve neglected to mention chomskys basic thesis: that the u.s. Media, far from being scrappy and independent, very closely parrots the preferred world view of the politically and economically powerful. The core of the movie is not just an analysis of the tragedy in east timor, nor the u.s.s support.