BBC Hardtalk - Chomsky in London Nov09

god i hate the interviewer. but thanks host.

What an interview! Certainly worth watching. Sackur who is half Chomsky's age trying to pummel Chomsky with a hundred weak blows and getting nowhere. If we were to do a word count, we'd probably find that the interviewer spoke as many words as the interviewee which is not exactly an indicator of a quality interview. One gets the sense that Sackur had only one thing on his mind: to do Chomsky in, to depict him as a lunatic of the political fringe, not to listen to what he had to say. There were at least a dozen questions for which Chomsky got less than 10 sec to answer before he was cut off.

It would be good if this interview were widely watched by the public. Many of Sackur's points were shallow attacks on Chomsky of the sort that have been slung at him from the far right for ages and that typically rely on red flag words ("You're an anarchist, Mr. Chomsky") or on quoting out of context something seemingly outrageous that Chomsky had said.

The one case in this interview where Chomsky actually got a chance of explaining the context will stick in the viewer's mind: During the height of the Vietnam war, one of the interactive displays in some Chicago Museum of Science was set up to give American children the opportunity to merrily shoot into a model of a Vietnamese hamlet ("Eliminate these Untermenschen!"). An organization of mothers protested. The NYT commented that their protest about this outrage was unwarranted, which led Chomsky in turn to comment that perhaps some denazification was needed in America.

Sackur undoubtedly doesn't realize what a perfect demonstration he offers in his own person of the validity of the analyses put forward by Herman & Chomsky in "The Manufacture of Consent" about how it often is the smartest people who are most prone to self-deception and to internalizing the ideology of the ruling class and then mindlessly promoting it in the mass media, trying to manufacture public opinion.

One of the final questions Sackur put to Chomsky was whether Chomsky feels any need to slack off in his perennial "righteousness" in criticizing "America" (which Sackur obviously equates with the policies of the US government and its ruling elites). What about you, Mr. Sackur, slacking off in your evident righteousness about this "All-Good America"?

Yes Rob, it was all around annoying! Chomsky was cut off/interrupted & attacked constantly, it made for some who's even neutral to get impatient---I JUST WANTED TO HEAR CHOMSKY SPEAK FOR GOD'S SAKE.

but i think because of his dissenting views, this is normal for him when he's on mainstream media, afterall europe just wants to obediently lick the boots of the u.s. so hence this interviewer.