Noam Chomsky Resources


Chomsky on the Web

Noam Chomsky
Noam Chomsky's MIT Homepage. Includes, among other useful information, a snail mail address for contacting the professor as well as his email address. There's also a bibliographical listing of his linguistics publications. Otherwise, not much info here, unless you're interested in his office number...

32-D840

     ~Noam Chomsky's MIT Office Number (2007)

Noam Chomsky: a Life of Dissent
The MIT Bookstore's e-book online biography.

"I was very active in all sorts of left Zionist (what would now be called "anti-Zionist") mostly Hebrew-speaking "groups," but the groups scarcely merited the name, and I was pretty much a loner even in them. Later, I was part of a lot of movement activities (like Resist), and took part in tons of things, but usually in my own way. I've often been close to radical Christians, for example, and have found much of what they did inspiring all right (even stayed in the Jesuit house when I visited Managua). But it would be absurd to say I was part of such communities." -- Noam Chomsky

ZNet Blog Space: Noam Chomsky
Noam Chomsky's blog, hosted by ZNet. New entries every few days or so, and ZNet Sustainers can (and do) enter comments on any entry.

During his years in office, Reagan was not particularly popular. Gallup just published poll figures comparing him during office with other presidents. His average ratings during his years in office were below Kennedy, Johnson, Bush I, and Clinton; above Nixon, Ford, Carter. This is averages during their terms in office. By 1992 he was ranked just next to Nixon as the most unpopular living ex-president. Since then there has been an immense PR campaign to convert him into a revered and historic figure, if not semi-divine, and it's doubtless had an effect,
-- Noam Chomsky, June 10, 2004

CHOMSKY.INFO: The Official Noam Chomsky Website
This site is authorised by Noam to be the official online archive and directory of his work. To say that it is exhaustive as a record of Chomsky's record would overstate the reality, however, getting through all the information indexed by and catalogued on this site would be truly exhausting. Includes: Books, Talks, Articles, Debates, Audio and Video, On Chomsky, Interviews, Letters and Bios. From one entry in the Bios section:

Alongside his career as a linguist, Chomsky has been active in left-wing politics. In 1965 he organized a citizen's committee to publicize tax refusal in protest to the war in Vietnam; four years later he published his first book on politics American Power and the New Mandarins. By the 1980's he had become both the most distinguished figure of American linguistics and one of the most influential left-wing critics of American foreign policy. He has been extremely prolific as a writer: his web-site in 2003 listed 33 book publications in linguistics (broadly construed), and although the individuation of his political books is complicated, their number definitely exceeds 40. According to a 1992 tabulation of sources from the previous 12 years in the Arts and Humanities Citation Index, Chomsky was the most frequently-cited person alive, and one of the eight most frequently-cited authors of all time.
-- Zoltán Gendler Szabó

Wikipedia :: Noam Chomsky
The Wikipedia Free Encyclopedia is an exquisite result of the internet. Another very good, balanced Wikipedia page. Includes discussion of his linguistics contributions, his criticism of post-modernism and his political dissidence and theory. In addition to this generally informative page Wikipedia also offers Politics of Noam Chomsky, a fuller exploration of the professor's political activism, and Criticism of Noam Chomsky, explores some of the many critiques of Chomsky's political and philosophical writings and talks.

Chomsky is one of the most well-known figures of the American left. His traditional definition of himself is a anarchist, a political philosophy he summarizes as seeking out all forms of hierarchy and attempting to eliminate them if they are unjustified. Unlike many anarchists, Chomsky does not always object to electoral politics; he has even endorsed candidates for office. Chomsky has also stated that he considers himself to be a conservative (Chomsky's Politics, p. 188, note Ch.6 #24), presumably of the Classical liberal variety. He has further defined himself as a Zionist; although, he notes that his definition of Zionism is considered by most to be anti-Zionism these days; the result of what he perceives to have been a shift (since the 1940s) in the meaning of Zionism (Chomsky Reader)
-- Wikipedi
About "Manufacturing Consent."
A promotional 'cover letter' for the documentary film, by Mark Achbar and Peter Wintonick. This page comes from a fairly exhaustive listing of Prominent Anarchists and Left-Libertarians on the Blackened Flag site, a resourceful anarchist site supporting a number of Chomsky pages and links. EG: Noam Chomsky on Anarchism, Marxism & Hope for the Future

Though Chomsky was once described in The New York Times Book Review as "arguably the most important intellectual alive," in the film, he is quick to deflate the pomposity of that claim. He is simply a man with the moral courage to state his beliefs openly, aligning his values and visions with the so-called "ordinary" person. Now, more than ever, these are qualities necessary to preserve a civil society-of which public broadcasting is a major component. -- Achbar/Wintonick

Hot Type Transcript: Noam Chomsky "9-11" Interview April 16, 2002
From the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, with programming both in radio and on television. The link above is to a text transcript. YouTube also has a two part video of the interview ( I II ).

CBC: It's no great secret that we function by self-interest. Self-interest is part of foreign policy. We're here to protect our policy, protect the interests of our policy, in this case of the Americans.

NC: Was the self-interest the American people served by slaughters in Southeastern Turkey, or by destroying Vietnam, or by turning El Salvador and Guatemala into cemeteries? Was the self-interest of the American people served by that? No.The self-interest served by that is foreign policy elites and the power-centers they represent, which are not protecting the American people, they're protecting their own power, profit, dominance and hegemony, like others around the world.


Radio Free Maine
Audio and Video tapes of Chomsky lectures, etc., for sale. You'll find some Real Audio clips and text transcripts as well, and some reviews such as the one below for "Third World Conditions at Home, Nobody to Blame but Ourselves"

Chomsky's phrase "from containment to rollback" is borrowed from the terminology of the Cold War which ordained that the United States is free to go "beyond the containment of the threat to market democracies" to the "enlargement of their reach." Chomsky argues that during the past 25 years the ruling class has moved from the "containment of the threat of democracy and human rights to rollback of the despised social contract." In other words, let profits soar and remain in the hands of a few and destroy any form of democracy among the "rabble" or, as one historian put it, the "great beast," that is, the general public. Let's "rollback" all the gains labor has made and insert a sort of "tough love" program for the American people, especially the poor. -- Randall G. Shelden, Ph.D.

Extending U.S. Dominance By Any Means Possible
Chomsky in conversation with Michael Albert, on Znet.

"The U.S. leadership is committed to “unilateral use of military power” to defend its interests, as the Clinton administration repeatedly insisted, echoing predecessors, both in word and in practice. That’s a very natural stand among those who have overwhelming power and feel—for the moment rightly—that they can use it with impunity." -- Noam Chomsky

Noam Chomsky on Microsoft and Corporate Control of the Internet
An interview by Corporate Watch.

"As long as the Internet was under control of the Pentagon, it was free. People could use it freely [for] information sharing. That remained true when it stayed within the state sector of the National Science Foundation.

As late as about 1994, people like say, Bill Gates, had no interest in the Internet. He wouldn't even go to conferences about it, because he didn't see a way to make a profit from it. Now it's being handed over to private corporations, and they tell you pretty much what they want to do. They want to take large parts of the Internet and cut it out of the public domain altogether, turn it into intranets, which are fenced off with firewalls, and used simply for internal corporate operations.

They want to control access, and that's a large part of Microsoft's efforts: control access in such a way that people who access the Internet will be guided to things that *they* want, like home marketing service, or diversion, or something or other. If you really know exactly what you want to find, and have enough information and energy, you may be able to find what you want. But they want to make that as difficult as possible. And that's perfectly natural. If you were on the board of directors of Microsoft, sure, that's what you'd try to do.

Well, you know, these things don't *have* to happen. The public institution created a public entity which can be kept under public control. But that's going to mean a lot of hard work at every level, from Congress down to local organizations, unions, other citizens' groups which will struggle against it in all the usual ways." -- Noam Chomsky


Third World Traveler: Noam Chomsky Page
The Third World Traveler site is a great general resource for progressive thinking. Abundant content is hosted on the site along with an exemplary set of links to offsite resources. In addition, the Noam Chomsky page includes numerous quotes from Chomsky's prolific books, articles, interviews and talks.

Any dictator would admire the uniformity and obedience of the (U.S.) media.
~ Noam Chomsky

South End Press, AK Press, Common Courage
Three of Noam Chomsky's principle publishers and distributors. Excellent resources for those interested in dissent and clear-headed analysis.

"AK Press Distribution is a worker's owned collective with the goal of making available radical books and other materials published independently, not by the corporate giants, with which you can make a positive change in the world."

The alt.fan.noam-chomsky News Group
Rendered somewhat ineffectual by constant flame wars. Kind of ironic. Somehow the term 'fan' just doesn't fit a discussion newsgroup for a dissenter such as Chomsky. Perhaps that explains the flaming?

Chomsky in the Nomadic Spirit

Fueling the Bonfire.
Sideline references within a deeper Foucaultian exploration of feminism
Land of the. . .
The beautiful people, the restless people, a little Chomsky and a trailing quote.
FW: How the Gingrinch Stole Christmas
A quote