Chat with Chomsky & Science in the dock

[Ufomammut]

Two good reads:

Noam Chomsky chats with Washington Post readers:

Wellfleet, Mass.: Mr. Chomsky:

Many fear the country is moving towards a "police state" where the Executive acts according to its desires, without constraint. What possibilities do you see, if any, for the trend towards consolidation of power in the Executive to be thwarted?

Noam Chomsky: The concerns are justified. Thus in this morning's press it was reported that after signing the new version of the Patriot Act with grandiose flourishes, President Bush quietly issued a "signing statement" that exempted him from its requirement to notify Congress of FBI actions that go beyond court authorizaton. That is yet another brazen affirmation of executive power. There are many others. There is little doubt that this administration is at an extreme in seeking to establish a powerful state executive, free from interference by Congress or public awareness of its actions. The justification is the "war on terror," but that can hardly be taken seriously. Terror is doubtless a very serious threat, but it is all to easy to demonstrate that it does not rank high in administration priorities.

Though the concerns are valid, we should not exqggerate. The public is not likely to give up the achievements of centuries of struggle easily.

http://www.chomsky.info/debates/20060324.htm
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Science in the dock, Discussion with Noam Chomsky, Lawrence Krauss & Sean M. Carroll
Science & Technology News, March 1, 2006

{on science, religion and western intellectualism} ...

CHOMSKY: People that are called intellectuals, their record is primarily service to power. It starts off in our earliest historical records, in the Bible for example. If you look at what the prophets were doing, they were what we would call dissident intellectuals. They were giving geopolitical critique, they were warning that the kings were going to destroy the country. They were calling for support for suffering people, widows and orphans and so on. So they were what we call dissident intellectuals.

Jesus himself, and most of the message of the Gospels, is a message of service to the poor, a critique of the rich and the powerful, and a pacifist doctrine. And it remained that way, that’s what Christianity was up until Constantine. Constantine shifted it so the cross, which was the symbol of persecution of somebody working for the poor, was put on the shield of the Roman Empire. It became the symbol for violence and oppression, and that’s pretty much what the church has been until the present. In fact, it’s quite striking in recent years, elements of the church — in particular the Latin American bishops, but not only them — tried to go back to the Gospels.

The people who we call intellectuals are no different from anyone else, except that they have particular privilege. They’re mostly well-off, they have training, they have resources. As privilege increases, responsibility increases. And if somebody’s working 50 hours a day to put food on the table and never got through high school and so on, their opportunities are less than the people who are called intellectuals. That doesn’t mean that they’re any less intellectual. In fact, some of the best educated people I have known never got past fourth grade. But they have fewer opportunities, and opportunity confers responsibility.

http://www.chomsky.info/debates/20060301.htm