After Noam delivers the 2011 Sydney Peace Prize Lecture, join us for a debrief and discussion. The Chomsky Forum organisers have been lucky enough to be invited to do a short interview with Noam when he is in Sydney. Come along to this debrief to learn what Noam's answers were and discuss how this applies to acitivist causes within Australia.

For free events and more info check out http://www.chomskyforum.net

---

Who is Noam Chomsky?

Chomsky is a political dissident and a truly dangerous thinker. He is the world's most-quoted living author. His ideas reveal the possibilities for radical, democratic change - to increase the scope of human freedom. He writes: 'This world is full of suffering, distress, violence and catastrophes. People must decide: does that concern you or not? I say: look around, analyze the problems, ask yourself what you can do and set out!'

Chomsky has spent a lifetime seeking out and challenging illegitimate structures of authority. His razor-sharp critiques of mass media, government and capitalism have led at times to him being vilified, jailed and denied entry to Israel. 'There is constant pressure to make people feel that they are helpless, that the only role they can have is to ratify decisions and to consume.' He has also been a tireless opponent of war: 'Either there will be a world without war or there won’t be a world.'

Chomsky is also an anarchist: 'Anarchists try to identify power structures. They urge those exercising power to justify themselves. This justification does not succeed most of the time. Then anarchists work at unmasking and mastering the structures, whether they involve patriarchal families, a Mafia international system or the private tyrannies of the economy, the corporation. As soon as a person identifies, challenges and overcomes illegitimate power, he or she is an anarchist. Most people are anarchists.'

But despite all this, Chomsky is just one individual; he can’t change the world alone. Freedom is won by people acting together, not one celebrity activist.

Join us in the fight to make anarchism a reality!

As well as being a world-famous activist and thinker, Chomsky is a libertarian socialist - an anarchist. His ideas issue a revolutionary challenge to the illegitimate systems of the State and capitalism. This forum will explore Chomsky's libertarian socialist politics and what they might mean for revolutionary social change in Australia today. There will be two speakers followed by discussion

www.chomskyforum.net

Essential Reading

Notes on Anarchism - http://www.chomsky.info/articles/1970----.htm

Untangling the Knots - http://terrornullius.noblogs.org/post/2011/06/28/untangling-the-knots/

Extra Reading

Anarchism, Marxism and Hope for the Future - http://struggle.ws/rbr/noamrbr2.html

Solidarity and Sectarianism - In The Wolves at the Door - http://zinelibrary.info/wolves-door

Informed by watching Chomsky's film 'Manufacturing Consent' two weeks previously, this discussion will also be introduced by a short talk. You'll get more out of it if you read the articles below, but you're still welcome to come along if you haven't done the readings or seen the film.

www.chomskyforum.net

Essential reading

The preface and first chapter of Manufacturing Consent. It's about 35 pages long. Copies available at Jura Books.

Alternately, if participants in the reading group aren't able to access this text Chomsky's book Necessary Illusions, on a similar theme, is online. The first chapter 'Democracy and the Media' could be read instead of the extract from Manufacturing Consent. http://books.zcommunications.org/chomsky/ni/ni-contents.html

The interview 'On Media Criticism' - http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/19950321.htm

Extra Reading

In the Australian context - Australian sociologist Alex Carey wrote the essay 'The Ideological Management Industry' - http://web.archive.org/web/20070829231251/http://www.agitprop.org.au/lef...

More recently, the journalist Peter Manning wrote the book Us and Them, critiquing Islamaphobia in the Australian press.

If you really want to do some more reading:

Several pieces from the Lenin's Tomb blog on the Murdoch empire in Britian, which also explores whether the Chomsky/Herman propaganda model stands up in the British context today - Ruling Britannia parts 1 -3 http://leninology.blogspot.com/2011/07/ruling-brittania-i.html http://leninology.blogspot.com/2011/07/ruling-britannia-ii.html

http://leninology.blogspot.com/2011/07/ruling-britannia-iii.html

Funny, provocative and surprisingly accessible, MANUFACTURING CONSENT explores the political life and ideas of Noam Chomsky, world-renowned political activist. In a dynamic collage of new and original footage, biography, archival gems, imaginative graphics and outrageous illustrations, the film highlights Chomsky's probing analysis of mass media. A mammoth two-part project, MANUFACTURING CONSENT is nonetheless light on its feet, favoring a style that encourages viewers to question its own workings, as Chomsky himself encourages his listeners to extricate themselves from the "web of deceit" by undertaking a course of "intellectual self-defense." Appearing in the film are major journalists and critics, including Bill Moyers, William F. Buckley, Jr., Tom Wolfe, Peter Jennings, Jeff Greenfield, philosopher Michel Foucault, White House reporter Sarah McClendon, New York Times editorial writer Karl E. Meyer and revisionist author Robert Faurisson.

www.chomskyforum.net

Organised by the Chomsky Forum, this reading group and discussion afternoon will begin with a short summary talk about Chomsky's ideas on 'humanitarian' interventions. You'll get more out of the discussion if you do the readings below, but you are still welcome to come along if you haven't.

Essential Reading

- This March 2011 Chomsky interview covers Libya - http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/20110330.htm

- Another critiques of the recent Libyan intervention, is this interview with Richard Seymour here (fyi he is a Leninist who is in the British SWP)
http://www.newleftproject.org/index.php/site/article_comments/a_humanita...

Extra Reading

- A good recent article on this theme, though more generally 'Humanitarian Imperialism' http://www.chomsky.info/articles/200809--.htm

- This piece, also relating to Libya, appeared in the recent Wolves at the Door publication - http://derryanarchists.blogspot.com/2011/03/libyan-anarchist-denounces-w...

- General introduction to humanitarian intervention: background information and issues (generally supportive but does contain section on criticism of humanitarian intervention):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanitarian_intervention

- A longish interview with Chomsky done in March 2011 regarding the unfolding crisis in Libya. http://www.zcommunications.org/noam-chomsky-on-libya-and-the-unfolding-c...

- "Humanitarian Imperialism: The New doctrine of Imperial Right" (Sept, 2008) http://www.chomsky.info/articles/200809--.htm

- "Humanitarian Intervention" (Dec 1993 -- Jan 1994)
http://www.chomsky.info/articles/199401--02.htm

The Chomsky Forum has organised a reading group/discussion on 'Chomsky on neoliberalism and financial crisis'

Come along and be part of the discussion! (You don't have to do the reading, but you'll get a lot more out of the evening if you do!)

Essential reading:

Recently, The 'Great Moderation' and the International Assault on Labor
http://www.chomsky.info/articles/20110502.htm

This 2008 interview with Chomsky on Znet http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/20081013.htm

Chapter 1 'The World Bank, GATT and Free Trade' of Keeping the Rabble in Line - http://books.zcommunications.org/chomsky/rab/rab-contents.html

Piece by Lindsay Hawkins in Mutiny 60 on resistance to the restrictions public sector wage rises - http://jura.org.au/files/jura/Mutiny%2060%20web.pdf

Extra reading:

Dave Eden's article on the Budget in Mutiny Zine 60, http://jura.org.au/files/jura/Mutiny%2060%20web.pdf

Chomsky's book 'Keeping the Rabble in Line' - http://books.zcommunications.org/chomsky/rab/rab-contents.html