New World Notes - Noam Chomsky: Three Short Talks

This week on New World Notes: radio program #245, November 13, from 12:00 to 12:30 p.m., host Kenneth Dowst excerts three talks by Noam Chomsky.

Most of Chomsky's public speeches are brilliant, erudite, judicious, intricately constructed...and long. Each resists excerpting, and it resists being heard in installments. You really have to listen to it all at once, in one sitting. Chomsky admirers without an hour to spare are usually out of luck.

But in March 2011, in London, Chomsky agreed to answer questions on current affairs submitted by six notable writers. He responded to each question with a spontaneous, unrehearsed mini-lecture. Each of these six talks is fairly brief--no more than 10 minutes--but otherwise classical Chomsky.

We heard one a few months back (on the "Arab Spring"), and this week we'll hear three more. Chomsky discusses (1) how intellectuals almost always support Established Power, (2) how the U.S. got into our current economic mess, and (3) what are the best solutions to the crisis of Palestine.

If you're new to Chomsky, these three talks make a good introduction to one of America's best political thinkers. And if you're not new to him...here's a nice treat.

The audio is taken from a 45-minute video. I have gently edited the passages I selected (mostly removing hesitations and stumbles). The complete video is available from The Internet Archive.

New World Notes is produced under the auspices (Latin for "counter") of WWUH-FM, a community service of the University of Hartford.

You can listen to any installment of New World Notes online or else download it (as an mp3 audio file) for later listening. The show is archived at both A-Infos Radio Project and (from #90 onwards) the Internet Archive. Either link should get you a reverse-chronological listing of available installments. Or browse the show's Web site: Each installment has a page; each page has links to the recorded audio; and a handy table of contents will quickly find the installment you want.

Series overview: Political and social commentary in a variety of genres. Exploring the gap between what we want--and what they're trying to make us settle for.

Coming soon (Tuesday air debut dates shown)

November 20 & 27 -- Susan Rosenthal on Class, Health, and Health Care

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