Noam Power Terror and information
Substantive opinions about Noam Chomsky aside, let me first say that this was an incredibly low quality documentary with very little in the way of production value. There are several black frames interspersed throughout the film for no apparent reason and the Japanese songs that make up its soundtrack are just plain weird. There’s also no central narration and what it amounts to is just a sequence of clips with Mr. Chomsky speaking in his ultra-confident, detached, and low intensity voice. No unifying theme is presented and the topics stray from WWII to Nicaragua to Turkey to Israel to Britain to 9/11, but, of course, even if it is not directly stated his viewpoint can be summarized as full-time anti-Americanism. Basically, in Chomsky’s mind, we’re the real terrorists so we don’t have the right to respond once we’re attacked. That’s a pretty accurate summary of this icon’s opinions. Chomsky made important contributions to linguistics many years ago but has said little of substance since. He thinks he is being very clever when he says that you can’t have a War on Terror, but of course you can as we can hunt down members of groups who have declared war against us and/or take responsibility for terrorist acts. Bono thinks that he’s a rebel without a pause, but Chomsky’s a faux rebel. There’s no danger in being a citizen in American and hating your own country. Chomsky’s been doing it for 40 years and nothing’s ever happened to him and nothing ever will.
Power and Terror Noam