Chomsky: Consumption distracts people. You cannot control your own population by force, but it can be distracted by consumption. The business press has been quite explicit about this goal. SPIEGEL: A while ago you called America "the greatest country on earth." How does that fit together with what you've been saying? Chomsky: In many respects, the United States is a great country. Freedom of speech is protected more than in any other country. It is also a very free society. In America, the professor talks to the mechanic. They are in the same category. http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,583454,00.html
SPIEGEL: A while ago you called America "the greatest country on earth." How does that fit together with what you've been saying?
Chomsky: In many respects, the United States is a great country. Freedom of speech is protected more than in any other country. It is also a very free society. In America, the professor talks to the mechanic. They are in the same category.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,583454,00.html
I think he's generally right about this greater degree of egalitarianism - in attitudes not wealth, obviously. But it's not crucial to any of his main points. Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner - that I moved to Nice.
But it's not crucial to any of his main points. Then why is he saying that? Of course it is not related with the other stuff, but why is he saying such stuff that? Does he know so much about how it is in other countries, that he can decide that? If he really said it, why did he call America "the greatest country on earth." and not just a great or a very great country, implying with "the greatest" that other countries are somehow worse. If he didn't say it, why doesn't he correct spiegel and says, America has many positive and great aspects or something like that. Der Amerikaner ist die Orchidee unter den MenschenVolker Pispers
If he really said it, why did he call America "the greatest country on earth." and not just a great or a very great country, implying with "the greatest" that other countries are somehow worse. If he didn't say it, why doesn't he correct spiegel and says, America has many positive and great aspects or something like that.
SPIEGEL: A while ago you called America "the greatest country on earth." How does that fit together with what you've been saying? Chomsky: In many respects, the United States is a great country. Freedom of speech is protected more than in any other country. http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,583454,00.html
Chomsky: In many respects, the United States is a great country. Freedom of speech is protected more than in any other country.
Cf.:
A SMALL computer file appeared on the Internet last week, purporting to list the 13,000 members of the racist, far-right British National Party. ... Make no mistake, the Web sites of the large newspapers, frequent victims of strict libel laws in Britain, have done their part. Reporting on what cannot be reported is something in which the British have much more experience. "In the U.S., the starting point is that you have the right of freedom of expression," said James Edelman, a law professor at Oxford. "There are ways it can be curtailed, but that is the starting point. It is almost the opposite in the U.K." http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/11/24/technology/24link.php
Make no mistake, the Web sites of the large newspapers, frequent victims of strict libel laws in Britain, have done their part. Reporting on what cannot be reported is something in which the British have much more experience.
"In the U.S., the starting point is that you have the right of freedom of expression," said James Edelman, a law professor at Oxford. "There are ways it can be curtailed, but that is the starting point. It is almost the opposite in the U.K."
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/11/24/technology/24link.php
