Taming the Rascal Multitude: Essays, Interviews, and Lectures 1997–2014

Description

As Noam Chomsky writes about something—US foreign policy, corporate policies, an election, or a movement—he not only specifically recounts the facts of the topic but also exercises blisteringly relentless logic to discern the interconnections between the evidence and broader themes involved. Taming the Rascal Multitude is a judicious selection of essays and interviews from Z Magazine from 1997 to 2014. In each, Chomsky takes up some question of the moment and situates what followed even without having known what would follow. They explicate what preceded the current era and provide a how-to for successfully comprehending social events and relations. They are a pleasure to read, much like the pleasure of watching a great athlete or performer, but they also edify. They educate. Reading Chomsky is about understanding how society works, how people relate to society and social trends, and, beyond the specifics, how to approach events, relations, occurrences, and patterns in a way that reveals their inner meanings and their outer connections and implications. It is like reading the best you can get about topic after topic, and, more, it is like watching a master craftsperson in a discipline that ought to be all of ours understanding the world to change it. Cover Half-title page Title Page Copyright Contents Foreword PART ONE 1997–2004 Hordes of Vigilantes Expanding the Floor of the Cage Imperial Presidency Market Democracy in a Neoliberal Order Rogue States Crisis in the Balkans The Colombia Plan Voting Patterns and Abstentions The War in Afghanistan What Makes Mainstream Media Mainstream? Confronting the Empire Iraq as Trial Run The US and Haiti PART TWO 2005–2014 Cold War II Kicking Away the Ladder Wars, Bailouts, and Elections Domestic Constituencies Coups, UNASUR, and the US The Obama-Netanyahu-Abbas Meetings Torture Has Been Routine Practice Obama on Israel-Palestine Elections 2000 and 2008 Government Involvement with Science and Art Human Rights in the New Millennium The Unipolar Moment and the Obama Era The US in Mexico and Elsewhere Israel, Palestine, and Campus Activism Imminent Crises The Most Dangerous Belief Afterword Index About the Authors