Noam Chomsky: Imperial Ambitions: Conversations on the Post 9-11 World

Noam Chomsky's greatest talent is to state the obvious in very clear language, which is why it's amazing that he is so often misinterpreted.  It's no secret that those with power act in ways conducive to keeping this power and attempt to elicit support from those without power. This is an underlying tenet of all kinds of religious, economic, Marxist, socialist, anarchist, libertarian thought, etc., as part of an intellectually self-conscious, continuous scientific research program dating into oblivion.

In "Imperial Ambitions", Chomsky applies his distinctly pluralistic framework to a post-9-11 American populus become hysterical by domestic attacks, enterprising plutocrats, and lazy media coverage.

Following a simple question-answer format with interviewer David Barsamian, "Imperial Ambitions" rationally contends that the "Social Security Crisis" is a scam; slow, steady, non-violent activism is the best and most-effective solution to social problems in a democratic society; the executive branch under the Bush Administration has essentially nullified constitutional civil liberties; "social" sciences should be studied with the same empiricism as "natural" sciences; among other sober contentions.

However, while simultaneously railing against propaganda and euphemistic language, Chomsky uses charged words, quotes out of context, and employs bitter sarcasm when discussing those viewpoints with which he doesn't argree, often to the point of patronizing the reader.  Together with David Barsamian's leading questions, "Imperial Ambitions" effectively "manufactures consent" in the same way as those it criticizes.

As for the various, common misinterpretations of "Imperial Ambitions", first, those whom Chomsky criticizes, and righteously so, are, in modern parlance, statists and plutocrats, not conservatives. Chomsky is a conservative.  As he states in the text: "I've always considered myself an old-fashioned conservative".  Second, in the publisher's statement, the "increasing threat, including devastating weather patterns, of global warming" is mentioned as being "explored" in the book, however, this "exploration" consists of nothing but an extremely brief mentioning of a few worst-case, nightmare scenarios, rivaling something from a science-fiction novel and taking up no more than a few extremely hypothetical sentences.

Overall a very good book from an exceptional, scholastic mind. Chomsky is far more methodologically consistent than most, but unfortunately, guilty of the same sensationalism he criticizes.