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Professor Noam Chomsky is a hugely eminent philosopher, author, activist, linguist, and public speaker whose career has spanned close to seven decades. Guy Evans of the Smells Like Human Spirit Podcast traveled to MIT in Cambridge, MA for a thirty minute interview, in which the following topics were discussed:
-Western nations' use of 'necessary illusions' to control the attitudes and opinions of their citizens;
-How tactics of propaganda, spearheaded by Edward Bernays, eventually manifested into the advertising industry;
-Woodrow Wilson and his mission to turn a pacifist public into jingoist warmongers;
-The general goal of commercial advertising which is to undermine markets, creating uninformed consumers making irrational choices;
-Barack Obama's victory in the 2008 Presidential Election, and why it can be seen as much as a marketing campaign as a political one;
-How the commitment of commercial advertising to undermine markets leads to attempts to undermine democracy;
-The tone of political activism in the 1960's, and its resemblance, at least in visibility, to the political movements of recent times;
-Martin Luther King - how he was villifed, how he is now remembered, and what he did following the 'I Have A Dream' speech;
-The actions of President Kennedy in escalating the Vietnam War and the antiwar movement that followed;
-The political movements, including campaigns for Global Justice, that set the stage for the Occupy movement;
-Potential environmental catastrophe, and why its threat is multiplied due to the 'profit over people' ethic dominating the world today;
-The continued possibility of nuclear war, and why a very straightforward solution to this issue is being prevented by the U.S./Israel relationship.