Thursday, May 8, 2008

Who's This Noam Chomsky Guy?

Propaganda is to a democracy what violence is to a dictatorship.”
- Noam Chomsky


Lipstick is to a hipster in West Philly what rice is to the third world.”
- Conrad Benner


Photobucket


With Iron Man pulling in over 102 million dollars after only four days in theaters, we here at Ugh News are completely convinced that the media can shove anything down Americans' throats, and they'll buy it... (And that's not even counting $ from the concession stands... Fucking fat ass America.) Noam Chomsky is probably rolling over in his grave. That's, If he were dead...


PhotobucketPhotobucket


You'd kinda think he was though... You know, for being “arguably the most important intellectual of our time” as the New York Times calls him, you never hear about him. Ever. Ever. EVER. (Not even in the New York Times... WTF is that about?)


Anyway, I'm not gonna sit here like some asshole and pretend like I know everything and I knew it first (... like I usually do) and say I've been reading Chomsky for years... and so on and so fourth... Fact is, I've only really been tuning into his ideas recently, and only saw his documentary a few days ago.


That said, you should watch it too, his documentary... and NOW! Unless you're at work or something, in that case watch it... TONIGHT. It's called “Manufacturing Consent”, based on his book of the same title. And it's about how the state and special interests own and use the media to restrict ideas and opinions to suit business and to keep power in the hands of an elite minority, while distracting the majority (me + you).


Plus it was shot in the early 90's so you can get all cool 90's fashion ideas for your next night out...


(It's almost three hours, so click here to watch it bigger.)


Oh Noam, Noam, Noam... God, I swear if you were a brand I would totally buy you. Like, if you owned an organic local grocery store in Port Richmond I would seriously bike there and only shop there even though I have Essene two blocks away from my house. Even if it went against both of our individualist beliefs... We're just naughty like that Noam, right? You like naughty Noam? I bet you like naughty...



Written by Conrad, Photo by Frenchkheldar


P.s. On a personal note (like this whole blog isn't a personal note...) Noam and I went to the same high school... Central... although grant it probably 50 years apart. Go Lancers!

2 comments:

the3:00book said...

United States Budget and Spending 2008:
Education: $56 billion
Entertainment/Media: $1.4 trillion

YIKES!

Anonymous said...

How about "UGH News" viewers read the book "Manufactured Consent," instead of seeing what I like to call the "headline" of a well documented book. Chomsky's worst fears have emerged. We've become a society of images and flash photography, instead of one based on literature and knowledge. It's surface information and emotion vs. factual analysis and wisdom. There is a reason Chomsky is such a famous intellectual: he spends time reading objective articles based on concrete evidence, not watching movies loosely based second-hand facts.