Noam Chomsky

"It is important to bear in mind that political campaigns are designed by the same people who sell toothpaste and cars." -- Noam Chomsky

Long recognized for his vocal opposition to the Vietnam War in the 1960s, Noam Chomsky first gained notice through foundational work in generative grammar and theoretical linguistics. As professor emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he has maintained a consistent output of articles, speeches, books, and CDs that challenge United States foreign policy. Although critics often link his views to the Democratic Party's left wing, Chomsky has directed equally sharp scrutiny at Democratic administrations, including that of Lyndon Johnson, under whom the Vietnam conflict intensified in the mid- to late 1960s.

Born December 28, 1928, in Philadelphia, PA, Chomsky grew up with a father, William Chomsky, who worked as a Hebrew scholar and belonged to the radical labor union International Workers of the World. At age ten he published his first article, which addressed the spread of fascism amid the Spanish Civil War. He wed Carol Schatz in 1949, completed a doctorate at the University of Pennsylvania in 1955, and immediately joined the MIT faculty—an affiliation that lasted five decades. While his academic contributions shaped multiple disciplines, public attention shifted decisively toward politics in 1967 after he published "The Responsibility of Intellectuals" in The New York Review of Books.

From the mid-1990s onward, Chomsky broadened his reach through spoken-word recordings. Allied Recordings released Class War: The Attack on Working People in 1996 and For Free Humanity: For Anarchy the following year. In 1998 he issued Clinton Vision: Old Wine, New Bottles, which assailed the Clinton administration's foreign policy, NAFTA, and a health-care plan that provided scant support for low-income Americans. As he observed in Z Magazine, "In brief, the developments of the past years offer new ways to put the screws on the overwhelming majority of the population both abroad and at home.... The Clinton vision merely announces another small step towards the same ends." He developed related arguments on Free Market Fantasies: Capitalism in the Real World.

Recordings issued after September 11, 2001, rank among his most disputed. New War on Terrorism (2002) and War Crimes & Imperial Fantasies (2004) offered pointed critiques of Bush administration policies. Chomsky wrote in Khaleej Times, "Half-truths, misinformation and hidden agendas have characterized official pronouncements about U.S. war motives in Iraq from the very beginning." The G-7 Welcome Committee released his subsequent recording, Imperial Presidency: Sovereignty, Terror and the Second Super Power, in 2005. Chomsky has also questioned the American electoral process, remarking in a 2005 speech, "Why don't people care if the election is stolen? The reason is that they don't take the election seriously in the first place."