by Norman Solomon

"If liberty means anything at all," George Orwell wrote, "it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear."

From all indications, the gatekeepers for big media in the United States don't want to hear what Noam Chomsky has to say -- and they'd prefer that we not hear him either.

Mainstream journalists in other nations often interview Chomsky. Based at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he's a world-renowned analyst of propaganda and global politics. But the chances are slim that you'll ever find him on a large network here at home.

Chomsky is ill-suited to providing soundbites -- and that's not just a matter of style. A few snappy words are sufficient when they harmonize with the conventional wisdom in a matter of seconds. It takes longer to intelligibly present a very different assessment of political realities.

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On the 100th anniversary of the Nobel prize, 100 Nobel laureates warn that our security hangs on environmental and social reform
The most profound danger to world peace in the coming years will stem not from the irrational acts of states or individuals but from the legitimate demands of the world's dispossessed. Of these poor and disenfranchised, the majority live a marginal existence in equatorial climates. Global warming, not of their making but originating with the wealthy few, will affect their fragile ecologies most. Their situation will be desperate and manifestly unjust.

Also See: Nobel Peace Prize Centennial Symposium

It cannot be expected, therefore, that in all cases they will be content to await the beneficence of the rich. If then we permit the devastating power of modern weaponry to spread through this combustible human landscape, we invite a conflagration that can engulf both rich and poor. The only hope for the future lies in co-operative international action, legitimized by democracy.

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Rummy's a dummy in comparison.
By Michael Kinsley

The press briefings of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld are widely acknowledged to be the best show on television, and watching him perform in person is probably even more entertaining. By contrast, it must be hell to be trapped in the White House briefing room with Press Secretary Ari Fleischer. Reading the transcripts of Fleischer's performances on the Web, though, is fascinating. In a review last week of the various war briefers, my colleague David Plotz gave short shrift to Fleischer-dismissing him as an evasive bore. This doesn't give Fleischer nearly enough credit: He is a great evasive bore.

There's a war on, for heaven's sake. The fate of civilization may be at stake, and your job is to tell the world how the war is going. Under these circumstances, how hard is it to be interesting? On the other hand, to be boring and to stay boring-to maintain your rock-solid commitment to the lack of information while fascinating information cascades from the heavens all around you like emergency food parcels-takes discipline. It takes imagination. Let us not flinch: It takes genius.

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