Watch Noam Chomsky on Julian Assange’s ‘The World Tomorrow’

 

The latest episode of Julian Assange’s interview series “The World Tomorrow” features conversations with Noam Chomsky and Tariq Ali. Chomsky, of course, is a natural fit for Assange’s format, which trades the rapid-fire talking head cacophony of Fox News and MSNBC for conversations that take time to unfold.

The last time Chomsky—who, like Christopher Hitchens, is one of the great extemporaneous speakers on political philosophy—was allowed to speak at length on such large broadcast was probably on William F. Buckley’s “Firing Line,” oddly enough.

One of the more interesting moments is when Tariq Ali references how the new forms of revolution, which were triggered by the Arab Spring, made their way to Russia to create the groundwork for political change. Interesting because Assange has been accused of shilling for Russia Today (RT), which is known to be often sympathetic to the Russian government. Where is the censorship?

“I assumed that sooner or later there would have to be popular reaction to the bitter class war that’s been fought for the last generation,” said Chomsky. The businesses classes “really felt they were on a roll in the United States, for example. We all know the facts. Over the past generation there’s been wealth created, but it’s gone into very few pockets. The extreme inequality of the United States is weighted very heavily by literally a 1/10 of a percent of the population, mostly hedge fund managers and CEOs of major corporations and so on.”

Chomsky said that while he was talking about America, specifically, “the phenomena are basically worldwide, which makes Egypt one of the most exciting places.”

Ali, in one of the most sublime moments, attacks the international narrowing of the media, calling the current state of affairs a “dictatorship of capital which is exercised through this extreme center.”

For more from Ali and Chomsky, 

watch the episode below.

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