Noam Chomsky Lecture - 1st Annual SBS Lecture

The lecture I mentioned yesterday was a resounding success!  It was so successful in fact that the Fire Marshall's dictated room capacity was reached with probably close to a 700 people waiting to get in. And this for a linguistics lecture!  Hubby and I think that the overflow crowd is a sign that the rather, shall we say, progressive ideology of Noam appeals to a larger audience than might have been true a few years ago when so many people were silenced by the strident call for conformity broadcast incessantly by media's redistribution of the Bushite's decrees.

The short story of yesterday is that we didn't get in but I did see Chomsky at close distance.   I was standing by the men's room when he was escorted too it.  Only managed to get a pic of the back of his head.

So here I am again.  In line - this time for the political lecture on education that is to start at 7 p.m. In Centennial Hall.  And today rumor in line is that there are overflow viewing spaces available for "attending" this lecture entitled,  "Education: For Whom and For What."

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I got in!

Here are my rather sketchy notes from the lecture, if you are interested.

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 LECTURE NOTES
2/8/2012
Noam Chomsky Lecture:  "Education: For Whom and For What."

Standing Ovation
Occupy Tucson thanks him using human microphone.
Higher Ed. Not unconnected to early Ed.

For whom
Elites
Walter Lipman :  responsible man, intelligent minority, manufacturers consent.
Committee on public information. Used to alter public opinion to one in favor or war.
Engineering of consent.

Emerson says  educate them to keep them from our throats -- capitalize on fear.

Madison -  public must be marginalized.  Power in the hands of the wealth of the nation.  (benign nobility)

Aristotle eliminate inequality.

Hume -

Education has to be enlisted in this view.

Jonathan Rose ...the reading of the British proletariat.

Factory Girls. (Link is a download.)  Read it.  Documents taking away high culture from factory Girls.

1930s 123 infinity
High culture. Proletarian dyad acts.


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2 approaches:
Pouring water into vessel.       Leaky vessel.
Following a string.

Policy implications.

Science editor --  rote vs. enjoyable.   Joy of discovery.
Details that obscure.
Trivialize and complicate science.
Breakage fee $17.   No child left behind.
What will you cover versus what will you discover?

Seed shell stone.  K3 which is the seed?

After WWII. -   50% of world's wealth. Elite education was a gentleman's club prior to ww2.  Turn farmers into factory laborers.  Factory girls.  Read it.  Wage labor is different from child slavery only in that it is temporary.

Gain wealth forgetting all but self.

800th Anniv. Of Magna Carta
Charter of liberty and charter of commons.
Preservation of commons from predatory royalty.

Move toward new spirit of the age - gain wealth forgetting all but self.
1970s labor strikes- strike for dignity -  lordsburg.

study before ww11 European.
Afterwwii
-ugly incidents upon old school european thoughts
-us rejected sound economics of and adopted piracy
After WWII funding for science tech through Pentagon through fear.

Socialize costs / privatize profit. And waste resources. Increase in students.  1957. Sputnik.  Exploited the fear of falling behind.

Israeli magician. Set theory.  Space between brackets- null set.

End of 1960s.  MIT.  Role of tech in society.  Day to discuss this.  Civilizing the county.  Dangerous.  Lewis Powell.  Trilateral commission Report: The Crisis of International Cooperation (download) provided insight into the assault on Democracy.

Powell to chamber of w commerce.  Read it.  Take over of country by ....

Alternative to free enterprise. -- subsidy of tobacco.  Subsidize and conceal.  Talked about business being targeted for elimination. Education supported by business he said and being marginalized.  Reaction by opposition (the trilateral commission)  public is supposed to be passive etc.  Placing too much pressure on state.  Institutions for the indoctrination of the young.  Must preserve national interest rather than special interests.  Business was thought to be a national interest not special interests.

University Education:

Mexico - free.
US - private only...we are moving forward.
Debt trap.  Is indoctrination.
Not because of economics.

Britain barred govt intrusion into academia.

Turing.  Prime Minister Cameron will not apologize for death.

Corporate versus government funding.
Short term versus long term funding.
Also more secrecy.  Corporate funders nonrenewable contracts.  Focus on profit and turning everything into a commodity.

Costs to public are rarely counted. (Remember the commons.)

K-12  

Caring about each other violates the"new spirit of age."
Care about disabled widow across town.

New spirit of the age and destruction of the commons is hateful. Destruction of Mexican American Studies and removal of it's literature and classics right here in occupied Mexico.

Freedom and justice.

Standing ovation.  Again.

Had to leave.