Noam Chomsky
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Sober and balanced, Chomsky's presence provides a rare alternative voice lacking any extremist agenda. This is particularly valuable in an environment where the public is constantly subjected to self-serving talking heads. Chomsky has refused to buy into the popular mythology spewed by our right-dominated media.
"The Chomsky Reader" covers a variety of topics and spares readers the interview format of his other books. Several chapter titles indicate there is almost no topic he will not bring under a clear light: "The Old and the New Cold War," "Afghanistan and South Vietnam," "El Salvador," "Rejectionism and Accommodation" (the Middle East), "Language and Freedom," "The Manufacture of Consent," "Objectivity and Liberal Scholarship" and "The Responsibility of Intellectuals." The only serious flaw in such sociological analysis is that it tends to place all blame for corruption in the hands of the powerful, and so overlooks the role of a passive public.
Chomsky has been better able than other dissident intellectuals to gain a large audience because he is also an internationally-respected linguist. His political insights might have been suppressed had not his scholarly reputation leveraged them into public view. Generally, Chomsky seems to bedevil right wingers who want an American public that is, if not outright deceived, then at least misdirected.
The scholarly tone of Chomsky's writing is due in part to his years as Institute Professor, Department of Linguistics and Philosophy, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).