AMY GOODMAN: -- him biting my father with simply Chomsky's biting wit. I might have gotten confused.
RUSSELL BRAND: Which is exactly how the manufacture of consent and media manipulation of information happens, Amy. A real event concerning Noam Chomsky happens, and you manipulate it. All of his theories are right. This is a bit where I wrote about Noam Chomsky in my book.
AMY GOODMAN: So, read from your chapter --
RUSSELL BRAND: This is the Noam Chomsky bit.
AMY GOODMAN: Yes.
RUSSELL BRAND: Because I love Noam Chomsky. "Chomsky -- who must have one of the most satisfying names to say in the world, which is apposite for a linguist -- explains how [the Monroe Doctrine] has been used to validate U.S. terror" -- no offense, Americans, I don't mean you, mean your government, and our government, too -- " domestically and abroad, since 1823. This is when the Monroe Doctrine was established. Because you are childish, you think that the Monroe Doctrine is a pledge to act all sexy and emphysemic, lifting up yer frock, going 'poo-poo-pee-doo.' It ain't. It was a diplomatic commitment from a century and a half ago when the Americans decided that they intended to 'dominate the hemisphere,' which is an outlandish objective. It sounds like the sort of devilish intention that kept the British ... establishment occupied: 'I'd like to dominate your hemisphere,'" -- people say over there, and I'm using it as a sexual pun, and I had to drop a bit there, because you made me promise not to swear -- "they hollered into hospital wards and children's homes.
"The United States have achieved this domination primarily by scaring us all witless and starting wars either explicitly or by proxy, primarily in countries where they were really confident they would win.
"I'm not saying I'm as clever as Chomsky -- that would be mad [...] -- but, as is always the case with a prefix of this nature, here is something that makes it seem like [I am trying to say that."
So there's a bit of it. Like, I use this brilliant essay from Noam Chomsky. I analyze it and try and put it in simple language so that people that wouldn't normally listen to Chomsky go, "Oh, yeah, that was a laugh." But now I know that he savaged your father with his fangs, I think I might scribble it out with a crayon.
AMY GOODMAN: I'm sorry, Noam. I'm really sorry --
RUSSELL BRAND: He's a cannibal!
AMY GOODMAN: --that this got a little out of hand. But, Russell, in the headlines today, we talked about the Wal-Mart protesters around the United States, people in the Capitol who feed the senators, who just came back from break, calling for a $15 minimum wage, and this interesting study that found the six heirs to the Wal-Mart fortune make as much as the bottom 79 percent of black families in the United States combined.
RUSSELL BRAND: That's a worrying statistic and an indication that you can't claim to be the land of the free when that's happening, not when people have got money just because they emerged from the correct vagina and having as much money as 70 percent of -- well, what is it? -- 185 million Americans, but you've framed it racially, as well. It's really, really quite worrying. I think there is sort of room for some kind of wealth distribution.
AMY GOODMAN: And this week has also been historic in Mike Brown's parents going to Geneva and testifying around the issue of torture, a whole issue of police brutality. At any moment now, a decision is going to be made by a grand jury over whether the police officer who killed Mike Brown, Darren Wilson, will be indicted.
RUSSELL BRAND: It's unfortunate. It's a really scary, terrible incident, and what's happening in Ferguson more broadly is frightening. But what I heard was that $4.2 billion worth of military equipment have been transferred to local police authorities across the United States. So the militarization of police forces in your country and in our country is terrifying. It's almost like they're anticipating further public unrest, and instead of placating members of the population through fairness, redistribution of wealth, not beating them up and shooting them, they've decided to just arm the police. "Well, we're going to have to shoot them a bit, then shoot them some more." It's really sort of frightening. I think what's happening in Ferguson, we'll be seeing a lot more of that in countries all over the world, as this growing disparity between rich and poor, this gulf of inequality, continues.
AMY GOODMAN: You know, we have a law, Posse Comitatus, that says troops can't --
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