"Sports is another crucial example of the indoctrination system . . . It offers people something to pay attention to that is of no importance . . . It keeps them from worrying about things that matter to their livs that they might have an idea of something about . . . People have the most exotic information and understanding about all sorts of arcane issues . . . It's a way of building up irrational attitudes of submission to authority, and group cohesion behind leadership elements, in fact its training in irrational jingoism . . . That's why energy is devoted to supporting them . . . and advertisers are willing to pay for them."
Chomsky's controversial 'Sports Rap' from the Achbar/Wintonick Manufacturing Consent film.

For the first time in the seventeen year history of the World Series Cricket, spectators faced a sobering situation. In a virtually one sided competition featuring two Australian teams, England and Zimbabwe, the former had reached the finals of the One Day competition. Australia beat Australia A on the last ball in the first final held in Sydney on January 15. It sealed its victory in Melbourne two days later in the last over. The result prompted wide speculation about the competition's future and viability, obscuring exactly the kind of "irrational jingoism" and useless statistics quoted ad nauseum that Chomsky describes above. The series was broadcast by media magnate Kerry Packer and his elitist Channel 9 network, which has dominated control of news/sports coverage in Australia and television ratings since the late 1970s.

The last thing I expected on the campaign trail was a call from REVelation's Assistant Editor, Mark Thornley, who was on assignment braving foryy degrees (Celsius) heat in a building with no air conditioning.

"Mainly cover the East Timor angle and why our foreign policy is so weak. Make sure you get some good photos to run with the article. And try to confirm a face to face interview with Chomsky - we've uncovered some recent footage of arms dealing in Irian Jaya that I want him to see."

During this conversation I realised something unusual. 7 December was Chomsky's birthday, the anniversary of the Pearl Harbour attack by the Japanese, and the invasion of East Timor by Indonesia. In the background Jim Morrison of The Doors was screaming "The West is the best/Give in and we'll do the rest," from "The End" as I grimly realised that Thornley had just showed the hierarchical nature of media organisations and how editors shape "objectivity." You need your sense of humor to cope with unreality on the campaign trail.

There was no point in flying to Canberra just to hang around with a pack of overfed press journalists listen to Chomsky and then ask him the odd, safe question. My encounter with the press jungle had taught me to revert to the ancient predatory ways of the hunter and the hunted.
Despite Internet rumors that the Australian Broadcasting Corporation would censor its usual coverage of the National Press Club Luncheon, they came through with the goods and the results were amusing.

Chomsky was fairly casually dressed and restrained himself in a watered down version of his keynote speech on the East Timor problem. Introducer Peter Leonard slipped in references to the industry-corporates Amdahl and The Financial Review, which according to Michael Petkoff, publisher of Success Magazine was, "probably because they paid for the meal tab, not because they sponsored the tour!"

Question time. Bruce Juddery, freelance writer. Looks jaundiced.

"Nice to meet someone who has read leaks I've reported." Great, even the NPC has been invaded by Chomsky disciples and wimpering, soft journalists.

Juddery rambles on for two minutes about raison d'etre, the collapse of Soviet tyranny, Kissingerian realism and Woodrow Wilson's fourteen points.

Chomsky looks frustrated. He replies. "Czechoslovakia was a nice state before the Germans and Soviets got to it. The collapse of Soviet tyranny is leaving behind vast wreckage, just as the collapse of the British Empire and others did earlier. The Rwandan situation is similar to Ghana - before the Belgians moved in there was little distinction between the Hutu and Tutsi tribes, but when they pulled out there was chaos. 99 university graduates in the whole country."
Camera close-up on Juddery. Not pleased.

James Dunn, Foreign Affairs Columnist, Illawara Mercury. Testified before US Congress in 1977. The Times had a long interview session at the time, but it was never published. He was the leading Australian government specialist on East Timor at the time of the 1975 invasion. He revealed the fact that the FRETELIN Party leaders were populist Catholics who disassociated themselves from the Communist movement despite U.S./Indoneisa claims, according to Mark Achbar. More reminisces about a visit to Richard Holbrook. Chomsky analyses East Timor in comparison to Cambodia, and shifting government alliances.

"Cambodia was a useful atrocity, it was ideologically serviceable versus one ideologically dysfunctional. When Vietnam invaded Cambodia, they became the bad guys. Holbrook mentioned in an early 1980s congressional record that we must support DK, Democratic Kampuchea, because of its continuity with the Pol Pot regime. Unfortunately the East Timorese forces can't claim such credibility."

Another journalist suggests that Chomsky is known as a "Khmer Rouge defender."
Chomsky is quick in replying. "Stalin would have been proud of such a lie. It shows the nature of the Western intellectual community. They should tell the truth and not just serve the State."

Tim Dodd, Australian Financial Review. First journalist to be in control, aggressive and finish his question within thirty seconds. I remembered Chomsky's quote regarding the business press. Dodd mentions the right wing criticism of Chomsky by Gerald Henderson of the Sydney Institute think tank.

"I don't accuse anybody of conspiracy. That's a term that's used to undermine rational analysis of our own planning system. If US planners decided to do something, that's their job, it's not conspiratorial. Secrecy is primarily fear of democracy."

Dodd also attempts to subtly attack Chomsky's anarchism, but Chomsky replies.