"I'm hoping to do an interview with Chomsky in a few months. One thing we are going to ask him about is his tepid support for radical politics. Another pointed question--which more people should ask him--is why he fails to even mention local alternative media when he gives speeches. Chomsky always gets a full house for his talks, but he squanders these opportunities to mention local radical media projects."
Let's keep in mind this [Chomsky] is the same guy who's the subject of AK Press's recent _Chomsky_On_Anarchism_ book, which is actually pretty good [I'm a "Friend of AK Press," FYI]; that he wrote the preface for the French queer radical Daniel Guerin's _Anarchism_, published by Monthly Review Press; and that he also wrote the intro to Rudolf Rocker's _Anarcho-Syndicalism_ that Pluto Press publishes -- among many, many other things. The first time I was introduced to Chomsky was in an issue of the punk 'zine Maximum Rock-n-Roll in the early 1990s, and since then he's technically had split releases with Bad Religion and Chumbawamba, as if he were a band. The underground punk label Epitaph even released "Old Wine, New Bottles" of his in the 1990s, when that label still had some cred. He's a card-carrying IWW member. He doesn't seem to be radical enough for some -- yet is also not useful to establishment liberals, either. Give him a break. Should he come out red-faced, blood boiling, red-and-black flags draped over his podium, every time he talks somewhere?
Also, I don't necessarily think the key to connecting with the hoi polloi is that organizers should be more familiar with the Sci-Fi channel or Babylon 5. Basketball stats and football history would actually help more, if you want to be honest. The Sci-Fi Channel stuff might help at gamer conventions and amongst the Ren Fair demographic who still live with their parents, but come on. If it's street cred you want, referring people to SF cable TV isn't necessarily the way to go, enjoyable as it may be personally. And I say that as a fan of Godard's Alphaville. Sports stats would help out way more, if it's tactics we're discussing.
-B.