Dear Noam Chomsky,

happy birthday and all best!

Many thanks for giving me so much inspiration, insight, information and encouragement through your writings.

I was introduced to your work during a long night in Germany when public service broadcasting aired the documentary Manufacturing Consent. Could not stop watching this movie during that night and have not stopped studying your work ever since...

I think you really encourage people to seriously engage for a just and humane world.

THANKS!!!

Not long ago, i heard and audio version of Orwell's 1984. There I heard -as does Winston- of the existence of „The Book“. When Winston gets it, he begins reading it by the first opportunity he finds. Then he begins reading:

„...War is peace ... But it was also clear that an all-round increase in wealth threatened the destruction — indeed, in some sense was the destruction — of a hierarchical society ...It was possible, no doubt, to imagine a society in which wealth, in the sense of personal possessions and luxuries, should be evenly distributed, while power remained in the hands of a small privileged caste. But in practice such a society could not long remain stable. For if leisure and security were enjoyed by all alike, the great mass of human beings who are normally stupefied by poverty would become literate and would learn to think for themselves; and when once they had done this, they would sooner or later realize that the privileged minority had no function, and they would sweep it away. In the long run, a hierarchical society was only possible on a basis of poverty and ignorance. (...) The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labour. War is a way of shattering to pieces, or pouring into the stratosphere, or sinking in the depths of the sea, materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable, and hence, in the long run, too intelligent...“

It is striking how well our society is described by Orwell, we live indeed in 1984. J. Pilger recently called this „a corporate dictatorship“. I guess Lluis Llach would say: „segur que tomba, tomba, tomba, ben corcada deu ser ja!“.

Everytime I read and re-read one of your books, articles or lectures if feel a little like Winston, holding „The Book“. And every time it is such an illuminating and striking experience.

Thank you so much for your work, your example, your courage and your integrity.

Happy Birthday!