noam chomsky gave the keynote speech today at the weekend-long rebellious media conferencein london

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introductions came from conference organiser, milan rai, and znet founder, michael albert, who was noam's student and became a life-long friend. then noam chomsky stood at the lectern in front of a packed hall at the institute of education, while the speech was also beamed to a further overflow audience by video.

unsurprisingly he chose the wall street occupation as his main subject throughout the hour-long lecture, but while saying he didn't want to seem negative, he criticised the demands being made by the demonstrators, and characterised their fledgling movement as naive and ill-thought out.

i suppose having lived through, taken part in, and commented on the peace and revolutionary movements of the sixties, he may well have a realistic view of what is possible and what is not, but i couldn't help feeling that he might be ignoring or unaware of a new paradigm, an emerging global consciousness.

however, he was on good form with some ascerbic and witty comments, pointing out that demands for corporations to put people before profits would be asking them to behave illegally, since their whole purpose is to make profit, and any other interests would fall foul of company law.

he also answered a question about the role of the left-wing press and their failure to get behind protest movements with the quick-witted soundbite that "blaming the media for trying to keep people passive doesn't make any sense - it's like blaming banks for making money".

as well as questions from the hall, some written questions were chosen by michael albert that had been brought over from the overflow room.

chomsky was due to make an appearance later at the trafalgar square rally against ten years of war in afghanistan, and the conference continued with a multitude of smaller lectures and workshops during the afternoon. it is fully subscribed and there are no tickets available for tomorrow, where john pilger and noam chomsky will join others in a final plenary.

the conference is packed with great speakers, workshops and networking opportunities, and has been put together by a small group of organisations, instigated by 'peace news' magazine which is celebrating its 75th anniversary.

in a spirit of transparency and openness, they have published the accounts, and it shows they will be relying on such things as dvd sales to help fund the weekend. the dvd will contain highlights from many of the workshops as well as the key sessions, but they are looking for advance orders this weekend in order to make the editing and manufacture sustainable, so i'd urge people to take a look at the website and consider purchasing the dvd now.

there are also interactive opportunities on the conference website at http://rebelliousmediaconference.org and you can follow @RebelliousMC on twitter.