like him? hate him?
i’m a longtime fan …i love his take on US foreign policy, the mainstream media, and on and on… but i realize there are some folks out there who just CAN’T STAND HIM!
let’s hear your thoughts. i’d especially like to hear from those who do NOT like him!
I used to be a big big fan of Chomsky - with Manufacturing Consent and several other works (esp the ones published around 1990- 1995) until I realized that his political position is ridiculous. He allows for nothing other than absolute Just action in the world of politics. He never sees the fact that the US actually does quite a lot of good in the world and that NO ONE would be a better, more just hegemon than the US. (Please don’t misunderstand me, I’m not a dumb unthinking mullet-headed “patriot”. I’ve just seen how fucking duplicitous the Europeans are in the past three or four years). Secondly, Noam Chomsky has never met a foreign policy he didn’t think was genocide. Kosovo was genocide, Bosnia was genocide, the fictional starving Iraqi children were genocide, East Timor was genocide (actually E. Timor probably was genocide, but even a stopped clock’s right twice a day), everything reduces to genocide for him.
Chomsky’s linguistics are an unprovable mess of Enlightenment presuppositions. This Deep Structure and the innate language ability of humans are so vague as to be worthless. Furthermore, Chomsky rests all of his thought on a platform of eternal timeless values that I have little time for, being a godless pragmatist American thinker as I am.
As ridiculous as his political aspirations seem to be it is beneficial to have a voice of absolute good, if for nothing more, then to simply counter the voice of evil. He also does his part to inform the (general) public of policies and actions that would otherwise go unnoticed, events that anyone who takes International Relations seriously should know.
It’s an undebatable fact that a lot of people read Chomsky, some become completely consumed by his work (not recommended) while others reject it altogether (also not recommended). But there are also a lot who chip certain aspects away that are beneficial and understand that no one can have all the answers.
To those I recommend sharpening up your pick axes.
I just don’t like the guy because I had to study him for English Language and i’m sick of him.
Chomsky rules! I get most of my damning info about the U.S. from him, and he is a great source. I don’t care what anyone says. We do not need a global hegemony weather that be the U.S, or anyone else. We need a unified global democracy like the U.N. is supposed to be, and that is exactly what Chomsky is a proponent of.
Hermes: All the things you mentioned that Chomsky supposedly thinks were genocide, do you support the actions taken by the U.S. and NATO in those countries? If so, why? Why do you seem to think the U.S. is so just? The U.S. does do some good, but I believe that it does more bad then good globally. Major advocations of globalization and terrible foreign policies far out weigh their humanitarian efforts. Don’t you agree?
I think the US is better than any other nation in terms of global hegemony. No other nation is going to even give lip service to democracy and such. Trust me I am very familiar with the long list of US botched interventions (Arbenz Guatemala 1954, Mossadegh Iran 1956, Trujillo DR 195-someodd, Allende Chile 1972, Nicaragua Somoza/Sandanistas 1979, etc etc) and for a long time I was in the “bad america, bad!” camp. However, I have come to realize a couple of things
My fundamental point is that “although the game is crooked, it’s the only game in town”
h3m
I disagree. I think the U.N. does a wonderful job at what they do, just nobody listens to them. The U.N. has enough countries to where if they stick to their voting process, there won’t be any restrictions to freedom. There will only be certain rules that will be established to help keep world peace. It’s like this. In the middle ages there were a lot more wars and violence then there is now even in single terrirories. Why? Feudalism. Right now, what our global government is actually like is a global feudalism. The U.N. was an attempt at changing that, but it gets over-ridden by rogue states such as the U.S. and Israel. A global minimalist democracy or even maybe socialism eventually is needed to keep peace, and help establish ecological and industrial sustainability. We need to decide as a planet what laws are absolutely necessary for every country in the world to follow, and we need to enforce those laws. A global government should do that, and only that. There should be a limit as to what kind and how many global laws there are. The rest of the laws should be up to individual nation states. I realize that the U.S. isn’t the only country acting innappropriately, but at the same time, we set a huge example for other countries. England is European, and they seem to have the same foreign policies as the U.S. does, so they are really no better. But the point is, why would you want a global hegemony? That is utter bullshit. No one nation state needs to hold absolute power. That would quickly turn into a very bad situation. Like 1984 bad. Like prison planet bad. Like slow demise of human kind bad. The U.S. is already one of the most corrupt national governments on the planet. What makes it one of the worst is that most people in the U.S. don’t realize it. It is hunger for power that corrupts. I think there is an easy way to limit such hunger. Socio-economic regulations. There should be a maximum wealth limit. That limit should be high enough to where a person at that limit can live more then comfortably. Politicians should have a maximum wealth limit for sure. I think that if you want to run for office, and are over that wealth limit, you should have to give all your excess money to charity before you are eligible to run.
The founding forefathers of our country tried to establish checks and balances to ensure power could not be concentrated into just a few hands. That system worked for a short time by regulating political power. But eventually, the wealthy took advantage of that system, and made it so the power can once again be concentrated into the hands of the few. Corporations run the government more then people do now. It is these corporations and the people who are at the head of them that need to be regulated. Power needs to be further balanced so that once again it can be spread equally instead of in the hands of a few. Concentrated power always corrupts. The answer: Regulate and balance power to be more equally distributed. To me, that answer seems obvious.
Alien!
Really, now please save the hyperbole for the gullible. Have you ever been to Mexico? I got robbed by COPS!!! The second to last president stole half the treasury and fucked off to Ireland. US corruption doesn’t compare in the slightest to the vast amount of kleptocracies that are on the planet - Turkmenistan, Syria, Sierra Leone, the Congo, Nigeria, Paraguay up til ten years ago, on and on and on.
Okay, but at the same time, those countries have better foreign policies then the U.S., and their corruptions are obvious. The U.S. as a country is fully riddled with corruption just like those places, it is just less obvious. It is like hostility vs. covert hostility. Which is worse? I always tend to think that the covert is much worse. I realize there are worse places to live that have much worse social policies, but that really says nothing of government corruptions.
Your excursion in Mexico does not surprise me. I have been robbed by cops in the U.S. before. I have seen cops in the U.S. steal from others as well. Mexican cops are probably not much worse.
Yes, greed, corruption and all our other serious moral failings ARE THE PROBLEMS. Before rattling off all these historical events that we all seem to be more then capable of doing, ask yourselves a more simple question. Besides where is a better place to start then at the bottom.
Are we, as a whole, truly capable of recognizing and employing moral principles:
Some of us, yes.
Part of the time, sure.
But of a strength, persistence, and duration that would allow for some sort of true global cohesion.
Viewed from a historical perspective, it looks bleak.
What seems to be a trend is that after periods of peace (often very short periods) the public takes for granted the security, self-determination, and freedoms they have grown accustomed to. Indifference and ignorance consumes the public once again which causes us to loose sight of the very principles that paved the way for such comforts. In enters greed, corruption, etc., and the cycle repeats.
This is obviosuly a very brief connection of thoughts I just belched out, but fundamental to the topic at hand none the less.
The thing about Chomsky is that he is very smart, almost too smart, some of the things he says are very scary and disturbing such as when he said that 9/11 had coincidences instead of hard facts that there was CIA fingerprints. Then he adds that its quite possible for New York to be attacked by a nuclear bomb. Almost in a prophetic tone, but note that he once called himself Zionist and now he doesn’t but why? Because he views America as the ultimate Zion. If you really know whats going on you’ll see that he’s scheming something and although what he says is very intelligent somethings he says hit me like a stone brick. I hope your all reading up on the things to come,