14 Comments so far

1. davidf March 9th, 2007 4:46 pm

   Noam Chomsky again shines the light of reason into the darkness of US foreign policy.

   It’s depressing that the US media so willingly demonize on command. Not so long ago the media were repeating Bush Administration lies about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction and support of terrorism. Now, far from being chastened by the disaster those lies caused, the media are repeating almost identical Bush Administration lies about Iran.

   And, of course, totally missing is any perspective whatsoever. I mean, so what if Iran were to produce an atomic bomb or two? Israel’s got hundreds. We’ve got thousands. Using this as a justification to bomb a country is a pretext so flimsy and so blatantly at odds with international law that I can’t imagine how any journalist with an ounce of self-respect could report on it with a straight face.

   I truly wish I lived in a country whose leaders and citizens actually wanted a peaceful world and were willing to accept the limits and compromises that that would require.

2. fpal March 9th, 2007 9:38 pm

   War is good for America. The U.S. economy is dependent on well financed weapons production and global military control. Peace is bad for America.

   Chomsky has a gift to see objectively. He has excellent analytic skill and makes connections that other miss.

   Given this light that Chomsky shines, what I can not understand is why Americans to not see these truths. Perhaps Americans like being the global bullies.

3. Poet March 9th, 2007 10:15 pm

   What I like about Chomsky is that he takes the long view–we didn’t get into this current mess only because of Shrub (although he sure has managed to grow it large as Texas in just 6 years)and we won’t even begin to extracate ourselves from the mess untill we have a clarer understanding of it’s length and depth and our (yes progressives I do mean you along with the neoconmen and women in the current adminstration) colective addiction to a self-centered and ego-centric view of the world.

   As Martin Luther King Jr. observed in his speech “Beyond Vietnam”:

   “The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.”

4. ezeflyer March 10th, 2007 12:35 am

   Chomsky is one of the leading progressive voices in the world. TIME called him “arguably the greatest living intellectual”. We have to ask why the MSM shuns him.

5. delia March 10th, 2007 3:31 am

   I think it must be a terrible thing to grow up in a country where you’re taught — for the purpose of maintaining national unity — that the U.S. is the centre of the universe, that it’s a light unto the nations, that it can’t make mistakes, that all other countries are backward by comparison, etc., then go to college and maybe take your first PoliSci course and find out that it might all be a lie. That must be very painful in a nation where patriotism is felt so deeply and sincerely. And it’s probably why it takes Americans time to wrap their collective mind around tragedies like Vietnam or this insane “war on terror.” But you Americans are coming round to that now, so I’m feeling hopeful again. By the time your country (and mine) recover from this Bush disaster, global will be upon us in much greater force, and perhaps we’ll all be too busy to plan and wage more wars of aggression.

   (Well, I can dream, can’t I?)

6. rob.price March 10th, 2007 4:43 am

   Chomsky fails to address the economic agreements Iran has with Russia, the Caucasus region, China, and even Turkey- and fails to mention what economic impact an attack on Iran would create for these regions.

   Why would Iran’s economic partners be interested in a US provoked war? Is the US all alone in its conquest? And furthermore, why would this “ethnic” strife Chomsky later refers to have any bearing over the larger Iranian political system–especially when these easily categorized ethic groups are successfully existing within the Iranian economic structure? Equally, what I think is oddly unmentioned in Chomsky’s work is the small, but crucially important fact, that, the US has long pitted ethnic factions against country X’s political system. Hello?! Look at Iraq, look to the Philippines, look to flipping Central America…. Do I have to spell out the obvious?! “Oh, it’s sectarian strife! …agggghhh!!” (Yeah, whatever)

   While it may be a side note, Chomsky fails to mention the Swiss have long been a intermediary contact between the US and Iran. Yes, formal contact between both countries have been stalled for decades, but they have been talking nonetheless.

   Equally,

7. Poet March 10th, 2007 2:30 pm

   Delia sez:

   I think it must be a terrible thing to grow up in a country where you’re taught — for the purpose of maintaining national unity — that the U.S. is the centre of the universe, that it’s a light unto the nations, that it can’t make mistakes, that all other countries are backward by comparison, etc.,

   To which I reply:

   Yep, it is tough, but at least we are not British–though we do seem to be outdoing even their well-deserved reputation for arrogant condecension– 8o))

8. ccluelessfl60 March 10th, 2007 2:50 pm

   I feel we are being led by miscreants who motto is “if I can not have you nobody can.”

9. PJD March 10th, 2007 9:47 pm

   Delia,

   Yes, it is rough. I once thought everything in the US; education, living standard, democratic institutions, civil liberties, etc…etc was the best in the world. My first epiphany came when I went to work with a bunch of British expatriates and later had an Australian girlfriend - and discovered that my US education at one of the best school districts and universities was far inferior to theirs. A bachelors degree in the UK is equivalent or better than masters in most US universities. They told me that when USAns move to the UK their children have to be sent back two grades. This was my first realization I had been lied to, and wanted to know how else I’d been lied to. Lots of Zinn, Chomsky, and William Blun later, I knew. But, at least, I thought, we were passably democratic, and steady progress would offset the setbacks.

   Then came November 2000 and the stolen election, and the the spectacle of the presidential limousine speeding to get through the gauntlet of protest lining Pennsylvania avenue but totally ignored by the media. If you have never seen the presidential limousine, it is a sinister-looking sight it’s black body not quite concealing the armor-plate underneath. All windows also completely blacked out with some kind of one-way glass.

   Nixon stood in an open-top car and acknowledged the protesters by blowing strawberries, Carter walked the whole length of Pennsylvania Ave lined by cheering crowds. Bush sped through us - out of sight behind those black windows, like we were an annoying swarm of mosquitos to get through. I contemplated the three-deep phalanx of cops lining the street and lost my nerve to throw my piece of ripe fruit I had brought. I then thought: “How in the world, can any republic be called a democracy if it’s president must be physically protected through such extraordinary means from his own citizens?

   This was the last BIG LIE to fall. and from that day I haven’t quite felt physically well since…

   My brother is emigrating to Canada, I wish I had started the paperwork to do likewise…

10. PJD March 11th, 2007 12:03 am

    Delia wrote:

    …then go to college and maybe take your first PoliSci course and find out that it might all be a lie…

    What make you think any courses in the universities would expose lies? Except for a dwindling number of aging tenure-protected unrutted professors like Chomsky, Zinn or Ward Churchill, the universities are the source of most of the lies.

    Look how rough the universities are treating Carter when he speaks about Palestine!

11. corvo March 12th, 2007 9:16 am

    fpal: Exactly right. Americans are bullies and proud of it. What else can you expect of a nation founded on slavery and genocide?

12. bnpyrikykizi December 11th, 2007 11:46 pm

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13. bncysitiveco December 12th, 2007 10:41 am

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14. bnsokexytowo January 1st, 2008 12:24 pm

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