Posted: 11/6/2005 12:08:53 PM EDT
| Why do all my liberal acquaintances hold up his poster with one hand? I know he's a linguist and a "libertarian socialist" (who has defended several decidedly non-liberal governments), but why is he put on such a pedestal by leftists? Are there any books repudiating his views specifically, rather than socialism etc. in general? |
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He is very good at distilling the liberal worldview of American foreign policy and capitalism. What your average Leftist instinctively feels towards America, Chomsky articulates very clearly in a matter-of-fact way that gives the impression that he's speaking the essential objective truth. Chomsky basically views America as the heir of Nazi Germany and has taken its place as the single most aggressive, freedom-trampling, and all around evilest country in the world. It's run by a malicious ruling class of the wealthy and spins out propaganda and mind control in the form of its newspapers and television programs. You learn the truth about America from Chomsky and other university professors. So if America is so evil, what are good freedom-loving countries then? Why, communist countries you big silly. Chomsky visited North Vietnam several times during the war and marvelled at the brave new classless world the boys from Hanoi were building. He wrote very acid essays and letters about the aggression of the United States and how they were trying to destroy the revolution so other people wouldn't want to emulate North Vietnam and break away from American hegemony. But you know who was even kewler than the North Vietnamese? The Khmer Rouge in Cambodia! Chomsky luvvvvved them. When refugees in Thailand who escaped the Khmer terror regime and told stories about genocide and nightmare totalitarianism, Chomsky pooh-poohed them and said living conditions in Cambodia were vastly improved under the Khmer Rouge. Where did he get that info? The Khmer Rouge themselves. Great guys. The Americans were just telling lies about them because they were threatened that people would embrace socialist revolution after seeing the glorious society they were building in Cambodia. When the truth about the Khmer Rouge became so overwhelming that even Chomsky could no longer make apologies for them and call them lies any longer, he merely shrugged and said the Khmer Rouge only came to power because of America. It was all America's fault. Just like that, he simply blamed America, never admitted being wrong about the Khmer Rouge. Chomsky like most liberals is really good at criticizing. His schtick is criticizing America, which he holds to impossibly high standards. America is not perfect, therefore it is evil. All other countries get a pass. Except Israel, which he hates too. Chmosky criticizes, but offers no solutions or alternatives. His ideal government is something like the Barcelona Collective, an anarchist community that managed to exist for about a month in the 1930's before it completely fell apart. The guy is warped, but is idolized by the foolish. |
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Anti-american asshat. He's notorious for a 1977 article in _The Nation_ about Cambodia. The article argued that the atrocities in Cambodia were overblown. He's been trying to weasel out of the implications of the article ever since. See www.mekong.net/cambodia/chomsky.htm for the ugly details. Your eyes will glaze over while reading it, but Chomsky has been tenacious in trying to defend his article, and as a result the whole episode has been parsed into tiny bits. His schtick is to make incindary implications in articles, and when called on it to deny that he was arguing that at all. He's popular with some undergraduates. It seems every bong-addled student goes through a Chomsky phase. |
Great summery. |
I smoke like a chimney and I've known for a long time that Chomsky is a clown!
