Chomsky's New Blood Libel Noam Chomsky and his hard-Left gang of Israel bashers are at it again. This time it is about the current crisis in the Middle East ...Xymphora, who has crossed the line into racism, wrote the following t'other day...
We now know that a large part of Chomsky’s problem is that he is a covert Zionist agent...Oy vey...!
My own take? I've learned much from Chomsky's writings and lectures, but his idiotic attitude toward JFK showed me that we are not on the same page. A Zionist agent? Ridiculous.
Mr. X (I presume he is a Mister, although some say otherwise), formerly a very interesting writer, has become a reflexive Jew-hater, as opposed to a principled opponent of the Israeli government. Not long ago, he advised readers to vote Republican because the Dems were too Jew-y. And he probably still thinks that Nancy Pelosi and Jane Harman are in secret collusion!
Within another year or two, he'll be spewing familiar nonsense about the Khazars and the Protocols and whatnot. It's an old story.
Oddly, he supports the current state of Israel's right to exist, whereas I think the whole idea of a Jewish homeland is racist and doomed. I favor a single-state solution -- one person, one vote, and all that. I also think that the Jews have as much historical right to that piece of real estate as...well, as I have to be parking my ass on Chumash land.
Despite his bigotries, X is still capable of sharp observation, especially when he discusses Alexander Cockburn, whom I don't like even when I agree with him:
You have to remember that during the time that both Cockburn and Chomsky have been active in writing about American politics, the United States has gone from Nixon, to Reagan, to Bush. If neither Chomsky nor Cockburn had written a word, does anyone really believe that things would be – or could possibly be – worse? Insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result. The abject failure of both Chomsky and Cockburn in making anything even the slightest bit better over the last thirty years ought to be an indication that these are not writers that intelligent people should pay any attention to.I've been saying the same thing for nearly two decades. In the 1980s and early '90s, who provided the left with its intellectual muscle? Chomsky, Cockburn, Hitchens, Alpert and a handful of others who formed that era's Progressive Mafia. Alas, they spent most of their energies attacking anyone named Kennedy or Clinton.
Did the Left become stronger during that time? Did the Right weaken? The answer is obvious. The Progressive Mafiosi established resumes akin to that of the Captain of the Exxon Valdez.
Thank whatever gods there be for the net, and for the many new writers who have prospered in this medium. Even when they piss me off, I like this crew a lot more than I liked the old batch.
27 comments:
I suppose, on that basis, you'd argue that the Enlightenment was largely a waste of time, since it ultimately brought us GWB, and that Galileo was an empty poseur because large numbers of Americans still think the sun orbits the earth?
Was Chomsky supposed to counter billions of dollars of corporate propaganda in the service of state lies? A guy who 98% of Americans have never heard of?
And you're the guy who still manages to admire John Kerry?
Your evaluation of Cockburn & Co is just the one I have, after years of, well, enduring their ideas. I too "manage to admire John Kerry", for in spite of his political mistakes or even because of them, he appears so human. Courageous. Attractive, even.
A lot of people like Kos, Josh Marshall et. al. a lot more than they do Noam Chomsky, because one can depend on Kos, Josh Marshall & Co. not to say anything which might upset cherished notions of who are we. JM may remark (for example) that Israel has every right to destroy Lebanon and bomb civilians because a few of "her" soldiers were captured, but he remains eminently reliable.
Which is why Josh Marshall is famously prospering, and Chomsky gets it from both the right and the "left".
Finally, I've never heard Chomsky blamed for the failures of the Democratic party until now. No doubt the DMC has consulted him daily for years, and Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis and Al Gore are all kicking themselves for promoting the Chomsky Doctrine in their hapless Noam-tainted campaigns.
anon 7:49 -- the "Enlightenment" remark has, I fear, left me in the dark.
anon 10:36 -- I never blamed Chomsky for the failures of the Democratic Party. I blamed him -- and here's where you'll really hate me -- because he and the other mafiosi did not see the necessity of working with or within the party.
They considered it part of the Establishment they opposed. I never did. Yes, my party has pissed me off numerous times, but I expect to be continually pissed off by ANY conceivable political party with a base wide enough to win national office.
The mafiosi, in their hearts, saw it as their job to stay on the sidelines and keep left-leaning Americans away from the voting booth. They were the voice of the proudly self-defeating "progressive purists."
I think it was at some point during the Clinton years that Chomsky finally started to wake up to the fact that there was something worse in the wings than the George Kennan political consensus that he had opposed for so long. That "something worse" should have been apparent from the containment vs. rollback debates that went back to Kennan's time. It should have been obvious from the examples of McCarthyism and the American Bund.
Now that we have the ideological heirs of the John Birch Society and Elmer Gantry running American culture -- running it into the ground -- what we had back in the day when Chomsky started bitching looks more attractive than it used to.
You are putting words in my mouth to a ridiculous extent with that Mondale remark. I never accused the progressive mafiosi of having anything to do with either the failures or successes of the Democratic Party. I accuse them of not seeing that party as the only instrument capable of keeping us from Theocratic madness. I accuse them of abandoning the fight to a barbaric foe because they disdained the only weapon that might actually prevail.
I think that all of the progressive mafiosi represent an intellectual dead end. They failed by any practical standard of failure. Their names became known only because the left-wing magazines (in the pre-net days) refused to acknowledge anyone outside their elite little club. Now that publication requires no ink, that elitist attitude can no longer obtain, and leftish Americans have found better voices.
You mention Josh Marshall. Like most of my fellow Americans (including some otherwise hip folk such as Bill Maher), he can't wake up to what Israel has done. On all other issues? His instincts may seem a little too conservative for my tastes, but he's still someone I read every damn day.
I don't know if any of the old mafiosi are writing every day because I have not bothered to check.
Actually, I should add that I'm a little sorry that Chomsky gets singled out here. Of all the progressive mafiosi of that '80s, he was the one I liked best. Fittingly, he's the only one who will be still be read fifty years from now.
Hitchens? Yeesh. His "defection" was a blessing.
If Chomsky weren't Chomsky, someone else would have to be. We need someone so willing and able to hold up the ugly mirror to our faces.
I can see Joseph's POV, but I do not think the rise of the right can be laid at the doorsteps of Chomsky et.al. With or without them, the US was going to go broke maintaining its empire, with the reactionaries taking over as that happened.
Blame FDR for giving us the Federal Reserve. Blame LBJ for his guns and butter policies. Blame Nixon for closing the gold window. But please, don't blame the only the only political commentator with the courage to stand up and say that we invaded Vietnam.
joe, i have to say, i agree with these astute commenters. and i have to also say i do not agree with this from you:
"I accuse them of not seeing that party as the only instrument capable of keeping us from Theocratic madness. I accuse them of abandoning the fight to a barbaric foe because they disdained the only weapon that might actually prevail."
this emphasis on 'the party' gives me real shudders, joe, altogether too reminiscent of soviet russia, china, and - not least - karl rove and crew. i'll have more to say on how this sentiment threatens our 'progressive' bloggers' attitudes toward impeachment. there is grave danger here...
staying on this topic, though, from my exposure to chomsky, including his talks, he seems fairly guileless. but more importantly, the man is relentless in his pursuit of truth. his presentation is sometimes maddening because he tends to restrict himself to facts (pretty dry) and draw conclusions in the pursuit of truth, whomever's toes get crunched. i therefore count him among my few modern heroes. especially in his stand against zionists.
i agree with unirealist that the world required and still requires a chomsky. his demand for brutal truths provides a tether point to truth to keep the rest of 'em flying off into the insane-osphere.
i do agree with you, though, that m. x appears to be leaning racist, not to mention losing logical faculties. anon 749 pretty well nailed that one.
and i could not agree with you more that hitchens was no loss; good riddance, i say!
Blame Woodrow Wilson for giving us the Federal Reserve, not FDR!!!
I see the increasing anti-Zionism at Xymphora as fully warranted, and I don't think he'd gone over the edge to racism at all. That is really how bad it is.
As some brave souls have mentioned-- Jim Moran, Fritz Hollings, McKinney-- and to unbelievable abuse, this Iraq war, engaged in on behalf of Israel, had the half the Democratic Senate that supported it, and all media uncritically spewing the propaganda without a critical look at its basis, because of Zionism. Plainly and simply.
Half the Dems in the Senate, and virtually all the major media, went along with this known-to-be-likely disastrous war, on behalf of Zionist loyalties, and to the grave detriment of this country, our military, our financial prospects for a generation, and etc.
Sorry, but calling out this dual loyalty faction, which might as well be single loyalty to Israel considering how traitorous such actions have proven to this country, is not racist. It's just leveling the playing field with adequate information for the American people to make up their own minds.
Unfortunately, a virulent level of actual anti-Semitism may arise from this knowledge, but for that I blame those parties that have pushed their abuses to these heartbreaking levels.
About X: Bullshit. He HAS gone over the edge. When you start praising David Duke and start using terms like ZOG, you've left civilized society. But it's more than that -- he's joined those who see Zionism as an all-pervasive supernatural force, as the secret motivator behind everything in the world he does not like. All Jews are the same (according to this view); they only pretend to disagree. Their purse has no bottom and their power has no limit.
Similarly, the most fanatical Zionists see anti-Semitism as a supernatural force, as the secret glue binding all that is not Jewish. All goys are secret Jew haters deserately longing to reopen the camps, and any public protestations to the contrary are simply art and craftfulness.
Madness. On both sides.
And it's ridiculous to equate party support in a democracy with the bad old days of the USSR. What's the old joke...? "A liberal is someone who won't take his own side in an argument."
Well, screw THAT. This isn't a mere argument anymore; its a fight for civilization. I'm sick of being considered unhip by pseudo-progressives, by "purists" who have never achieved a single positive gaol -- NOT ONCE in the thirty-plus years I've been observing -- simply because I support political candidates who, in my view, actually stand a chance of winning. Cockburn did everything he could to tear down Bill Clinton. Should I be grateful for that? Like it or not (and I often do NOT like it), the Democratic party is the only thing that has stopped this nation from devolving into Margaret Atwood's worst nightmare.
Chomsky exists beyond party affiliation -- as indeed he should. The idea that if he had only closed ranks with the Democrats and made the sort of ideological compromises which have already left us without a viable opposition party -- well, I simply don't see the value in it. Chomsky is above all a scholar, not a proselytizer.
In practical terms, we all by know now (as does Chomsky) that there *are* indeed differences between the parties, which can amount to life and death.
But that's beside the point. Chomsky isn't a politician or even an activist in the usual sense. He marshals the facts and holds up a mirror. Period.
As for my "enlightenment" remark -- all I was trying to say was, Chomsky can only speak the truth as he sees it. He can't be blamed if nobody listened, or for the course of American politics.
I tend to agree with those who say Xymphora has tipped over into racism. When she sees zionist conspiracies in every action by Pelosi and Harman then she becomes (IMHO) as bad as the zionists who assume any intelligent discussion of Israel to be Jew-hating racism. I used to read her blog rather frequently for the other side of what we get here in the news. Now, less so. And the Jew who is able to discuss Israel/Palestine impartially, is rare. I only know of a couple; the rest wear their ethnicity on their sleeve, just waiting for a comment to condemn. In fact, that is probably my only disagreement with Chomsky, his apparent inability to admit when Israel may be in the wrong.
As for Chomsky being biased (to the democratic party), if he were, he would loose all power to speak to those on the other side. Isn't it the job of an educator to be impartial and to present the truth as he sees is, rather that become a partisan for one side or the other? If he became the latter, would it not be much easier for the right-wingers to dismiss him out of hand? And wouldn't we all respect him less? We don't need any more Carvilles or Roves. And, frankly, when the democrats or a democratic president do something wrong or stupid, I'd rather have Chomsky discuss it than O'Reilly. BTW, Clinton pulled some beauts! As far as I'm concerned, he was the republican president they didn't know they wanted.
You sure Xymphora is female? I'd be interested to learn the truth. I don't need a name or an address, just a pronoun.
As for the "exists beyond party affiliation" defense of Chomsky: It goes only so far.
My problem started with his refusal to see any difference between JFK and the forces who killed him. This led him into some downright psychotic pronouncements. For example, he once said in a lecture (I may still have it on tape) that Kennedy ordered the assassination of Patrice Lumumba, even though that murder took place before JFK became president.
More broadly, he has insisted on several occasions that the CIA merely implements presidential policy. That blinkered view ignores a hell of a lot of history, including the CIA's bugging of the Nixon White House. It also ignores a much longer history -- a history probably older than writing itself -- of faction fights within and between ruling parties, of Janissaries who end up bossing the Emperor.
Like it or not, Chomsky has usually offered a "liter" and more nuanced version of Cockburn's idiotic belief that "the people" will hoist the red flag the moment they lose faith in democratic alternatives. It's an argument that harkens back to left-wing snipings against FDR, who was viewed by Marxists as a capitalist stooge unworthy of working class support.
That, in my opinion, is a dangerous stance. If the American people totally lose faith in moderate, democratic solutions, then the only "red flag" they will raise will be one with a white circle and a black swastika in the center.
Of course I knew it was Woodrow Wilson who gave us the Federal Reserve. I was just making sure someone was paying attention.
FDR confiscated privately-held gold and then devalued the dollars he compensated it with.
I'm glad to see defenders of Chomsky here. But Joseph's point does carry weight. Much of the so-called left savaged Clinton and Gore, which only made the nasty tactics of the Birch/Gantry right wing more effective. Especially Hitchens, who is so full of self-loathing I don't know how he can stand to be in the same room as himself. To his view, JFK was worse than Hitler or Stalin put together.
I can't answer for the Lumumba charge, which doesn't sound like the kind of mistake Chomsky would ever make, but there's no doubt (none) that the CIA implements U.S. foreign policy and that JFK did not alter the generally murderous quality of U.S. conduct abroad.
The fact that Chomsky doesn't buy into Camelot, and isn't much interested in the JFK assasination is hardly disqualifying. Having already delineated a monstrous apparatus, he's not terribly interested when it turns on itself, or by internal power struggles.
During the Clinton years, Chomsky did what he always does: turned a cold eye on the facts. In that respect he is altogether different from Christopher Hitchens, that self-appointed scourge, fabricator, rat and scold. The two do not bear comparison.
I'll say it again: Chomsky exists beyond politics. Or are we going to demand, in a country with an already horribly constricted range of discourse, that every remotely left-wing voice reflect the aspirations of Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry and Harry Reid?
How many more James Carville's do we really need? Can't you guys accept a gift when you receive one?
What and who are the Gatekeepers.
the "gatekeepers" on the left wing (such as Chomsky) and the right wing (such as Kissinger) of the American bald eagle, trying to fly above this nation, to oversee our course and discourse in our political decisions... create intellectually rigid and dogmatic frames around all discussions about contemporary political thought and investigation,, leaving the poor uninformed, idea hungry, slavish, mental panty waists, IQ malnourished, slothful, wannabes, stunned, mantally swamped, and intellectually paralyzed in all efforts to discover information that feeds their weak interest in the "truth".
Gatekeepers are skilled and trained at generating huge amounts of rhetoric and disinformation, couched in dense and ponderous essays, books and corporate or pseudo left leaning media interviews, contracted by their publicists and owners and managers.
Gatekeepers are skilled and trained in the art of linguistics, semantics and verbiage that is fired at the targets given them by their multi national (ie New World Order), corporate bosses. They are well paid with crowd adoration as well as financial largesse.
Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn two to name only a couple of ,madcap mouthpieces for the "Gate" or iron curtain wraped around America. They have filled the void left on the left when the true liberals like C. Wright Mills, the Kennedys, and King to name a few, were erased and silenced and have become intelectually almost forgotten.
Gatekeepers are assigned to keep discussion, debate, investigation and decisions away from the citizens that should be the true deciders.
For a in depth study of Chomskys Nazi anti semitic, (not just anti Zionism) sympathies see this essay..
http://wernercohn.com/Chomsky.html
Funny. Here, I thought Chomsky was a political commentator. If he were beyond politics, he'd be talking about -- oh, I don't know. The Pleroma. Plato's cave. Something like that.
And when you get into politics -- well, one area where I do agree with Marx was the bit about "The philosophers have merely described the world. The point is to change it."
Carville? At the very least, we can say that he did what he could to change the world. In that sense, we could use lots more Carvilles. I admire him for taking practical action. I don't admire his wife, the things he has said about Dean, or some of his views, especially in recent times. His time has come and gone; I don't think we need to listen to him any more, unless and until he changes his tune.
But -- he did help Clinton get elected. Although I am no uncritical fan of #42, I would give anything right now to revisit the relative peace and prosperity of the Clinton years.
There IS no "New World Order." CHomsky gave that stupid phrase a lot of publicity n the 1990s; that's one of the things that pissed me off about him. (Thanks for reminding me.) The dreaded NWO is a right wing myth, just like the Illuminati. And guys like Chomsky are not "trained" by dark masters to brainwash the masses...if that were the case, Chomsky would be much more famous than he is.
This kind of comment operates on a level of paranoia that even I cannot tolerate.
He is simply an articulate man with certain views. I agree with some of them. I think he's wrong in other areas. For chrissakes, what's wrong with leaving it at that?
Must you always presume dark plots whenever someone out there says something you don't agree with? I've had plenty of experience with that sort of "spook baiting." It's used by petty little men who are trying to force everyone around them to agree with their every word.
Joseph writes:
"Funny. Here, I thought Chomsky was a political commentator. If he were beyond politics, he'd be talking about -- oh, I don't know. The Pleroma. Plato's cave. Something like that."
You hit it right on the head, Joseph: Chomsky is a cognitive scientist. He *is* talking about Plato's cave.
That he brings some of the same analytical skills to the examination of public affairs, without party affiliation, shouldn't be so disturbing. It's hardly surprising that an anarchist like Chomsky wouldn't go to work for the Democratic party (or Greenpeace, the Socialist Workers party, the Working Families Party, the RNC, etc.).
As for the notion (not expressed by Joseph) that Chomsky is some kind of gatekeeper -- well, it's ridiculous. Chomsky has no influence on national policy or public discourse. If he's keeping a gate, a Chihuahua could jump over it.
Anyway, let's can this one. Some people don't Noam Chomsky. Some people worship Noam Chomsky. ButwWhat's important is his work which (as Joseph notes) will be read 50 years from now.
right on Joseph the so called New World Order slogan is a cleaver phrase invented by the right wing. Here is the truth about the so called conspiracy. It is not really a conspiracy..it is human nature. see below for a tale about what's truly happening everywhere
regarding the "mythical" NWO. I see a unified global system that is held together with the multinational corporate interests orchestrated in dimly lit boardroom,s as reflected and dramatized in that infamous monologue in the 1970's movie "Network", that serves as a warning grown large in our time.
In the boardroom of the "network’ CEO, our hero is brought in for a little "dressing down". He is informed that "in the real world there are no more nations there are only corporations".
That is where we are today in the senseless and costly war in Iraq where billions of dollars are trucked out of our treasury in military convoys, so that the loot can be divided up among the favored "faceless" corporations, ala Bechtel, Halliburton et al.
Then there are those sinister seven sisters, plump bodies glistening with oil, gleefully dancing on the graves of thousands of Iraqui citizens and fallen American warriors..
Maybe now is the time to remind all interested analysts that Afghanistan harbors the largest cash cow in the world, heroin, and so we (the corporate powers that control and send to market the harvest) now defend and protect “them”, (the mythical multinational corporations), again, as their vaults groan from excess (now we add war machine dollars, drugs dollars and petrodollars) and our nations city street vendors claim countless lives with addictions that accelerate crime and ruined lives.
The politicians, pundits and pols are just the shadowy figures chained in the back of Platos cave alongside the ordinary citizens with their clueless fascination and devotion to the shadows on the cave walls that they take for realiity. The shadows being only puppets manipulated by the "gods" the ultra wealthy myth makers that control the puppets (politicians and pundits and pols), so the crowded masses can stay entranced and stupefied.
In the meantime , one of the maddening crowd breaks free from his ankle chains and staggers toward the light dimly seen at the mouth of said cave and he notices all the theatrics on the parapet above, of the puppets casting the shadows and the puppeteers manipulating the richly animated puppets, but he feels compelled to keep going without notice until he finally reaches the mouth of this “theater of fools and deceivers and deceived”, and finally reaches the opening at the mouth of the cave and gazes up at the source of the magnificent illumination (the sun oftruth) and is amazed and enlightened himself. He then goes back inside the cave of darkness and ignominious hypersleep, and shouts to all, “you can be free from your chains and delusions and deceptions, there is unlimited light and liberty out here and it is free to any and all".
Inside is heard mumbling and groaning and finally a roar "shut up you idiot we are content right here, leave us alone with our fantasies (they dont say that I do) get away with your nonsense, we love it in here with these shadowy silhouettes and the chains we wear so proudly.
end of story?
I agree Joseph the New World Order is a deception created by the right wing (Hitler invented the slogan in 1933, and he is right, right?) so what we really really have is global FASCISM. Agreed?
Noe lets get down to business around here. I and many others are sick of shadows, puppets, politicians, polls and pols. Guide us into the light or move over you are casting a shadow.
Actually, it is a myth that Hitler invented the phrase "New World Order." It has probably been used by various people to mean various things. I seem to recall hearing something similar to "New World Order" in relation to the Treaty of Constance, but my memory may be mistaken on that point.
There is a book called "My New Order" which is a compilation of Hitler's speeches and is sometimes erroneously called his second book. The title was chosen not by Hitler but by his foreign editors. I think this is the origin of the idea that Hitler used the phrase New World Order in 1933.
That said, I would not be at all surprised to learn that Hitler used similar words in some speech or other at that time. It's been a while since went through that material.
What you have to understand is that it often happens that two people at two different times may have used the same words, or similar words. Don't leap to the conclusion that they meant the same thing.
For example, there was a hierarchical Spanish mystical society called the Alumbrados -- Illuminati -- in the 1600s (IIRC). Adam Weishaupt began an Enlightenment-oriented secret society in Austria in the 1770s, also called the Illuminati. Lots of people have noted this coincidence of nomenclature and presumed that the two groups were one and the same, operating in a clandestine fashion. But that's just not true. No evidence supports the idea.
In the 1970s, the phrase "New World Order" saw a great deal of circulation in American far right (as in John Birch) circles. For example, far right theorist Gary Allen used that term in his books.
Basically, what these writers had done was to repackage all the old conspiracy themes derived from the Protocols of Zion literature, the anti-Illuminati literature, the anti-United Nations literature and so on. It's important to keep in mind that, in this instance, the phrase "New World Order" was something that THEY (the right-wing theorists) had concocted and fastened upon. It was NOT a phrase used by the ostensible objects of their studies.
Later, after the fall of the Soviet Union, Bush the elder used the phrase "new world order" a few times in public speeches. The far rightists, who (as we sometimes forget) did not like Poppy, immediately presumed that when GHWB used the term, he meant the same thing Gary Allen meant by it. They believed (and still believe) that Bush's use of the term validated everything they had said.
But that was not the case. In fact, if you check out the Bush references in context, you will see that he and the Birchers used the same term -- "New World Order" -- to mean precisely opposite concepts.
Bush referred to a world system in which the United States was the unchallenged, lone dominant power, with all other powers bowing to DC -- which was, of course, presumed to rule benevolently.
By contrast, Allen and the Birchers referred to a system in which the United States loses all sovereignty and becomes subservient to U.N. and Soviet dictates. Recall that the U.N., in Birch mythology, is not the nearly-impotent entity that it always has been in reality.
Not long after Bush made those speeches, Chomsky and a few other leftists stupidly started to use the phrase "New World Order." Now, what Chomsky meant by the term was a lot closer to what Bush meant, although Chomsky presumed malevolence, not benevolence.
Such distinctions were lost on certain low-IQ conspiracy buffs, who thought that Chomsky and far rightists used the term to refer to the same enemy. Of course, the buffs had their rationalizations for this lazy conflation. As always in these realms, rationalization springs eternal.
I hope this is the last time I have to recount all this history!!
Alas, there aren't many people who have any objective grasp of the history of ideas on the American fringe. And that's why the same mistakes are endlessly repeated.
this from a speech by poppy Bush..
"[The war in Iraq is] a rare opportunity
to move toward an historic period of cooperation.
Out of these troubled times...
a New World Order can emerge."
before Congress on September 11, 1990
Oh Christ, I KNEW someone would do this. God, conspiracy buffs like you are SO fucking predictable.
Yes, yes. I KNOW that Poppy used the term "New World Order" in several speeches in that period. I said so in what I wrote.
The point I was trying to make -- and I rewrote the preceding comment to make sure that I was so bloody clear that even an eight-year-old could not misunderstand me -- the point I tried to make was this: When BUSH used those words, he did not mean the same thing that the right-wing conspiracy buffs mean when THEY use the words.
Got it?
It's like when a Brit says "check the boot." He probably does not refer to the same thing an American means when he uses the same three words.
Bush's use of the term "new world order" in the early 90s does not validate whatever conspiracy theory you have created around the phrase.
It was just a rhetorical device on his part. In my previous comment, I defined as best I could what I think he meant by the term. (Incidentally, I note that you have capitalized the phrase in a robustly Birchian fashion; I doubt that the caps were there in the original text of the speech.) Bush meant a Pax Americana, a single-superpower order. That concept was VERY DIFFERENT from the "U.S. knuckling under to the U.N." scenario which right-wing conspriacists have always meant when they used the term.
God, why do I bother trying to explain these things?
You know, I have got to restructure this blog to get rid of the plot-spotter numbskulls. All they do is annoy me. They are unreachable, anyways. Besides -- contrary to what some folks seem to beleive -- readership goes down when this stuff infects my pages.
I think I'm going to stick to more straightforward political stuff.
Hey Joe - this is just for you.......
thesis on chomsky by UK linguist Chris Knight
You may also appreciate this paper he wrote back in 2003....
I recently discovered that the Airforce University still quotes him in their psyops material site-heh
To me anarchism/chomsky "philosophy/politics" is more or less mental masturbation-because it is beyond this society-in my lifetime.
Like it or not, I want to affect positive change I can see with my own eyes, in my own life.
I hear you saying that we should look to the consequences of all that Chomsky has written, or some part of it, to evaluate its worth. Yes, the political movers has gotten worse over the last 20 years and several Presidents. So, maybe we have to conclude that Chomsky didn't help.
I agree that this is not a great way to tell whether someone's efforts have been successful. If he wanted to push for a society that promoted paying attention to human needs, he wasn't successful. If he wanted to promote a society devoted to the enriching of a few elites, he looks to have been successful. But, this is not what he has argued for in his books.
X argues that Chomsky has always secretly pushed for Zionism, against the interests of the United States. Evidence for this has been Chomsky's refusal to acknowledge the influence of the Zionist Lobby in American politics. As a way of subtely pushing for Zionism, Chomsky supposedly makes the wars and criminality in the Middle East, and elsewhere, a product of American business elites.
I think the more important issue is whether one pushes the idea that survival is the most important goal and force is the only sure way to survive. On this question, unfortunately, both elites all over and Zionists seem committed to force.
I have thought Chomsky pushed for negotiation, education, getting to know what's going on, and understanding. I don't think he's pushed for any kind of violent response to the problematic systems he's discussed.
steven, it is so nice to read something this thoughtful and balanced after being deluged by nutty responses.
I think you're right. Chomsky developed an inner picture of "the enemy" early on. That picture possessed much truth, but was not THE truth, and he didn't possess the mental elasticity to modify the image as new data emerged.
Perhaps the same can be said of me, of you, of all of us. We all form an idee fixe, and my idee may not be your idee. (Sorry for the lack of accent marks here.)
And so X considers him a Zionist agent and plenty of others consider him an agent of Nazi anti-Semites. Anyone fixed on an idea in competition with your idea or my idea must be placed in an intellectual quarantine. The competitor is The Other, The Enemy, The Devil.
Now zoom out and take in a wider view. The problem isn't just these insane attitudes toward Chomsky, who is simply one guy speaking his mind. It's a much more generalized madness: A refusal to presume that someone act in good faith while writing or espousing things with which you do not agree.
Such presumptions lead to wars. And I suppose I am guilty of the same sin.
Still, when dealing with the political realm -- a very practical realm, and thus a very cruel realm -- I think it's fair to ask the question: What good did Person X do in his career?
The comparison was made between Chomsky and Carville. Despite the many times when he has angered me, I think Chomsky is a much smarter man and a more original thinker. He will be read when Carville is forgotten. I have no affection for Carville at all these days, especially after the recent envious snipings. And his voice annoys me.
Yet who achieved more practical results?
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