Noam Chomsky: US policy serves 'the masters of mankind'

[The Northerner]

Syracuse, NY -- Before more than 1,000 people at Nottingham High School Wednesday night, linguist and political analyst Noam Chomsky spoke about American foreign policy, public education and how it feels to be called stupid.

Shortly after the death of Osama bin Laden, Chomsky wrote a reaction piece for Guernica magazine where he called the military action in Pakistan “a planned assassination” that should have ended with bin Laden being taken into custody and not killed.

The article sparked much discussion on the Internet, including an article from journalist Christopher Hitchens that calls Chomsky’s reactions “stupid and ignorant.”

During the question-and-answer portion of the event, Chomsky responded to Hitchens.

Read more: http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2011/05/noam_chomsky_us_policy_serves.html

[n2doc]

1. I agree with him on this point:

Breaking from the topic of American foreign policy, Chomsky discussed the tragic state of education in the country. He specifically mentioned the public education system in Southern California.

“The public education system is being systematically destroyed,” Chomsky said. “The tuition is so high in the major universities, it’s just for the rich. It’s at the level of Ivy League colleges.”

[Deep13]

3. agreed. nt

[abelenkpe]

6. So very true

Friend of mine at work spent the past year finding a good college for his daughter and they found that private schools were less expensive than public universities in CA. Sad when it was quite the opposite 20 years ago.

[Deep13]

2. Here's Hitchens' article, FYI.

http://www.slate.com/id/2293541/

[sabrina 1]

4. Hitchens destroyed his brain with alcohol long ago.

I'm sorry he's sick and hope there is a chance for him to survive, but he lost all credibility when he began defending every lie told by the Bush administration. I will always remember him slamming Michael Moore for the movie 'Fahrenheit 9/11' listing several 'lies' he claimed to have found in the movie. Michael Moore destroyed him over that. It was a wonderful thing to watch.

Poor guy, he so wanted to be this era's J. Swift or Shakespeare or whatever, and all he ended up as was a Rush Limbaugh wannabe.

[Deep13]

8. I don't agree.

Yeah he was making excuses for the Iraq war, but it is not accurate to say that he defended Bush's every lie. At the time he took his citizenship exam, he was a plaintiff in the illegal wiretap case. I don't think you can credibly claim that someone who has been around the world and often in personal danger using his pen to expose tyrants and hucksters can be compared to a bullshit artist like Limbaugh. I frankly don't blame him for being disenchanted with some parts of the intellectual left, though I do think he threw the baby out with the bathwater when he rejected the left wholesale.

I wasn't aware of the argument between Moore and Hitchens over Moore's movie. I'll have to find that. I do think Chomsky and Moore are embarassing themselves with this bin Laden deserves due process crap.

[sabrina 1]

12. Hitchens became a rabid defender of Bush's 'doctrine'.

What he was before, he completely abandoned and was made to look like a fool by the 'intellectual left' whatever that is, far too many times, and even when faced with evidence, eg by MM regarding the facts in the movie, he was unable to accept them so invested was he in the Bush doctrine that 'violence is the only way'.

Neither Chomsky nor Moore are embarrassing themselves for doing their duty as citizens of this country. We have a system of justice. When Bush proposed that the POTUS should be given the rights of a king to make decisions on who should be targeted for assassination nearly every Democrat I know oppposed that dangerous policy.

Imho, it those who have now changed that opinion who are embarrassing themselves. They are doing exactly what we accused Bush supporters of doing. Supporting the politician over the Constitution. If this was Bush, there is no one on this board who would say that both MM and Chomsky are embarrassing themselves. In fact they did not. Because neither of those men have changed, they are saying now what they said when Bush was president.

I remember trying to reason with rightwingers who supported Bush's idea of a 'unitary executive' that one day that executive would be a Democrat. I am saying the same thing now to those supporting the exact same policy. We will one day be dealing with this same issue under a Republican president. Will you support say, Romney or whoever should they become president, ordering the assassination of someone they and their party consider to be an enemy of this state? Think about it. This isn't about politicians, it is about this country and what our overall values are.

[NYC Liberal]

22. "If this was Bush"...

I, and many other Democrats, criticized Bush for many years for not focusing on taking bin Laden out.

So I would have supported it wholeheartedly if Bush had done it, just as much as I did with Obama doing it.

[SpiralHawk]

14. Yup, booze caused Hitchens to regress to the level of Republiconism

The drunker he got, the more Republicon talking points he spouted.

Talk about stoopid (R).

[themadstork]

19. holy crap was he never even close to being a j.swift.

The guy has literary pretensions, but that's about it. There's no fuel in that tank.

[sabrina 1]

23. I agree, he had delusions of grandeur. Alcohol apparently does that. n/t

[snot]

5. Most of the comments on Chomsky (at the linked article) are depressingly horrifying.

[ProSense]

7. "Shortly after the death of Osama bin Laden, Chomsky wrote a reaction piece

...for Guernica magazine where he called the military action in Pakistan “a planned assassination” that should have ended with bin Laden being taken into custody and not killed."

Maybe Chomsky could share his knowledge of the operation with the UN.

United Nations Special Rapporteurs statement on bin Laden

[Enrique]

9. dumb Chomsky

everyone knows the goal of US policy is to spread freedom all over the globe. :sarcasm:

[patrice]

10. Odd how they discount Chomsky's contribution to the discourse, but then turn out in force

to assault him. Did Chomsky touch a nerve of truth?

Apparently, they are not aware that whatever truth Hitchen's et al claim is, by definition, inevitable, that is unless it isn't real in the first place.

[SpiralHawk]

15. Paid Republicon SuckerPuppets are everywhere on the net -- defending billionaire blather

it a uglee fact O' net life...

[patrice]

17. I think they test memes out around here all of the time.

Someone this morning saying we should arrest some (icky! horrible!) beauty-pageant mom for using botox on here daughter. Yeah, that's pretty fucking AWFUL! . . . but ARREST??? and then further down in that thread was some repeated mention to REGULATE them. Regulate + Arrest = Right Wing Heroine and I was seriously persona-non-grata in that thread for trying to suggest such coercive responses are not only EXTREME and un-Democratic, THEY DON'T WORK.

That's only the latest of some rather odd, definitely un-Democratic, stuff I have seen going down here. Someone's trying to make Democrats look bad and while I for damn-sure don't think Democrats are okay, let alone fine, that kind of bullshit ain't coming from family. It's questionable actors meaning to do harm with social media & search engines!

[patrice]

18. Yeah, speaking of defending billionaire blather . . . I was in a thread here yesterday in which

someone was working that one hard!! FrenchieCat took care of them, good!!!

[SpiralHawk]

20. Well, republicons gotta eat, too. That, I suppose, is why they sacrifice honor

to do the henchwork of their Billionaire SuckerPuppetMasters (R). Not that selling out America is justified or anything, but it makes it understandable. Sort of. For people flabby moral fiber, anyway.

[L0oniX]

25. Yep ...and last week I ran into another one here ...shill'n for Monsanto.

[eilen]

11. My teenage son and his friends attended this event

He said there was no seats left by the time he got there. Initially high school students were to be let in free but so many tickets were sold that we thought it prudent to purchase tickets. Good thing. My son purchased his book and stood at the table so he would be first to get Noam's signature on it. He said some lady told Noam a long boring personal story before he could get to the signing so he didn't try to engage him in any conversation as he was already behind (Professor Chomsky had about 20 minutes to sign books).

Anyway, he made a great impression on my son.

The article doesn't mention that there were protesters at this event with signs stating that Noam Chomsky killed Jews and other negative stuff about the Syracuse Peace Council.

Our local paper-- the Syracuse Post Standard's online comments are always so full of hate. It is like a full time job for local retired Rush Limbough/Glenn Beck listening tea party members to populate the boards with their brand of negativity and misery. They are by no means representative of the average person in our city/county which trends Democratic in every national election (except the last one where Buerkle was elected congresswoman mostly d/t rural Wayne Co).

[patrice]

21. He's a brilliant man involved in one of the most politically sensitive aspects of our struggle:

Language.

I have been aware of him since my under-grad days in Literature studies. Your son is so very fortunate to have met a great man.

He draws such intense fire because he strikes at the soul of how hegemony works: the mind and heart of the human medium, its language.

[girl gone mad]

13. k & r

[hulka38]

16. Does anyone think Chomsky would've gotten the analysis of the Iraq War wrong?

That was a layup for Chomsky because he understands the big picture. He's understood the plot, the motivation, the set and the characters for decades. Chomsky is a highly intelligent and open-minded man who has always searched for the underlying truth and like Copernicus he isn't afraid of the consequences. Hitchens has spent a lot of time and effort playing the part of an intellectual but he's really a salesman.

[bluestate10]

24. Lots of buzz phases with no elaboration of what they mean. In other words,

Newt Gingrich in liberal, anti-war clothing. Ask Chomsky to go into the lawless tribal regions of Pakistan and negotiate with the taliban there. See what his views are when he returns, in the unlikely event that he does return. Have the anti-any war crowd not learned by hard experiences that extremists can't be negotiated with or coddled?

[whatchamacallit]

26. Lots of people around the world would regard the US government as "extremist"

It may be changing thanks to 10 years of "post 9/11" indoctrination, but most liberals I've known over my life have been the anti-war crowd. These days it seems the meaning of "liberal", and even "democrat", are being redefined.

[themadstork]

27. Did you just compare Dr. Chomsky to the newt?

I really hope you did not criticize Chomsky's geurnica piece for using a false comparison.

Reading the linked article, I don't really see that he used buzzwords. He even sourced the masters of mankind thing. Your critique is the standard hardened-realist posturing of the pro-war right.

[Octafish]

28. Seems the Masters are drawn together by something other than ideology...

Rothschild and Freshfields founders’ had links to slavery, papers reveal



Baron de Rothschild and Prescott Bush,
sharing a moment together.

PS: Most Bushes and Rothschilds are good folk.
This is intended to shed light on those who work
to concentrate money and power,
for themselves and to the detriment of democracy.

PPS: The photo has typed copy on its back.
It looks official.

PPS: Money and Property mean Power -- and Plenty of It.