Chomsky in Cuba

I don't see this posted. Excuse me if I missed it elsewhere.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=584&e=3&u=/nm/20031030/pl_nm/cuba_usa_chomsky_dc

selections:

"It is a frightened country and it is easy to conjure up an imminent threat," Chomsky said at the launching of a Cuban edition of a book of interviews published by the Mexican newspaper La Jornada, when asked how Bush could get reelected.


"They have a card that they can play ... terrify the population with some invented threat, and that is not very hard to do," he said.

snip

Chomsky said the military occupation of Iraq, to topple a "horrible monster running it but not a threat to anyone," was a failure.


"The country had been devastated by sanctions. The invasion ended sanctions. The tyrant is gone and there is no outside support for domestic dissidence," he said. "It takes real talent to fail in this endeavor."

[IrateCitizen]

1. Note the photo chosen -- Noam and Fidel

For the average person, nothing else matters after seeing that. Noam Chomsky can therefore be immediately discredited because he is viewed as "cozy" with Fidel Castro.

Damn that liberal media!!! :argh:

[RichM]

2. What percent of the US public understands who Chomsky is?

ie - that he is a leading dissident, & critic of US policy?

My guess is that maybe 1% of adults could even tell you who he is -- and most of them would simply think he's a "traitor" or "kook," having never read him or seen him, but merely gotten this impression from scattered remarks & innuendo.

3. too true, most likely

I doubt anything Chomsky says is going to influence most people.

What I find interesting however is that his book on 9-11 did sell quite well & that even though (as IrateCitizen wrote) Yahoo puts up a picture of Chomsky with Castro, they also quoted Chomsky directly.

I have some hope that the dissemination of this type of information and questions about fear-mongering may have some influence.

[IrateCitizen]

4. The problem with Chomsky (as I've posted before)

Chomsky's main problem lies in the fact that the basic truths that he tells -- most notably, relationships of power -- fly directly in the face of almost everything that we, as Americans, have been conditioned to believe since an early age.

I wouldn't classify Chomsky's work as primarily criticizing American foreign policy -- even if that is where the enormous amount of most of his research is directed. Chomsky's primary thrust is, I believe the following:

- Power is the most corrupting force ever discovered
- People who are most attracted to power are, most often, the most ill-equipped, morally speaking, to wield it
- Those who aspire to leadership positions within nation-states are inevitably those most attracted to power
- Therefore, the basic concept of a nation-state is an immoral one, an idea that is built around the goal of consolidating and extending power
- Institutions that hold power (government, corporations, media, organized crime) may compete against one another, but the one area in which they all converge is preventing the "commoners" from infringing on their shared power
- The only way to keep nation-states (and their rulers) in check is to keep them constantly exposed to light of day and maintaining a civic-minded, well-educated populace and subjecting anything carried out by the state to their scrutiny and approval.

Now, if you grow up believing that America is somehow exempt from these truisms due to "democratic process", and that it truly does represent the "beacon of hope and freedom to the world", a confrontation with such ideas leaves you two basic choices.

You can begin to realize these theories of power relationships as real and accurate, thereby completely shattering your previous view of the realities of the world around you, never able to return to such a perspective again (and condemned to living a life completely outside of "mainstream opinion")

OR...

You can reject these theories violently, maintaining your initial perspective and being free to live a life blissfully ignorant of such "unpleasantries".

It's an either/or choice. I really don't think that there is a middle ground. And that is why Chomsky fails to gain greater traction. Having read a great deal of his stuff, I can attest to how easy it is to feel so overwhelmed and helpless at the plight of the world around you after having done so.

6. optimism

& yet Chomsky, himself, is an optimist because (I'm paraphrasing from memory) he believes that things have changed in the past few decades through speaking truth to power. I think he gives as an example that in the 50's , the powers that be didn't attempt to cover up their interventionism in Latin America, but that by the time of Reagan, they did & that this is a good sign since the necessity of covering things up indicates that the paradigm is changing.

You delineated this point of Chomsky's.
"- Institutions that hold power (government, corporations, media, organized crime) may compete against one another, but the one area in which they all converge is preventing the "commoners" from infringing on their shared power"

I couldn't agree more. This is also very close to what Althusser argues when he speaks of "ideology" being taught in the educational systems.

[IrateCitizen]

7. Getting a little further off track, but for a good cause...

;-)

This is also very close to what Althusser argues when he speaks of "ideology" being taught in the educational systems.

I think that this is the reason that one of the most important books that every American should read is Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States: 1492-Present

Why? Because it puts forth (and reinforces) the premise that, no matter how bad things have seemed throughout history, it has always been the efforts of ordinary people -- banding together, organizing, agitating -- that has brought about great change.

The "official" view of history is one that depicts all great events and changes as coming down from on high. Lincoln freed the slaves. Washington won the Revolutionary War. Statesmen granted women's suffrage. Johnson gave blacks civil rights. Eisenhower won the battle on D-Day.

Zinn's work dispels these myths by showing that all of these accomplishments came usually not from the efforts of statesmen and generals, but quite often came DESPITE their efforts to the contrary, and the ability of ordinary people to force them to act. It's a dangerous view for the members of the "establishment" -- because it reinforces to ordinary people where the power truly lies, if only they realize it.

[grannylib]

5. Also professor of linguistics at MIT