I think I tend to agree. I admire his writing but he's a linguist and philosopher whose non-political ideas I also tend not to agree with -- take the idea that language stems from intelligence alone and not from the specialized language centers in the brain, which I find totally ridiculous. And don't forget his minimizing Pol Pot (because after all he isn't American and how bad can he be?) and telling us that the deaths on 9/11 were insignificant because we're a bad country and we did bad things because we're so obsessed with Communism.
Of course we are a bad country in a world where there are no good ones. Yes, we did horrible things to the Indians, to the people we kidnapped from Africa and we turned our backs on many genocides. We allowed economic interests to beat the war drum and we love to take up arms and call ourselves heroes for less that admirable reasons and we certainly decide too often that our political and economic ends justify curtailing the freedom of others, even to the point of shocking and aweing them to death. We struggle with racism, with authoritarianism and we burn too much fuel.
But I find it disgusting to say we shouldn't react to people who bomb us (because we're evil and deserve to die) or that we shouldn't oppose acts of slaughter abroad because we're just such a bad country.
Decline? Well of course, to someone my age, everything always seems to be going to the dogs, but it's been that way forever and if all those self-righteous blowhard polemicists had been right, we'd long since have grown tails and barked ourselves hoarse.
Sure, I've spent a lot of time railing at the stupid, nasty, selfish, cruel, egotistical and megalomaniacal acts of humans, American and otherwise, but Chomsky has a neurotic prejudice against - or maybe let's call it hate for everything American that blinds him to history and distorts his sense of justice and although, like Ron Paul, I sometimes agree strongly on certain points, Noam won't be satisfied until we're wiped off the map and he can go apply for citizenship in some Utopia that will never exist.
I agree Capt that your analysis is accurate. Chomsky is a bright guy but he seems to spend an excessive amount of time demonizing America. Yes, we have our faults and no, I do not always agree with the actions of those running my country, but there are few if any countries whose hands are blood free and who have always behaved admirably.
I think that I march to a somewhat different drummer when it comes to Chomsky. I don' see his views as supporting a call for the destruction or elimination of all things American; I think that he is concerned with stopping the inevitable decline of a country that has gotten way too big for its britches. Of course there are other countries who have their own history of imperial domination; our friendly ally, Great Britain was once a major power, its colonial reach so widespread that the sun never set on the British Empire. Much earlier, there was ancient Rome, another imperialistic country that for a period of time had a far reaching sphere of influence.
Chomsky lays out a rational argument taht does not declae the U.S. to be a den of inequity b ut rather a short-sighted nation that has been sucked in to believing its own mythology totally forgetting that it invented that mythology. When I read the message boads or commentary following almost any news story, there are always a substantial number of people who declare that America is not only the greatest country in the world but in the history of the world. Such arrogance would simply be hubris if not for the serious consequences that arise from the policies enacted and the actions taken by the U.S. based on the belief about our own superiority.
I think that much of Chomsky's analysis is spot on. Our involvement in Vietnam was ill-advised and undertaken not for some humanitarian cause by the linger pathological paranoia of HUAC and McCarthyism. In the early 1960s we still thought that Communism was the boogeyman and any form of government that didn't reflect American values was suspect.
I won't belabor our other policies that reflect more about our self-interests than any good to be done in the world; Chomsky does that quite well.
I read Chomsky's two part series as being a warning that we need to change course. Our refusal to offer serious attention to environmental issues including the real threat of climate change is policy for self-destruction. As a whole,the U.S. refuses to take seriously any responsibility for the world that we leave to future generations,much more concerned about profit than the impact of our carbon footprint on this earth.
We have military bases all over the world and yet profess not to understand why there is so much animosity directed toward us. U.S. imperialism is not new. This country was founded based on theft; a truth which we carefully ignore. One of the earliest property cases heard before the U.S.Supreme Court, Johnson v.M'Intosh established the "discovery doctrine" which declared that the indigenous population had never owned the land upon which they had lived for generations because they hadn't fenced it in and carved out parcels of individual ownership. In the opinion, the court decided that the Indians had never owned their land, merely possessed it, and that the Indians could only convey their land to the U.S.government to do with as it pleased. I'd like to see history books make it clear that European ownership of land was acquired by legalized thievery.
I think that what Chomsky is pointing out is that our belief in our own exceptionalism as a country and a culture arises from our astounding ignorance as to the realities of all of the dirty bits that litte our history. We are not the worst country ever but we are far from the paragon of virtue that far too many Americans believe that we are. Hubris ultimately destroys the proud and haughty. If we follow the footsteps of other great powers, our decline is inevitable. Ultimately I think that Chomsky's thesis is that we need to take off our rose colored glasses. We can't solve our problems until we see them clearly.
Well stated. We are not that virtuous super power we like to think we are indeed. However, we for the most part are better than the majority of the alternatives. This does not mean we shouldn't improve.
I would only add to Sheria's comments that ad hominem debasements of the messengers only add to the problem, firmly affixing the rose colored glasses over the eyes the blind. To the few who care to listen, content may still be more important than personality (of which Chomsky seems to reduce to the least quantity possible). Chomsky's message is indeed course change for a country I suspect he loves deeply, given the energy he puts into it.
"I'd like to see history books make it clear that European ownership of land was acquired by legalized thievery."
Legalized thievery and force of arms, but yeah, so would I, if only to watch the frenzy of the multitudes screaming "revisionism!" Revisionism being, in the Republican lexicon, a synonym for truth. Slavery was another form of the same thing, I should think: the theft of 'personhood.'
I think you're a little too kind to Noam. As I said, I often agree with him but perhaps I'm overly sensitive to what I see as the attitude of 'we have no right to complain or accuse because of our past -- our inherited and original sin.' Even a convicted criminal has certain rights.
I see some emotional arguments dressed up in professorial robes and having spent more hours and taken more risks out in the street than he did denouncing Vietnam, I don't think he owns this issue. Hell, some 75% of us were against that war and some of us took big risks in opposing it ( paling around with terrorists?) Every other honest person is aware of the imperialism and the manufactured mythology without having to read Chomsky, but I don't take it to the point of self-flagellation when some bastards try to blow up New York or come up with idiocies like saying that because the government can't be trusted to tell the truth, no one really was killed by the Khmer Rouge and if they were, why then, it's only our fault anyway - and ours alone.
We are a large group of people with differing opinions and not too well defined by our history or the current activities of our government and if some agency, foreign or domestic, kills my friends and countrymen, or slaughters civilians abroad, it's not wise to tell me " oh well, they deserved it anyway" and particularly when the same Chomskified arguments blame us for killing civilians in WW II which of course excuses the Nazis.
Perhaps there's a rosy tinge to his glasses too, if he's going to keep insisting that whatever we do is wrong and we're no better than we ever were -- so we deserve to perish.
Chomsky should take are to avoid the arrogance, the hubris and indeed his own cult, lest it become impossible to distinguish his haughty rhetoric for hopeless nihilism.
I think if Chomsky can be faulted it's because he doesn't go far enough. He remains fixed within the political sphere without (I believe intentionally as he's inflammatory enough) investigating the more insidious US corporate imperialism. For example, Chomsky opens his piece mentioning the anniversary of the Vietnam War but doesn't connect to the underlying reasons as suggested here:
"In the 1950's a method of undersea oil exploration was perfected which used small explosions deep in the water and then recorded the sound echoes bouncing off the various layers of rock below. The surveyor could then determine the exact location of the arched salt domes which hold the accumulated oil beneath them. But if this method were used off the Vietnam coast on property Standard didn't own or have the rights to, the Vietnamese, the Chinese, the Japanese and probably even the French would quickly run to the United Nations and complain that America was stealing the oil, and that would shut down the operation.
"In 1964, after Vietnam was divided into North and South, and the contrived Gulf of Tonkin incident, several U.S. aircraft carriers were stationed offshore of Vietnam and the 'war' was started. Every day jet planes would take off from the carriers, bomb locations in North and South Vietnam, and then using normal military procedure when returning would dump their unsafe or unused bombs in the ocean before landing back on the carriers. Safe ordnance drop zones were designated for this purpose away from the carriers.
"Even close-up observers would only notice many small explosions occurring daily in the waters of the South China Sea and thought it was only part of the 'war.' The U.S. Navy carriers had begun Operation Linebacker One, and Standard Oil had begun its ten year oil survey of the seabed off of Vietnam. And the Vietnamese, Chinese and everybody else around, including the Americans, were none the wiser. The oil survey hardly cost Standard Oil a nickel, the U.S. taxpayers paid for it."
—Marshall Douglas Smith. (2001). Black Gold Hot Gold, Ch. 3
Chomsky also doesn't mention that after the war "Vietnam divided their offshore coastal area into numerous oil lots and allowed foreign companies to bid on the lots, with the proviso that Vietnam got a percentage of the action. Norway's Statoil, British Petroleum, Royal Dutch Shell, Russia, Germany and Australia all won bids and began drilling within their areas. Strange it was that none of them struck oil. However, the lots which Standard Oil bid for and won proved to have vast oil reserves. Their extensive undersea seismic research appears to have paid off." (refer to cheesy looking but interesting website for more: http://www.oilcompanies.net/oil1.htm)
When the political moral high ground is abandoned, to whom, other than thinkers such as Chomsky, might we turn to redirect us?
" to whom, other than thinkers such as Chomsky, might we turn to redirect us?"
Thinkers 'such as' Chomsky, or Chomsky himself? There are a number to chose from and a lot of data that doesn't need a polemicist to harangue us about. I don't need anyone to remind me of our past horrors -- including and especially Vietnam and I could go on for days about all the horrible things Western colonialism has brought about and of course the USA played a part, but what I sometimes see in Chomsky -- and I admit I may be wrong about him -- is the notion that because of the past and current misdeeds of our government, we are beyond any moral right to defend ourselves and even if I for instance, represent the vast majority of Americans who opposed our defense of colonialism and having been drawn into it with false information, I can't be angry that some Egyptian religious loonies killed a friend in New York and almost got my son at the same time. I don't believe in inherited sin.
Perhaps I'm saying that moral authority is self supporting and one doesn't have to be Sir Galahad to spend a minute or two on the high horse. I applaud Chomsky for speaking about these things, but I do not applaud his refusal to admit it when he's terribly wrong or to describe 320 million US citizens as outlaws when so many of us have struggled against the abuses of our government and other institutions. I don't recall him being so snide and condescending regarding the evils of other nations either and it all smells of rationalized prejudice to me.
He should be honest enough to see that the unfair generalizations he uses on occasion are a form of injustice and that simplification is the tool of prejudice.
I was brought up knowing about the horrors of what happened to the natives of this country, for instance, and I have wasted a lot of rage on people who refuse to admit it. Does my US citizenship somehow make me culpable for the deeds of General Custer or Andrew Jackson anyway? Would it then be permissible for the great, great grandson of Sitting Bull to kill me? You can guess my feelings about that.
I suppose I am more interested to read and understand what he has to say than to be offended by his high tone. He is not only critical of the US; he roundly criticizes Israel and the UK and others. I also highly doubt he's personally criticizing anyone on this site. Your argument Fogg, though well-intentioned, offers an easy apology for any American wrongdoing and reduces the possibility of redress. Stretching the argument to suggest that Chomsky favours killing as retribution is just foolish. And yes, to answer the question, in a democracy we are all responsible. That's the point Chomsky is clearly making.
Whoa - are we putting words in my mouth? I haven't indulged in any ad hominem here and by asserting that I am not personally responsible for having mined Haiphong harbor and all the more so because I took risks to oppose it, I'm also thereby asserting that you are not responsible for the 1857 Gradual Civilization act or the 1874 Indian act or forcing all Indian children over 7 to be sent to Catholic boarding schools and depriving them of medical oversight so that they are left to die of tuburculosis and other ailments untreated. Canada was sterilizing Indian men and women up until the 1980's and I could write a few thousand more words on this smelly subject. Are your schools teaching this history? I assume you think this is horrible and so I don't blame you or my Canadian relatives any more than I blame my British family for the War of 1812. Perhaps you could let me off the hook for invading Cuba?
But as to justification, what do you make of the fact that he asserted that al Qaeda had no responsibility for 9/11 and then most astonishingly wrote that it was no worse an atrocity than President Clinton's earlier use of cruise missiles against Sudan in retaliation for the bomb attacks on the centers of Nairobi and Dar es Salaam. What is that but a justification for an attack on US and other civilians because the US retaliated for another attack on US citizens? Is that gloriously false equivalence like saying we had no right to go after the nazis because we're just as evil? On this matter he's so far from being a moral leader or an objective historian I had to part company.
How far back does out inherited guilt go anyway? Back to Adam? Sorry, I don't buy it. And as long as we're being hyperbolic and pugnacious here, hat about a thank you for the fact that you're not speaking Russian? Coulda happened, you know.
I'm not even attacking Chomsky -- I'm not demonizing hem while he lumps me in with demons. I'm saying he not as helpful in making this a better world than he could be and that his ego is awfully large for someone condemned as guilty by his own words. I'm saying that my former esteem has been diminished by his dignifying and supporting the work of a Holocaust Denier (Robert Faurisson) in the 70's and telling us the unholy slaughter in Cambodia was the product of "media bias."
I don't need him teaching me morality or about history I already know.
Other than that, I'm more than sufficiently and notoriously caustic about denouncing the many sins of my country and other countries to the point at which I'm also a notorious bore on the subject, but my objective is to expose, to educate, to induce people to face the past in an effort to improve the future. To the extent that others do so, I generally support them and I generally support Chomsky as well when he's not dancing on graves like Kali the Destroyer. Both he and I could learn a little more humility -- admittedly, at least on my part but perhaps he could find a few other places to grind his axe on and acknowledge that Democracy notwithstanding, few of us have power as individuals. So, if I'm part of an evil empire, so the hell is he.
I don't need him teaching me morality or about history I already know.
Captain, it's not about you or anyone who actually does have knowledge of history. Perhaps our experiences have been very different but I see no evidence that the majority of Americans have a broad and comprehensive understanding of any history including our own.
The appeal of the GOP rhetoric is enhanced by the mythologized history of America as a moral leader on the world stage. When they profess that America is the greatest country in the history of the world, there is no irony in their observation; they honestly believe that.
I admit that I interpreted Chomsky's commentary post 9/11 not as that we had no right to take steps to prevent such a horror from being repeated but a call for us to look at ourselves clearly and understand how our policies and actions had aided in creating the climate that resulted in 9/11.
I don't think that Chomsky has set out to be a moral leader. I see Chomsky as one voice out of many who are attempting to pierce the bubble of American exceptionalism to which so many Americans adhere.
As for Chomsky not focusing on the failings of other nations, one person cannot address every failure of the world. It seems unreasonable to me to suggest that if Chomsky doesn't address the failings of other nations that he cannot address those of his nation. If that line of thinking were followed to its logical conclusion then no one could make critical observations of any nation unless the person offering the critique also addressed the failings of all other nations. If I have knowledge of corruption in my local government and share my knowledge, it is totally irrelevant that I failed to identify the corruption prevalent in other local governments.
The issue is how much validity is there in Chomsky's assessment of the character of the United States?
In the Cosmos of the Commentariat, specifically on the Planet of Punditry, I find my newest thoughts every day. Assuredly, all my thoughts have been thunk by someone else, and there is nothing new under the Sun, as they say. Nevertheless, I don’t find all my thoughts thunk by the same person. At best, a little here, a little there, but I have yet to find a clone of myself in a single person who expresses my every thought. Too often, I confuse the word ‘prophet’ for ‘profit;” and perhaps that is why I make a damn lousy follower.
There's a lot that doesn't get addressed in these comments. Ad hominem as opposed to dealing with content? Well, perhaps "snide and condescending" fits or, "I'm saying he not as helpful in making this a better world than he could be and that his ego is awfully large for someone condemned as guilty by his own words." Perhaps not. But it blurs the lines between content and personality.
As to spurious arguments about other nations, in the cited article, Chomsky is speaking to and about the US. Yes, a quick Google of Canada could also tell us about the Chinese workers who were blown to bits and buried alive to build the first transcontinental railway, of the tens of thousands of Canadian farm boys used as cannon fodder by the Brits in WW1, or the Japanese who were put into internment camps and had their property stolen during WW2, or the Inuit famine in the 1950s that wiped out an entire generation of youth, or the current suicide rate among our Aboriginal youth. The list of Canadian wrongs and oversights is long and shameful.
Am I, as a Canadian citizen responsible? The answer is 'yes.' I and all Canadians should seek to redress these wrongs whenever and wherever possible without fail. Have we gone far enough? No. However, our Inuit population is now larger than at any time in their history. Our status First Nations people pay no federal or provincial taxes, have access to free health and dental care including orthodontics, have access to tuition-free post-secondary education and other advantages that hopefully offset some of the past damage. And some First Nations people are taking a leading role in challenging the Canadian government on environmental issues. These are all interesting aspects of past and unfolding Canadian history.
But back to Chomsky's piece, I would have to agree with Sheria's most recent comment as a starting point. She's correct. This isn't about her or you or me, personally. This is about where we go from here, whether it's ripping up an area larger than the size of Great Britain to mine Canadian tar sands with Chinese and American corporate investment, or sabre-rattling for a new war in Iran.
I'll close with my favourite quote from Canada's first prime minister, LaFontaine: “The principles of a people are stronger than the laws imposed upon them. No privileged caste, beyond and above the mass of the people, can exist in Canada.” It was as true a path for Canadians in 1841 as is is today. And perhaps for Americans, too. We'll see.
But enough wasted time on dead end opinions. Let's all bemoan the fact that none of us find all our thoughts thunk by the same person and call it a day—and leave Chomsky to remain ever Chomsky. Clearly, we don't care enough about his views to actually discuss them here.
I suppose where this dino comes down on the ever-persnickety NC is that to me, most of what I've heard him saying sounds like Political Science 101 with an attitude. Yes, America has done and continues to do lots of things it has no business being proud of; but then, I think we already knew that and don't really need Mr. Chomsky to tell us. When I hear consciousness-raising and occasional self-loathing bluster, I can only ask, "Who listens to disaffected academics and theoreticians like Noam anyway, outside academia or small progressive radio stations?" I question the range of the message and attitude the man is promoting. It isn't a very effective vehicle for getting the truth across, I suspect, and it generates a backlash that may be more trouble than it's worth. I'm more focused on the following proposition: America is a near-hegemonic power, so it matters who sits in the office where that power is centered. We can either have some half-crazed, arrogant fanatic or cynical lying brute or semi-aristocratic resume-polisher wielding it – this year's delightful Republican cast, for the most part – or someone who might exercise the great power we have somewhat responsibly, with a sense of humanity and restraint. Getting that choice right is probably about the best we can do as citizens for the present. Unfortunately, the great mass of the people is probably never going to know, or care to know, the truth about what our gub'mint is up to most of the time. Il faut cultiver notre jardin, ness-paw? Perhaps it's best to work on what you can do, not so much on what you can't.
Chomsky may indeed be "thought-provoking," but honestly, I'd rather spend an hour in Latin or Italian studies than read any amount of his stuff. He isn't telling me anything I don't already know, based on the principles of statecraft I think I've long since grasped. Others will of course do and think as they wish, and that's the way it should be.
By gum, I HAVE been meaning to remonstrate with you about your failure to stop the murder of the only Republican president I've ever liked as well as your inexplicable refusal to end the Vietnam War. I just don't know what you were thinking on either occasion.... Typical American!
“Clearly, we don't care enough about his views to actually discuss them here.”
I don’t claim to speak for others, only for myself. On my bookshelf is almost every book Chomsky has ever written. Shall I expound on transformational-generative grammar and then turn sullen if you find my expostulations boring? Perhaps you missed by comments on wedge politics and the atomization of voting blocs. These ideas come from Chomsky’s essays on propaganda, which I find more useful in meeting the challenges of the present than bemoaning the atrocities of the past. For your edification, Edge, Chomsky was a linguist before he appointed himself punditz, and his essays on propaganda are far more worthy than his political tracts.
I have borrowed from Chomsky, among others, when it suits my purpose. But not EVERYTHING - EVERY TIME - ON DEMAND. I agree with Chomsky only one divided by the square root of seven percent of the time. I agree with Chris Hedges only one divided by the square root of eleven percent of the time. The only catechism that resonates with me is communing with my deceased cat, Leonardo, with whom I agree 99% of the time.
“Blumenthal examines the childhoods of these religious-right celebrities and reveals a significant quotient of physical and mental abuse suffered at the hands of parents.”
(and)
“The hard right has never protested the de facto abrogation of much of the Bill of Rights during the last decade. In the right-wing id, freedom is the emotional release that a hostile and psychologically repressed person feels when he is finally able to lash out at the objects of his resentment. Freedom is his prerogative to rid himself of people who are different, or who unsettle him. Freedom is merging into a like-minded herd. Right-wing alchemy transforms freedom into authoritarianism.”
(and)
“… a patriarchal, sexually repressive family life, reinforced by strict and punitive religious dogma, is the "factory" of a reactionary political order. Hence, the right wing's ongoing attempts to erase the separation of church and state, its crusade against Planned Parenthood, its strange obsession with gays.”
In view of the above, I find myself more in agreement with Bloggingdino who observes: “it [i.e. ‘collective guilt’] generates a backlash that may be more trouble than it's worth.”
Personally, I think Lofgren fits the occasion more than Chomsky does; but that is merely my opinion - one I do not expect others to share.
What Lofgren says sounds about right to this simple dinosaur -- the most intense of the "right-wingers" as Lofgren describes them (i.e. not as traditional economics-centric Republicans like those of a generation or two ago) seem to ground their views in an alternative reality driven by fear and hostility against "outsiders" (very broadly defined, of course).
As always, I agree with that fancy human philo-soffer Ernest Becker who implies that much of humanity's energy goes towards denial of its own mortality: so we must be cruel and unforgiving with "losers" whose predicaments remind us it's possible to fail, to get sick, to die. Help them? "Hell no you can't!" etc. They act like every decision we make as a society, no matter how small it may be, has the fierce urgency and consequentiality of deciding who to cast out of the life raft and into the shark-infested waters. I'm with Keynes -- "in the long run, we'll all be dead." So be it -- best just to be compassionate and uplifting.
But the illusion of perpetuity -- that notion we're always building up something perpetual, that things last forever or could last forever -- must be maintained even if it means savage repression of anything that threatens to undermine it.
Dino, No matter how hard I try to refocus my attention on lighter pursuits, the national Insane Asylum keeps sucking me back in. Apropos of Lofgren and philo-suffer Ernest Becker, here is former MSNBC-er Pat Buchanan earlier today:
"And what I'm warning about in our country is that the United States of America which is shifting to become a multi-cultural, multi-national, multi-ethic, multi-lingual country, there is nothing that's going to hold us together if we lose our common language, our common Christian, Judeo-Christian faith, our common moral consensus, which we are losing."
Please note the appositive, “Judeo-Christian faith,” intended to modify the previous word “Christian.” Here is vintage Buchanan trying to recover from an error of omission that would bring renewed criticism of his past as a notorious racist and anti-Semite.
For those of us who have been on the receiving end of bigotry, his statement goes beyond merely being another iteration of the so-called “culture wars.” I feel personally threatened when partisan hate screech sinks to this level.
Oh, I know -- perhaps the new emphasis on culture-wars foolishness is a design to distract voters from the fact that at the moment, the "vote Obama out because of the economy" strategy isn't looking so good and the GOP doesn't even like its own candidates. But even though I tend to see it all as the last gasp of a disappearing group of bigots in the face of progress, the potential for violence can't be denied: some of these people talk crazy, and where there's crazy talking, there's the prospect of crazy walking.
I have to thank Edge for starting this conversation. It's been one of the better ones so far I think, although at this point I tend to feel like a bit of jetsam floating in some big ship's wake. All I can do is wave as it passes me by, having no sails to be filled with the wind of Western Philosophy.
Dino:
"But the illusion of perpetuity -- that notion we're always building up something perpetual, that things last forever or could last forever"
Certainly no reptilian scales nor nictitating membrane cover a dinosaur's eyes. I'm constantly bringing up the Buddha and Goethe's Faust on this point; it being the cause of our universal suffering (and those being subjects I'm actually read up on) -- but really, and in the long run, even existence will die. Perhaps non-Republicans are guilty of wading in the same illusion as well; seeing every chip or crack in our fine porcelain teacup of a Constitution as a sign that we'll soon have hot tea and potsherds in our laps (strained metaphor intentional.)
Octo,
If for no other reason ( and there are many) I think Buchanan should have a ticket to Tartarus for using that "Judeo-Christian" trope. Better to postulate some Confucian-Thugee tradition or Mormo-Zoroasrian chimera since Christianity, since the 4th century at least, has attempted to be as antithetical as possible to Judaism -- and has pretty much succeeded. It just pisses me off, as Krishna said to Wotan the other day.
And Harry H. Krishna did Buchanan actually claim a common moral consensus while trying to divide what tattered shreds of it we do have? Did we fight an as yet unfinished civil war over just one morally antithetical view of slavery between white, Christian brothers in Christ?
Wally G. Wotan almighty! Which half of that Judeo-Christian ethic starved, murdered, raped, tortured, deported and wrapped in smallpox infected blankets our native population? Screw your smug white-guy revisionist lies and the worm you rode in on.
No, and back to Edge's post, I don't feel personally responsible for Wounded Knee or for what we did to Osceola's mother, but we sure as hell can and need to stop people like Buchanan and his insidious ilk from sweeping it all under the table along with our liberty.
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Indeed, thought provoking, as well as quite one sided. One needs to identify the rational in his position and toss the absurd.
ReplyDeleteNoam remains, not one of my favorite, although as noted he is thought provoking and occasionally spot on.
I think I tend to agree. I admire his writing but he's a linguist and philosopher whose non-political ideas I also tend not to agree with -- take the idea that language stems from intelligence alone and not from the specialized language centers in the brain, which I find totally ridiculous. And don't forget his minimizing Pol Pot (because after all he isn't American and how bad can he be?) and telling us that the deaths on 9/11 were insignificant because we're a bad country and we did bad things because we're so obsessed with Communism.
ReplyDeleteOf course we are a bad country in a world where there are no good ones. Yes, we did horrible things to the Indians, to the people we kidnapped from Africa and we turned our backs on many genocides. We allowed economic interests to beat the war drum and we love to take up arms and call ourselves heroes for less that admirable reasons and we certainly decide too often that our political and economic ends justify curtailing the freedom of others, even to the point of shocking and aweing them to death. We struggle with racism, with authoritarianism and we burn too much fuel.
But I find it disgusting to say we shouldn't react to people who bomb us
(because we're evil and deserve to die) or that we shouldn't oppose acts of slaughter abroad because we're just such a bad country.
Decline? Well of course, to someone my age, everything always seems to be going to the dogs, but it's been that way forever and if all those self-righteous blowhard polemicists had been right, we'd long since have grown tails and barked ourselves hoarse.
Sure, I've spent a lot of time railing at the stupid, nasty, selfish, cruel, egotistical and megalomaniacal acts of humans, American and otherwise, but Chomsky has a neurotic prejudice against - or maybe let's call it hate for everything American that blinds him to history and distorts his sense of justice and although, like Ron Paul, I sometimes agree strongly on certain points, Noam won't be satisfied until we're wiped off the map and he can go apply for citizenship in some Utopia that will never exist.
Well stated Capt.
DeleteI agree Capt that your analysis is accurate. Chomsky is a bright guy but he seems to spend an excessive amount of time demonizing America. Yes, we have our faults and no, I do not always agree with the actions of those running my country, but there are few if any countries whose hands are blood free and who have always behaved admirably.
ReplyDeleteI think that I march to a somewhat different drummer when it comes to Chomsky. I don' see his views as supporting a call for the destruction or elimination of all things American; I think that he is concerned with stopping the inevitable decline of a country that has gotten way too big for its britches. Of course there are other countries who have their own history of imperial domination; our friendly ally, Great Britain was once a major power, its colonial reach so widespread that the sun never set on the British Empire. Much earlier, there was ancient Rome, another imperialistic country that for a period of time had a far reaching sphere of influence.
ReplyDeleteChomsky lays out a rational argument taht does not declae the U.S. to be a den of inequity b ut rather a short-sighted nation that has been sucked in to believing its own mythology totally forgetting that it invented that mythology. When I read the message boads or commentary following almost any news story, there are always a substantial number of people who declare that America is not only the greatest country in the world but in the history of the world. Such arrogance would simply be hubris if not for the serious consequences that arise from the policies enacted and the actions taken by the U.S. based on the belief about our own superiority.
I think that much of Chomsky's analysis is spot on. Our involvement in Vietnam was ill-advised and undertaken not for some humanitarian cause by the linger pathological paranoia of HUAC and McCarthyism. In the early 1960s we still thought that Communism was the boogeyman and any form of government that didn't reflect American values was suspect.
I won't belabor our other policies that reflect more about our self-interests than any good to be done in the world; Chomsky does that quite well.
I read Chomsky's two part series as being a warning that we need to change course. Our refusal to offer serious attention to environmental issues including the real threat of climate change is policy for self-destruction. As a whole,the U.S. refuses to take seriously any responsibility for the world that we leave to future generations,much more concerned about profit than the impact of our carbon footprint on this earth.
We have military bases all over the world and yet profess not to understand why there is so much animosity directed toward us. U.S. imperialism is not new. This country was founded based on theft; a truth which we carefully ignore. One of the earliest property cases heard before the U.S.Supreme Court, Johnson v.M'Intosh established the "discovery doctrine" which declared that the indigenous population had never owned the land upon which they had lived for generations because they hadn't fenced it in and carved out parcels of individual ownership. In the opinion, the court decided that the Indians had never owned their land, merely possessed it, and that the Indians could only convey their land to the U.S.government to do with as it pleased. I'd like to see history books make it clear that European ownership of land was acquired by legalized thievery.
I think that what Chomsky is pointing out is that our belief in our own exceptionalism as a country and a culture arises from our astounding ignorance as to the realities of all of the dirty bits that litte our history. We are not the worst country ever but we are far from the paragon of virtue that far too many Americans believe that we are. Hubris ultimately destroys the proud and haughty. If we follow the footsteps of other great powers, our decline is inevitable. Ultimately I think that Chomsky's thesis is that we need to take off our rose colored glasses. We can't solve our problems until we see them clearly.
Well stated. We are not that virtuous super power we like to think we are indeed. However, we for the most part are better than the majority of the alternatives. This does not mean we shouldn't improve.
DeleteI would only add to Sheria's comments that ad hominem debasements of the messengers only add to the problem, firmly affixing the rose colored glasses over the eyes the blind. To the few who care to listen, content may still be more important than personality (of which Chomsky seems to reduce to the least quantity possible). Chomsky's message is indeed course change for a country I suspect he loves deeply, given the energy he puts into it.
ReplyDeleteSheria,
ReplyDelete"I'd like to see history books make it clear that European ownership of land was acquired by legalized thievery."
Legalized thievery and force of arms, but yeah, so would I, if only to watch the frenzy of the multitudes screaming "revisionism!" Revisionism being, in the Republican lexicon, a synonym for truth. Slavery was another form of the same thing, I should think: the theft of 'personhood.'
I think you're a little too kind to Noam. As I said, I often agree with him but perhaps I'm overly sensitive to what I see as the attitude of 'we have no right to complain or accuse because of our past -- our inherited and original sin.' Even a convicted criminal has certain rights.
I see some emotional arguments dressed up in professorial robes and having spent more hours and taken more risks out in the street than he did denouncing Vietnam, I don't think he owns this issue. Hell, some 75% of us were against that war and some of us took big risks in opposing it ( paling around with terrorists?) Every other honest person is aware of the imperialism and the manufactured mythology without having to read Chomsky, but I don't take it to the point of self-flagellation when some bastards try to blow up New York or come up with idiocies like saying that because the government can't be trusted to tell the truth, no one really was killed by the Khmer Rouge and if they were, why then, it's only our fault anyway - and ours alone.
We are a large group of people with differing opinions and not too well defined by our history or the current activities of our government and if some agency, foreign or domestic, kills my friends and countrymen, or slaughters civilians abroad, it's not wise to tell me " oh well, they deserved it anyway" and particularly when the same Chomskified arguments blame us for killing civilians in WW II which of course excuses the Nazis.
Perhaps there's a rosy tinge to his glasses too, if he's going to keep insisting that whatever we do is wrong and we're no better than we ever were -- so we deserve to perish.
Chomsky should take are to avoid the arrogance, the hubris and indeed his own cult, lest it become impossible to distinguish his haughty rhetoric for hopeless nihilism.
I think if Chomsky can be faulted it's because he doesn't go far enough. He remains fixed within the political sphere without (I believe intentionally as he's inflammatory enough) investigating the more insidious US corporate imperialism. For example, Chomsky opens his piece mentioning the anniversary of the Vietnam War but doesn't connect to the underlying reasons as suggested here:
ReplyDelete"In the 1950's a method of undersea oil exploration was perfected which used small explosions deep in the water and then recorded the sound echoes bouncing off the various layers of rock below. The surveyor could then determine the exact location of the arched salt domes which hold the accumulated oil beneath them. But if this method were used off the Vietnam coast on property Standard didn't own or have the rights to, the Vietnamese, the Chinese, the Japanese and probably even the French would quickly run to the United Nations and complain that America was stealing the oil, and that would shut down the operation.
"In 1964, after Vietnam was divided into North and South, and the contrived Gulf of Tonkin incident, several U.S. aircraft carriers were stationed offshore of Vietnam and the 'war' was started. Every day jet planes would take off from the carriers, bomb locations in North and South Vietnam, and then using normal military procedure when returning would dump their unsafe or unused bombs in the ocean before landing back on the carriers. Safe ordnance drop zones were designated for this purpose away from the carriers.
"Even close-up observers would only notice many small explosions occurring daily in the waters of the South China Sea and thought it was only part of the 'war.' The U.S. Navy carriers had begun Operation Linebacker One, and Standard Oil had begun its ten year oil survey of the seabed off of Vietnam. And the Vietnamese, Chinese and everybody else around, including the Americans, were none the wiser. The oil survey hardly cost Standard Oil a nickel, the U.S. taxpayers paid for it."
—Marshall Douglas Smith. (2001). Black Gold Hot Gold, Ch. 3
Chomsky also doesn't mention that after the war "Vietnam divided their offshore coastal area into numerous oil lots and allowed foreign companies to bid on the lots, with the proviso that Vietnam got a percentage of the action. Norway's Statoil, British Petroleum, Royal Dutch Shell, Russia, Germany and Australia all won bids and began drilling within their areas. Strange it was that none of them struck oil. However, the lots which Standard Oil bid for and won proved to have vast oil reserves. Their extensive undersea seismic research appears to have paid off." (refer to cheesy looking but interesting website for more: http://www.oilcompanies.net/oil1.htm)
When the political moral high ground is abandoned, to whom, other than thinkers such as Chomsky, might we turn to redirect us?
Edge:
ReplyDelete" to whom, other than thinkers such as Chomsky, might we turn to redirect us?"
Thinkers 'such as' Chomsky, or Chomsky himself? There are a number to chose from and a lot of data that doesn't need a polemicist to harangue us about. I don't need anyone to remind me of our past horrors -- including and especially Vietnam and I could go on for days about all the horrible things Western colonialism has brought about and of course the USA played a part, but what I sometimes see in Chomsky -- and I admit I may be wrong about him -- is the notion that because of the past and current misdeeds of our government, we are beyond any moral right to defend ourselves and even if I for instance, represent the vast majority of Americans who opposed our defense of colonialism and having been drawn into it with false information, I can't be angry that some Egyptian religious loonies killed a friend in New York and almost got my son at the same time. I don't believe in inherited sin.
Perhaps I'm saying that moral authority is self supporting and one doesn't have to be Sir Galahad to spend a minute or two on the high horse. I applaud Chomsky for speaking about these things, but I do not applaud his refusal to admit it when he's terribly wrong or to describe 320 million US citizens as outlaws when so many of us have struggled against the abuses of our government and other institutions. I don't recall him being so snide and condescending regarding the evils of other nations either and it all smells of rationalized prejudice to me.
He should be honest enough to see that the unfair generalizations he uses on occasion are a form of injustice and that simplification is the tool of prejudice.
I was brought up knowing about the horrors of what happened to the natives of this country, for instance, and I have wasted a lot of rage on people who refuse to admit it. Does my US citizenship somehow make me culpable for the deeds of General Custer or Andrew Jackson anyway? Would it then be permissible for the great, great grandson of Sitting Bull to kill me? You can guess my feelings about that.
I suppose I am more interested to read and understand what he has to say than to be offended by his high tone. He is not only critical of the US; he roundly criticizes Israel and the UK and others. I also highly doubt he's personally criticizing anyone on this site. Your argument Fogg, though well-intentioned, offers an easy apology for any American wrongdoing and reduces the possibility of redress. Stretching the argument to suggest that Chomsky favours killing as retribution is just foolish. And yes, to answer the question, in a democracy we are all responsible. That's the point Chomsky is clearly making.
ReplyDeleteWhoa - are we putting words in my mouth? I haven't indulged in any ad hominem here and by asserting that I am not personally responsible for having mined Haiphong harbor and all the more so because I took risks to oppose it, I'm also thereby asserting that you are not responsible for the 1857 Gradual Civilization act or the 1874 Indian act or forcing all Indian children over 7 to be sent to Catholic boarding schools and depriving them of medical oversight so that they are left to die of tuburculosis and other ailments untreated. Canada was sterilizing Indian men and women up until the 1980's and I could write a few thousand more words on this smelly subject. Are your schools teaching this history? I assume you think this is horrible and so I don't blame you or my Canadian relatives any more than I blame my British family for the War of 1812. Perhaps you could let me off the hook for invading Cuba?
ReplyDeleteBut as to justification, what do you make of the fact that he asserted that al Qaeda had no responsibility for 9/11 and then most astonishingly wrote that it was no worse an atrocity than President Clinton's earlier use of cruise missiles against Sudan in retaliation for the bomb attacks on the centers of Nairobi and Dar es Salaam. What is that but a justification for an attack on US and other civilians because the US retaliated for another attack on US citizens? Is that gloriously false equivalence like saying we had no right to go after the nazis because we're just as evil? On this matter he's so far from being a moral leader or an objective historian I had to part company.
How far back does out inherited guilt go anyway? Back to Adam? Sorry, I don't buy it. And as long as we're being hyperbolic and pugnacious here, hat about a thank you for the fact that you're not speaking Russian? Coulda happened, you know.
I'm not even attacking Chomsky -- I'm not demonizing hem while he lumps me in with demons. I'm saying he not as helpful in making this a better world than he could be and that his ego is awfully large for someone condemned as guilty by his own words. I'm saying that my former esteem has been diminished by his dignifying and supporting the work of a Holocaust Denier (Robert Faurisson) in the 70's and telling us the unholy slaughter in Cambodia was the product of "media bias."
I don't need him teaching me morality or about history I already know.
Other than that, I'm more than sufficiently and notoriously caustic about denouncing the many sins of my country and other countries to the point at which I'm also a notorious bore on the subject, but my objective is to expose, to educate, to induce people to face the past in an effort to improve the future. To the extent that others do so, I generally support them and I generally support Chomsky as well when he's not dancing on graves like Kali the Destroyer. Both he and I could learn a little more humility -- admittedly, at least on my part but perhaps he could find a few other places to grind his axe on and acknowledge that Democracy notwithstanding, few of us have power as individuals. So, if I'm part of an evil empire, so the hell is he.
I don't need him teaching me morality or about history I already know.
ReplyDeleteCaptain, it's not about you or anyone who actually does have knowledge of history. Perhaps our experiences have been very different but I see no evidence that the majority of Americans have a broad and comprehensive understanding of any history including our own.
The appeal of the GOP rhetoric is enhanced by the mythologized history of America as a moral leader on the world stage. When they profess that America is the greatest country in the history of the world, there is no irony in their observation; they honestly believe that.
I admit that I interpreted Chomsky's commentary post 9/11 not as that we had no right to take steps to prevent such a horror from being repeated but a call for us to look at ourselves clearly and understand how our policies and actions had aided in creating the climate that resulted in 9/11.
I don't think that Chomsky has set out to be a moral leader. I see Chomsky as one voice out of many who are attempting to pierce the bubble of American exceptionalism to which so many Americans adhere.
As for Chomsky not focusing on the failings of other nations, one person cannot address every failure of the world. It seems unreasonable to me to suggest that if Chomsky doesn't address the failings of other nations that he cannot address those of his nation. If that line of thinking were followed to its logical conclusion then no one could make critical observations of any nation unless the person offering the critique also addressed the failings of all other nations. If I have knowledge of corruption in my local government and share my knowledge, it is totally irrelevant that I failed to identify the corruption prevalent in other local governments.
The issue is how much validity is there in Chomsky's assessment of the character of the United States?
In the Cosmos of the Commentariat, specifically on the Planet of Punditry, I find my newest thoughts every day. Assuredly, all my thoughts have been thunk by someone else, and there is nothing new under the Sun, as they say. Nevertheless, I don’t find all my thoughts thunk by the same person. At best, a little here, a little there, but I have yet to find a clone of myself in a single person who expresses my every thought. Too often, I confuse the word ‘prophet’ for ‘profit;” and perhaps that is why I make a damn lousy follower.
ReplyDeleteThere's a lot that doesn't get addressed in these comments. Ad hominem as opposed to dealing with content? Well, perhaps "snide and condescending" fits or, "I'm saying he not as helpful in making this a better world than he could be and that his ego is awfully large for someone condemned as guilty by his own words." Perhaps not. But it blurs the lines between content and personality.
ReplyDeleteAs to spurious arguments about other nations, in the cited article, Chomsky is speaking to and about the US. Yes, a quick Google of Canada could also tell us about the Chinese workers who were blown to bits and buried alive to build the first transcontinental railway, of the tens of thousands of Canadian farm boys used as cannon fodder by the Brits in WW1, or the Japanese who were put into internment camps and had their property stolen during WW2, or the Inuit famine in the 1950s that wiped out an entire generation of youth, or the current suicide rate among our Aboriginal youth. The list of Canadian wrongs and oversights is long and shameful.
Am I, as a Canadian citizen responsible? The answer is 'yes.' I and all Canadians should seek to redress these wrongs whenever and wherever possible without fail. Have we gone far enough? No. However, our Inuit population is now larger than at any time in their history. Our status First Nations people pay no federal or provincial taxes, have access to free health and dental care including orthodontics, have access to tuition-free post-secondary education and other advantages that hopefully offset some of the past damage. And some First Nations people are taking a leading role in challenging the Canadian government on environmental issues. These are all interesting aspects of past and unfolding Canadian history.
But back to Chomsky's piece, I would have to agree with Sheria's most recent comment as a starting point. She's correct. This isn't about her or you or me, personally. This is about where we go from here, whether it's ripping up an area larger than the size of Great Britain to mine Canadian tar sands with Chinese and American corporate investment, or sabre-rattling for a new war in Iran.
I'll close with my favourite quote from Canada's first prime minister, LaFontaine: “The principles of a people are stronger than the laws imposed upon them. No privileged caste, beyond and above the mass of the people, can exist in Canada.” It was as true a path for Canadians in 1841 as is is today. And perhaps for Americans, too. We'll see.
But enough wasted time on dead end opinions. Let's all bemoan the fact that none of us find all our thoughts thunk by the same person and call it a day—and leave Chomsky to remain ever Chomsky. Clearly, we don't care enough about his views to actually discuss them here.
I suppose where this dino comes down on the ever-persnickety NC is that to me, most of what I've heard him saying sounds like Political Science 101 with an attitude. Yes, America has done and continues to do lots of things it has no business being proud of; but then, I think we already knew that and don't really need Mr. Chomsky to tell us. When I hear consciousness-raising and occasional self-loathing bluster, I can only ask, "Who listens to disaffected academics and theoreticians like Noam anyway, outside academia or small progressive radio stations?" I question the range of the message and attitude the man is promoting. It isn't a very effective vehicle for getting the truth across, I suspect, and it generates a backlash that may be more trouble than it's worth.
ReplyDeleteI'm more focused on the following proposition: America is a near-hegemonic power, so it matters who sits in the office where that power is centered. We can either have some half-crazed, arrogant fanatic or cynical lying brute or semi-aristocratic resume-polisher wielding it – this year's delightful Republican cast, for the most part – or someone who might exercise the great power we have somewhat responsibly, with a sense of humanity and restraint. Getting that choice right is probably about the best we can do as citizens for the present. Unfortunately, the great mass of the people is probably never going to know, or care to know, the truth about what our gub'mint is up to most of the time. Il faut cultiver notre jardin, ness-paw? Perhaps it's best to work on what you can do, not so much on what you can't.
Chomsky may indeed be "thought-provoking," but honestly, I'd rather spend an hour in Latin or Italian studies than read any amount of his stuff. He isn't telling me anything I don't already know, based on the principles of statecraft I think I've long since grasped. Others will of course do and think as they wish, and that's the way it should be.
Captain,
ReplyDeleteBy gum, I HAVE been meaning to remonstrate with you about your failure to stop the murder of the only Republican president I've ever liked as well as your inexplicable refusal to end the Vietnam War. I just don't know what you were thinking on either occasion.... Typical American!
“Clearly, we don't care enough about his views to actually discuss them here.”
ReplyDeleteI don’t claim to speak for others, only for myself. On my bookshelf is almost every book Chomsky has ever written. Shall I expound on transformational-generative grammar and then turn sullen if you find my expostulations boring? Perhaps you missed by comments on wedge politics and the atomization of voting blocs. These ideas come from Chomsky’s essays on propaganda, which I find more useful in meeting the challenges of the present than bemoaning the atrocities of the past. For your edification, Edge, Chomsky was a linguist before he appointed himself punditz, and his essays on propaganda are far more worthy than his political tracts.
I have borrowed from Chomsky, among others, when it suits my purpose. But not EVERYTHING - EVERY TIME - ON DEMAND. I agree with Chomsky only one divided by the square root of seven percent of the time. I agree with Chris Hedges only one divided by the square root of eleven percent of the time. The only catechism that resonates with me is communing with my deceased cat, Leonardo, with whom I agree 99% of the time.
I call your attention to a two-year old post: Abused Nation Syndrome: The Abuse of Politics and the Politics of Abuse. It engendered some controversy at the beach. I return to this subject again because I think it is more timely today than it was two years ago. Recently, Mike Lofgren, the former Republican Senate staffer, has been thinking along similar lines in this article, A Conservative Explains Why Right-Wingers Have No Compassion, excerpt as follows:
“Blumenthal examines the childhoods of these religious-right celebrities and reveals a significant quotient of physical and mental abuse suffered at the hands of parents.”
(and)
“The hard right has never protested the de facto abrogation of much of the Bill of Rights during the last decade. In the right-wing id, freedom is the emotional release that a hostile and psychologically repressed person feels when he is finally able to lash out at the objects of his resentment. Freedom is his prerogative to rid himself of people who are different, or who unsettle him. Freedom is merging into a like-minded herd. Right-wing alchemy transforms freedom into authoritarianism.”
(and)
“… a patriarchal, sexually repressive family life, reinforced by strict and punitive religious dogma, is the "factory" of a reactionary political order. Hence, the right wing's ongoing attempts to erase the separation of church and state, its crusade against Planned Parenthood, its strange obsession with gays.”
In view of the above, I find myself more in agreement with Bloggingdino who observes: “it [i.e. ‘collective guilt’] generates a backlash that may be more trouble than it's worth.”
Personally, I think Lofgren fits the occasion more than Chomsky does; but that is merely my opinion - one I do not expect others to share.
Octo,
ReplyDeleteWhat Lofgren says sounds about right to this simple dinosaur -- the most intense of the "right-wingers" as Lofgren describes them (i.e. not as traditional economics-centric Republicans like those of a generation or two ago) seem to ground their views in an alternative reality driven by fear and hostility against "outsiders" (very broadly defined, of course).
As always, I agree with that fancy human philo-soffer Ernest Becker who implies that much of humanity's energy goes towards denial of its own mortality: so we must be cruel and unforgiving with "losers" whose predicaments remind us it's possible to fail, to get sick, to die. Help them? "Hell no you can't!" etc. They act like every decision we make as a society, no matter how small it may be, has the fierce urgency and consequentiality of deciding who to cast out of the life raft and into the shark-infested waters. I'm with Keynes -- "in the long run, we'll all be dead." So be it -- best just to be compassionate and uplifting.
But the illusion of perpetuity -- that notion we're always building up something perpetual, that things last forever or could last forever -- must be maintained even if it means savage repression of anything that threatens to undermine it.
Dino,
ReplyDeleteNo matter how hard I try to refocus my attention on lighter pursuits, the national Insane Asylum keeps sucking me back in. Apropos of Lofgren and philo-suffer Ernest Becker, here is former MSNBC-er Pat Buchanan earlier today:
"And what I'm warning about in our country is that the United States of America which is shifting to become a multi-cultural, multi-national, multi-ethic, multi-lingual country, there is nothing that's going to hold us together if we lose our common language, our common Christian, Judeo-Christian faith, our common moral consensus, which we are losing."
Please note the appositive, “Judeo-Christian faith,” intended to modify the previous word “Christian.” Here is vintage Buchanan trying to recover from an error of omission that would bring renewed criticism of his past as a notorious racist and anti-Semite.
For those of us who have been on the receiving end of bigotry, his statement goes beyond merely being another iteration of the so-called “culture wars.” I feel personally threatened when partisan hate screech sinks to this level.
Octo,
ReplyDeleteOh, I know -- perhaps the new emphasis on culture-wars foolishness is a design to distract voters from the fact that at the moment, the "vote Obama out because of the economy" strategy isn't looking so good and the GOP doesn't even like its own candidates. But even though I tend to see it all as the last gasp of a disappearing group of bigots in the face of progress, the potential for violence can't be denied: some of these people talk crazy, and where there's crazy talking, there's the prospect of crazy walking.
I have to thank Edge for starting this conversation. It's been one of the better ones so far I think, although at this point I tend to feel like a bit of jetsam floating in some big ship's wake. All I can do is wave as it passes me by, having no sails to be filled with the wind of Western Philosophy.
ReplyDeleteDino:
"But the illusion of perpetuity -- that notion we're always building up something perpetual, that things last forever or could last forever"
Certainly no reptilian scales nor nictitating membrane cover a dinosaur's eyes. I'm constantly bringing up the Buddha and Goethe's Faust on this point; it being the cause of our universal suffering (and those being subjects I'm actually read up on) -- but really, and in the long run, even existence will die. Perhaps non-Republicans are guilty of wading in the same illusion as well; seeing every chip or crack in our fine porcelain teacup of a Constitution as a sign that we'll soon have hot tea and potsherds in our laps (strained metaphor intentional.)
Octo,
If for no other reason ( and there are many) I think Buchanan should have a ticket to Tartarus for using that "Judeo-Christian" trope. Better to postulate some Confucian-Thugee tradition or Mormo-Zoroasrian chimera since Christianity, since the 4th century at least, has attempted to be as antithetical as possible to Judaism -- and has pretty much succeeded. It just pisses me off, as Krishna said to Wotan the other day.
And Harry H. Krishna did Buchanan actually claim a common moral consensus while trying to divide what tattered shreds of it we do have? Did we fight an as yet unfinished civil war over just one morally antithetical view of slavery between white, Christian brothers in Christ?
ReplyDeleteWally G. Wotan almighty! Which half of that Judeo-Christian ethic starved, murdered, raped, tortured, deported and wrapped in smallpox infected blankets our native population? Screw your smug white-guy revisionist lies and the worm you rode in on.
No, and back to Edge's post, I don't feel personally responsible for Wounded Knee or for what we did to Osceola's mother, but we sure as hell can and need to stop people like Buchanan and his insidious ilk from sweeping it all under the table along with our liberty.