🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <37dcecaf.906773451@localhost>,
George Alan Esworthy <gae@eLsworthy.com> wrote:
>On Wed, 8 Sep 1999 21:45:21 GMT, sasctw@duckhead.unx.sas.com (Tom
>Wilson) wrote:
>
>>In article <37d6a5f3.86166771@newshost.unx.sas.com>,
>>George Alan Esworthy <gae@eLsworthy.com> wrote:
>>>On Wed, 08 Sep 1999 08:10:35 -0400, readnthink@southernanomaly.net
>>>wrote:
>>>
>>>>                      Why Americans should care about East Timor
>>>>                        by Noam Chomsky
>>>>
>>>>                      There are three good reasons why Americans should
>>>>care about East Timor. 
>>>
>>>[much blather sneeped]
>>>
>>>There are three good reasons why Americans shouldn't give a rat's rear
>>>end what Noam Chomsky has to say:
>>>
>>>1.  He's a virulent anti-American ideologue.
>>
>>1a.  He's virulently against many American policies.
>
>1a'.  He's virulently against American society and institutions in
>general, and in particular US foreign relations when the US is
>intervening against Marxist or other communist conflicts but not the
>other way around, free enterprise when it interferes with his
>preference for equality of outcome regardless of value, advertising by
>corporations but not by left-wing or anarchist political
>organizations, and it goes on from there.  His positions on so many
>issues are so well known and critical of the US social, economic, and
>political culture that it is quite fair to characterize his positions
>as anti-American.

Of all the writings of his I'm familiar with, he's critical of the
way we use miltary force to achieve economic ends.  It's been a while
since we truly fought a war for democracy, rather than for just
economic gains.

If you can point me to an essay or two that sticks in your mind, I'll
(re)read it/them.

Also, many, if not most of the 'anti-marxists' we've supported, like Pinochet,
Somoza, and the Shah of Iran were petty dictators, making them hardly (if
at all) better than the alleged marxists they were fighting.  It's multiple 
applications of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend", with little or no regard 
to what these allies are really like.

>>>2.  He's an unapologetic Stalin-supporting communist.
>>
>>2a.  I've read a fair amount of his essays, and I saw nothing Stalinist.  
>>     In fact, when he did comment on communism, he was rather critical
>>     of it and its forefathers like Trotsky, Lenin, and, more recently,
>>     Stalin.  Would you point me to some of his pro-Stalinist material?
>>     
>
>2a'.  So have I (while holding my nose).  And you are quite right.  I
                  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
This innocent-looking little statement speaks volumes.  It implies your
mind was made up before you ever read his works.

>stand corrected.  He was/is an anti-Stalinist.  He IS, however, an
>unapologetic Marxist when it doesn't bump into his anarchism.  That
>alternates with his unapologetic anarchism when it doesn't bump into
>his Marxism.

This doesn't jive with what I've read, especially with declarations like
"the shared ethos of communism and liberalism" that he's made.  If you
have an essay or two in mind, I'd like to (re)read them.  Perhaps I've
forgotten the part(s) you're thinking about.

If you're thinking of his collectivist leanings, I suspect they were 
nurtured by the time he spent living in a Kibbutz.

>>>3.  He expects the rest of us to hear, understand, and obey the little
>>>voices he hears inside his own head.
>>
>>3a.  I think he expects us to think about what he writes if we read it.
>
>3a'.  He writes for those who are already lying with him in his
>ideological bed.  He is remarkably unpersuasive for those with other,
>more rational and realistic, approaches to human relations.

This (and other declarations ) is a rather interesting 
statement coming from someone who goes around calling people idealogues.

-- 
  Tom Wilson          | Those who do not understand Unix are condemned to
  SAS Institute Inc.  | reinvent it, poorly.
  sasctw@unx.sas.com  |                      -- Henry Spencer  
          Opinions are mine, not of SAS Institute Inc.