I’ll give the old coot credit, I don’t agree with everything he said here but it took some balls to say it.
Edit: Noam not Norm. Fuck!
He's the physical embodiment of the belief "If you're pissing everyone off, you must be doing something right".
Once in a while, he drops a decent take among his various reactionary takes.
He was never bad in these shorts of takes. Just anything relating actual theory of the left, marxism or domestic history of socialist projects
Yeah, US foreign policy is his wheelhouse. Wish people here actually acquainted themselves with Chomsky rather than confusing him for his much worse Chosmkyite followers.
Definitely agree, it's good seeing his principled takes like this. Sometimes he reaches so hard it makes me not ever want to hear another word from him. But he is still an immensely popular voice about stuff like this, whether I agree with him or not, just ignoring him doesn't really do much. I think a big part of it for myself is he was the first left voice I got really into when I was in HS, so he shaped a lot of my views when starting to learn stuff. So seeing him drop dogs shit takes kinda feels like a low blow
yea it's decent but this isn't like a socialist take or something. It's just Noam repeating the obvious solutions available to each side in capitalism. Tbh I don't even know what a socialist take would look like in the absence of serious socialist parties on sides of the conflict who could make something out of this tragedy.
I mean, the socialist position is very obviously opposed to continued escalation by Ukraine and their western backers, while rhetorically also opposing Russian invasion. The rest is just dogmatism, completely out of touch with the real consequences of war.
Just that fact that Noam talks past the propaganda and actually says the truth is frankly radical in a country as propagandized as the US.
There is only one option that can end the war. Negotiation table. Commit to a neutral demilitarised Ukraine. Recognise the LPR and DPR.
while rhetorically also opposing Russian invasion.
Is this necessarily true? Ukraine has banned communist parties, symbols, and arrested notable communists. Russia is a fuck, but at least the communists are the biggest opposition party and seem to be growing.
Even if both sides are just degrees of capitalist and fash, is infighting between those parties really to be categorically condemned? If the Italian-German Axis had fallen apart in 1938, would we not be cheering on such infighting?
Besides, the only real alternative to the Russian invasion is unlimited NATO expansion and Ukraine letting Nazis terrorize Donetsk while refusing to implement Minsk Agreement #42069 and is that really better in the long run?
The socialist take would be donthe thing Noam said and also then both nations should be socialist.
to fight Russia to the last Ukrainian
I really like this line, I'm gonna steal it
The Ol' Chomper is lifting his perspectives right from the bad faith arguments I inflict on /r/neoliberal
It's the second time an interview with him came out about four days after I started an argument on it where he almost carte-blanche took my take, the first time was when I started pushing the Mearscheimer line on NATO aggression
Norm 'Henry 'Rollins' Garfield (which is Henry Rollin's real acrual last name, I am not making this up)' "The Real Ghostbusters " Potter
....I dunno
Has anyone ever directly called Chomsky out on that? Would he even respond?
I hear you can email him and he'll respond, dunno if thats the case anymore
Why did Chomsky not simply access the Ukrainian collective consciousness to determine what the people really think (they agree with me)? Ukraine should simply march to Moscow and overthrow Putin.
gnome you said some based stuff but you always gotta throw in some unbased stuff to balance it out. enlightened centrism
Right, yeah lol. I think he's pretty spot on here tbh. What do you disagree with?
To be fair, considering that likely if he capitulates to Russia he may in fact face a death sentence from the West, I can in some respect sympathize (or at least feel bad for) Zelensky. Maybe that's a bad take, but I do at least a little bit feel he's turning a war dial and looking back at the US reaction to guage if he's gone far enough.
I sympathize with Zelensky in the sense that I think he's the Ukrainian equivalent of a DNC staffer who's favorite show is West Wing, yet he became head of state of a far less powerful country in conflict with a cornered super power. It's like having a guy who had a moderately popular film criticism YT channel put in charge of directing a long lost Stanley Kubrick script.
Yes that sounds exactly like something a West Wing pilled DNC staffer would do. They just don’t get why it’s bad because of centrist lib philosophy.
but I do at least a little bit feel he’s turning a war dial and looking back at the US reaction to guage if he’s gone far enough
Oh yeah, I think that's pretty obvious by now. The US is using him, and by extention the Ukrainian people, as pawns against Russia. Just yet another example of how the great satan does not give a single fuck about human lives.
:amerikkka: