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!
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!
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.
With notable exceptions
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.
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.