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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: joseph krinsky who wrote (239664)	3/19/2002 12:05:54 AM
From: MSI	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

I had the day off, so I thought I'd see what the college kids thought about the war, and that's where the lottery idea came up. Every Conservative's favorite whipping boy, Noam Chomsky, was on campus, standing-room only. He is encyclopedic. Not as predictable as I thought, tho'. He slammed JFK mecilessly. I first ran into his work in linguistics which began the field of compiler and computer language theory 40 years ago. Brilliant individual. Those were the days when all of the world's problems could be solved with the right systems theory (Of course when you're 20 the world's problems are mostly a theory anyway!) Some of the questions from the audience: Q: What about the Jewish lobby in the US? A: Timid and inconsequential. (I find that hard to believe, but will have to reevaluate) Q: What can we do if we think the US is too militaristic and engaging in terrorism also? A: Well, don't bother talking to government. Take direct citizen actions. (I'm not sure what that means...) Q: Is there any hope? A: "Yes, this is one of the best times for protesting government. Better than any time in the past, the 50's or 60's. "This is really a free country, compared to the rest of the world. This is because we in the US save documents, which eventually get out. They've just released 1,000 new documents from the Bay of Pigs era, and these were Harvard/Cambridge liberals, and out of that 1,000 pages was only one sentence of doubt about the constant terrorism against Cuba." His basic tenet is, even going back to 1700's, those in power justify incredible inhumanity against the less powerful, and then construct the rationale and dialogue to justify it to themselves. He documents a lot of that self-propaganda we as a society go through, chapter and verse. He then goes through a litany of US actions against the Third World. The implication is that all of the successes of the industrialized world would exist, and be even greater, without the conquests. I didn't get a chance to ask him what about Hitler. Much of the rest was pretty predictable. What got me, tho' is the occasional thought-provoking idea. For example, he says, "If you look at all the rich nations today, you will find that they are only those that escaped from European colonialism." He's referring to US, Japan, Europe and England, the idea being that European exploitation causes the retardation of economic progress. My objection to that is looking at how Islam has been able to screw itself, even w/o the CIA stirring up trouble. Clever fellow, adroit understanding and use of the english language and concepts. Even tho' he drives conservatives nuts, it's a thoughtful counter-point to the process.