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Leftist Promotes Capitalist Imperialist Propaganda Publishing Machine (Humor)
by Eric Janszen - September 24, 2006
By now, everyone knows that Noam Chomsky's 2003 book "Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance" shot from something like No. 220,000 to No. 1 on the Amazon.com best-seller list Friday, two days after Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez held it up during his rant at the United Nations.
The paradox is that Chomsky has for years been highly critical of the US publishing industry that in his view operates as a propaganda outlet for US imperialist interests, while the big winner of the Chávez promotion is publisher Henry Holt and Company. But that's only one of many facets of the "Chomsky Paradox."
Could be Worse
We missed our chance to have a left-wing, Latin American dictator plug our book americasbubbleeconomy at the UN last week. Maybe N. Korea's "Great Leader" Kim Il-sung will plug it at the summit meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement of nations being held in Havana, Cuba this weekend. But we're not holding our breath. So far, sales of the book outside the US have been to Canada, New Zealand, and Australia, among others, countries whose leaders don't reference Mark Twain, Noam Chomsky, Harry Belafonte, Abraham Lincoln, Francisco de Miranda, and John F. Kennedy all in the same rambling speech as Chávez did last week. Chávez also runs one of the worst managed economies on the planet, making America's Bubble Economy look rock solid by comparison, although the US appears to be working hard to catch up.
Many of the criticisms that Chomsky levels at the US are valid, but my friends who grew up in the Soviet Union or suffered under other repressive leftist regimes that have since tumbled scratch their heads at Chomsky's lauding of dictatorships like China and Cuba as examples of nations that have achieved successful independence from US imperialism. Russell Baker once correctly noted a simple measure of the success of a country's government: more people are trying to get into the country than get out. Here the US clearly leads. A truly bad government is any that hurts its own citizens, and both China's and Cuba's fail by that measure.
As documented in the flawed yet compelling hitmanconfessions, the fact of US imperialism and evidence that America is adopting more of the tactics of repressive regimes, such as near suspension of Habeas Corpus for "war on terrah" detainees–which has both the right and the left up in arms–while grounds for strong protest, does not qualify overtly repressive, dictatorial regimes the model for independence from US economic exploitation. American imperialism helped create and reinforce these regimes, so it surprises me to hear how much Chomsky admires them. Specifically, without Bush, there would be no Hugo Chávez; he is as much an equal and opposite reaction to Bush as is Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. These nations would not have dictators, left or right wing, without a plausible external threat of US invasion to keep them in power. US imperialism exists, but leftist dictatorships are not the answer.
I interviewed Noam Chomsky back in 1979 when I was Executive Editor of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst Daily Collegian. He had just published The Washington Connection and Third World Fascism. As a young man I found Chomski to be a thoughtful critic of the US press system.
by Eric Janszen - September 24, 2006
By now, everyone knows that Noam Chomsky's 2003 book "Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance" shot from something like No. 220,000 to No. 1 on the Amazon.com best-seller list Friday, two days after Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez held it up during his rant at the United Nations.
The paradox is that Chomsky has for years been highly critical of the US publishing industry that in his view operates as a propaganda outlet for US imperialist interests, while the big winner of the Chávez promotion is publisher Henry Holt and Company. But that's only one of many facets of the "Chomsky Paradox."
Could be Worse
We missed our chance to have a left-wing, Latin American dictator plug our book americasbubbleeconomy at the UN last week. Maybe N. Korea's "Great Leader" Kim Il-sung will plug it at the summit meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement of nations being held in Havana, Cuba this weekend. But we're not holding our breath. So far, sales of the book outside the US have been to Canada, New Zealand, and Australia, among others, countries whose leaders don't reference Mark Twain, Noam Chomsky, Harry Belafonte, Abraham Lincoln, Francisco de Miranda, and John F. Kennedy all in the same rambling speech as Chávez did last week. Chávez also runs one of the worst managed economies on the planet, making America's Bubble Economy look rock solid by comparison, although the US appears to be working hard to catch up.
Many of the criticisms that Chomsky levels at the US are valid, but my friends who grew up in the Soviet Union or suffered under other repressive leftist regimes that have since tumbled scratch their heads at Chomsky's lauding of dictatorships like China and Cuba as examples of nations that have achieved successful independence from US imperialism. Russell Baker once correctly noted a simple measure of the success of a country's government: more people are trying to get into the country than get out. Here the US clearly leads. A truly bad government is any that hurts its own citizens, and both China's and Cuba's fail by that measure.
As documented in the flawed yet compelling hitmanconfessions, the fact of US imperialism and evidence that America is adopting more of the tactics of repressive regimes, such as near suspension of Habeas Corpus for "war on terrah" detainees–which has both the right and the left up in arms–while grounds for strong protest, does not qualify overtly repressive, dictatorial regimes the model for independence from US economic exploitation. American imperialism helped create and reinforce these regimes, so it surprises me to hear how much Chomsky admires them. Specifically, without Bush, there would be no Hugo Chávez; he is as much an equal and opposite reaction to Bush as is Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. These nations would not have dictators, left or right wing, without a plausible external threat of US invasion to keep them in power. US imperialism exists, but leftist dictatorships are not the answer.
I interviewed Noam Chomsky back in 1979 when I was Executive Editor of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst Daily Collegian. He had just published The Washington Connection and Third World Fascism. As a young man I found Chomski to be a thoughtful critic of the US press system.
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